Microsoft is finally dropping support for Windows after the Recall/Copilot exodus, guess they're focusing on Xbox or something instead.
163 posts and 16 image replies omitted.>>25361>300知能指数Bing Chiling.
>it's canon, chaos was a chao that mutated because of the master emerald.Then why does he look almost exactly like the Ancients?
>>25403我的置评是日语的、其实。
idk either language>Then why does he look almost exactly like the Ancients?I think that's a lore gap in sonic canon but apparently the ancients become chao because of the radiation of the chaos emeralds corroding their dna, and then the chao becomes ancient/chaos again because of the master emerald? idk. I think I need to update myself on sonic lore, I actually don't know this recent sonic lore, but it seems to be pointing out that the ancients are an evolutionary predecessor of the chao I think
>>25429>>25430Automatic device loading only looks easy on Windows and 'buntu, because a horde of maintenance workers is ready to fix any obvious regressions. Udev on a non-mainline distro is suffering. Recently i connected a midi device to my Alpine pc and the firmware distribution installed its own udev rules, that *shockingly* didn't fire. Running the actual firmware loading command worked like a charm. Maybe i will abstract some of my scripts for this into a more general, mount-style manual hardware attachment framework.
"Plug and play" is almost never the right thing to do. A whole class of computer worms wouldn't exist if udev and co. didn't act like the software equivalent of a hooker. Udev actually traces some of its design back to a software package called HAL, a kitchen-sink hardware detection framework that eventually collapsed under its own weight. Its remnants where merged into udev shortly before its codebase was adopted by Redhat to further the systemd agenda.
>>25439I only did static /dev gentoo on a vm just to understand a bit more on what I missed out in the past when udev and systemd and etc weren't a thing
>Udev on a non-mainline distro is suffering.true but on gentoo with openrc I pretty much don't have to worry about udev, but gentoo is pretty much mainline as well so…
>"Plug and play" is almost never the right thing to do.if support for a device is compiled into the kernel or as a kernel module(not really preferable) I think it would be fine for it to be plug and play
>Running the actual firmware loading command worked like a charm.I bet it was to load a kernel module containing the firmware
>>25453>if support for a device is compiled into the kernel or as a kernel module(not really preferable) I think it would be fine for it to be plug and playEvery codepath dependent on and triggered by an external device is an exploit waiting to happen. You certainly know autorun.bat, but consider the Fusee-Gelee exploit for the first Nintendo Switch models. It was made possible by a single stack exploit in the TegraRCM firmware's code for handling USB connections.
>I bet it was to load a kernel module containing the firmwareNo. Fxload loads the firmware directly to the USB device.
>>25467>it's not like what product people use will bring us communism or whatever.It
will postpone Big Tech feudalism though so you have more time to bring communism or deterritorialize corporate power to transition into a true Deleuzo-Guattaro-Landian schizoanarchist post-humanist future. Whatever we do, we should not give the bourgeoisie more hand to chew, that's what these mfs want.
>>25047There are probably better Linux distros now than Windows 11 which struggles to do basic things right plus its tracking your every move, Linux most likely doesn't. (They are literally sending data as we speak right now.) A good idea to switch if you don't like having your data sold without your approval by Microsoft to cyber scammers.
I personally just don't know which one's right for me, choice paralysis is a real thing.
>>25550Well that's the thing, it's not that they're all of the sudden spying people like they hadn't been before, they've been taking and sending screenshots periodically since like Windows 8, it's just they keep finding more hardware intensive ways of spying. They must use more of your computer's resources to accomplish a task that they know doesn't need those resources since they used to do it the old way.
Like you shouldn't need more than 8mb's of RAM to wiretap someone, but no even the keylogger has to be an electron app. Even the calculator has to be an electron app. Everything. Fuck.
>>25552"freedom" is a feel good term, it must be defined in terms of actual practical advantage to the user. "you are free to modify the program!" is as meaningful to the non-programming user as "you are free to start your own business!" is to the unemployed man.
the tragedy of the current system is that most people already use the best programs available to meet their needs. the theoretical ability to build a better X using free software licences and an open development environment is offset by a combo of a lack of developer interest, and a lack of finance. the first is unlikely to be resolved, the second takes you out of idle licence-fantasy and into the timeline where Microsoft is split into 150 independent People's Software Development Houses.
and where most end users continue using a now public domain Windows. >>25553>"you are free to modify the program!" is as meaningful to the non-programming user as "you are free to start your own business!" is to the unemployed man.I see it more the right to repair. Even if the user can't code it means they can use community patches
>The tragedy of the current system is that most people already use the best programs available to meet their needsIf that was the case Adobe would have went bankrupt decades ago, it is an optimized piece of shit with alternatives being generations ahead in features and speed.
>>25561>"freedom" is a feel good term, it must be defined in terms of actual practical advantage to the user.Those practical advantages are short-sighted. The thing about software freedom is that it frees you from corporate control which has a long-term advantage. Otherwise you wake up and Windows 11 happens. Four software freedoms create an environment which works how you want it to work, does what you want it to do and goes out of your fucking way. The thing about software freedom is that the users control the software, not the developers, "making your own version" is absolutely irrelevant to that conversation, it is simply a safety check for the libre world to keep operating like that.
>free software is idle fantasy>the timeline where Microsoft is split into 150 independent People's Software Development Houses.Ah, that's definitely not an idle fantasy of yours. Keep dreaming, mah boi.
Tbh I don't even care about libre software "winning," what's more important is to prevent it from losing.
>>25132>>25133>do you want to make an upfront investment in learning how the system commands work, or do you want to explore it by clicking around on your own and seeing what happens..? the answer is not the same for everyoneComing back to this because it's relevant and slightly interesting:
In doing usability studies for Microsoft Office, Microsoft found that looking at the manual is something that is mainly done by experienced users. Inexperienced and intermediately skilled users tend to explore and play around with the options on screen since swapping to the help section is a "context switch" from simply using the program (and to a lesser degree, because the help system can't really explain how to complete practical tasks - it mainly describes general program features. Word help can tell you how to perform a mail merge, but that's no use if you don't already understand that a mail merge is a more efficient way of solving your problem…)
https://web.archive.org/web/20060206131623/http://blogs.msdn.com/jensenh/archive/2005/11/29/497861.aspx>One of the most interesting epiphanies I've had over the last few years seems on the surface like a paradox: "help" in Office is mostly used by experts and enthusiasts.>How can this be? I think my biased assumption was that experts know how to use the software already and eager novices would be poring over the documentation trying to learn how to be more effective using it.>Yet, in usability tests we see it again and again: novices and intermediates click around and experiment, experts try to reason things out and look them up in help.….
>Alan Cooper talks about "perpetual intermediates" in The Inmates Are Running the Asylum. The idea, paraphrased, is that most people using software are "intermediates." Beginners don't stay that way for long, but most people don't have the time, energy, or desire to become truly elite "experts." I believe that it is precisely these intermediates who don't rely on the help system. In fact, they might be defined by their general unwillingness to look features up in the "command encyclopedia." Experience shows that intermediates tend to explore the product, not the help system.I'm very conflicted now. On the one hand, it's nice to have empirical validation for a hunch. On the other, people knew this in 2005 and we're still discussing it in 2024. If it hasn't been taken onboard already, it probably never will be. >>25744I'd see it more like treating the computer similarly to a physical tool or space. You don't read the manual before using a pen, a screwdriver or a cup, and you don't (generally speaking) look at a detailed item index before looking around the supermarket. It's a fairly natural extension of the desktop metaphor.
I would say my usage patterns are similar to these users, though more familiar with where stuff is likely to be, or what kind of features programs offer. Generally speaking I find exploring a program painless but reading a manual to be tedious. Exactly as supposed in the post, because it's a context-switch: I came here to
use Word, not to
read the Word manual. Clicking menus to see if anything useful is hidden there is doing what I came here to do, opening a new window and hunting through an encyclopedia is not. Similarly, if you're looking for milk in a supermarket the odds are you walk around the periphery looking for where they've put the chilled stuff - you don't seek out an index.
>>25747Being preoccupied that people don't waste what little time they have on the same hobbies they have is such a petit-bourgeois mindset, ngl. We aren't getting communism if we get more people to install Linux or know how folder structures work or whatever.
Fwiw I too use Linux and dislike things like datamining, but these are inevitable trends under capitalism that won't stop if we get enough people to switch OS. At the end of the day FOSS is just a consumer movement and nothing else (this shouldn't be controversial either).
>>25614>The thing about software freedom is that it frees you from corporate controlOh totally, if you install Linux you suddenly stop living under capitalism. FFS the FOSS software is a majorly libertarian thing and it painfully shows. Just speaking in moralist liberal terms constantly.
You will get more people using Linux if you actually explain its tangible advantages, of which there are many, instead of sounding like a lolbert cultist.
>>25747>Nothing wrong with people not wanting to bother with how a tool worksIt's nothing like that. Only the simplest programs, many of which don't have a right not to be a thin wrapper around a cli, are comparable to real world tools. Something like notepad is comparable with a multi-head screwdriver, but Microsoft Outlook has the complexity of sending a mentally challenged secretary to the post-office.
Cli programs directly embody the interaction with sofware as a dialogue. Every action should result in a response or deliberate lack thereof, to expose changes in program state. A GUI could pop up a text box for every action the user takes, however the program is usually build around graphic interaction with some state representation. Many of these follow entrenched ui conventions. Still to figure out any specifics, you need a manual or picrel.
>>25747>Generally speaking I find exploring a program painless but reading a manual to be tedious.This is why i mentioned the literacy situation. Effectively reading something like a reference book should be a skill naturally acquired during high-school level education. With electronic manuals you don't even need to flip between index or register and one or multiple pages. Everything is accesible with one click or command.
Reading imposes some cognitive load on the user, when compared to the interactive on-screen tutorials some applications have. Naturally though this type of documentation cannot cover as much ground and takes some time to implement. Providing documentation as a well-structured text is a worthwhile tradeoff in most cases.
Video tutorials unite the worst of both types of documentation. You get a moving series of pretty pictures at best with a commentary you could have read inside a manual in a more polished form. Listing a series of menu trees is both less tedious and more precise than watching someone else go through it.
>>25757Video tutorials are the worst of all possible worlds: on this I agree. Otherwise, I'm still not really sold. I would analogize more complex programs to a physical space rather than a single tool (Outlook as a room where, for example, you may hunt in random drawers to find a screwdriver), but the analogy would hold. I had a parallel thought when it came to CLIs and man pages: Imagine a world where stores don't display prices - where to see the cost of goods, you've got to make a specific inquiry with the shopkeeper, then he'll tell you and you can decide what to do with that information. A lot of old stores ran on exactly such a system, and it has advantages (think of all the time wasted stickering goods… and you can't tailor the price to your customer if an out of towner shows up…), but it also adds friction to the experience of using the store compared to the alternative of having a printed price tag under every option in the store. That's why most stores don't do it today: most people hate friction.
And I think that's the crux of it: I do not refuse to read manuals because I find
reading difficult, I refuse to read manuals because I find task switching generates
friction, and because I actively enjoy learning by playing with things rather than by reading about them and following the instructions. I am at ease simply using the software and solving the problem playfully, and well designed graphical software always provides affordances for this style of use. For example when it comes to your image, there's no reason to have to look this up or ask for someone to explain: the correct GUI solution is to provide a tooltip that tells you what the icon means if you hover over it. With no need to switch out of the program, I can go "huh, I wonder what that is?", mouse over it, and learn something. When it works it's incredibly elegant.
Though I may have said already: I'm not opposed to providing good documentation. Acceptance that the main people consulting the documentation will be expert users really ought to
improve documentation for that demographic, since it can be better tailored to the reader's needs, and ensuring everything is well documented
somewhere is helpful for keeping things consistent and coherent. A program can always be written such that it can have both a UI that works even if you've not read the manual, and a clear manual explaining everything accurately and concisely.
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