_Understated_

> The best thing good OS can do for me, is not to get in my way when I run apps

This has always been my complaint about Windows.

I've long considered the OS as a tool to launch my apps ONLY!. That's it!

Of course, under the surface there are a few more things that it needs to perform like not corrupting my data, being secure and protecting me from attacks and so on but it's purpose is a toolbox.

Carpenters don't use their toolbox to build furniture. They use the tools in it. That's what the the OS is to me: a toolbox that holds my tools.

When it starts giving me shit for not using a Microsoft account or trying to "help me with that thing" that pisses me off.

However, the worst thing is when shit moves around, menus change etc.

Perhaps it's time to give Linux a go again!

Maybe I'm getting old or jaded or something but I can't/don't get bent out of shape any more when I read what tech mega corps do these days.

Most days the story is a variant of "Tech Megacorp has done a thing that clearly makes them money and tells actual people to go fuck themselves".

From my perspective, for the last decade at least, tech megacorps have openly and brazenly put profit before EVERYTHING! Even human life! [0]

[0] - https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/raising-humans-in-di...

> a disease that causes literal brain damage

For a tiny tiny fraction of the population! You forgot that bit.

> I'm an engineer former researcher and this lack of willingness to dialogue pains me deeply

I want dialogue! I want lots of it. I want people on mainstream media and social media to question all science. They are not able to. They are not allowed.

The BBC will not have anyone on any show that questions the dogma! It's not science. Science is when I can question your results, or try to replicate your results, or come up with alternative hypotheses etc. This isn't allowed today! If I publich legit research on Twitter that goes against the mainstream government data on COVID, it will be banned.

Social media are notorious for only allowing people to speak in positive tones about all the mainstream COVID information.

I'd love to have proper discussions but that's not possible these days!

Ok, so please, show me the list of side effects after 5 or 10 years of trials. Does that information exist?

Edit: sounded a bit snarky, toned it down a touch

For your information I trust nothing about COVID that has been published either by mainstream media, social media or alt media now. Nothing at all.

As far as I am concerned there are far too many people with vested interests polluting the waters.

I was merely linking to mainstream media sources as most people on here appear to shoot down anything that isn't mainstream media or mainstream thinking.

For the last several months, when I come across an article that has "science" about COVID in it I automatically look for peer-reviewed papers in the text. I don't care if Albert Einstein himself told me that the COVID vaccine is safe, or if he said I will die from COVID... unless there is a peer-reviewed scientific paper I will disregard anything said by that media outlet.

Too many sources are just quoting scientists and celebrities about how safe (or how dangerous) vaccines (and other info) are. No one questions anything [0]

I'm fucking sick of the lack of critical thinking! I'm fucking sick of not being able to question something without getting downvoted, shouted down, branded a conspiracy theorist. The fundamental core of science is that I can question it! This is no longer allowed. It's dogma, religion, whatever you want to call it, not science!

COVID is no longer about science any more. There is literally no science behind giving 12 year old children an experimental drug that has a higher chance of inflaming their heart than it does of preventing COVID symptoms...

FFS, only 25 people in the UK under the age of 18 died last year from COVID! [1]

[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/14/uk-covid-vacci...

Serious question: Do we have the infrastructure to support everyone driving electric cars?

I'm in the UK and I don't see many charging stations. Sure, it's not zero but it's a tiny number.

Edit: By infrastructure, I don't just mean public charging stations but if people plug in at home, can the power stations handle it?

> Can you please be more specific which vaccine you consider experimental?

All of the COVID-related ones.

There are no known long-term side effects as these drugs that have been injected into humans are only a few years old at most.

According to Reuters [0] the trials are still ongoing. According to the UK government these vaccines were given out while still in trial [1] and some are ongoing.

Whether that's standard practice or not, they are still working out the long-term side-effects.

So what happens in 5 years? What data do we have on these? What happens if Alzheimers cases go through the roof in 5 years? Do we just throw our hands up and say, "Well, we never saw that coming!" By then there will be billions with the injections.

Vaccines take up to 10 years to make [2]. There is no possible way you can simulate the long-term side effects. None whatsoever. You need to observe people that have taken it for years! You also need a diverse group of people: female physiology can change dramatically based on age. Asians, white people and black people may react differently to the injections and so on... there is no long-term data on these injections! None!

[0] - https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-factcheck-vaccine-monitor...

[1] - https://post.parliament.uk/covid-19-vaccines-november-update...

[2] - https://news.ncsu.edu/2020/12/vaccine-manufacturing-q-and-a/

> Well they did, and developed a vaccination system which the anti-lockdown people refuse to take, because those people are not only anti-lockdown but are against anything coming from the governments

I take issue with that statement!

I haven't been COVID-jagged for one simple reason: I do not take experimental medical procedures whose only promise is to make me feel better if I catch COVID and doesn't prevent spreading or reinfection - I've had COVID recently with no side effects. I especially don't take experimental drugs made by companies that are immune from prosecution!

There is a reason that vaccines take years to develop! On that note, what are the long-term side effects of the jag? Anyone got data on that?

Edit: forgot a bit... and I'll be downvoted to hell but that will just reinforce my point

Anecdata but my brother lives in a major Scottish city and cycles a lot.

He says that the biggest threat to his safety isn't traffic, it's people walking across the road looking at their phones. Often groups of them at the same time.

He reckons that when he's out cycling (and by this, I mean he cycles about 4 or 5 miles at most) he encounters at least 5 or 6 incidents on average.

I see it in the mornings when I walk my son to school. If I had to guess, I'd say more than 40% of the kids are looking at a phone.

I've also heard of some European cities putting traffic signals on the pavements so that phone users don't have to look up: I 100% disagree with this - They get killed? It's their fault!

I guess I'm now somewhat jaded with tech (despite being a developer as my day job) but I find I'm going backwards nowadays. I live in totalitarian Scotland for those that are interested.

I just found out that I may be able to sell my 2yo car to a dealer despite still paying it up - something to do with the demand for secondhand cars being so high these days and I can get more than I owe... I digress!

Anyway, I don't really need a car but it's handy so I'm looking at a 20 year old Grand Cherokee (or possibly a Cherokee). The main reason is that it has almost no tech in it. Nothing that can serve me ads. Nothing that can track me. Nothing that can be used against me. Nothing that can be hacked. Nothing that can be remotely accessed by the manufacturer. It only contains things that make it go (and stop)!

My phone will be getting replaced with... probably the most basic thing I can get since I barely use it too.

Anyway, just wanted to chuck in my $0.02

> Whereas the risk of COVID is, obviously, death.

This is nonsense... children are at a miniscule risk of death from COVID-19[0]

[0] - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57766717

> Instagram was founded in 2010.

You may not be far from the truth: last year I watched a talk given by Jonathan Haidt (sp?) and he specifically showed the suicide numbers increasing when the "Like" button appeared... the increase was not an anomaly, it was obvious.

I can't find the video unfortunately :(

I believe you say it like "leed"

I have not heard of many of the ad blockers in this list [0].

However, it was good to see that UBlock Origin is consistently performing better than most of the other "security" extensions.

Edit: It appears that this anchor is used more than once on that page so it takes you to the wrong link! This [1] is the image I wanted to link to!

[0] - https://www.debugbear.com/blog/chrome-extension-performance-...

[1] - https://dbb-dev.imgix.net/blog/2021-chrome-extension-perform...

The other comments here talk about hoarding potential for rain in the future and depriving others of it but what about weaponising it? You could potentially annihilate your enemy by generating masses of rainfall and destroying their infrastructure could you not?

It wouldn't be as targetted as a missile strike but you could easily say "it wasn't me!"...

> [Disruptive Digita] is also looking into technology that would let Facebook deliver personalized ads based on targeting data stored on the user’s device, meaning Facebook wouldn’t need to access it.

Anyone know how this would work? My spidey-sense is tingling here at the thought of apps scanning data on my phone!

> Losing the ability to re-target products to customers after they viewed them online but didn’t buy hurts businesses trying to sell more expensive products, advertisers say

How is this the case?

If I have an online shop using any of the major tools and platforms out there, they all have the ability to tell when someone puts something into their carts and did or didn't buy it. They can all send an email to say "oi there, you forgot to buy <thing>. Here's a 10% discount if you buy it". In addition, I do know that there are addons in Shopify that will re-target stuff along the lines of "customers who bought X bought Y".

It sounds like advertisers are the ones losing out and crying here, not the shop owners!

It should be fairly trivial for a judge to ascertain whether someone owns a patent to use legitimately (tech company owning a tech patent for example, whether they are currently using it, invented it, bought it etc.) or whether they are a bunch of lawyers extorting money from legit companies by (ab)using the legal system.

Yeah, I realise that now.

However, where does one draw the line between fair use and derivative works?

Creating something based on other stuff (Google creating AI books from the existing ones for example) would possibly be fair use I think but would it not also be derivative works?

I thought I understood fair use but turns out I was wrong...

That being said, creating a transformative work from something else is considered fair use. So, for example, if I read a whole bunch of books and then, heavily influenced by them, create my own, similar book, that would be fair use I suppose... that makes sense.

But, where does the derivative works come in? Where do you draw the line?

If I am heavily influenced by billions of lines of other people's GPL code (ala Copilot!), then I create my own tool from it and keep my code hidden, does that not mean I am abusing the GPL license?

I understand the concept of fair use (I think) but I can't see how it applies to Copilot.

Google didn't create new books from the contents of existing ones (whether you agree that they should have been allowed to store the books or not) but Copilot is creating new code/apps from existing ones.

Edit: I guess my understanding of fair use was wrong. I stand corrected.

> Google did not scan those books and use it to build new books with different titles. The comparison doesn't hold up at all.

Not sure if you meant to reply to me but I agree with you: you can't compare what Google did to what Copilot does.

> You can wipe your ass with the GPL license if your use of the product falls within Fair Use.

Is Copilot fair use? It's reading code, generating other code (some verbatim) and making money from it all while not having to release its source code to the world?

> That doesn't mean that GitHub has to redistribute Copilot under GPL

I wasn't saying that was the case: some of the code that Copilot used may not allow redistribution under GPL.

But let's say that all of the code it scanned was GPL for the sake of argument. Why would they not have to distribute their Copilot source yet, if I use it to generate some code, I'd have to distribute mine?

My spidey-sense it tingling at that one!

> By comparison, Copilot is even more obviously fair use.

Not sure I see it that way.

If I take your hard work that you clearly marked with a GPL license and then make money from it, not quite directly, but very closely, how is that fair use? Or legal?

Copying and storing a book isn't recreating another book from it. Copilot is creating new stuff from the contents of the "books" in this case.

Edit: I misunderstood fair use as it turns out...

Copilot isn't strange from a technical prespective.

The strange bit is how they are allowed to use other peoples code to create derivative works (this is how I see it from my non-legal perspective anyway).

Even if it's legal (to the letter of the law, not the spirit) it leaves a sour taste.

I don't doubt that an army of lawyers has poured over this but they have size on their side: the cost of litigation vs potential revenue will be a massive factor.

Edit: > There's a decent bit of caselaw indicating that computers reading and using a copyrighted work simply "don't count" in terms of copyright infringement.

That means their computer can read any code it wants, do whatever it wants with the code, then they can monetise that by giving YOU the code. Would they then be indemnified by saying "no Microsoft human read or used this code"?

However, if you then use the code and look at it, does that make you liable?

Yeah, that bit I realise but the point I was getting at is this: if I take someone else's code, use chunks of it in my app, say that it's mine and make money from it is that not illegal? Or, at least in violation of the license?

Superficially at least, Copilot (from my understanding) is "copying" code, letting me use it in my app, and making money from it.

I'm just trying to wrap my head around it.

Let's be clear, I am not a lawyer, but it seems... strange!

Ok, my curiosity has been fired here...

I have conjured up two scenarios here:

Let's say I use copilot to generate a bunch of code for an app, something substantial, and it regurgitates a load of bits and pieces from many sources it got from GitHub, I'd assume there won't be any attribution in it... it will be as if Copilot made the code itself (I know it sort of does but lets not split hairs!). I'm guessing the prevailing theory (from GiitHub anyway) is that I'm legitimately allowed to do this.

Now, let's say I generated all that code by manually copying and pasting chunks of code from a whole bunch of repos, whether they are open source, unlicensed, whatever. Would I not be ripe for legal issues? I could potentially find all the code that copilot generated and just copy and paste it from each of the sources and not mention that in my license. What if I told everyone "yeah, I just copied and pasted this from loads of Github repos and didn't put any attribution in my code". I'd assume that (morality aside) I'd be asking for trouble!

Am I missing something? Am I misunderstanding the situation, or the capabilities of copilot?

> Don't you think it is a bit of an overreaction to say that "Audacity is now joining the ranks

No. I do not.

They now have the ability to take any data they want "accidentally". They can now give that data to whomever they want (it's in their Ts and Cs I believe) and even if you switch it off, what's to say they won't turn it on? What's stopping them selling the product to another company that now has a bunch of data.

It has not been needed up to this point. The product works. It works well. Why can't they send surveys? Or ask in a forum? Or ask users to download their alpha/beta/nightly version with the telemetry in it?

Once they get that data, they may want more!