1) Big Tech rams AI down every users' throat in every app, and often provides no effective way to disable it, no matter how much users hate it and are force fed misinformation by it.
2) Big Tech proclaims billions of daily AI users!
3) Billionaire Big Tech CEO's salute their fascist alliance with Trump and how easily their users -- "the little people" -- can be manipulated.
4) The ghosts of Hitler, Stalin, and innumerable other past despots and dictators nod and smile.
@vvandinsky Here, a helpful piece of advice that will stand you in good stead:
Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs.
HTH!
@vvandinsky I started with UNIX (Version 6) at the first site on the ARPANET at UCLA. I've been using UNIX-based systems since the early 70s. My servers are all Linux based. I've been working on open source software since before the term open source was coined. For that matter, I've been on social media since the first ARPANET mailing lists. So thanks, but I don't need your advice on this.
That said, for most people, Linux and open source software are not practical solutions, and over the years most people I've urged onto those platforms have reverted to Windows, et al. Linux remains not ready for prime time as a desktop platform for most nontechies.
In other words, I don't really worry much about techies (like me) who can fend for themselves. I worry about all the nontechies who are being inundated with AI crap that they cannot control.
The way that so many techies just don't seem to understand the reality of nontech users has been a gross irritation to me throughout my entire career.
@lauren @vvandinsky I’ve thought for years that a hardware company (Sony for example) could do a great job of pulling an Apple, ship a Linux with a not-weird-name + attractive UI and actually compete. Sony won’t do it at this point since they are making all the iPhone cameras. Valve is shipping steam decks (with fantastically transparent Wine integration). Pi foundation is selling tinker toys (said with love). Anyone else want to vertically integrate hardware and OS and pay talent to do a good job at it? How does this ever change?
@mrintergalactickeyboard @lauren @vvandinsky Asus actually tried that (briefly) with the Asus Eee 701 PC, the very first 7" netbook! Shame about the hardware, and the rather hobbled Linux distro they chose. (It's what terrified Microsoft into making Windows XP free on netbook-spec machines, though.)
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@jmtd @mrintergalactickeyboard @lauren @vvandinsky They kinda-sorta got it right with the Eee 1000 series—10" screen and larger keyboard—at a weight/price penalty. But Intel strangled the netbook spec so that the market segment died, promoting the ultrabook instead (at a much higher price point). You can still find modernized versions on Ali Express, from small Chinese vendors like Chuwi and GPD …
@jmtd @mrintergalactickeyboard @lauren @vvandinsky GPD has alas gone in a different direction—aiming at portable gamers (as a high-end alternative to the Steam Deck). The Chuwi Minibook X (N100 or N150) are very promising in the cheap/light corner, although the battery is small: I have the N100 model running Linux Mint as a training-wheels environment for myself.