The Windows Exodus Has Begun. (And the Data Proves It)

I have to admit that I am coinsidering going back to Linux since Apple is trying to get me to upgrade to Tahoe. I don't want AI.

I want my computer to be a tool.

Not run my life.

What Happens if the AI Bubble Bursts?

Robert Reich doing a rant which I wish I had the time to have come up with, but I'll let him do it. Too bad he's a hardcore Democrat. And I rag on him for it.

It's time to consider moving to open source. (Billionaires Owning Everything Just Got Worse…)

I am thoroughly amazed that the information sector didn't go to open source for a lot of reasons. But this person points out how much we give up by supporting big tech. 

For that matter, this gives a really good reason to get a true multiparty democracy since the duopoly did eff all to prevent this. 

Digital Blackout: AWS Outage Plunges Millions into Disarray, Revealing the Internet's Fragile Core

The internet would be much better if it were decentralised and out of the hands of the oligarchs. As this points out, it's only as strong as its weakest link: which seems to be the oligarchs.

Windows 11 Is a Lost Cause. Truly Destined for the Garbage. Don't Upgrade.

I am amazed that hacker, open source culture didn't prevail in the computing world. 

Wozniak v Jobs

The old Apple II, which was something you could configure anyway you wanted. The iPod that allowd you to listen to YOUR music, not something pushed on you.

Like having Rachel Maddow invade my French Jazz playlist. PUTAIN DE MERDE!  Je me fous complètement de la politique américaine.

 OK, maybe the last statement isn't exactly true.

But, I don't want tech oligarchs running my life. 

 

Dell sells Linux computers!

I moved from the Microsoft operating system a while back, I'm guessing in 2011 from my old blog posts. I have a serious dislike for tech giants having worked with computers for over 50 years (I started young), The hacker culture runs strong in me.

Besides, most tech pros use linux/unix.

Getting a linux computer for me meant using an old computer, or one that had originally been configured for windows (or Mac OS). I didn't realise that Dell sold them. The only drawbacks are you can't get these in most retailers and there's a five week wait: https://www.techradar.com/best/linux-pc#section-best-linux-mini-pc

On the other hand, this is a computer which is built for Linux.

For those of you who want to try this OS, you can make a trial USB drive and see how you like it:

 

Windows AND Linux Security - What Should You Know

There is more reason to switch to linux and ditch the tech oligarchs than you know.

Find a COMPATIBLE Linux Computer for $200+: Roadmap to Linux. Part 1

I have been seriously thinking about returning to Linux for the reasons mentioned. Apple's Mac OS is based on Linux, but has proprietary things which force you to use their products. It's also fairly stable, which can't be said about Microsoft. 

The one sickener for the switch is that Macs have some excellent tools for multilingual people. 

An AI Goes Insane, Emails FBI Over $2

We need to revive the Luddite movement since computers truly will never replace humans, unless companies want to lose customers due to poor customer service. And we can't forget how bad AI and the blockchain are to the environment.

I would add that businesses need to take responsibility and not try to push it off on machines.

Then again, I would love to see the tech bubble burst bigtime. And it sounds like its coming soon:

AI is scaring both sides of the political spectrum. Both JD Vance and Cenk Cygur are pointing out how AI can go out of control.

Just remember that a market economy requires a market, which are customers. Businesses exist for customers, not customers for businesses. The Jevins paradox meets the Ai paradox.

Bad Hasbara on Bad Hasbara

 It's nice to be able to laugh at a genocide, especially since that's pretty much what the world has been doing for over a year now. This is the show Bad Hasbara laughing at the Bad Hasbara bot.

Would you trust Siri with your life?

Artificial Intelligence--I told you so....

This story is so wild, that I had to fsct check it to make sure it was for real. While I agree with the politics espoused by the "sentient" AI, it demonstrates that machines are not to be trusted.

Israel likes to point out that it has a lot of "experts" in High Tech.  Case in point, comes from this article in the Jerusalem Post:

I am back in Israel in search of the country’s secret, not-so-secret weapon: world-class software engineers...

Israel is the perfect place for an essential development center in this AI revolutionary moment. It is the perfect place for Modelcode, which is building AI for AI, the DNA source code for software that transforms every field on earth. Israeli engineers and Machine Learning gurus and Artificial Intelligencers are fresh off the battlefield, experienced in inventing and assembling novel applications, and rightly confident in their abilities to solve impossible problems. This is not the AI of theory and whiteboards. This is the AI of nailing real-world solutions, of shipping products, of saying when you see an intractable obstacle, "Ein Baya." No one does this better than Americans – and Israelis.

The Israelis puff their competence as a military force and as a technological haven. On the other hand, this shows that technology really is something that needs a human check. On the other hand, the Nazis used gas chambers for their genocide, the Israelis have developed Lavender to assist in theirs. The Zionists can use machines as well as their WWII allies.

OK, if Zionism came about in the 19th Century, why did the Holocaust happen? a couple of hints Haavara and Kastner, but that stuff is now coming to light.

Now, the Zionist cause has its technology turning against it. Didn't they learn the lesson of the Golem?

Anyway, I definitely would not trust AI on a question of my survival.

I was curious as to what exactly would be the effect of Elon Musk taking over Twitter.

Disclaimer: I am a shareholder in a few tech companies! I also subscribe to the UN's Principles for Responsible Investment (unpri.org). Even then I let my Luddite tendencies run amok.  Yeah, it's fun asking Microsoft why our products are shit, yet we have a monopoly at the shareholder meetings...

But the real reason I am writing this is that Twitter has become crap since Elon Mush has taken it over. I guess when you have a family that made its money in blood diamonds investing in your projects you can go wild and make shitloads of money

On paper

The problem with this bubble is that it is tulipmania waiting to explode, but there are probably darker forces behind the bubble, as in the surveillance state.

So, you might want to start making posts about how much support gun control, in fact banning guns sounds really good, if you are a ardent gun rights supporter because just remember who REALLY invented the internet. AND IT WASN'T AL GORE OR , EVEN, MORE IMPORTANTLY, TIM BERNERS-LEE!!

The origins of the Internet date back to the development of packet switching and research commissioned by the United States Department of Defense in the late 1960s to enable time-sharing of computers. The primary precursor network, the ARPANET, initially served as a backbone for the interconnection of regional academic and military networks in the 1970s to enable resource sharing.

Yeah, somebody is way ahead of the hackers, but that's another thing.

And it doesn't really matter since I am not keen on social media, especially if I am not connecting with the people I need or want to connect with.

 And I'm not on twitter.

It seems that Mush's buying Twitter may be the end of the line.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2022/dec/13/twitter-lose-users-elon-musk-takeover-hate-speech

Luddite v Technology

Hang around me and start talking about technology and you will hear the term Luddite. The Luddites were people in early 19th Century England who hated technology. They are the ones who put the spanner in the machine. These days, they would just unplug the thing. Or to quote History.com:

“Luddite” is now a blanket term used to describe people who dislike new technology, but its origins date back to an early 19th-century labor movement that railed against the ways that mechanized manufactures and their unskilled laborers undermined the skilled craftsmen of the day.

I'm not exactly sure where I stand in this spectrum, but I am less enthusiastic, or frightened, about AI than most people. On the other hand, it does tend to replace humans who are actually much better at interacting with other humans than a machine. 

Machines are like people who have a limited understanding of a language, yet are working where they need total fluency and proficiency. Sometimes, they don't even rise to that level as the Comcast "intelligent assistant demonstrates". I kept asking it the same question and wanting to speak to a human, but it ended up disconnecting me.

I find interactions with Artificial Intelligence to be more frustrating than helpful. And once one sees past the illusion, AI proves to be totally useless. One doesn't need Luddites to smash the machine: the machine is useless. Still, the bosses would prefer to spend the money on technological toys than hire people to actually do the job.

I was going to give ChatGPT a try to see how long it would take to show it isn't worth the hype, but I would need to sign up for an account. That doesn't make me trust it since there is no disclaimer as to what this company will do with my information.

I have tinkered with AI art programmes with varying results: most of which I would consider crap. Of course, some people find the results to be incredible.

On the other hand, AI is worse than the call centres in some country where they do not speak my language as a first language. Although, in reality, they are both pretty bad. At least the human is making an effort to communicate.

A computer can't.

It cannot truly empathise with your situation. It doesn't really understand what is happening. It only compares what it is being told to possible scripts, but life is not scripted.

So, don't worry--just unplug the thing. And hope that business will realise that it isn't saving money in the long run--especially if they start haemorraging customers.

Big Brother/Sister is watching you and you are giving him everything he/she wants

 You might find this interesting if you believe you support "capitalism":

Time to wake up because Big Tech is running your life.

Time to become a Luddite. This tells you the problem and how to fight it.

BTW,  Facebook's owner Meta Platforms saw its stock market value slump by more than $230bn (£169bn) on Thursday, in a record daily loss for a US firm.

The company's share price slide saw chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's net worth fall by $31bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The drop in Mr Zuckerberg's personal fortune was equivalent to the annual gross domestic product of Estonia.

Analysis of this from the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60255088):

It's clear that Meta is facing a whirlwind of different problems.

Last year Apple brought in its App Tracking Transparency policy.

It lets people choose whether or not they want to be tracked around the internet by companies, like Meta, who can then sell that information to advertisers.

That is a major problem for Facebook, because finding information out about you and selling it to advertisers is exactly how it makes money.

Its quarterly results showed advertising income falling, partly for this reason.

 Get off of social media since YOU are the product. The Billionaires are getting rich off of YOUR information.

 

Fesses de Bouc (Facebook) goes "offline".

I'm not sure how much of a Luddite I happen to be, but I have been complaining about social media and surveillance capitalism for a while. One of the reasons I like Europe more than the States is that the EU and European Commission have been strict with the tech giants for a while. Not as much as I might like, but still far stricter than the US government has.

There are a lot of reasons to celebrate this blackout in that it shines a light on how stable tech companies actually happen to be. Personally, I am far more of a believer in "open-source" software than having the control of the operating systems in the hands of tech giants. Sadly, the "digital revolution" kept the monopolies and made more of them instead of having a diversified economy.

And while I like Ubuntu/Linux far more than "legacy" OSs, I now use Apple. But Apple is like the drug dealer which offers you a taste to get you hooked. Sadly, they take over your system. Apple wants to control my music. They now also want me to use their cloud.

The problem is that I want control of my data, not to give it to some faceless corporation which does whatever it wants with that data. Amazon is far more sinister than you realise, as is Facebook. These companies use of data has put them into conflict with the European Commission. Margarethe Vestager's attitude to the tech giants has put her indirect conflict with the US and China.

The US is looking into regulating big tech, but like most everything else in US politics, the action is too little way too late. Maybe the blackout at Facebook will shine a light on this problem.