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glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

If you think that you can compete with this with a bespoke Linux installation on a few old ThinkPads, you need to figure out a way to provide *all that other stuff* to the people who will be using them. And I wish you would! If you ran a charity campaign to raise money to scale up such an effort for a few local school districts in a particular region, I'd probably donate to it!

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

This problem is magnified for institutional buyers, but for folks without a ton of tech experience it's the same. The 1-year manufacturer warranty for new-in-store models is a big deal. The implicit promise of several years of software support is really important. Apple stores run free trainings you can go to. They have a business support program where you can talk to someone about fleet management problems for free. They have 24/7 chat support on the web if you have software issues.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

But if you're trying to source a 50-machine bulk order for a CS extracurricular program, with a uniform hardware profile so that students have a consistent experience, then no, you cannot reliably do that by going around to garage sales and rummaging through bargain bins. You cannot afford to repair all of these units (which WILL have a failure rate several times the average for a new machine) yourself. You can't even afford to troubleshoot them and manage the RMA process.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

Yes, you could personally get a more powerful computer by getting a refurb 16GB M1 MacBook Air somewhere by bargain hunting. But you will need to hunt; right now on the official refurb store the cheapest MacBook Air is $929. If you're shopping on eBay, now you've got a machine with a ton of wear cycles on the SSD, and dubious amounts of damage.

If you, personally, have the time & energy for that, it *IS* a better choice.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

Out of all of these I have the most experience with category 4. I have set up labs full of Linux computers on many occasions. I've also done the same for macs. I won't say that macs are universally superior but there are TONS of things about imaging, configuring, provisioning, and authenticating macs that are vastly superior to Linux. If it's to teach a topic that isn't programming or sysadmin, like say graphic design, macOS has huge, huge advantages for legibility to the instructor.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

Potential customers for this fall into a few categories, including:

1. Parents who don't know a lot about tech, but whose kids need "a laptop" for school.
2. Kids & young adults who want a macbook to run something like GarageBand but have a very limited budget *and* also don't otherwise know much about tech.
3. Schools.
4. School-like programs, like software dev clubs & summer camps.

These customer types need a low price, but they also need A LOT of *support*. The support is the product here.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

What is interesting about the device is not that you *should* buy it—the whole value proposition is that it is a very cheap, but also kinda bad, MacBook—it's that people *will* buy it. A lot. It fills a market gap. The only products that this is positioned against are Chromebooks and iPads; cheap refurb Linux machines are not in the same product category for most potential buyers, and I think the fact that Linux fans do not understand the different categories are endemic to why Linux struggles.

glyph ("Glyph") wrote:

Macbook Neo Hot Take™, take 2. Earlier I was annoyed at tech reviewers who should *really* know better giving a *really* myopic assessment of its gaming potential. Now I'm seeing another bad take on Fedi, which is "all you Apple shills love this stupid thing, but a cheap Linux laptop would work better, don't buy it". I am much more sympathetic to this but it appears to be missing what is interesting about this device and why people are talking about it at all.

Boosted by soatok@furry.engineer ("Soatok Dreamseeker"):
argals@mstdn.ca ("Argals") wrote:

"Healthy people cost less.
Educated people contribute more.
Housed people are more stable.

...in a healthy society there are no "undeserving".
There are just people."

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
Lazarou ("Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈") wrote:

There is something really not right with that nation state....

https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/orban-government-engulfed-explosive-child-abuse-scandal-after-dossier-reveals-3300-cases-state-1762689
#Orban #Hungary #Patriarchy #Misogyny

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
mike@thecanadian.social ("Mike Fraser") wrote:

As you know we've taken over administrator of journa.host and newsie.social, two instances focussed on journalists and news outlets.
We've put together a news app that combines the feeds to give you the latest. It's a work in progress but you can find it at https://dispatchnews.net #news #journalism #journa #newsie

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
annamam ("Anna Mamotiuk") wrote:

Hi! My name is Anna! I’m a traditional artist from Kyiv 🇺🇦 . I paint, I adore cats, and I love working out at the gym.

I’m always working on my English, but sometimes I might post in Ukrainian because I don’t always feel like double-checking every word. I hope that’s okay.

I’m not much of a talker, and I’m not quite sure yet what exactly I’ll be posting here, but I wanted to give it a try🫶

#Introduction #Знайомство

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
alyx@frogs.lgbt ("alyx (dual-stack)") wrote:

so uh
we rescued a set of 4K movie film scanners

does anyone need a set of 4K movie film scanners

if you have a need for a cinema film scanner (or can give it a good home!), and can arrange to have it transported from the Seattle area, message me on fedi or e-mail me at hello@alyx.sh

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

"If you own a device with a camera on it, just assume it is always recording, and that footage will be stored somewhere, forever."

Bars. We love a techno-radical short king.

#Waveform
https://youtu.be/McfQrmbOvv8?T=1h01m50s

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
jackel23gr@mastodon.world wrote:

Graphic explaining why this is not required.
SAVE America Act is not saving Americans, just the crooked Dump admin.

https://mastodon.social/@grrlscientist/116227742389242857
#USpol #USpolitics #SAVEact

Boosted by jsonstein@masto.deoan.org ("Jeff Sonstein"):
iiradned wrote:

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

Salespeople are confused, saying that all compute happens locally on the glasses. Which, if you don't know enough to know that's currently impossible for the size, you probably don't know the concept of local/cloud compute. So them saying it happens locally sort of implies that someone told them that.

It scares me how much Meta wants this to become a thing.

https://youtu.be/McfQrmbOvv8?t=59m50s

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

Damn they are going *in* on Meta. Going as far to say the entire reason Meta sells these glasses is for data collection. That may not sound radical around these parts, but to the centrist tech cartel it is.

Again, Marques isn't contributing much but he's not shutting it down. I think that matters when it comes to access. MKBHD might not get to review the next unreleased bit of tech from Meta if they keep speaking like this.

Time stamped:
https://youtu.be/McfQrmbOvv8?t=59m03s

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

According to Waveform, Meta Ray-Bans doesn't turn on its indicator light when it uses the camera to process AI queries. Asking it a question that would require the use of the camera i.e. "what's the color of this person's shirt?" doesn't trigger the light but answers the question

El, oh, fucking el man.

Time stamped:
https://youtu.be/McfQrmbOvv8?T=56m15s

Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
emilymbender@dair-community.social ("Prof. Emily M. Bender(she/her)") wrote:

As a general media literacy tip: If the claim is that someone used "AI" or "ChatGPT" to do something, the real story is probably something else.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

This idea fascinates me. How long can people ignore something before breaking that 4th wall, as it were?

Because no matter how strong your "no politics" rule is for your YouTube channel, you break that rule at some threshold.

You get what I mean? Ahhh, I feel like I'm not articulating this in a way that's compelling as much as it is in my head lol.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

I'm not big on calling out influencers for not speaking up on things. But also, things are getting so conspicuously horrific, that not speaking out is starting to look silly.

But, of course, there is a line. Every podcaster in the world, big or small, has a threshold that if crossed they'd finally speak up. Even if that line is literal zombies breaking into their studio and eating them.

So, what's the line? Could a podcast go on during, say, an entire genocide at home and never speak on it?

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

seriously though, you can learn loads from benchmark outputs. you'd be amazed how often i've found bugs in code this way. or inferred the behaviour of processors i haven't even touched.

fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

The Wave Form podcast (MKBHD) is going through an interesting phase where the co-hosts are starting to get a little political. You'll get anti-surveillance, anti-big tech comments and even sustained conversations amongst themselves.

Marques doesn't seem outwardly interested, but he isn't shutting it down either.

Which leads me to my ongoing question, can podcasters podcast through a genocide? Meaning, how long can you keep your hand on the stove before acknowledging it's hot?

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

don''t mind me, just doing numerology on benchmark figures

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

RE: https://social.afront.org/@stylus/116235651886344794

apparently SVE2 is on phones. and the bitperm impl is less than twice the time of the loop overhead.

and look at the difference in the third impl (there are four sets of three results, each followed by an impl number). the pdep (which is like a nanosecond slower on x86-64) is a full 4 nanoseconds slower. most of which seems to be because it does a less good job of compensating for the loop carried dependency than x86-64. most interesting!

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjo0iLssbI8

Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
grimalkina ("Cat Hicks") wrote:

This is super neato, I love an ingroup/outgroup intervention lever, people overestimate the negative backlash they'll get from their political group for changing their minds on something and if you work through an intervention to remind yourself that you've cared for a group loyally, you have less of that disproportionate fear

Fits in self-affirmation findings, where self-affirmation helps us 'shore up the self' to take riskier actions

https://www.ipr.northwestern.edu/documents/working-papers/2024/wp-24-25.pdf

Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
mcc wrote:

If the computer is a prosthetic (and it is) then this means we legitimately have to be careful about what software we run, because we are deciding what to make part of our selves, part of our minds

dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

i had to explain that cats are not humans and thus are not subject to data protection. i can't believe this argument worked.