Microsoft reportedly shows full-screen Windows 11 upgrade ads with two 'yes' buttons

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-06-16T15:00:26+00:00

Reddit has outlived it's usefulness and it's time for the Internet to collectively move on. Hopefully management continues to make bad decisions which drive more and more people away until the platform just collapses like Myspace. We need more decentralization online and less censorship anyway.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-08-18T18:00:51+00:00

If governments cared literally at all about the environment, they would make it illegal to sell consumer products by the metric tun that have glued in batteries to stop users from replacing them.

Remember that.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-06-15T13:16:25+00:00

People ask me "why" when I say I don't trust the cloud. This, this is why. And hackers. And governments. And rogue/corrupt employees. And when the company just doesn't feel like supporting or allowing me to use what I paid for anymore.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-12-21T17:10:42+00:00

More dirt cheap/free Linux computers than one could possibly want.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-11-09T02:18:35+00:00

Let's load up a 10 or 12GB scene in Blender and see what happens. This here ain't much different than claiming that a 48 inch TV has as much screen area as a 72 inch TV.

Faster memory with lower latency will not save the day when it is exhausted. And no, thrashing the solid state drive to death with a swap file is not an acceptable solution.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-08-15T19:00:11+00:00

The whole point of Captchas is to punish those of us who refuse to allow Microsoft, Google and Facebook to stalk us while we browse the web. Normies who are signed in with the big three all day are exempt from Captchas, while my Firefox Linux computer gets the full treatment even though I have done nothing wrong. The upcoming web integrity malware will make this problem five times worse for people like me.

Think of it as sort of an analog to DRM; the entire point of DRM is to make sure that you can't keep the shit you buy, while the entire point of Captchas is to punish those of us who refuse to allow big tech the ability to stalk us all day.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-05-21T19:38:53+00:00

By far my favorite Windows 11 story.

https://www.xda-developers.com/microsoft-breaks-windows-11-by-injecting-ads/

It doesn't get any more late-stage capitalist than this.

opens calculator and puts in 2+2.

*Calculator says "please wait while we load the answer, and enjoy a word from our sponsors".

*30 seconds later, it says an error has occurred, "something went wrong", because it couldn't contact the ad network, and refuses to solve the math problem.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-02-03T16:16:32+00:00

It makes sense that Microsoft would start doing stuff like this again; since they did not get in any legal trouble for doing it the last time. Just like that time the American ISPs were caught paying third parties to flood the US government with comments supporting their business agenda. When the authorities see them or catch them in the act and still refuse to legally punish them, then it serves as tacit approval of what they are doing and a license for them to do it even more.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-09-28T00:56:00+00:00

Regarding making these changes "for user safety":

I trust an open source browser extension by a well-known author who has a proven track record of behaving and delivering a quality product about ten thousand times more than I would ever trust scripts from random ads online which tell me how to make my penis five times longer.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-03-01T05:11:55+00:00

Reminds me of the MalwareBox One debut a decade ago, where they wanted to force you to be connected to the Internet at least once a day or else all your games would get disabled.

Unfortunately people get stupider and stupider by the decade, so this sort of business model is getting closer and closer to reality now. More and more people are comfortable with the idea of their stuff refusing to work if they aren't connected to the Internet.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-05-26T21:49:39+00:00

There are actually people out there who don't understand and comprehend the fact that AI routines will inevitably be used by corporations and government to sift through every word you type and the content of every file on your computer. Documents, videos, photos, music, you name it. This will go beyond hash checking, and be more like automated content fingerprinting. "Let us help you by automatically finding all of the photos with your wife in them!"

These algorithms will eventually even run while offline. I mean while offline is still an option at all; because they are using predatory malware tactics to force people to link their computers to an online account whether the user wants this or not, and as soon as they've suckered enough grandmas in, they can prevent offline use entirely by claiming that it is now the only option due to popular demand, and "for security!"

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-01-28T02:49:10+00:00

Not at all interested in joining the Apple ecosystem, and Android phones are like renting in the ghetto. Phones running Android lose all support two months after you buy them, just like how your landlord could not give two shakes of a crap about fixing things until the city sends them a letter threatening to condemn the building.

There are things I willingly spend money on; the smartphone upgrade treadmill is not one of them.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-02-26T23:09:14+00:00

Microsoft is like that creepy uncle who doesn't take "No" for an answer, except, unlike the uncle, everything Microsoft does is sanctioned by the US government.

But just like with the creepy uncle, the best course of action is to stay as far away from them as possible. Far, far far away.

EDIT: Also, if you don't give them what they want, they'll just steal your shit anyway and say it's a bug.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/16/24074712/microsoft-edge-automatic-chrome-import-data-bug-fix

Every other month, their Chrome rip-off gets roasted by journalists for doing stuff behind the scenes that it has no business doing.

https://www.neowin.net/news/edge-sends-images-you-view-online-to-microsoft-here-is-how-to-disable-that/

https://www.tomsguide.com/news/microsoft-edge-is-sending-all-your-visited-pages-to-bing-how-to-turn-it-off

Avoid, avoid, avoid.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-01-30T19:15:01+00:00

The government can't even get Boeing to properly assemble their planes, and THAT comes after the MCAS nightmare and supposed increased scrutiny.

The idea that this same government is going to do anything to punish Microsoft for lax security when it comes to customer-facing services (you don't see Xbox/Pluton being compromised because Microsoft actually cares about the security of these), is... bwahahahaha

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-02-28T00:18:53+00:00

As cool as a neural interface between man and machine may seem at first, I really don't want it to be developed, because I know that when it is, it will be used by governments and corporations to fuck me, my privacy and my civil liberties like never before.

The unfortunate truth is that you can't trust man to use some things responsibly. And I think a neural interface is one of them.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-02-08T18:42:05+00:00

Users still have not figured out that they can not, do not, and will not win when they depend on the cloud and put for-profit corporations in the position where they can arbitrarily wreck your stuff from across the world whenever they feel like it with the press of a button, for whatever reason. This goes for pretty much everything in the digital realm today; games, movies, you name it.

https://www.flatpanelshd.com/news.php?subaction=showfull&id=1657022591

I liked to think that human beings were smarter. But I was wrong. Hell, even animals learn from negative experiences and learn not to trust.

It's almost like people genuinely enjoy being fucked by big companies or something, because they always come back for more.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-02-03T19:10:14+00:00

Not a Windows user myself but if I was, I would expect them to start dialing it up gradually just like they did before; the only difference now, is that Microsoft has more than twice as long (before Windows 10 loses support) to toy with and torment users, by constantly redesigning the opt-out process to "increase conversions".

https://www.techdirt.com/2016/12/28/microsoft-finally-admits-malware-style-windows-10-upgrade-sales-pitch-went-too-far/

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-02-02T00:49:16+00:00

Had to laugh the other day when I saw some mainstream journalists claiming that this sort of thing might have "unintended" consequences for free and open source software. Yeah fucking right, "unattended" my ass.

I'm past the point of believing governments have my best interests at heart; I think that particular facade finally melted away for good when mine was working with Hollywood to sneak malware into the digital TV spec that would have allowed OTA TV stations to arbitrarily stop you from recording them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcast_flag

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-08-18T17:51:52+00:00

Still better than Reddit, where pointing out what is literally in the news everywhere (that vaccinated officials are still getting Covid) gets comments silently censored. Basically Reddit has become too mainstream, and has mutated into a place where nothing that doesn't kiss corporate/big pharma's ass is quietly suppressed.

Also, New Reddit (the design) nuff said. Okay, I'll elaberate. Every time I load a page with new Reddit, it feels like the computer is a fat guy struggling to climb the stairs.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-04-16T14:50:32+00:00

Copilot: The software nobody wants, but everybody will get.

Not me though, I use Debian.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-03-04T23:07:05+00:00

Sorry about the Javascript paywall thing. It comes with the clusterfuck dogshit abortion of enshitification that the Internet is morphing into/has morphed into. Soon, you won't be allowed to read any articles at all online unless you are simultaneously signed in with Google, Facebook, Microsoft and Apple so that they can be assured that you are human, track everything you look at and sell that data to the highest bidder.

Anyway, as far as AI chat bots giving tax advice...

Jurassic Park said it best: They were so obsessed with whether or not they could, that they didn't take the time to stop and think whether or not they should.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-02-16T22:45:45+00:00

Tablets and phones, sure. Consoles, hell no. I would love to see the Xbox fail in the market after what Microsoft tried to pull a decade ago, but even if it does/by the time it does, they will own 70+% of the game industry anyway, making it a moot point.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-02-03T16:58:08+00:00

Did I mention that the biggest reason I stopped buying games, is because I don't want to give some piece of shit on the other side of the world the ability to disable my stuff after taking my money?

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-09-28T16:56:35+00:00

It's getting too expensive and too power hungry, and at that point you might as well just get a mini PC. Remember that $60/$80 is the price before the scalpers have had their way with the market. Pi is a "hot" product (i.e. in high demand), like game consoles, thereby attracting the attention of scalpers, whereas mini-PCs are in abundance.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-09-14T23:59:25+00:00

You know what's funny? On one hand, they are obsessed with forcing the entire PC ecosystem fully into the cloud whether we users want this or not. And on the other hand, each new version of their software requires more and more hardware to even run. The point of relying on a central server somewhere, is that I should be able to get away with using a low-power potato client that can barely do anything more demanding than put information on my screen. Instead, you'll see full fat computers that will refuse to work if the Internet is down or the subscription has not been paid. I guess this is the quality of product that is shat out of the capitalist orifice.

Smart people know that this cloud obsession is not at all about saving the planet or making things cheaper for the user, but instead, grabbing users by the p**** and making us their b****. Considering what they will do with all the user's private information such as documents we work on, our private artistic creations, etc, the monthly fee to use the thing will be the least of our problems. :)

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-08-24T17:14:10+00:00

What will it mean? Pay monthly to have every square millimeter of your privacy violated by Microsoft, and if you're really lucky, the machine will not shut down and refuse to operate at all in the event that the Internet is down for more than 24 hours.

Remember, they already pushed for this ten years ago. https://www.svg.com/101430/everything-microsoft-wrong-xbox-one/

For me, that was the point of no turning back. From my perspective it was sort of like the tech analogous of going on a date with someone who starts acting like a creep and a perve, in that they stupidly revealed their entire agenda and hand of cards, and now I know to stay as far away from them as possible. No amount of saying "I've changed", "I'm sorry", or "I won't do that again" will do one damn bit of good.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-07-10T17:50:56+00:00

If you think the "problem" of users running unsupported versions of Windows is bad now, it's gonna get ten times worse when Windows 10 support ends and a lot of machines can't run Windows 11.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-06-22T00:54:18+00:00

How nice for them. I won't be engaging with that website any longer. Hopefully a substantial chunk of former users feel the same way.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-04-17T21:44:18+00:00

Honestly, this whole not taking "No" for an answer thing when it comes to Microsoft accounts, is even worse than conventional spam advertising for video games or other crap. It is like a butt-ugly person who smells like dog shit continuing to stalk me and repeatedly asking me for a date when I've already told them five times that I'm not interested in hitching up with them because I have higher standards.

In real life I would get the cops involved, but in cyberspace, the government regulators turn a blind eye to what these companies are doing because they get the goods on everyone for free. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/21/us/politics/edward-snowden-at-nsa-sexually-explicit-photos-often-shared.html

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-03-14T15:31:04+00:00

Like so many things on the Internet today, it is probably about funneling more of your data to Facebook and Google than building a better product or running a better service.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/11/23635518/cerebral-patient-data-meta-tiktok-google-pixel

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-03-01T14:31:45+00:00

I had the idea for a funny t-shirt design. There would be a drawing of a needle on it, and it would say "More boosters than a heroin junky, and I still got Covid 19!"

What's funny about said shirt design is that two years ago, people would have probably ripped me a new one for wearing something like that, but now, they have no choice to admit that it's true. Actually I'm pretty much the only person I know at this point that hasn't caught Covid 19. I think I got 3 or 4 of the injections before I saw literally everyone around me still catching the virus anyway; even the good little soldiers who were on their fifth booster, and so I simply decided I don't want anymore, especially after reading about the possible, but rare side effects.

Also the analogy with drugs seems appropriate, because, while not having used drugs personally before, I now totally understand what peer pressure feels like. You know, that stereotypical commercial on TV or the radio describing peer pressure, where one guy is at a party and refuses to take them. It's relatable to the relentless and aggressive pushing of boosters. I'm still amazed that people didn't turn on me when I said I don't want anymore Covid 19 boosters because everyone I know who was fully vaccinated was getting sick anyway and I read about the risks; I was fully expecting them to turn on me after all of the programming.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-02-22T16:35:00+00:00

Software exists for three reasons.

Serve the user.
Work reliably.
Leave me alone.

You know, kind of like a microwave, a bed, a table or refrigerator. In the year 2000, we at least had two out of those three; software left me alone and obeyed me. (The less said about the reliability, the better.)

But now, software is failing literally on all three counts.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-01-14T15:09:44+00:00

Over the past ten years, but especially the last 5, online services and websites have become WAY more user-hostile, going so far as to force you to sign up and log in merely to browse, search, or read content.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-12-29T17:31:40+00:00

Always heart-warming to see more people deciding they've had enough of the modern trend where companies get to arbitrarily revoke access to stuff which was paid for, after taking the customer's money. It's why I quit buying video games, full stop. All of them want to shove some online service up my ass just to play single player now, sometimes five of them!

Honestly I'm amazed how the public has allowed it to get to the point where someone else on the other side of the planet can disable/break your stuff any time they want.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-11-23T14:11:48+00:00

If this is true, it doesn't bode well for people who already have these things; because Amazon will have to pursue a more aggressive/profit focused business strategy.

If you want to see a current-day example of what I'm talking about, look at the current state of the Windows platform or cable TV or video games or well, anything controlled by a huge corporation. Ads everywhere, your machine doing stuff behind your back that you don't approve of like fetching and installing third party apps by itself, etc etc.

I've got an idea, extra monthly subscription fees to do things like set timers, reminders, etc etc.

Those questions aren't monetizable.

You underestimate corporate America and the power of psychology and marketing.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-11-12T19:42:37+00:00

I'd be surprised if Apple is still providing security updates for a machine that old. If they are now, then they probably won't be for long.

However since it has Radeon graphics it should run Linux like a champ. Nvidia works with Linux too, but the problem is that Nvidia drops support for their older chips after a wile, making them incompatible with modern kernels. You wouldn't have that problem with Radeon because support for that GPU is built into the kernel itself.

So if you are at all experienced with or interested in Linux, I would say yes, if you aren't, I would say no.

Also make sure the memory is not soldered and is user upgradeable.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-10-17T18:11:50+00:00

Ain't it funny how these companies do not use flawed/faulty encryption when it comes to protecting their stuff (like Xbox games), but when it comes to protecting consumer data, security is an afterthought, at most?

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-10-11T20:32:05+00:00

(South Park voice) "I haven't seen a precipitous drop in PC sales like that since Windows 8!"

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-09-01T14:45:55+00:00

Yeah I was trying to explain to my friend, who thinks this is a great idea, how it will cause the power grid to collapse. The problem is that California has spent decades engineering an energy and water shortage to raise prices and make poor people suffer more (remember rolling blackouts 20 years ago?), especially during summer time, and when you introduce lots of EVs, which will draw crazy amounts of amps into the equation, the results speak for themselves.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-08-25T14:21:30+00:00

For years I've wondered if a fluorescent tube would be lit by radiation, without any wires, e.g. just by being next to a lot of nuclear waste. The principle is the same as Radium, the only difference is that the radiation would have to be intense enough to pass through the glass of the bulb.

EDIT: Also I find it funny that they are worried about how to warn people about this stuff thousands of years from now, when governments spent fifty years dumping barrels of radioactive shit into the ocean from the 1940s through the 1990s. And no, they knew better than to do this, even back then. It's like they did not care about my generation or the next two or three, while now we're suddenly concerned about hundreds of generations in the future.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-05-22T18:11:02+00:00

There are two types of fines. Trivial ones, and big ones. First is the type that a company just pays with a smile because they made twice as much money doing the misdeeds that they're being fined for in the first place. An example of that is here. https://apnews.com/article/settlement-fake-public-comments-net-neutrality-ae1f69a1f5415d9f77a41f07c3f6c358

And then there are the huge fines; companies typically just weasel out of those.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-05-16T13:38:03+00:00

"Serious questions about privacy and security"

It's the cloud. Privacy literally does not exist.

PS: Malware is not the only thing they are looking for. They will also be looking for hashes of anything the government and private cartels such as the movie industry do not approve of.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-03-29T20:15:02+00:00

The alternative to the tower PC is restrictive and locked down consumer garbage;

game consoles: check

smartphones: check

So no, I won't be dumping my tower PCs any time soon.

But what might happen though, is that tower PCs become like the Unix workstations of the 1990s; extremely expensive and only used by professionals and a select few. Microsoft and Google, not to mention the entire content/game/entertainment industry, would absolutely love this. "Use the cloud, subscribe, use the cloud, and subscribe some more!"

You cannot charge people rent when they have terabytes of storage and products that fully function offline, which is what tower systems are all about, and the entire industry is against.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-10-19T03:48:18+00:00

As ineffective as these seem to be at actually preventing people from getting sick or spreading the virus (am I allowed to point that out here?), the marketing of them is totally fucking nuts. It's like nothing I have seen before.

They have programmed people so well, that I am either a pincushion or an anti-vaxer. It's literally binary. For example if I've had four injections already, and nearly everyone I know who has also had the boosters, has already gotten sick, so I really don't want anymore, I'm now an anti-vaxer.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-09-27T18:07:42+00:00

Windows will never die. Microsoft could literally put unskippable, unstoppable commercials (with audio) for Pepsi and video games on desktops of the masses tomorrow, and users still would not switch away from that relationship. Eventually Microsoft will, too. If you want to see what the Windows desktop will look like in ten years, look at Xbox now.

~ Posted by a Linux user.

Myocarditis-Man · 2022-08-18T20:25:20+00:00

Yes it definitely feels like some people (a group whose products start with a G) are doing their very best to tear apart and ruin any semblance of a cohesive desktop experience on Linux. Basically they have an enlightened vision for how everything should behave, and they don't care about anyone or anything else. Sometimes it feels as though they go the opposite way from the rest of the community and remove options to revert things to the way we want them to be, purely out of spite and contempt. This is especially a problem because they control not only their own desktop environment, but e.g. the open/save dialogs of other applications as well.

I think that if I wasn't as skilled and stubborn as I am, I would have given up a wile ago. I also believe that the more mainstream Linux becomes, the worse the problem will get.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-04-23T06:51:48+00:00

We Californians like our taxes ludicrous, our parks overflowing with homeless encampments (tents and all), and our energy bills obscene.

It makes you wonder where all the damn money is actually going. Not towards improving shit, that's for sure.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-02-13T22:31:44+00:00

The most entrenched players in the market get exempt from the new rules that were supposedly designed to ensure a level playing field for smaller ones. Government "regulation" in action.

Almost as spineless as the US; at least the US does not even pretend to care at all about reining in tech companies.

Small company: "We can't effectively compete because monopolists are using their monopolies in one market to drive out competition in other markets!"

US Government: "We know. Here's a quarter, phone someone who cares."

EU: "We know, we have new legislation in the works to fix this mess... now excuse us while we render it completely meaningless, by not applying it to literally the biggest companies in the world."

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-02-04T03:37:31+00:00

Before enshitification and late-stage capitalism, games like Duke Nukem 3D came with programs to extract the game files and create custom maps and mods, right on the official CD! When you would quit the game, it would even inform you of this.

EDIT: Also, consolidation and acquisitions in the games industry will hasten the arrival of mandatory subscriptions for games... once the big players like Microsoft can make it into a "take it or leave it" affair, as is the case with so much in the tech sector today.

Myocarditis-Man · 2024-01-31T13:56:34+00:00

So apparently today, programs running on consumer PC garbage have to take steps to protect themselves from their data being stolen by other supposed legitimate programs also running on the same system, that the user doesn't even want being installed or ran in the first place.

Maybe each program can encrypt it's own files or something to stop competitors from pilfering the user's data. Or society can collectively switch to an operating system that isn't literally malware.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-12-15T23:14:21+00:00

They really are driving away the techies with behavior like this. It's so heart-warming and satisfying to see the negative sentiments towards them going mainstream. All Microsoft will have left, are the grandmas who don't know how to defend themselves from sleazy business practices, thereby ensuring that Edge becomes the new IE, where only people who don't know any better are using it. But grandmas would rather use their Iphones or Ipads to go online than a dog shit Windows PC.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-10-24T20:22:19+00:00

Since they don't have a textbox to answer the question, because they have nothing but contempt for their customers and are not actually interested in what we think; only browbeating us into submitting to their agenda, I figure we can list our reasons here.

I don't respond well to bullying or coersion. When you forced your software onto my computer without my permission even though I already have another browser that I am happy with, you already crossed that line.
Computers exist to shut up, respect my personal space, leave me alone and do as I say. Your software fails at all of these.
I trust you less than the other guy, if that's even possible.

I would actually be all for them giving users a survey, only if they allow users to respond in a text-box, and disclaim that responses will be publicly posted, if only to see what answers other users would come up with. Think of it as sort-of an anti-marketing campaign. You can even screen out all the vulgarity and profanity, I'm pretty sure it would still be a very entertaining read.

Myocarditis-Man · 2023-10-19T00:11:57+00:00

"If you won't use our shitty browser that is just a rip-off of our competitor's, at least let us steal your data!"

And since they opt you in to syncing your activity to the cloud by default, you better believe that's where it's going, and that's why they're allegedly doing this in the first place. Frankly I don't understand why this crap is not criminal. Oh wait, US justice is the cheapest hooker that money can buy, that's why.

Myocarditis-Man