AI as far as big tech is concerned is simply a way to “fix” search engines so that they don’t do the awful crime of fundamentally segregating ads from search results.

it is literally the whole damn point of shoving AI down everybodies throat…

Is there anything left to microsoft that makes sense at this point? Maybe the physical doors to the microsoft offices still function… after you watch an ad?

Thanks for making me throw up in my mouth

I like evil/spacemacs because I can get my vim fix virtually, because emacs from a software engineering perspective is beautiful!

Damn I needed some good news bad, that is fantastic!

bites lip, damn Switzerland…. that is hot as fuck

I don’t think you’re talking about the Outlook I am talking about because I’m talking about the Outlook Mail and Calendar apps, not the Office ones. And that’s fine and dandy about proprietary software and all but frankly I haven’t really seen any non-proprietary mail apps that look aesthetically pleasing. But that’s besides the point, it’s a matter of personal preference when it comes to visuals after all.

… I am not just talking about little details and preferences here? Windows products are increasingly broken and dysfunctional at every level. Features don’t work, features are randomly changed and broken, nothing is consistent, core features of the computer are made opaque, any given Linux package manager is about 1000000 times more trustable than the ad ridden, sketchy, bloatware filled Windows store where you have to hunt for actually useful and trustable tools. One of my old bosses had his work windows computer update to a new windows OS without really asking him (technically it did, but then it just kept scheduling an OS upgrade until he missed it). It didn’t break his computer, but he had thousands and thousands of hours of cad drafting work on that computer and Windows could have EASILY fucked up in the update process, or the old software we were using could have EASILY not been compatible. Windows basically flipped a coin for whether they were going to utterly grind my bosses business to a halt and cause utter panic or just have the computer update. This is not “user friendly” software design, this is not “easy to use software made by an extremely competent software company”.

I’d also like to add, nowhere did I ever mention using laptops. All my experiences are with desktops that I had a hand in building from scratch. So I’m not sure what you’re even getting at with those assumptions.

…because for 99% of people who are going to be using a computer for light email, research and text editing work they are going to be using a laptop? I don’t really understand what about my argument doesn’t apply to windows prebuilts that have good driver support for linux…?

It’s somewhat concerning that you have such a strong obsession over the topic that you would go and whether intentionally or unintentionally offend people and I hope that you are a much more pleasant person to converse with outside of this topic or even this site.

I think it is completely reasonable to be upset when someone is condescendingly foreclosing the possibility that something can happen when the evidence they are using for it is outdated and they refuse to update it in their heads. The only response at that point when someone refuses to re-evaluate their position and continues to “speak for the group” when they really don’t represent the group anymore is to make it even clearer that they don’t speak for a group, and I am sorry if my method offended here, I believe your heart is in the right place but please stop trying to tell us about how stupid and unwilling people are to learn new things. Please please please just keep your mouth closed, it doesn’t help anyone, period. Even if you were right, there would be nothing to change in our actions as it would just be hopeless to even try?

This isn’t 2015, a good Linux distribution is as polished, easy to use, and easy to explain to a newbie computer user as Windows is. If you aren’t ready to accept that shrugs I mean fine but don’t push your outmoded narrative into conversations that might actually convince someone who doesn’t know about Linux that it isn’t worth checking out as a serious alternative. You are actively doing damage to the future of this software movement by dismissing it offhand like this.

Outlook is atrocious what on earth are you talking about? Just trying to use it at work it is so frustrating and the UI is horrendous for everything. Truly even basic things like trying to read when a meeting actually starts just from looking at the calendar is a headache, and because all of this is proprietary unlike with Linux, tough luck, that is how things are and you can’t do shit to change it. Neither can an experienced computer user trying to help you.

I am sorry you really don’t have an accurate handle on the state of things anymore, I think you are stuck in your ways and stressed out by life and you don’t realize that emotion and lack of mental plasticity is leading to you assume everyone else is as stuck in their ways as you (including your future self when you are able to feel less overworked and stressed).

Windows is atrocious at this point, search doesn’t work and purposefully confuses new computer users about where is being searched and what is being searched. Ads pop up everywhere in the UI and will continue to spread like a terminal cancer in the UI.

Search on windows also just sucks and takes ages with the default settings (an inexperienced computer user will be using).

The file manager on windows in most marquee windows programs like word, excel etc… all open up an entirely different file manager half way through the process of saving a file in perhaps the most insane UI pattern to keep from the mess that was Windows 8 (even though I actually really liked the core idea at first).

Windows is buggy AND windows is constantly playing head games with its user by trying to force them to use the edge browser. It is very very confusing to a new computer user what the hell is even going on.

I mean, Windows illegally changed the entire operating system countless people had without getting consent because it would look good for their numbers.

Seriously you are WAYYY out of your league if you are going to claim a nice Linux distribution on good hardware with good driver support (such as some dells or thinkpads) is categorically wayyy worse than trying to use a windows laptop in 2024….

…please get your head out of the sand :)

I mean do you want to get into the massive security vulnerability at a tactical and strategic level that Microsoft’s co-pilot represents? This is endgame for business security, Windows is in a worse spot than it has been in probably a decade at least and they deserve it. IT people and corporations have to seriously wonder if Windows even cares about following the law, which makes trusting Windows for the software relied upon by their company a complex question indeed……

It used to be that Linux was better ideologically because it gave you agency over your computer, but now things have gotten so much worse that the reason is practical and no longer ideological.

Bringing it back to the whole thing about Linux, can you imagine how frustrating it would be to have to help debug a user’s Linux installation when they already need help with installing a browser add on? I work with tech and Linux on a daily basis and I already find it frustrating doing it for myself (fuck Nvidia drivers). No way am I gonna recommend it to someone else.

Are you honestly going to still claim at this late date of 2024 that a decent popular linux distro is actually going to be MORE of a headache than Windows?

…?

Have you tried Windows recently?

Can y’all IT people please stop with the condescending “you don’t know how stupid people are about computers”, it seems like there is always one of you showing up in a comment thread to tell us that we can’t have the future literally all of us want including you all as well… because WE are too stupid and lazy about computers.

I helped a grown ass human who was my age at 40yo how to install a Firefox extension.

Were you as condescending to them in person as you are being in referencing them right now? Why is not knowing how to install a Firefox extension some indicator of foreclosure on the possibility of that person becoming computer literate along whatever metrics you define? There are plenty of smart people out there who can learn how to use a computer for very complex tasks who have just simply never learned about extensions for Firefox. This is a very feasible and normal reality.

Do you know how to change the oil on your car yourself? Do simple plumbing jobs? Could you run a classroom of middle schoolers and keep them all focused while keeping your eye on the shy sad kid in the back who tends to disappear if you don’t engage them? What about basic healthcare changes or cooking? What about outdoor work or basic small engine maintenance? Do you even know shit about the most basic species of trees in your backyard? Do you know the species of songbirds you often hear outside your window? Do you even pay attention to that? Do you know how to drive a dirt bike extremely fast on a rough dirt road? Do you know how to adjust for the violent explosive power of turbo lag in a car with a turbocharger so that torque oversteer doesn’t launch you off the road? Do you know how to sew and repair basic garments? To weave? Can you even fish? Like could you literally even just catch a fish to save your life right now if I handed you a fishing rod unassembled with no instructions?

My point is, don’t go looking for confirmation of how stupid or lazy people are or how limited their capacity is to evolve and grow by casting the shapes of their ignorance onto the floor and trying to read some magic language from that.

Maybe they don’t know because they are hopelesssly stupid, but maybe not? If they are intelligent and they don’t know computers then those are the perfect people to teach linux. Then it is their first language instead of windows, many linux distro are perfectly fine for this at this point.

See here is the bottom line, legions of IT people show up online always arguing they think they know that the average person is too dumb, lazy and uninterested in computers for Linux adoption to seriously take off in the personal computer market and challenge Microsoft, but y’all don’t know shit about humans. You are experts in computers who think that makes you experts in human potential.

Go take some theater classes (or get an degree in education) and get educated before you start drawing conclusions about people when you really haven’t spent time closely studying how people engage with their potential and what situations facilitate that in basic human interaction and framing of conversations (both literal and abstract).

I’m sorry if I snapped at you but I think it is existentially important to recognize here that we don’t know what people are capable of, you can’t know the essential capacity of people to change, don’t try to predict it. Focus on creating the material opportunity for change and the rest may follow depending on what people desire, no matter to us, we desire to create that positive opportunity for change because it is the right thing to do, not because we like the future growth charts of the things we believe are important and vital.

I get sooooo much schadenfreude from programmers smugly acting like their jobs aren’t going to be obliterated by AI… because the AI won’t be able to do the job correctly, as if that matters in this late stage of collapse and end state capitalism.

Y’all (programmers and tech people) cheered this on and facilitated the ruling class destroying countless decent, good careers and now it is everybody else’s turn to laugh at programmers as they go from having one of the few non-dysfunctional careers left to being worthless chatgpt prompt monkeys that can never convince management they are valuable and not just a subpar, expensive alternative to “AI”.

This is going to be awful, but that doesn’t mean I can’t find the silver linings!

Maybe if programming wasn’t full of overconfident naive libertarian adjacent people y’all could have stopped this by unionizing but again… just check hacker news and all the boot licking for the ruling class there to see why that didn’t happen lol.

Not only are you a fool, you spit in the face of people trying to begin careers in your field because you are so naively confident that this massive change in the labor market conditions of your industry won’t affect you or other graphic designers negatively.

Please retire, change careers or at least keep your mouth shut and actually listen to less experienced people in your industry. Stop acting like a boomer, it is just embarrassing yourself and publicly committing your online identity to words that will age so terribly it will make your future self’s head spin.

Almost, the likeliest answer is that CEOs and the ruling class have no fucking clue whether AI can be good enough to replace graphic designers but they also know that this was never the point, AI is a weapon of class warfare, and a nuclear one at that.

Even if the entire industry crashes and decides it does actually have to hire lots of human artists back, those artists will be hired as alternatives to cheap AI and graphic design will have permanently been dissected and destroyed as a decent career for hardworking people who may or may not be the most talented people in the world.

If you (as in anybody reading this not who I am responding too) think this isn’t happening you need to shut your mouth trap and go read a book about the Industrial Revolution not written by an apologist for the ruling class.

Your attitude says more about you than your supposed knowledge does, if you think AI won’t have a catastrophic impact on the value of your work, of the artistry of what you do in relationship to being valued by society, you are an utter fool.

What they are trying to point out is that as self confident as you portray yourself in your skills, at one point you sucked and you got hired anyway.

The new reality is you never would have been able to get into this industry because nobody would have given you a chance.

Please refrain from low effort derisive responses like this when people are having an adult conversation you don’t like, it is childish and makes you look like a fool.

IMO you should’ve led with the question, then provided context. The context was too long to read to get to the actual question.

Hey, thanks for the response and honestly that is a great point. I can’t be upset at people for wanting a sentence to end in a reasonable amount of time lol.

Supporting other languages in the dev community is hard though. In my mind it kinda creates a split in the community, so one would need members that speak both languages well and glue the communities together.

I think this is a bulk of the hard work that most people in a similar position to me can do (though I only know english and a littttle bit of spanish, but I am referencing my perspective not my life skills). It is hard work, it takes constant people skills and people management. However, I also think the product of that work will undoubtedly have a force multiplication effect on the future growth of the fediverse to more diverse contexts, communities and languages.

As a thought experiment, lets dial this line of thought all the way up to 11. The fediverse would be perfect for hosting say a mastodon instance where all the communication is in a particular endangered language. The community could begin as a place to use an endangered language in conversation, and thus a great place to read and learn the language as well. It could also be a hub for information about classes and events related to the language as well. I believe there is already an Esperanto lemmy community on the fediverse, which is something along vaguely similar lines. Think about it, if somebody with the knowledge, time and skill to set up a lemmy or mastodon instance contacted a teacher conducting classes for an endangered language and offered to set up a community on their lemmy/mastodon server (or help set one up with the intention of handing over control eventually to people in that language community) wouldn’t the result be in many ways simpler from that language teachers perspective than trying to hack something together with commercial software? I think along many metrics it would.

Sure, a companies product for that would be slicker but what about custom character support for languages, what about autocorrect for that language built into the lemmy/mastodon server, what about specific features that are critical to the nature of the language, what about moderation policies that take into account the current and historical experience of the people who kept the language alive? Is a massive corporation run by a bunch of astronomically naive techbros mostly from california really going to care about meaningfully prioritizing implementing features for niche communities like this? …maybe sometimes??

I am disappointed people immediately attacked the details of my question, and focused mostly on the difficulties of constructing any kind of answer that meaningfully predicts the future of an incredibly complex intersection of variables… instead of taking my invitation to think broadly about the future of the fediverse and what the biggest, more direct actions that we can all take to help it grow and become more diverse.

In terms of internet infrastructure, I think the biggest opportunities here are local grassroots municipal/community government spearheaded build outs of high speed internet that completely bypass the concept of the western business and foreign aid structure that involves pulling in some for profit or “”“non-profit”“”" company with a complex set of incentives that mostly don’t align with the communities they are ostensibly there to help build infrastructure for.

I suspect how effective or ineffective globally this method of funding internet infrastructure development is will have a major impact on the long term future of the fediverse as a whole… since it isn’t within the borders of colonial powers where the inherent freedoms to the internet will be defended. It will ultimately be the “periphery” states and states far beyond the borders of colonial powers that shore up safe heavens for internet communities. Seeing where the US is going, I can only hope that my country will not block my access to those communities down the road…

Anyway, while I do support the thought behind asking the question, IMO the only ways to expand the fediverse into ex-colonies are:

making the fediverse so popular that it’s “so hot right now” and the trend swaps over
paying a trusted party to set up a server there and pay for everything (including bribes) to have a stable connection, then tell as many locals as possible
going there, doing it yourself, teaching about it, and handing over the reigns to somebody there with the same vision and passion

That’s of course if the circumstances are right for people there to even want it. Many foreigners have “gone down there” to “show 'em how it’s done” without understanding zilch about their culture, needs, wants, and modus operandi. Only to leave a “white elephant” behind.

There is no set of “only” that can be defined here. There are a million ways to contribute to a momentum in a positive direction here. The biggest is probably contributing labor for translation of documentation into languages that nobody has bothered to translate for yet right? Another is making sure the development community isn’t an opaque discord clique where asking naive questions gets you immediately harassed for not using discord’s awful search function and that somebody from a very different life experience, culture and language can hack together what your documentation means even if they can’t speak your language.

I think there are as many solutions to this power imbalance as there are dimensions of the power imbalance.