BananaTrifleViolin @ BananaTrifleViolin @kbin.social

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2 yr. ago

Its usefulness as a laptop replacement may be limited. Remember it's a locked down read-only version of Linux. The steam deck uses an a/b model to update. Basically there are two separate versions of the OS on the machine - when it updates it replaces one copy and makes that the default, and uses the other as the backup. Next system update it replaces the other copy and switches to that. It switches back and forth that way, putting a stock image on with each update. So you'd probably want to go down the route of running your own OS on it.

Without that it does limit a little in how useful it is as a laptop like device. It depends what you want to do on it of course, and your Flatpak apps and personal files will stay but any other customisation you do to the device will get wiped each time it does a major update. That would include any installed software outside the Flatpak route if you unlock Pacman.

It seems like a capable machine though. I have mine hooked up to my TV at 4K when at home. I use it to stream 4K game content from my desktop to my living room, but I've also played with the desktop mode in 4k and it's been good. It renders 4k video well, and we know it's capable of playing video games at 720p directly which is still generally intensive.

I can't see why it wouldn't be able to do basic graphics work, but no idea about more intensive work like 3D modelling and video encoding.

Personally I'd get a dedicated device for work but if you can't afford that or you dont want to carry more than one device around then I guess it's worth a try?

Just remember if you do use it for work that also entails setting it up to back up your personal data. Your game data is largely backed up by Steam but if you put your work stuff on there then you'll need to be protecting yourself in case of damage or theft.

Maybe he has dementia. We're just so used to him talking shit that he's getting away with it.

I wonder if that's why he's avoiding the debates?

So the other 55% of the time it's a Lemmy user? I.e. the majority of the time!? There is so much irony in your post.

That doesn't make sense? How would you have the "add from search bar" feature in the settings screen?

It's a context specific method of adding a search engine - you add it when you're at the site. Meanwhile the setting screen is global for the browser.

I am confused by this post, there are 4 ways to add search engines to Firefox:

1. From the settings page via "add search engine" button, to pick on from the Firefox add-ons site. This is the "main" route for most users as it ensures you're adding links from a trusted source (so you won't add a fake version of a popular search engine by accident that scrapes your data).
2. Via the address bar. Any website that supports OpenSearch can be added by right clicking the address bar and selecting "add search engine name".
3. Via the Mycroft project website, where almost any search engine in the directory can be added to Firefox.
4. Via bookmarks and keywords. This is slightly more involved but almost any engine can be added this way.

Android Firefox offers slightly different routes but again any search engine can be added. It is a bit more involved though.

Firefox includes certain search engines by default as it gets revenue from the search engine providers for doing so, and Mozilla is transparent about this. Although Mozilla is independent, the Google search engine deal remains one of its biggest sources of income. That's how it survives.

The default add-ons site meanwhile is a compromise between security and convenience for the majority of users, but people are not locked in to it and other search providers are not locked out of it.

The Mullvad browser is modified Firefox btw, as is the Tor Browser it is itself based off. I don't know how much either contribute to the Mozilla foundation. Tor is an open source project but Mullvad is a commercial enterprise.

Nah, we won't make it to a Type 1 civilization. We've found the great filter and it's US politics

Yeah I found the article a bizarre read. It talks about ActovityPub and Mastodon but fails to mention the fediverse at all. Instead it talks about the "pluriverse", some random new term pulled from some paper, and paints a vision of people spread across various commercial social media platforms.

Either it's a blind spot In their research or an agenda so deliberate omission, but regardless it seems strange to talk about the disintegration of social media and even Mastodon but not what Mastodon is a part of.

But I agree the general themes are there - it's basically talking about the impact of enshittification but without using the term.

Sounds like the journalist didn't understand the memo.

The key messages that I'm seeing flagged up are that they did find a method which basically involves former trump supporters giving their reasons for disavowing him, and that trumps share of the vote dropped 4 points where they ran ads versus a 5 point growth where they did not. That's a 9 point swing against trump by running ads - that sounds pretty effective.

That they found things that don't work are also positives as it means they've refining their method. We remain early in the primary process nota single vote has been cast yet and there are still 3 months until the the first vote.

The problem is a 9 ppoitn swing against a candidate doesn't mean much when there isn't a viable alternative for that to benefit. What they really need is a candidate to coalesce republican opposition behind. At the moment none of the candidates seem up to it.

The real "problem" is how you make it work without a monopoly system like Google's or Apple's or Steam or Microsoft. They have to varying extents made monopolies where app makers want to list in their store, and accept they take 30% of the revenue because they are the sole gatekeeper to a large number of users. That model doesn't work in Linux because you can't create a monopoly to force someone to use your store.

Microsoft keeps trying in Windows via sheer scale but UWA's are not a monopoly so people currently largely bypass it. Microsoft even now lets App makers keep every penny of money generated "in-app" (except for games) as it's desperate to try and grow. Canonical has tried it with Linux and has also failed because ultimately it isn't a monopoly and it's method of Debs as the article said didn't really work. Steam works cross platform because of sheer size and it's managed to make a convenient cross platform library which gradually locks users in to an extent, and also forces publishers to list it's game there. It's very difficult to get to that kind of scale to be compelling.

For an "App store" to work in Linux under the currently "accepted" business model, you'd need to find some way of making it a monopoly or compelling somehow so that users will buy in and the 30% price tag to App makers becomes impossible to ignore due to the scale. I can't see that happening. Google did it with Android by forking Linux and making it an entirely walled garden it controlled; the free route into that garden is there but is very marginal and you have to bypass security measures to get to it.

The only way I can see it working in a limited fashion in Linux is if someone makes an "at cost" model where the share of revenue taken by the app store is purely to maintain the store (including the payment system, any "drm" that might be needed etc). That sounds like the Flathub route. But I can't see it growing rapidly or being compelling for App makers to take a risk on - it'll probably take a long time to gradually grow and prove itself as a reliable way of monetising apps.

Whether or not we need monetised Apps in linux is a whole other question. For me personally, aside from Games, all the software I use on Windows and Linux is free OR a subscription service (such as Office paid for by work, or my Email, Password manager and Backup software which I pay for). On my phone, the only software I've ever bought has been low level - like a music player or a theme app; and that has been an engineered demand because Google has a monopoly, which largely keeps out the opensource community allowing app makers to step in. I bypass that now with F-droid. I accept I'm part of the exception in Android, but most users have that expectation in Linux and Windows.

I don't see a substantial "app store" type eco-system growing in those environments. If someone is willing to give it away for free as FOSS, then it leaves little room for App makers for low level software. The only route to make money is then the "premium" or value added models, and a lot of that is going subscription model - software as a service. App stores are largely the result of closed eco-systems; in an open eco-system like Linux and even Windows it just doesn't make much sense.

If I was laid off by a company I wouldn't go back unless I had no other choice. If a company didn't see your value previously and now it supposedly does, what is to say it will not change again in the future and fire you again? A lot of companies do a last-in first-out approach and are cyclical about hiring and firing to please shareholders. That's where these tech companies are at now.

Also who wants the potential of a CV where you were laid off twice by the same company? It'd be like them taking your CV and wiping their arse with it before handing to back to you as security escorts you out of the building.

Don't go backwards, keep moving forward.

This is the problem with believing too much in models. A model can show you anything you want - it's output is only as good as the parameters and algorithms you set it.

Modelling the climate in the next 50-100 years is already extremely difficult and fraught with inaccuracies but we have lots of models and data to extrapolate from, so we do have a crude idea where we're going. But we can't model next years weather with accuracy, just the base trend. Crucially important warning for climate change but limited otherwise.

Modelling out to 250 million years is basically a crock of shit. The tectonic movements are predictable and gross predictions that a pangea arrangement might be warmer may have some validity but modelling the climate and evolution and status of mammals is pure conjecture.

Good thing about modelling that far is you will never have see you model's accuracy being tested. Publish a paper, play into current fears around climate change with an irrelevant prediction about 250million years away, get an article published in the New York times and egos massaged all round.

In the US it'd be attacked as un-American and as part of the "culture wars" the US right wing seem to imagine. The government would be attacked for taking away "freedom units".

Electoral reform with proportional representation would be better priority so government can reflect the majority, and not the noisy fringes.

Even a broken clock is right twice a day.

I certainly don't think Michelle Obama will be the nominee, but I think Biden is looking increasingly like a very poor choice for the Dem nomination.

I say that as a centre left British person wondering what the dems are thinking.

Absolutely. Not being allowed to stand for office does not conflict or restrict his freedom of speech rights.

It's like a non us citizen saying the "natural born citizen" clause in the constitution conflicts with their right to free speech.

What OS and device are you running on?

What extensions do you have running?

This is unlikely to be a simple Firefox problem. Try running Firefox in Safe mode and see if you have problems then (go into the main menu and then help to find the option to run without add-ons).

If the videos play well then it's your extensions. If the videos do it play well then it's drivers or the set up of your device.

I've only had problems with Firefox playing videos on a Raspberry Pi in the past due to a bug with drivers for video acceleration not working proberly. I had the problem with Pi OS but not a full Linux distro on the same device.

I watch twitch at 1080p and YouTube at 4K with Firefox on Windows and Linux (same PC) without issue.

It's disturbing that there isn't a good process for removing judges at the end of their career. Being "nudged towards retirement" by family after you are beyond your ability to perform the job is appalling. It's the arrogance of presiding over other people's lives through legal cases until you decide you don't want to anymore rather than whether you should that's so bad. What about all the citizens getting suboptimal legal judgements?

To be fair I think Polygon have misunderstood the email.

Calling it "second run Stadia PC RPG" implies Microsoft thought it was going to launch as a Stadia exclusive for it's first run. This was back in 2020 when Stadia was still a thing, and trying to sign up exclusives.

That doesn't mean Microsoft underestimated it, but that it thought it'd already have had a run on Stadia which would make it less likely to be an important title for Microsoft.

That's an interesting take on FOSS - that's it's a free buggier alternative to "mainstream" software?

Linux is ubiquitous across many devices (you won't even know you're using it) and servers yet it's all based on FOSS. There isn't an alternative for many of those usage cases.

Browsers like Firefox are FOSS. The alternative is not less buggy, but it is less private and sells you to advertisers. But even propriety software like Chrome is based off an open FOSS codebase from Chromium.

Other software has no better alternatives. Look at VLC (for video), OBS (for streaming and video capture), Calibre (for eBook library management). There are arguably all the best in their class and they all FOSS, and that is just scratching the surface.

Tools like WINE are FOSS only but they are revolutionising gaming having been repurposed into the Steam decknfor example.

Eveb the software that might be characterised as "alternatives" to thebincumbant proprietary software servers a major purpose. GIMP (alternative to Photoshop) and Libre Office (alternative to MS office) are free but also now increasingly important do not require any online subscriptions and data sharing with big corporation. For many people that's hugely important - why pay money and subscriptions for things you can get for free at high quality?

FOSS is a huge ecosystem of software, all of it free to use, change and share.

I think we can be reasonably accurate on how many people are using Lemmy/Kbin, but not on how many people are not using Reddit. Even how many people are actually using Reddit is less accurate as the data is locked away and estimated from other metrics.

If Reddit is going to IPO then accurate usage stats is the last thing it once, like any company it'll go for the most flattering numbers it can generate and push thatball the way.