PassingThrough @ PassingThrough @lemmy.world

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1 yr. ago

I wouldn’t say it’s only Critical, LTSC still gets average security fixes. They don’t get Feature updates, but they still get Security updates, is how it’s normally put. And it’s not as bad as it sounds. Even as a gamer stability is a good thing, and there are plenty of third party softwares for any desirable “features” that get delayed or skipped. If LTSC gets any fewer security updates it’s because it has less built in crap to need updating.

I’ve never needed funny graphics in my taskbar search bar or Bing in my start menu or the Edge bar or whatever it was that now clutters my friend’s task bars as of the last Feature update. But I still get my security fixes and Defender definitions every Patch Tuesday.

But the trick is getting a copy, true.

I won't claim to know for sure, but I'll place my bet on it still being about motivated by profit and growth. Supposedly Windows 10 was supposed to be the last Windows ever, and move to an eternal patching process, but I guess that didn't stick. So obviously just keeping you on Windows isn't enough, they found a need to create a refresh.

I did notice that refresh has new hardware requirements, like TPM modules and such. Deals with the OEMs to get people to buy/build new PCs?

There's talk of advertisements and sponsored links in the very Start Menu, so partnerships with advertisers to get closer to your daily activities?

I won't say I know for sure, because I only use Windows for video games. So, I too will be running Windows 10 until the games don't work anymore. Might I recommend, if you can get a copy, Windows 10 LTSC? It is a bared bones version of Windows made (by Microsoft) for enterprises and governments who would never buy into consumer features like advertising and analytics, so it's very clean, fast, and not full of spying junk or ads like the Home versions. And it hasn't bugged me once about upgrading. All my games run fine after some one-time minor command prompt foolery to get the Store and XBOX game pass apps back.

EDIT: Also, LTSC is Long-Term Support Channel, so additionally it will be supported longer than the regular editions, and be safer longer. Unless they change their minds this time around of course, but I doubt it. You don't rush the government through a PC upgrade if you want them to fund you.

Hrmm. You might be onto something there.

Any thoughts how I might approach this issue or is it kinda moot given the whole concept is how weak our ability to connect to factual history is?

Web browsing is still kind of hard though. And games. But that’s because they are designed around graphics these days.

But for the rest of it, there’s a LOT of work I can get done on a nice terminal or three.

I’m sorry to have spoiled your day/feed. Thanks for commenting though! I can never tell if the downvotes are meaningless bots or not.

Thanks for stopping by!

I’m…not actually sure. You’re right it seems to just be a fact of life. I was recently in a long winded political discussion about the current times, things like the whitewashing of slavery in history and how we seem to be on a road to fascism even though we’ve seen it all before and how people can care so little.

Some alternative facts got invoked that the guy seemed like he truly believed, and when the actual facts were present their sources were challenged and…it led down the rabbit hole of what makes our sources more right than his? Because someone said so?

It clicked for me that propaganda works, he truly believed his version of history, and even my version was just books someone wrote that I was raised to believe were the right ones. I have never been a slave, despite what people are starting to call employment, I have never known a slave. I only believe slavery was a horrible tragedy because a book told me so. I will never share the same level of care on the issue as someone who is or even directly knew someone affected. And with only a different book I could have very easily ended up just like him, as so many already have, believing in race replacement theories and reversals of oppression and whatnot. How can such different concepts both exist as facts? Because neither have true substance, only belief.

I guess all we can do is keep fighting the good fight for knowledge, keep any one side from choosing what we learn, hoping that in a tenuous balance we get the most fair education we can, and, if there is indeed a biological or literal inability to emphasize with recorded history, we need to come up with different ways to teach important concepts without relying on acceptance of history as fact. And/or learn as a society to accept that apathy to a problem is OK as time wears on.

Other than that I’m not sure what we can do. It does seem rather bleak watching society self-destruct over things that seem to have historical warning but it isn’t so clear for others, despite us all technically sharing the same world history. And it’s only getting worse as politics and religions invade our educations(again?).

Depending on the channel, they weren’t wrong. And ironically, such channels are probably their favorites too.

Do as I say, not as I do and all that.

Because “protecting the children” is an easier political fight than trying to save adults from their own freedom, and the internet is not as clearly a threat as guns or drugs. And even guns are hard to restrict…

As an adult you have a right to make bad choices, as well as certain constitutional rights, and unless controlling your rights can be readily accepted as required for the public good(like keeping you from driving a 2 ton murder box without training), it will die politically very, very quickly as government overreach.

And even then there are many who think driver’s licenses are a violation of their freedoms. You think we can control their social media/free speech outlets?

I didn’t really have words for it then like I might now with the benefit of hindsight and outside observation…back then I just eventually recognized that it wasn’t making me feel good to participate, more drained and yet I had the need to continue.

Imagine a school social scene. Imagine those youthful desires to express yourself, the need to be recognized as a person and feel seen and maybe even appreciated by those around you. Maybe you decorated your notebooks or locker or dressed “weird” for expression, maybe you tried to enter different cliques and make friends, even shallow false ones for clout. Maybe you suffered under the school bully who always put you down. Maybe you were the bully, looking down on others to elevate yourself.

Now scale that up to what might appear to be the countless billions connected to the web. Now the whole world could be your friend, but also your enemy. You are now a mere speck in a sea of others begging for that same recognition. You post something, and an artificial number goes up to declare your success, but you need it to go higher, reach farther. That same number is also a testament to your failure to matter to literally thousands or millions of people instead of at most a couple hundred you could meet in school and town. You could lose hope, fall into depression that you are worthless, or try ever harder, ever edgier, ever more extreme to try and matter. In addition to your own image, you can also try to put others down, bully them and attempt to decrease their visibility, their reach, so it doesn’t eclipse yours. Just like they’ve been doing to you.

I was too meek to be the bully or the bitch, so my social media experience was trying to go beyond my means and post things that I thought would matter and get seen, while usually being beaten down by those who were not afraid to be assholes about my very existence. And always feeling that I hadn’t reached enough, accomplished enough. That I wasn’t “winning”. Made a whole MySpace page with all the cool widgets just to see a visitor counter(barely) go up. Tried to post my thoughts to a young Facebook and Twitter just to be told I should kill myself, if it reached anyone.

Kids and teens have enough trouble keeping stable in an environment where they have to work with 50-100 people a day at worst…and now they feel the need to catch the eye of millions. The struggle and burden on their mental state scales with it.

And this is before we start a discussion on today’s prevalence of malicious intent, pedophiles and abusers you can’t just walk away from and ignore, if you even recognize the threat. And before we weigh in on the corporations with their own nefarious exploitation of whatever makes more engagement and therefore money.

I’m older now and I can see this all for what it is and navigate around it to meet my needs without falling for it anymore, I don’t care at my age about the likes or upvotes aside from maintaining enough to get into the communities that set a bar to prevent spam. That’s all I need it for, so there’s an achievable goal now instead of an enduring need for ever more that kids have.

TBH I really do think there should be some regulations in place. I grew up on social media and it was bad enough for me that I got away from it…mostly, obviously I’m here…but I look at the next generation afraid for them and their future as I see these platforms define their very reasons to exist today. It’s so much worse today as they were able to get hooked younger and at their most impressionable.

I’m not even sure it can be safely cured at this point without some nuclear option. Kids today don’t know anything else.

I could blame the parents, but most of that generation is almost as addicted many of them don’t see the problem either.

I agree with fear, and offer you an additional fear that I and those around me are very familiar with:

Cars bring “reliable transportation” to our doorstep, granting us the freedom to be employed at jobs that don’t care if the bus is late or the metro had an issue…you appear at work or be penalized.

Worse is the way shifts and callouts are handled today…my shifts are in different times in different days…there is no consistency in order to be “fair” to all employees. And if someone is sick, many places require you to find someone willing to drop everything and cover, or face penalties.

I don’t live in an area with major public transit. We have roads and cars and a couple of county circular buses.

I used to know a guy who needed that bus for work. He had a disability that meant he would never be able to drive, and that bus was his only option. He was late for work more than once because the bus was late. In times of weather or holidays he would ride the route that left him unpaid at work hours too early, and/or stuck long after shift waiting for the bus. Perhaps this could have been solved with more busses, or if he could find a job that would take him closer to home, or someone to carpool with, but it didn’t work out like that and within a year he was let go. Disability protection didn’t protect him from “not having reliable transportation”, which was the excuse they gave to dodge complaints but frankly as an At-Will state they didn’t really need it. He failed to meet the job requirements by not being in control of his transport and that was enough to end his job.

Car access gave people the freedom to travel freely and meet the demands of employers also built on car culture. Now we have the “freedom” to work inconsistent hours, suddenly as needed, or leave early to cut costs as desired, and be penalized because our travel is within our control.

I believe their point was repairs and maintenance of ownership that goes with it. The mortgage is stable…but then the roof wears out. The water heater leaks, the stove goes out. The landlords problem for a renter…or yours as a homeowner.

The reality though is it sucks either way, rent goes up always on the one option, and repairs and maintenance hit hard sometimes on the other. Intermittently as a large sum, or as a monthly spending increase if you take loans or payment plans. The owners equivalent of the rent going up.

I do think the stability of the mortgage is preferable though. As long as you can meet the mortgage payments, you have somewhere to live. Even if the stove has to wait. But you can always budget yourself some “rent increases” money and set it aside for repairs if you want the best of both worlds. :)

If I might make a play on your username, Chill, Dude,(nice) we aren’t on Reddit. We can do better here.

All we have is conjecture, really, unless somebody has published details of their layoff plans, so I’m cool with that if you are.

It would be rather ideal for you and OP to be right, I agree. Don’t get me wrong we’d all love it to just be about trimming the fat, especially rancid fat. But there’s fat even in the developer section so let’s not pretend any of this is along any lines at all really.

My point being that when it comes to these things, as others are mentioning, it’s not about personality or the honestly of your achievements or anything like that. It’s about money. Maybe to widen a profit margin, maybe to squeeze through an expected lean period(like between releases.). But it’s still heartless numbers.

And those who play the game are often the ones who look best on paper, best performance reviews and KPIs and word of mouth that makes them look like the ones worth continuing to invest in. The people who work with or under them might not agree how they got those numbers, but they look good nonetheless, better than the average performing on paper but non-toxic guy. That doesn’t even get into those who might be undesirable for other reasons but still crank out results and value to their company.

Again I would love to believe that the…how did the old political saying go? Ah, that the “swamp is being drained”, but I feel that there will still be a lot of muck left, fixing nothing of the company personality, and that the decision is still about money not environment.

I would be the first to ask:

But who do you think survived the purge?

The politicians, the protected. Some may have been collateral, especially in the case of entire department wipes but you can bet they weren’t the first to go.

The quality of the employee is neither here nor there really. It’s all about the money now saved, and converted into C-suite bonuses.