Based on my tests on my family and friends, the main problem is tech support. Most geeks seem to assume other people want the same things than themselves (privacy, freedom, etc). Well, they don’t. They want a computer that just works.
Overall when using Linux, people actually don’t need much tech support, but they need it. My father put it really well by saying: “the best OS is the one of your neighbor.”
I apply few rules:
The deal with my family and friends is simple: you want tech support from me ? ok, then I’m going to pick your computer (usually old Lenovo Thinkpads bought on Ebay at ~300€) and I’m going to install Linux on it.
I’m not shy. I ask them if they want me to have remote access to their computer. If they accept, I install a Meshcentral agent. Thing is, on other OS, they are already spied on by Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. And most people think “they have nothing to hide”. Therefore why should they worry more about a family member or a friend than some unknown big company ? Fun fact, I’ve been really surprised by how easily people do accept that I keep a remote access on their computer: even people that are not family ! Pretty much everybody has gladly agreed up to now. (and God knows I’ve been really clear that I can access their computer whenever I want).
I install the system for them and I make the major updates for them. Therefore, if I have remote access to the system, I pick the distribution I’m the most at ease with (Debian). They just don’t care what actually runs on their computers.
When they have a problem, they call me after 8pm. With remote access, most problems are solved in a matter of minutes. Usually, they call me a few times the first days, and then I never hear from them anymore until the next major update.
So far, everybody seems really happy with this deal. And for those wondering, I can see in Meshcentral they really do use those computers :-P
When i told my dad i can install Rustdesk on his computer to do remote support (moved out), he asked me “does that mean you can look at my computer whenever you want?”. I’m really proud of him, he actually listened.
I think people sell themselves short with regards to having undue access to family members’ computers. If they’re willing to give it then you’ve clearly demonstrated that you’re trustworthy and haven’t given them reason to assume you’ll snoop or worse steal from them.
Are there any limitations to Meshcentral? I tried using Team Viewer and a few others when I was supporting family on Windows, and they all wanted to charge me after a while.
I self-host Meshcentral. I haven’t seen any limitation at all. I don’t know if there are limitations when you use meshcentral.com instead of self-hosting.
I’ll have a look into it, thanks. I pretty much only support my mother’s laptop outside of my house now, but I use NoMachine to sort out the home computers. As much as I like it, it can be a bit slow sometimes, and it’s always in the back of my mind that it’s going to lock me out like the others did.
Oh actually if you are worried about vendor lock-in: Meshcentral is opensource. So even if they decide to try something stupid, a fork would be likely to happen.
Why is this good news exactly? Doesn’t this just mean that people who want to see content from Threads will be driven to that app instead? Why not allow Lemmy users to see Threads content without them actually having to support Meta?
this article here gives a pretty good rundown of the likely intent of any sort of federated integration with any meta product, with examples of the same thing happening twice before with other technologies.
supporting it puts them in a position to “help” it… as they “help” they implement new closed source features… then drop support.
much of the growth that would occur during the “support/help” phase would be on their proprietary iteration and would not benefit the fediverse.
the trajectory would likely be co-opting the fediverse, obscuring their service from the fediverse, while building their services behind closed doors, and then dropping support.
they’re recognizing the fediverse as a reasonable competitor, and this is a move intended to kill it.
I went to a Cracker Barrel a few years ago and they has a sign that read “Proudly serving people of color since 1973” or whatever year it had. Weird brag
It’s to counter the racism, biggotry, and xenophobia present in pockets of American culture.
These shitty types of people avoid or hide within large cities - everyone is typically fine in these places. But small towns can sometimes have a serious problem with this if they are too “red” (Conservative).
In short, pockets of America are very tribal. People bond over similarities, and their shared disapproval of anything different, or out of the ordinary.
Right? I’ve been using NextCloud/OwnCloud since ~2015. It’s a very standard LAMP app, nothing fancy going on at all. Give it enough memory and you’ll never have any problems, same as any other web service.
My only problem is trying to use it with the android app. I have to manually sync it like all the time which is a pain in the ass when I forget to do it before I go out the door and my shopping list isn’t update. That and it won’t sync files I create on the phone to the server
Yup. And there’s also a HUGE difference between being anti-Semitic and just being against genocide. And our “news media” is determined to deliberately conflate the two.
Hmm, whether PPC or PPI (pay per click / impression), I don’t believe advertisers are spending anything on you. I believe it’s whoever is paying the web host who’s losing, and it’s potential revenue instead of an expenditure.
Certain ad blockers click ads for you. Assuming these clicks aren’t registered as coming from a bot (a big assumption, I know), then those clicks should count as interactions on the ads.
True but don’t forget that we probably enjoy the benefits of ad-based internet. If way more people would adblock than currently, then a lot of sites may need to resort to paywalled or whatever other type of monetisation. Happy UbO user tho.
Closets have no need to worry about being phased out so long as there are Republican politicians who secretly love LGBTQ+ sex. “It’s happened so many times that it’s almost become predictable at this point. The louder someone is about the righteous conservative Christian lifestyle they’re leading, the more likely they are to be stepping out on their wives or having secret gay affairs because if there is one thing you can count on in life, it’s for Republicans not to practice what they preach.”
Please note that the prompt says “queens of England” very clearly, which turns it into a glorified Google image search, so the results are unacceptable trash, and vaguely leftist language about people being angry for the lack of racism are your problem, only. Fuck off, troll.
The real issue is that even with a handholding, direct and easy prompt, the tech cannot simply hand over pictures, even generated ones to avoid copyright issues, that come from easily discovered answers on Wikipedia and who knows how many other credible sources. The lineage of the British Royal Family is all but open-source data - probably is, literally - and your mom can probably name three Queens offhand though she’s Canadian. This thing completely ate shit on an easy, easy prompt.
I don’t know how many times now I’ve seen some YouTuber use “evil Jerome Powell” as a prompt for a thumbnail, and get a clear picture of him complete with devil horns, copyright be damned, so what the f? The AI isn’t this stupid, that means they’re nerfing it and screwing it up. You best believe they’re still selling it, though.
What other results will it comically fuck up, but you don’t have the knowledge to critique? You won’t see the results, either, somebody else will use them to judge your resume; IS using them, now. Fucking lazy hiring managers are going to just plug your name into this thing and ask for a synopsis of your life so they don’t have to work. It will just fill in missing information with lies, and they’ll eat it up. I guess you shot two people a couple of years ago and didn’t know about it. I wonder why you didn’t get the job?
People have been crazy dumb with this AI, meaning young, smart, tech-savvy people with heavy internet backgrounds who should know better than to trust keep treating it like an oracle, because they have some weird blind spot about this technology. Ignorant executives who think math is for slurs are going to make it do everything.
They’re going to use this technology to decide who gets an apartment, who gets arrested, and a bunch of other shit, save your leftism for that.
You don’t have to steel it. It’s a virtual picture. You can download it and share it with everyone, as often as you like, whenever you want. There’s no cost attached in sharing data other than hardware and energy
Keep the fediverse weird and invite more theater kids. They pair surprisingly well with the tech dorks that make up the majority of the current fedi population.
Different fandoms would congregate in different home instances – Which is ultimately just an aesthetic difference but still.
It’d be a lot more resilient due to decentralisation. I’m old enough to remember when the entire concept of fanfiction was something considered litigious and anyone who wrote it felt they were skirting on the edge of the law. People forget how easy it is for those times to come back. All it’d take is 1(one) corporately-backed author making a stink about it. Decentralization would make it harder to curb.
Doubled on FA. Great repository for artwork but their moderation is just terrible. If you’re in the 3rd world you can get banned permanently with no warning for a single mistake, yet there’s known groomers on there who the admins routinely protect no matter how many times they fuck up. And the alternatives aren’t any better, with most of them dying on the hill of allowing loli shit and AI art so that’s all that ever gets posted.
EDIT: and after they moved their forums to discord the entire website became radioactive causing tons of people, including myself, to leave.
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