Regionales Retro-Rechenzentrum
Adrian HowardI swear there used to be a time when my reaction to new software features wasn't a resigned sigh followed by figuring out how to switch it off.
coldclimate@adrianh 2002ish
David Wheeler@adrianh get out of my head, Howard
Don Gray@adrianh And it’s not just us. I’ve never looked for how switch off a feature that didn’t already have a solution posted.
Most recent was iOS turning “icons” on again after the 18.4 upgrade and I wanted them off.
Ozzelot 
@donaldegray I'm letting my iPhone stay on 17.x because I want nothing to do with apple "intelligence" @adrianh
etsy²¹²
StreetDogg@donaldegray @adrianh Easter with the elders a few years ago: "I pressed some buttons on this tech thing and now it's broken, can you fix it for me?"
Easter now: "I swear I pressed nothing and all of this stuff here appeared out of nothing and now everything is different and I'm lost! Can you undo that for me?"
Actual true story...
marco_m_aus_f
NotBlackMagic@adrianh I'm pretty hyped about the new capabilities of ORCA 6, ngl :)
Maj - Michele Ann Jenkins 🇨🇦@adrianh I misread a pop-up the other day and thought I could pay a little extra to NOT have an AI "enhancement" feature added to the product I use and I was 100% prepared to pay.
Turns out you cannot get out of the basic "enhancement" but can pay more have an "enhanced" "enhancement" experience.
Vinnie (any)
🇺🇦🇪🇺 cweickhmann@adrianh In the open-source world it's only occasionally sighing, tbh. Mostly on Firefox.
esa@cweickhmann
Yeah, I think the users of e.g. neovim still react with "hey, neat" for new versions. Much the same with Rust too, I think.
Even Firefox got something good with vertical tabs recently.
@adrianh
Cadmus 🌲@adrianh Yeah, the shift from 'useful' to 'how can we get as much data $ out of each consumer' is ongoing. I feel like software is no longer the product, we are.
If it's my data... Does that mean I own it? 🤔
Stephen Elliott~Buckley
MightyPirate™ 🏴☠️
Elle Adam🇨🇦@adrianh Ha! Thanks for my first laugh for the day.😀
^[[200~Michael@adrianh "It's notepad! It's fcking notepad you sick fcks!"
Me, meeting Copilot in notepad.exe for the first time.
@Maxfieldripken In my case "almost" means one proprietary software for which there is no equivalent on Linux. It's frustrating to say the least.
@mnf wow 🏆🏆🏆
That's my destination!
Richard QuinnSo what's _is_ the "one proprietary software for which there is no equivalent on Linux"?
SamuelJohnson@rq4c @mnf @Maxfieldripken I'm in that boat. Mine is MLO (https://mylifeorganized.net) which I run on Linux using WINE. There's nothing half as good, imo. Don't need it as much now I'm retired but I keep up to support the developers working under fire in Ukraine.
Personal task organizing and time management software. Getting Things Done® (GTD®): project management software, project & personal information management (PIM). To do list & time management system.
Powerful personal task organizing, task management & to-do list software MyLifeOrganized designed to implement GTD (Getting Things Done) system. FREE trial!
@rq4c @Maxfieldripken I deliberately did not name it. You and I know the kind of "discussion" that would follow. The point was that I know a number of people who have moved to Linux, but still have to resort to using a VM, emulation or even a dedicated Windows installation for that ONE software.
MBybee@Maxfieldripken @mnf @adrianh I'll be done with google as soon as I finally have another mobile. Until then, I'm forced to have an empty shell acct because they literally broke my phone when I tried to initialize it with no acct.
That *used* to work just fine accountless.
skittles
Infinity Counter 🟦@adrianh So sadly true.
kelI am to all intents and purposes out of this!
All my computing is offline now apart from one computer running linux for email, masto, chat, etc.
All the corporations are gone apart from eBay which I use to sell stuff I no longer need.
I am not buying anything other than the essentials - last exception was 27th Feb.
Also got rid of 'smart' phone and am rocking a Nokia 106 for calls and texts!
Internet router is turned off 12/24 minimum!
It feels so much lighter! 🪶
Oliver Jensen@adrianh if anyone figures out how to turn off the Slack AI crap let me know.
Someone at work paid for it and now it pollutes every search with a stupid box that provides zero value other than repeatedly jiggling the ACTUAL results around as it "types" making it really difficult to click on or read anything.
Piteco
Damon L. Wakes@adrianh This is one of the things that stands out to me about #GDevelop. Updates tend to be at least inoffensive* and more often they add something genuinely useful. I'm always keen to see what's in the new release notes.
*They did add the inevitable useless AI feature, but it's easily ignored. A rare misstep.
Colin the Mathmo@adrianh I have a clear memory of my father going to his office one day to order his medical supplies for the next month.
"They've redesigned the web site!" ... he called to us.
"How does it look?" asked my mother.
"Really good" he replied.
She followed up ... "Can you find what you need?"
There was a long pause.
...
"No".
1000millimeter@ColinTheMathmo @adrianh Websites do only look good. Technical Data about technical products? Good luck finding those. Or, finding the products at all.
Andrew@ColinTheMathmo @adrianh all websites should be like digikey or McMaster Carr. Everything is parametrically searchable and the company logo is inexplicably a 64x100 jpeg
Polychrome 
pivotman319 🦊 
@ColinTheMathmo @adrianh the old saying of "function over form" still applies nowadays
I'd rather have something that looks like it came straight from the early 2000s but works flawlessly
Eragon@ColinTheMathmo @adrianh Looks good but isn't intuitive.
catraxx 
@ColinTheMathmo @adrianh This describes 90% of all websites these days.
Z
Richard Welty@adrianh i have two FB groups (Vintage Trek Bicycles and Alfa Romeo Tech) where FB keeps threatening to turn on the "AI Assistant". my co-admins and i are all agreed that we will turn it off the instant it shows up, because LLM fantasies about technical issues can be actively dangerous.
felis_catus_domesticusso are you saying that alfas definitively cannot be modified to run on tap water?
@felis_catus_domesticus @adrianh more or less
Nomdeb
roboticus lastius (not a bot)@adrianh 100% me. I recently moved completely to Linux Mint because I am done with the bullsh!t 🌞
ScotsBear 🏴@lastrobot @adrianh I came here to say "He's clearly still using Windows" but your comment will do nicely. 
Totally the opposite experience on Linux, folks. Here, software gets better.
Totally the opposite experience on Linux, folks. Here, software gets better.
@Uraael @lastrobot @adrianh As a Linux Mint user since 2010 (previously Ubuntu) I can confirm. Very occasionally I have to use (help someone with) Windows 10 and it makes my skin crawl.
@samueljohnson @lastrobot @adrianh
I was on a dual-boot until yesterday (now fully Linux). I popped into Windows briefly to say goodbye before I scrubbed the partition and the poor broken shambling thing (W11 22H2) was just painful to be in. I shan't miss it.
I was on a dual-boot until yesterday (now fully Linux). I popped into Windows briefly to say goodbye before I scrubbed the partition and the poor broken shambling thing (W11 22H2) was just painful to be in. I shan't miss it.
@Uraael @lastrobot @adrianh I know it's common to dual boot but I think it's a bad idea unless done with dual drives. Trusting Microsoft not to screw up is never a good idea (I've seen it happen too often).
AnaEmperor@Uraael @samueljohnson @lastrobot @adrianh
...the poor shambling thing...😄👍🏻
The moment W10 is forced to 11 , I will to send it to the Windows graveyard. I don't even need an AI for that.😜
file: "social media features of Signal Messenger" here..
LisaH
Lance Bachmeier@adrianh I just wish they'd have one person on the team that asks "Does this feature make sense?" Or even better, if they'd ask at least one person that actually uses the product if the feature makes sense.
patter
Mike 
Lance
Colin@adrianh I remember GOING OUT OF MY WAY to try out brand new stuff. Beta? Who cares! I wanna see what's next!
That is now ... long gone.
Now I'm always afraid of what comes next. What terrible enshittification comes next. What's being made more difficult now? What feature am I losing? What new privacy violation / dark pattern am I being served next?
All the wonder and joy is gone. I just want a tool that works and I'm continually provided anything but. UX thrown completely out.
Tim Ward ⭐🇪🇺🔶 #FBPE@adrianh Yeahbut see it from the supplier's POV. *Somebody* will find the new feature useful, but if the new feature isn't defaulted to "on" then the people who would find it useful will never discover that it exists.
[Mostly I agree with you. The above is just a little professional devil's advocacy.]
Chip Butty@adrianh I still get that with emacs and clojure and other things, but yeah
arjankroonen@adrianh By now I’m rooting for a massive solar storm to take out the Internet of Things and every bitcoin/AI farm.