mctoasterson

joined 2 years ago
[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 45 points 1 month ago (10 children)

Microsoft literally wanted me to convert my desktop to e-waste as it lacks the magical TPM chip that Win11 demands.

I said "fuck that" and pulled the Boot SSD, kept the existing non-boot drives for data, and put in a brand new SSD, encrypted it and installed Pop OS in one shot.

Not only was it easy, I lost literally zero critical functionality vs. what I had with Win 10. There is a Linux app equivalent for everything I had before. I had a few driver issues but most were auto-discovered including obscure ancient printers and scanners on my network.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 7 points 1 month ago (14 children)

Those who run immich, how have you been backing up your library?

My deployment isn't anything fancy, it is currently a Raspberry Pi 4 with a 2TB external drive for the photo library. Been running for more than 6 months with minimal issues. Now that we are at a stable release I need to get some kinda backup going for the photos themselves.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If I had to come up with a steelman argument for small "AI focused" systems like this, I'd say that the more development in this space, makes the cost of entry cheaper, and actually eventually starves out the big tech garbage like OpenAI/Google/Microsoft.

If everyone who wants to use AI can locally process queries to a locally hosted open-source model with "good enough" results, that cuts out the big tech douchebags, or at least gives an option to not participate in their data collection panopticon ecosystem.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And they wonder why some of us are still using local installed and firewalled Office 2007.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Tostitos 'bout to enter the silicon production sector y'all

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 38 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Almost more concerning is the way big tech has consolidated on standards that hurt anonymity, even though they aren't legally required to.

For example, have you tried to make a burner email account lately so you can register at some stupid app or site that you only intend to use once? It is surprisingly difficult now because all the "legit" email providers are moving towards requiring phone-based (mobile SMS) 2FA which inherently deanonymizes you in the US due to KYC laws.

Also the throwaway email sites like GuerillaMail are being blocked more often by various sites. Their domains are now frequently blacklisted so you can't use a burner account as easily to register anonymous social media or other website accounts.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 31 points 2 months ago (3 children)

The secret of the CS and IT job is that it has always been the Neuveaux Blue Collar job.

For every IT exec and formerly-technical middle-management douchebag making really good money, there are 2 to 10 actually technical resources making "okay" money relative to their skill and the insane hours and scenarios they are expected to work.

Oh and let's not forget they're constantly trying to outsource as much of that support and engineering talent as possible.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 54 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I dunno. Something about the content I think.

A few years back some of their content was fun and interesting. Now lately it's all either "here's a bunch of comparisons of hardware you can't even afford" or "Linus puts some ridiculous tech in his own personal house - thanks for subsidizing his home improvement projects by the way"

I will still watch an occasional video but there are other tech related channels that I enjoy a lot more.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 8 points 3 months ago

Well it's "here to stay" I agree. But there are some real economic indicators that it is also a bubble. First, the number of products and services that can be improved by hamfisting AI into them is perhaps reaching critical mass. We need to see what the "killer app" is for the subsequent generation of AI. More cool video segments and LLM chatbots isn't going to cut it. Everyone is betting there will be a gen 2.0, but we don't know what it is yet.

Second, the valuations are all out of whack. Remember Lycos, AskJeeves, Pets.com etc? During the dotcom bubble, the concept of the internet was "here to stay" but many of the original huge sites weren't. They were massively overvalued based on general enthusiasm for the potential of the internet itself. It's hard to argue that's not where we are at with AI companies now. Many observers have commented the price to earnings ratios are skyhigh for the top AI-related companies. Meaning investors are parking a ton of investment capital in them, but they haven't yet materialized long-term earnings.

Third, at least in the US, investment in general is lopsided towards tech companies and AI companies. Again look at the top growth companies and share price trends etc. This could be a "bubble" in itself as other sectors need to grow commensurate to the tech sector, otherwise that indicates its own economic problems. What if AI really does create a bunch of great new products and services, but no one can buy them because other areas of the economy stalled over the same time period?

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 6 points 3 months ago

"It enabled us to shit out products in 4 days."

Glad they incorporated such thorough testing in their process.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 21 points 4 months ago (4 children)

I think just going back to internet forums circa early 2000s is probably a better way to engage honestly. They're still around, just not as "smartphone friendly" and doomscroll-enabled, due to the format.

I'm talking stuff like SomethingAwful, GaiaOnline, Fark, Newgrounds forum, GlockTalk, Slashdot, vBulletin etc.

These types of forums allowed you to discuss timely issues and news if you wanted. You could go a thousand miles deep on some bizarre subculture or stick to general discussion. They also had protomeme culture before that was a thing - aka "embedded image macros".

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 1 points 4 months ago

People forget what a ridiculously large steaming market India is.

The second biggest YT channel by subscriber base is T-Series.

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