Posts by The Sprocket 126 publicly visible posts • joined 15 Jun 2011
Just for the record:
And on the Apple side, iPhone 14 was the last still to have no AI at all in it. The iPhone 15 has it, but it ALL can be turned right off. I know because I have an iPhone 15 Pro. The iPhone 16 has AI and apparently it is 'baked in' with no option to turn off.
We have a software industry working like hell to put millions of people out of work through their efforts in refining A.I. On the other hand, we have dark-actors merging forces to screw over businesses with the use of ransomeware and extortion.
Novel thought.
Why aren't the A.I. 'gurus' focusing on exterminating the ransomeware dudes? The money can be raised, and it would be one hell of a great challenge. Are the 'good guys' smarter than the 'bad guys'. I challenge the A.I. industry—are you as good as you want us to think you are? The gauntlet has been thrown down.
This doesn't have to happen. The 'futuristic village' will end up growing and become an industrial junk yard. Even with no semi-permanent inhabitation, the Moon is slowing becoming a trash zone of failed landers, left behind landers, dead probes, etc. The Moon could be cleaned up at this stage, but nobody wants to invest the money (where have I heard that before). But we have Russia, China, and a variety of others sending their exploratory trash to the Moon. How much of that comes back? Now NASA wants to build a trash enabling village there? And maybe the village needs/wants to grow. More infrastructure needed, old infrastructure needs to be updated—and like Earth—the place starts to look like a shithole because—wait for it—nobody wants to invest the money to clean up the trash. Nobody will/can enforce clean ups, and everyone will pass the buck and argue "It wasn't us!" And the Moon that Mankind has marvelled at for CENTURIES ends up with a shit stain seen from Earth. Brilliant job from the epsilons on Earth. What a legacy. F*kc.
I say JUST LEAVE the Moon alone.
The big telcos in Canada seem to be NOT honoring the 'bring your own phone' concept. While my Punkt MP-02 worked super on the Fido network for about 5 years, when they ended 3G just a few months back, Fido told me I was on a 3G phone. In fact, my phone was running on their 4G network according to all the indicators in my 'settings'. The catch was, my IMEI number wasn't on their 'white list', yet my phone operated on their 4G before the notices, and all the bands were correct. So my Punkt phone became 'bricked'.
The moral of the story is—don't bother with an 'interesting / unique' mobile phone in Canada. If it didn't come from one of the major telcos, you'll be screwed because of the IMEI whitelist. Now I had to succumb to a iPhone 15 Pro. I feel dirty. At least I bought it from the Apple Store direct, and Fido / Rogers didn't get that sale.
Meta is the LAST place any AI software should be 'learning' from. SM is riddled with sh*t from all quadrants of society. No wonder I will avoid AI as much as I can. This is a stupid as when I heard sometime back that Reddit was going to be used as a scraping ground as well. *Jeez!*
Want to make an AI believer out of me? Tell me all the University Libraries have opened up their digital resources to let AI slurp from those. But learning from Meta and/or Reddit? That's like licking from a public toilet bowl. Ewwwww . . .
It IS disappointing that Apple is taking this self-repair thing in a backwards direction. I'm typing here on what looks like a brand-new 13" MacBook Air (the last version of the cool-looking version), that was nixed in 2019 (MacBookAir7,2 A1466). The battery was getting 'soft', so after looking at iFixit I found I could replace it for a new one myself by popping over to the Canadian version of Macsales. Only 10 screws to take the bottom off, 2 screws to release the old battery, and one pull-tab to disconnect the power. Job done in 10 minutes. 100% new battery. As far as anything else outside of the battery replacement is concerned, this MBA still operates like a brand-new laptop. Just keep it away for kids and dogs.
Yet, realizing this MBA will be made redundant due to eventual software updates, I did look at the M4 13" MacBook Airs on iFixit. Compared to mine, repairing the new ones are hopeless. So Apple HAS gone backwards, and are more interested in us just binning these things, even though they publicly declared they were going to make their laptops user serviceable. The Future looks bleak when it comes to Apple's commitment (or lack of) to deal with simple replacements.
Colour me 'not impressed'.
For those looking—seriously consider refurbished Apple iPhones from your local Apple Store Online. Most are in mint-new condition. Plus the refurbishment is seriously in-depth. I saved a lot on a really nice, perfect looking, iPhone 15 Pro Titanium.
Use refurbed dollar-store Androids for test devices or burner phones.
"My wife has an iPhone without the home button and I find it much more annoying to navigate than mine!"
Because they are. Regrettably, since my iFondlefone 15 Pro will be with me for an eon, I'll eventually get very proficient in being able to make/take a call or txt message my brother. The rest is useless to me.
I'm not sure what bank you are involved with, but the major one I use over here in Canada have no such requirement regarding phones. None here do. Our major banks here (Canada) simply provide very well designed and secured websites that recommend strongly 2FA. In my years of online banking with one of the biggest here, I've had absolutely ZERO issue.
And given how easy it is to lose a phone, or have one nicked from you—I would never use a 'smartphone' for anything financial (Visa payment, Bank Transfers, Debit Card payments, etc.). The security with those apps can be dodgy.
"The obvious solution is for everyone to immediately add NOINDEX to every page of their site; Google will have to remove every page on the web from their index, and become irrelevant over night. But nobody is going to do that, because they still need traffic from Google."
I like that very much, but as you aptly pointed out, a majority of businesses still rely on Google traffic. But then there are those that don't. Those would be consultants or professional businesses who have detailed websites for potentially new clients who have been referred, often by colleagues, and use the website to confirmation. They did NOT arrive at said site via a Google search, but believe it or not, an url on a business card. Out of my last 50 clients I've created and designed sites for, around 30 or so were like that. They just didn't give a shit about 'Google search placement' or Google itself. Most of their business connections and activities run behind the curtain, out of sight of the internet. I suppose if these people were THAT pissed about the scraping of AI, they could easily opt for NOINDEX.
We need to remember the early age of the internet. Wondrous things were happening and optimism was running high. I know—I was working in it—elbow high in HTML and Photoshop 3.0. But then dark actors started messing around, corporate slimes were finding ways to scrape info, infiltrate user accounts, etc. Those optimistic days were dying. Today we need ad blockers, firewalls, site security out the wazoo as these dark actors are turning it into a shit-show. Same will happen to AI. Yes, I too can see a small proportion will use it for decent purposes, but quickly it will be used to nix jobs by the corporate greedy. Then the nefarious stuff will start to happen. I say without some serious controls, this thing could be our undoing. My problem is who are going to apply the controls and do they know how to craft those controls. Somebody opened that AI 'Pandora's Box' and we're going to be stuck with it. I wish I could be optimistic, but I've been alive and working tooo long and know how Humanity works. We'll be living in a world of 6 fingers. Just my 2¢ worth.
Yeah (LOL!) Foxconn. What a major fizzzzzzle THAT was. Foxconn built a building, 13,000 employees were to be hired, but that ended up being 1,000—and then maybe EV batteries will be made? Nobody is really sure. Yeah the iDigital manufacturing landscape really changed with that one. So I'm not expecting to see an American-made $3,000-$5,000 iPhone coming out of Trump's USA anytime soon.
"Android phones are also going to be much cheaper than iPhones now"
How do you figure? The tariff that's good for the Apple, is good for the Android. Both are imported. Both get hit. Build them in the USA? Same thing for Apple as for Android. Only Android would be a bit typically cheaper, as it is now.
We don't buy anything from unsolicited phone calls, emails, SMS, or the like either. I save the 'fuck offs' for wankers who truly deserve them. So when a call comes in with "Can I speak with the homeowner?" I say nothing and just hang up. To get to THAT point first though, they will have had to go through my phone's gate-guardian: "To continue with this call or leave voice mail, please press the pound key"
A lot of landline phones have a feature that as soon as a call comes in, the caller is greeted immediately with "Please enter the pound sign to continue your call or leave a message"
Of course, easy enough for a human, but a robocall will be pooched. What about a Human scammer? Let the call go to voice mail.
Job done.
Yes—I have to agree with the 3 comments here as much of that has been my experience, except during my career with digital exposure (1995 & on) I was expected to be fluent on both Mac and Windows. Regardless, I still run into people who use Windows by choice, who continually run into needless pain. A colleague of mine was having Outlook issues with a project he and I were working on, so I looked up the symptoms, and sure enough—well documented glitch that MS 'gave up' on fixing. Well, we fixed the MS glitch of his for sure. We swapped out his Outlook mail client for Thunderbird. No further glitches.
"I cannot think of anything I do on a computer that I would prefer to be done by an AI, that I would have to review and check. I even dislike auto-correct, heck, if I'm gong to publish typos I would like them to be my types*, not some AI generated guess typo."
Bingo. Nailed it. Me too.
My buddy and I were just grousing on about this Apple issue, both of us being Art Directors and retired, but still keen to keep our hand in periodically and still have very well-running hardware.
I am a MacBook Air fan and currently use a 7,2 (SSD) from 2017-2019. The hardware is in minty-mint shape and it runs smooth as silk. No, I don't use Adobe stuff but Affinity Designer/Photo 1.x which I find easy on the resources. Today I'm on 10.13.6 (High Sierra) and can only move up to OS12 (Monterey) according to Apple. I wouldn't mind getting closer up yet—so I will be spending some time investigating how far up I can go, and how best to deal with it.
Let's face it—I just need the later OS ONLY to keep a reasonably current version of Firefox going. *rolls eyes* I hate that free stuff can sideline a perfectly good machine. (Sorry—I know I'm preaching to the converted)
I also thank those who posted some 'advisories' in this thread. Well noted.
Regardless of that ad, I still see Apple as a premier component WITHIN the creative community, while Samsung doesn't even seem to exist. And while I personally don't know any creative artists actually creating much on an iPad, they ARE used in subservient roles. I use mine for chasing down typefaces, colour swatches, and sheet music from IMSLP. Could I do that on a Samsung tablet? Sure, but from what I've heard in my social circle, Samsung isn't quite that reliable and they're hooked up to data-slurping Google. Pass.
Apple really needs to wake up. The 'best tablet' is the one I'm using and have no need or desire to 'upgrade'. My 2017-19 10.5" iPad Pro runs very nicely still and is light/thin enough. But for the most part, I just use it as a digital tool to browse the web, as one might thumb through a magazine of yore.
Nice to know Apple is still making tablets. SOMEDAY I will have to upgrade, but not now. But I can do well without the sanctimonious negative ads. Wake up Apple—you risk pissing off potential customers.
This comes from a career Designer/Art Director:
PDFs were never intended to be used on 'phones'. They were intended to be an exchange file that preserved formatting in various forms of communication, often intended for some form of print. There is no uninspired 'responsive design' aspect to PDFs like there is for webpages. So, that said—choose the right tool for the right job. Your 200 page PDF in best viewed on a desktop/laptop. I find my iPad works just fine for that as well. Consider turning the thing sideways as well if you want the immediate content larger.
Face it—phones have limitations and can't be used for everything, and work best as a phone.
I'm fine with the way Apple operates. I went through the 90's downloading software/shareware/freeware from all sorts of places, mainly magazine CD-ROMs. I never had issues, but some of my colleagues had a few. Viruses, poorly written keystroke loggers, etc.
Face it—it is Apple's business and if developers/consumers don't like the way it is run, just go elsewhere. I'm sure the Android 'leaky sieve' would love to have you. I appreciate Apple's vigilance in keeping 'the bad guys' out and away. As far as developers are concerned—Microsoft and Apple have always had various regulations that MUST be adhered to.
Sorry to disappoint the 'freedom' crowd. Blame the bad guys.
I would say that is ONE interesting defense idea worth following up. I wonder if any other EU members have any other practical solutions. As others have said here, it would be a challenging problem to, essentially, case-harden these undersea cables.
I know from my reading last week that Iceland is particularly concerned (read: shitting their pants), as their various servers are in Ireland and are connected by two undersea cables. (I think there maybe a third, but where it is escapes me at the moment). Russian 'research vessels' have been identified 'snooping around'.
We all know how vital the internet is, and know what WE do when our ISP goes down for an hour or two at home. Yes—this is a serious challenge I hope finds an answer.
Yes—fine for short subjects that may also be now and again frequency. Not sure how happy I'd be paying a monthly subscription for what could end up being 'occasional use'. As a professional career Designer, I dumped Adobe for Affinity (Serif) for that very reason (although none of it is being used on my iPad Pro). Super happy I did too!
"Safari is the browser that you use for downloading Firefox, isn't it?"
On a laptop, yes. But not on an iPhone/iPad. Firefox is on the App Store, and one uses the App Store app on your iPhone/iPad to download it. AND there are a few versions of Firefox there.
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