I hate scrum

I hate stand up

I hate sprints

Fuck Toyota

How have we taken the most autistic job and tacked a stupid, worthless, autistic unfriendly process on to it? (the answer of course is capitalism)

I want to quit but I can't get another job and even if I could it would just be more of this shit.

...versatile technique that combines a huge amount of heterogeneous data from many of sources into one system that can teach any robot a wide range of tasks

This method could be faster and less expensive than traditional techniques because it requires far fewer task-specific data. In addition, it outperformed training from scratch by more than 20 percent in simulation and real-world experiments.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2409.20537

https://archive.is/ShvUD

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/3770297

I think I've finally found it: The elusive Firefox fork for my day-to-day needs. It needed to have sane defaults like Librewolf but also as user empowering as Vivaldi (as well as not being proprietary which is cringe).

Zen I believe accomplishes both of that. It's a relatively new project but it does have active development with new changes added every release. Here's the rundown:

• Licensed under the Mozilla Public License 2.0, the same as Firefox. So enjoy that warm feeling you get when using open source software that won't pull the rug from under you.
• Follows Firefox release cycles: If a new Firefox version comes out, Zen is not behind.
• Instead of horizontal tabs, Zen only uses vertical tabs for navigation. If this is a deal breaker, then Zen isn't for you :(
• Supports split view, workspaces, browser profiles, side panels, tab unloading (saving memory by deactivating a tab), theming, mods and everything else that base Firefox supports (like firefox sync).
• Cannot play DRM-protected content as of yet on Windows and MacOS (rare Linux W?) due to license fees. This is your netflix, your disney+, your spotify.
• No mobile version (nor does it seem to be planned), though firefox sync is still supported.
• Looks GORGEOUS. I never realized how ugly Firefox looks by default, esp on desktops like GNOME and KDE where it tries to integrate itself into the system theme.
• Performs FABULOUSLY: Optimizations from the firefox level to even providing an optimized binary executable for modern CPUs.
• SANE defaults like HTTPS everywhere, no link prefetching (where the browser loads links that it thinks you're going to go to), uncluttered Firefox home.
• Probably more I'm not listing

Download here: https://zen-browser.app/download

How do I use Zen?

Well firstly, Zen doesn't come with any extensions by default. So I made sure to chuck in my Ublock Origin, Privacy Badger, ClearURLs, LibRedirect, etc. It also uses secure DNS by default with Cloudflare so you might want to turn that off (I have a DNS homeserver that does encrypted DNS through other means).

I also really like using the side panel to put my wiki sites and dictionaries in. I've only been using Zen for a week now and it seems to be my forever browser of choice.

Specifically, a dedicated server running Debian 12.

After a monthly sudo apt upgrade? (Is a monthly upgrade even necessary?)

Never? (unless there is a security update?)

Edit: I may be missing kernel upgrades. Those are probably good... I can't remember if I installed a LTS kernel. I imagine it would be unsecure to post an exact kernel version, however.

Looks like VC money ran out so the development company is now making an AI product like everyone else. Kind of feels bad because it was the only good Chromium Browser and kind of innovative in it's own right. I switched over fully to Zen like a month ago so I don't really care but it's just a classic case of tech bro tomfoolery where a company only works for hype so they can eventually sell it to someone eventually. Nobody bought this company because people make browser mods on github for free.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ArcBrowser/comments/1gc2fxx/arc_officially_not_getting_new_features_only/

The following is from the article but I edited it so much by moving sentences around I decided not to use the quote tag.

---

The number is two to the 136,279,841st power minus one. Luke Durant is a 36-year-old programmer retired from chipmaker Nvidia in 2021. The discovery was the result of almost exactly one year of work and about $2 million of Durant’s own money. He used the GPUs, the technology he had a hand in developing at Nvidia. A typical CPU would take a week or two to test a number to see whether it is prime. It takes GPUs about a day or two.

Durant, a graduate of the California Institute of Technology, found the new prime number using only publicly available unused cloud storage space. Durant, who made his money off the boom, said he put his time and money into the project to show people that they aren’t helpless to technology giants and that we can figure out massive problems if we work together. He said...

"Individuals today are dramatically more capable than any point in history. The scale of computing available in the cloud, it’s nearly unfathomable. I was able to find this number that’s astonishingly large … but I was able to do it just by using big tech’s leftovers. So it’s trying to [highlight the fact that] we have these incredible systems, so let’s figure out how to best use them."

Woltman said about 3,000 to 5,000 volunteers have downloaded a piece of software that tasks unused space on their computers to crunch these numbers in the background.

With the stated goal of "liberating people from repetitive labor and high-risk industries, and improving productivity levels and work efficiency"

Hopefully they can pull it off cheaply while Tesla's Optimus remains vaporware (or whatever the real world equivalent of vaporware is).

TL;DR:

The Windows File Explorer is now dependent on Microsoft Recall being installed on Windows 11 24H2 editions and likely later.

This means that if you wish to use newer versions of the Window file explorer, you have to install recall on your system. Recall is a deeply-rooted, non-negotiable feature on all modern versions of Windows.

Solution

If you wish to strip out recall from your system, you are no longer able to use the built-in graphical file explorer and must use a third-party tool, and if you're not allowed to do that on the machine, then you are forced to have recall running on the system as it doesn't appear on any graphical settings pages.

The other solution is to prepare for transitioning into a free operating system such as GNU/Linux with distributions such as Linux Mint which is designed specifically for that transition. You can also run an older version of Windows and refuse to update.

Errata

Turns out that this issue has been exaggerated and that there are ways to disable co-pilot on Windows machines (or at the very least, command Windows to do so). Also it's debatable whether this program does any harm on non "copilot" computers but you can be the judge of that.

EDIT: deleted in favor of the existing posts

Perhaps one of the more surprising changes in the 6.12-rc4 development kernel was the removal of several entries from the kernel's MAINTAINERS file. The patch performing the removal was sent (by Greg Kroah-Hartman) only to the patches@lists.linux.dev mailing list; the change was included in a char-misc drivers pull request with no particular mention.

The explanation for the removal is simply ""various compliance requirements"". Given that the developers involved all appear to be of Russian origin, it is not too hard to imagine what sort of compliance is involved here. There has, however, been no public posting of the policy that required the removal of these entries.

An early comment likely pins down the prevailing institutional pressures leading to this decision

What's the deal with an international project adhering to what is obviously a decision of the US government?

Hint: The Linux Foundation (which notably employs Greg KH and Torvalds, and provides a lot of the legal and other infrastructure for this "international project") is based in the US, and therefore has to follow US laws.

This is pretty fucked up. Like, we might see the kernel forked in the coming months/years.

See also: Phoronix: Linus Torvalds Comments On The Russian Linux Maintainers Being Delisted

Pisses me off that they charge 200 dollars for an extra 8gb of ram but I want a laptop with a good screen and processing power