Not excusing Chinese companies but everyone does the same shit. I bet a lot of US companies that behave the same or worse will be looking for trade barriers to protect their business so their interests will be stoking fear of Chinese competitors. I don’t really give a shit which country is doing it, I am not buying what they are selling.
US companies have a stranglehold on government, education and business and are getting access to my families data despite my personal objections. Far more concerned about that than a Chinese service I have no intention of using.
Deepseek can at least be self hosted if you want AI in your life. I can happily live without it.
Windows gamers and reviewers seemed to not realize AMD cpu performance was nerfed on Windows until the latest gen AMD release. From time to time there have also been issues with Windows scheduling for Intel cpus. Including a competing OS in comparisons allows reviewers to sanity check stuff like that. Wendell had the most balanced reviews because he was presenting cross platform and productivity along with Windows gaming performance. When Microsoft held a monopoly that sort of reviewing wasn’t possible. You had no idea if Windows was nerfing particular platforms or why.
Overall Linux gaming might be worse or some titles really bad but lets get it out in the open. It will be good for all consumers because it will drive improvement.
Digital licence is all I have used for about 7 years. Police here are careful never to reach for a phone as they can’t legally. You display the licence and give it a shake to animate it and they copy the number down in their notebook. If the police ever did illegally take a phone I would wipe it and replace it and lodge a complaint.
They may have similar protections in Europe. People often post opinions on social media without checking facts. I get why on commercial social media where everything is rage bait. But i don’t know why people can’t take a few minutes to check local laws before posting here.
So basically the same as half the school administered laptops full of remote spyware. We had one of those bought home, supplied to teaching staff, the spyware was never disclosed and it used to sit on a desk in the bedroom. The rule now is we buy and control our own devices, even if they have to run shit like Windows for compatibility on some. Enterprise versions of Windows will almost certainly ship without crap like Recall as it might conflict with the enterprises third party spyware. Unfortunately there is still intense institutional resistance to moving away from the Microsoft ecosystems in some organizations.
They are in linux forums spruiking chatgpt/copilot as well. Mods deleted my comment the last time I told them to get lost. The rampant commercialism is so frustrating. The FOSS community has done so much to empower users/developers and give everyone the tools to learn, grow and customise their systems with amazing documentation and access to source code. And it is going to be Disneyfied within a generation with the fruits of our labor locked up behind billionaire controlled subscription services in flagrant disregard of our copyright and licences. Our kids won’t know how to tie their shoelaces without paying Nadella, Altman and their shareholders for instructions.
Deviant Ollam posted an interesting video, This is How a Constitutional Crisis Will Begin about changes happening in prisons and makes an interesting point that the trans community make a convenient target for triggering a constitutional crisis.
You target a small, basically insignificant and harmless group, then ignore any court rulings while the media and public remain silent and disinterested. Its a pathway to uncontested executive power that can then be extended to persecution of other groups.
Arguing for privacy from government feels alarmist, distant and theoretical as long as there is rule of law and a sound participative democracy. But what happens to constitutional guarantees and legal protections if the courts lose their power and independence? Suddenly privacy becomes a very real pragmatic concern. Not only could you be in a targeted group but you could be guilty by association.