Conservatism is a blight on the world.

The best possible scenario is that they’re just using it to entice people to pay for a premium subscription and will leave it that way. But the chances are that once they’ve pulled enough people in with the offer of free software, they’ll alter the deal.

So they’re planning to hook people in with freebies then boil the frogs a little slower.

Github Copilot is somewhat useful for programming (or it feels useful when it cranks out some boring and routine code to my specs - not sure it actually saves me time though because I always review it all), but of course Microsoft have given a range of products all the same name for maximum confusion, as they do. The Copilot in Windows may be rubbish for all I know. I haven’t ever felt the need to press the button.

It’s like gambling the entire US economy on Clippy.

Affinity has been the best alternative to some of the key Adobe tools for a while now, and it was a one-off payment of about $200 for the whole suite, which was good value. Now it’s “free” I’m just a bit worried. Sure, it’s not exactly a subscription but where are they going?

It seems reasonable for now: you can use all the tools except the AI stuff for free, so it’s still (I assume) as full-featured as the last Serif version of Affinity was. And if the AI stuff is not done locally, then that costs them money to run so fair enough that they charge something. But we don’t know what Canva plans to do with Affinity. Will the tools be gradually hollowed out while more and more features go behind a paywall? Will they start filling the desktop software with ads? What will they do when they judge that they have poached enough of Adobe’s users? Will they brick your software if you close your Canva account? I don’t entirely trust them.

Everyone expresses this frustration with Linux, but I’ve used it alongside Windows for years and it’s Windows that has caused me by far the most headaches. I think many people would be pleasantly surprised by pretty much any mainstream Linux distro.

Do you even have a general computing license, citizen? Have you even been through the vetting process?

Or just sending them takedown requests that Google acts on by default.

We could see back in the 1980s that corporations were becoming more powerful than governments. And that power imbalance has only continued to become more extreme since then.

But how about in the USA?

Greetings, fellow Candians!

In my experience many Canadians are pretty loud too. Americans may have the edge though.

Only when we can step away from capitalism can we change course. Until then, the system locks everyone in and we’re just tinkering with detail. And that step will be a rough one, but it is necessary.

despite Microsoft’s push for Copilot+ PCs

Not despite, because of.

I’ve allowed anyone to make “cameos” using my face. (You don’t have to do this: You can choose settings that make your likeness private, or open to just your friends — but I figured, why not? …)

Maybe because of this shit? A learning experience, I guess.

deleted by creator

shouldn’t other types of engines be tried?

Sure, but the tricky bit is to be more specific than that.

BCC