I don’t see ads but if I were to, and despite all my precautions some would be on topic based on my past behavior I would methodically dissect to find out the leak. Namely I would try to automate the process :

• identify a place showing ads
• take an action, e.g. search or browser, on a verifiable unique topic (in order to prevent from generic suggestions, e.g medication during flu season)
• verify if the ads become relevant
• enable/disable any of the tools used, repeat

FWIW before whine about the lack of editing or digitization : take of photo of the result on your phone, auto-upload to your desktop or even server and voila, a proper process to have your cake and eat it too.

I very often take a basic A4 piece of paper, or even a napkin, whatever is around really, then sketch to summarize a complex situation, snap a pic and send it to myself. Amazing way to think, very flexible and intuitive, at basically no cost and entirely private. Sure you still have to re-draw it after, IF you want to, but typically the idea itself is already on a substrate, maybe that’s enough. If you want to edit it… guess what, you can edit the photo itself, no need to vectorize it first. Paper is great.

Pretty much all open hardware devices should be on such a list, e.g.

• NitroKey for both authentication tokens and storage (of e.g ssh keys)
• PGB-1 (based on RP2040) or Haxophone (based on RPi Zero) for music
• Precursor for token and dev (via its own FPGA)

so check CrowdSupply for more of such things.

I’d also add reMarkable. Sure you can use their cloud but you do NOT have to. It means you have your own Linux e-reader but also sketchpad entirely offline. You can work and sync with ssh or rsync and even setup your own cloud, cf https://github.com/ddvk/rmfakecloud . If you want something more open from the start check the PineNote but it’s harder to get and you have to tinker a bit more.

No doubt NVIDIA is peddling AI as they are financially depending on it now.

Now from claiming something is powerful and even used to actually shipping code on something low level and benchmarkable like (GPU) drivers I have doubt. I imagine they can say they use AI there to rephrase comment and it would “technically correct” but beyond that I’m still skeptical.

Regarding chip design, AI has been used for decades … if you consider routing to be AI. It’s not generative in the modern sense, it’s not using LLM, but it’s automated a process.

To me it’s the typical Harvard Business School playbook. C-suite repeat keywords they read in their peer most popular magazine, they aggregate in a document they call “strategy” they lower down the chain of commands people “execute” that because they must, thanks to KPIs.

I’d love to hear it from an actual engineer working on drivers but I imagine it’d be hard to get a honest opinion with NDAs and all.

Thanks for providing all the sources!

Source please

Sure, but FWIW I play from AAA to indies and it “works” as in no bug, no noticeable visual glitch.

I don’t benchmark from my driver version to the previous one on Windows or Linux or a price point equivalent with AMD hardware, I just play. I don’t think anybody gain much from checking performance benchmarks before playing a game, at least I can say for sure to me that’s not part of the fun.

I would notice if something was blatantly wrong e.g 50% performance hit, but I wouldn’t if it’s 5% hit. I don’t really care for it as it doesn’t affect my gameplay. Like I said, it’s from a casual player, not a pro player nor a game tinkerer.

Working “better” on Windows means nothing to me. Either I can play and I’m happy or I can’t (which never happened) then I’d be disappointed and potentially check why.

PS: I’m also a developer of XR content so I’m relatively confident I’d spot any significant problem.

No idea, I’ve been playing “normal” games and VR games with my NVIDIA card for years now on Debian and… it just works. It just keeps on working. Maybe people are hardcore tinkerers that mess with specific options but me, I just play and I’m happy with it.

However we need to educate the masses.

Well that’s kind of the earlier point, the working masses already know. What they might not understand is that they can use a VPN outside of the office and how it benefits them.

credit cards, debit cards, and now cashless vendors

FWIW in Belgium you can get prepaid nameless cards. The post and their bank partner know it’s yours (due to KYC) but not the shops and for online shops you can use drop boxes.

For membership cards I specifically reject because of that. It’s optional though so IMHO it’s precisely the easiest thing to escape, just say no.

(double post, might want to delete this one and keep the other one, I replied there)

Makes me curious if there is a per country list of banks that provide an option NOT to have that. I know that if my bank were to do force such limitations I’d consider moving to another one.

FWIW in Brussels there are anonymous public transport cards. You can top up your card but it’s not attached to your name or ID. If you lose it though, it’s like cash, you can safely assume nobody will give it back because they can’t. Most people I know do not use them but maybe they do not even know it’s an option.

Sidetracked a bit but last week I was in the UK. I tried to visit a website (not porn actually, just private messaging on BlueSky) and it asked to verify my age. Initially I thought “Meh… OK… let’s see the process” which then lead to installing an app maybe (I’m not sure tbh as I was in rush). Clearly I didn’t want to do it because the DM was potentially urgent (scheduling to meet someone ASAP) … so what did I do? I switched from my browser to my VPN, connected from Austria, refreshed… no age verification. It took me a grand total of 5s to bypass the system.

TL;DR: maybe you can actually escape even though you are convinced you can’t.

Of course, in fact you do not have to change right now, or even next month. Instead you are in a great position when you already have a device because it means you can take the time you need to prepare for a transition without any rush. The problem IMHO is … if you repeat the cycle. If in few years, or whenever you do change phones you say, again “Switching isn’t necessarily easy or doable for everyone” while having done nothing to change your situation.

Please, don’t rush a change and make it painful. Take the time and use the resources you have… but do something, even if a small thing, to go where you want to be. Do not stay stuck in a place you do not even enjoy.

No worries!

GraphineOS

GrapheneOS

Honestly… I come from iOS, using for nearly a decade. Yes that stuff is secure, yes that stuff is (or at least was) stable, yes that stuff is slick to the point of being a status symbol… but DAMN does it suck for interoperability!

Every success of bringing the Apple ecosystem to interact with anything is just so ridiculously hard… for in the end bringing very little.

Do yourself a favor, switch to (deGoogled) Android to enjoy KDE Connect, adb, scrcpy, etc just working out of the box, copying normal files the normal way, however you want. Try “just” Linux if you can’t but on mobile that’s not for everyone.

Again, I celebrate this success and all ways, e.g. iSH or Homebrew, that help to tinker, manage, work with Apple hardware but honestly I suggest ignoring it entirely. Just rely on software and hardware that actually provides the bare minimum to be interoperable. Not this.

Instead use this, and iSH, Homebrew, libimobiledevice, and the rest to transition AWAY from that locked ecosystem.

Hard to fall behind what? None of them is making anything interesting. Best they can do is provide some text that sound superficially plausible, is statistically correct and yet have 0 reasoning.

Nobody is “ahead” of anybody except is managing to do so with even more data while wasting even more resources.

Maybe more importantly of the participants in that race demonstrated that to keep on doing so will actually solve any of the problems that have been discovered along the way.

FWIW rsync also works on mobile phones and VR standalone HMDs, via e.g. termux or ish … so it’s really on working fine on… pretty much anything with a terminal and a connection really.

Warmly recommended.

Also if you need more than solely the last version, check rdiff-backup.

Indeed, and it … worked, in fact still does, exactly as expected.