They could admittedly be more defined, but I think the original commenter missed a key word. It really boils down to whether or not you are offloading your critical thinking.
The word "thinking" can be a bit nebulous in these conversations, and critical thinking perhaps even more ambiguously defined, so before we discuss that, we need to define it. I go with the Merriam-Webster definition: the act or practice of thinking critically (as by applying reason and questioning assumptions) in order to solve problems, evaluate information, discern biases, etc.
LLMs seem to be able to mimic this, particularly to those who have no clue what it means when we call an LLM a "stochastic parrot" or some equally esoteric term. At first I was baffled that anyone really thought that LLMs could somehow apply reason or discern its own biases but I had to take a step back and look at how that public perception was shaped to see what these people were seeing. LLMs, generative AI, ML, etc are all extremely complex things. Couple that with the pervasive notion that thinking is hard and you have a massive pool of consumers who are only too happy to offload some of that thinking on to something they may not fully understand but were promised that it would do what they wanted, which is make their daily lives a bit easier.
We always get snagged by things that promise us convenience or offer to help us do less work. It's pretty human to desire both of those things, but proving to be an Achilles Heel for many. How we characterize AI determines our expectations of it; so do you think of it as a bag of tools you can use to complete tasks? Or is it the whole factory assembly line where you can push a few buttons and an pseudo-finished product comes out the other side?
Not wrong, but don't forget there are many militias with itchy trigger fingers all over the political spectrum here, though admittedly some parties have more affiliated with them than others. It's not a stretch to assume should fighting in the streets escalate beyond ICE shenanigans that larger armies would not quickly congeal from the pocket groups and individuals.
> there are many militias with itchy trigger fingers all over the political spectrum here
That’s still not a civil war in the conventional sense. If it gets entrenched and coördinated it could be come something we’ll debate, e.g. the Troubles. But insurgency != civil war.
Sometimes yes. Sometimes no. Civil wars are large-scale mobilizations. That’s what makes them uniquely destructive. Insurgencies are also destructive, but in a categorically-different way.
I am, under the right circumstance. I'm not a pacificist, at least not historically. Although, we can banter all day with tough words, but the reality is that none of us can really predict how we will react to a situation until we are in it.
But we won't, because those are hard to maintain versus the convenience of letting providers do it for us, hence why we keep getting suckered into handing over control to these centralized powers.
I am farsighted, which worsens with each passing year. While I get around this online by making full use of browser options to enlarge text for me, etc, because everyone uses different fonts anyway, I can also kinda see the perspective shift to someone looking at this font switch as being just one of many parts of "an attack" on accessibility by the current administration. Their general attitude seems to be that if the change was made in the past to accommodate a particular group of people, in this case, those with poorer eyesight/trouble reading things on screens which were starting to inundate our lives at the time, then it's got to go because it somehow disrupts their status quo.
It's a silly stance for insecure men, which is why the brief uproar this change caused is so wildly ridiculous and adds to the pile of evidence illustrating that they are not serious leaders.
God, how ridiculously hyperbolic. But we're in the midst of a debate about the origins of a deep fried candy bar with strangers on HN and just supposed to believe that you live in Scotland and have seen every possible offering in every possible shop.
Sounds stupid to decry something that people can verify to some extent then proceed to offer information that nobody can verify, doesn't it? This tired drum of Wikipedia being able to be edited by any wad off the street needs to be laid to rest, especially now in an age where misinformation is insanely prevalent in our general media and trusted sources who get paid to spread it.
Living in the US, what I find even more wild is just how many people purchase them here who have zero need to own a truck that size. It's got to be the most absurd parts of our modern cultural identity.
Even if the owner is using it as a rugged machine for hauling tools and supplies back and forth, they make for terrible work vehicles. A bed that's advertised as 6 foot actually measures about 5' 7" if you're lucky and the wheel wells eat into it so much that loading anything wider than maybe 4' just feels stupid. Nothing about it feels convenient or helpful when compared to a proper work van or a small flatbed. It's basically just a comfy exoskeleton for the driver to pickup groceries.
Meanwhile, I'm driving from site to site with a 4-cylinder hatchback full of tools in custom boxes I made getting twice the gas mileage. It gets some funny looks, but it gets the job done, which is more than I can say for most of the not-a-scratch-on-them trucks I see on the road, here.
I do empathize with those picking the vehicle not on practicality but cool factor - considering how common and accepted gadget cravings are in other areas, I would find it unfair to attack that aspect. I'm currently using ~5GB out of my laptops 64GB of RAM, pretty sure I could start a small fire with my flashlight, and my motorcycle has off-road suspension in a country where the most demanding obstacle is a curb. Other things would objectively fit my needs better while costing less, but be less fun - and fun can be hard to find these days.
As you say, they are absolutely terrible for work use as well - Japanese kei trucks famously have larger beds than some common US pickup trucks, and the size of the custom beds we use in the EU makes the US ones look like absolute kids toys - but that too I wouldn't mind too much if they were just forced to be safe and with decent emissions so the idiocy mainly affected the driver and their wallets.
I'm not too impressed with your vehicle only getting twice the gas mileage though. I'd expect more than that. :P
> I'm not too impressed with your vehicle only getting twice the gas mileage though. I'd expect more than that. :P
I'm going to blame the ham radio antennas and bike rack ;)
But in all seriousness, I was getting slightly better mileage when the car was new 6 years ago. It has declined a bit, despite my regular maintenance, but I'm still very pleased with it. It might be more than twice the mileage of the average truck on the road, to be honest, but I find it hard to get a clear number. I think some truck owners embellish the mileage they actually get, as does the dealer sticker on the new vehicles for sale since those numbers assume perfect terrain with no traffic, last I checked. Then I hop into a co-worker's 2020 truck and realize he's getting 12mpg on a good day and nearly have a heart attack.
My vehicle gets between 45 and 55mpg on average, depending if I'm on the highway a lot or more urban environments.
American pickups are very practical for what they are designed for. Your 4 cylinder hatchback is not going to pull a 20,000lb trailer up a steep grade, or haul enough lumber to frame in a house, or a 7,000lb bed full of gravel. While there are very visible idiots in the USA that drive big trucks for aesthetic reasons, there are also plenty of farmers, contractors, etc. that need them as a practical tool to haul heavy loads. For them, it’s not an oversized car but a smaller and more economical alternative to a large commercial truck.
> American pickups are very practical for what they are designed for. Your 4 cylinder hatchback is not going to pull a 20,000lb trailer up a steep grade or haul enough lumber to frame in a house, or a 7,000lb bed full of gravel.
An f150 can do none of these things.
> While there are very visible idiots in the USA that drive big trucks for aesthetic reasons
That is 95% of the market.
> there are also plenty of farmers, contractors, etc. that need them as a practical tool to haul heavy loads.
For the average contractor a panel van would be more capable and useful. You can put 3 metric tonnes in a man tge (and actually have the space for it) and tow a 3.5 tonnes trailer. And it’s available bare if you need an open bed, or a custom rear (e.g. for a lift).
So? I gave specs for a typical 1 ton truck. A 1/2 ton F150 is smaller, cheaper, and more efficient. It depends on what you need.
A panel van is more useful for some things, a truck for others- it depends on what you’re doing. You’re not going to fill your panel van with manure or gravel and then transport it across a muddy field without getting stuck. I grew up in a rural area of the USA where everyone owned trucks they needed and used for work, most were old and rusty and they all also owned a regular passenger car they used when they weren’t hauling something heavy… people were poor and did not waste fuel driving a truck except when it was essential- not a fashion statement, just a tool.
My family owned a 3/4 ton truck that we needed for hauling our boat and livestock, but we drove an old Volvo at other times. My dad built the home I grew up in, and he had to transport all of the materials to build it himself.
I think the hate on here is coming mostly from a place of ignorance about what life in rural America is like, which is what full sized American trucks are engineered and perfectly suited for. Where transporting thousands of pounds of materials across a muddy field in 4WD isn’t something you do once a year but often twice a day just to survive.
So that's a small fraction of the market, and literally none of what's already landed in europe.
> I grew up in a rural area of the USA where everyone owned trucks they needed and used for work, most were old and rusty and they all also owned a regular passenger car they used when they weren’t hauling something heavy… people were poor and did not waste fuel driving a truck except when it was essential- not a fashion statement, just a tool.
OK. Apparently you're waking up from a coma and missed the last 20 year of US car trends?
> My dad built the home I grew up in, and he had to transport all of the materials to build it himself.
Cool. My grandfather did the same for his family, using an R4. And the odd rental when that wasn't enough.
> I think the hate on here is coming mostly from a place of ignorance about what life in rural America is like
Or you could just read what people actually write, and see that your "thinking" could not be more wrong.
There's never been less farmers in the US, or more trucks sold. And full-size trucks are nowhere near sales leaders.
My point is that full sized American trucks are uniquely effective at what they are actually engineered for, and plenty of people do need and use them for that. The fact that they are even more popular with people that have no practical need for them doesn’t invalidate my point in any way, despite your rude and dismissive tone. If you dislike people misusing a tool for something other than it’s practical purpose, that’s fine, but why project that onto me, or the tool itself?
I very much appreciate the capabilities and utility of American pickup trucks, despite not owning one because I don’t need one. I also find it distasteful when people use them as urban passenger cars to project some sort of “personal brand” without having an actual need, but that in no way diminishes my appreciation for their practicality when used appropriately.
I suspect people are in part so aggressively hateful of American pickup trucks because they see it as a symbol for an opposing side in a culture war. However that perspective seems really silly to anyone that uses them properly to meet a practical need.
The only culture war is between your ears, people are “hateful of American pickups” because as I already wrote multiple times and you refuse to read the overwhelming majority of their uses and users are what you claim to find distasteful. When “used appropriately” is closing on nonexistent and the misuses cause massive harm it’s a reasonable response. Even more so when per TFA your leaders are aiming to spread that plague by (economic) force.
> my appreciation for their practicality when used appropriately.
You can do that and still acknowledge that pickups are a massive problem. These are not exclusive thoughts despite your refusal to see it. It might be easier if you substitute pickups for mine trucks, excavators, or rollers, which I assume you don’t have the same emotional attachment towards.
> You can do that and still acknowledge that pickups are a massive problem
I never said they aren't, you seem to be trying to have an argument against a position that I have never stated or held. I was explaining how these vehicles can be practical when used for their intended and engineered purpose, and your rebuttals are targeted as some other assumed perspective or position that I simply don't have. Please drop the insults- that isn't how we discuss things on HN.
My acknowledgement of the practical utility of American pickups for their engineered purpose doesn't come from any kind of emotional attachment, or affinity for them, nor any delusion that most of their owners actually need or use them properly- that's all coming from you. I'm a European car nerd/snob and wouldn't personally be caught dead driving any American vehicle, I just really don't like them. I own a fuel efficient diesel German SUV that I tow a flatbed utility trailer behind, so I can do some of the things one would usually do with a pickup, without having to own one.
(In the context of the discussion about these vehicles in the EU)
In the EU, neither would any American pickup truck: If registered as a normal class B vehicle, the total gross vehicle weight would be limited to 3500 kg (7700 lbs), and it would at most be permitted to tow 3500 kg (7700 lbs) with full independent trailer brakes, 750 kg (1650 lbs) without. You can add roughly 1000 kg if you tow a semitrailer, but getting the vehicle certified with a fifth wheel would probably be infeasible.
It doesn't make sense as a class C truck here (special driver's license, tachograph requirements for commercial use). It's way less nimble than our Scania/Volvo trucks (their turning radii are way tighter, and and have much smaller footprint for a given capacity), and is obviously a lot less capable than a vehicle that can be build from small utility up to the ~100k lbs range.
At the same time, if a farmer is outside the scope of a regular personal vehicle, they're most likely going to use their go-to tractor (e.g., Lamborghini, John Deere) which can haul anything anywhere, otherwise if they really need to haul they'll be reaching for a Scania/Volvo.
(It is common to register smaller, 7500 kg class C vehicles, but that's usually stuff like large Mercedes Sprinter vans, often built up as specialized service vehicles - think sewer inspection and repair.)
In the context of the US: It might seem like the best choice given the common options there, but I think the issue is with the options and perceived utility. It's the same with large trucks: The common ones in the EU are much more powerful, rated to haul more, are more comfortable, safer, have much smaller footprint for the given load and turns on a dime compared to US options.
It's almost impossible to navigate parking garages if two such trucks park opposite each other. Or if one parks on an end that people need to navigate around.
People spend insane amounts of money buying these monstrosities too. It seems as a society we've normalized spending a year's salary on a vehicle, or rather getting a 7-year loan and making crazy monthly payments. I don't understand it. My then normal-sized, now smallish, 13-year old car, that I paid off 11 years ago, still runs great and I can park it easily.
> People spend insane amounts of money buying these monstrosities too
This is also another part of the whole truck-craze in the US that I do not understand. An F150, for example, starts around $40,000 USD for base models, not including taxes and hidden fees. I purchased my car (an HEV, mind you) back in 2019 for just over half that price, spend about $500 annually on regular maintenance that I'm not able to do myself to keep things tip top, and spend about half as much in fuel as my coworkers who travel about the same amount as me for our jobs. Accounting regularly double-checks that I turned in all my fuel receipts because they still don't quite grasp that my car gets far, far better gas mileage.
All that said, these guys make about the same money I do, some a little less since they're newbies, which is to say we are all very underpaid for what we do, wealthy by no standards. And yet, they made these massive purchases while struggling to pay bills or complaining that fuel is too expensive at the pump, etc. These are the same people who buy two paychecks worth of fireworks every July 4th just to watch it all burn in 15 minutes.
Makes me think part of our cultural identity includes regularly acting against our own interests.
Running unlicensed versions of Windows has historically been pretty easy. Am I missing something with Windows 10 IoT Enterprise LTSC 2021?
With Windows 7, once the evaluation period ran out, you just had to deal with an annoying notification about your copy not being genuine, but it never stopped me from doing whatever I needed to do after installing it on dozens of machines over the years, at this point.
2) It’s not legal, obviously. I’d always have a tinge of worry that if I join a Teams call or something then my employer is on the hook for me doing something naughty.
(given how Microsoft has decided to “upgrade” my local account to a Microsoft account before when logging in to outlook)
> 2) It’s not legal, obviously. I’d always have a tinge of worry that if I join a Teams call or something then my employer is on the hook for me doing something naughty.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I assume most people here are talking about their personal computers unless self employed.
The company IT department isn't going to be deploying oddball versions of Windows 10, unless you're shady small business.
Interesting. And worrying. I see a good number of those Kamrui (and competitor) Mini PCs from Amazon replacing a lot of the far more expensive and lower-powered industrial PCs for various uses in smaller machine shops. I was not surprised since they're inexpensive and have a decent kick to the hardware, but I've noted that the version of Windows they ship with is fairly free of a lot of the usual bloat, so I assumed they were just using one of the available scripts to remove it...which likely included the KMS38 work-around? And I can tell you first-hand that most of the smaller shops are far too busy penny-pinching to spend even a few hundred dollars a year on licensing one or two of those machines properly.
I never looked that deep into it since nobody came to me with any issues about it, but you have me wondering. I don't personally use Windows, either, despite my HN handle (it's just a reference I thought was funny), and I am finding myself more and more ignorant to what Microsoft is actually pushing. Thanks for the heads up. Will spend some time looking at this deeper.
Yep, last couple of Windows versions I used as desktop OSs likely 7 and 8) were unlicensed and, other than making the desktop background black (sometimes) and an occasional watermark reminder that it's not legit, nothing stopped working.
And using Windows for free still didn't stop me from migrating to Linux exclusively (desktop and laptops and servers), and it's a decision I'm increasingly happy with.
I haven't really used Windows much for years, but doesn't it start shutting down once evaluation period is up? 'Windows will shutdown in 30 minutes unless licence key is added' etc., and the desktop background goes blue with some text about being unlicensed?
Consumer versions of Windows just put a watermark on your screen and disable changing your wallpaper and the like. You can use it indefinitely beyond that. And if you want the watermark gone, then Massgrave is your friend.
I have not experienced that, which is why I questioned the difficulty. I've installed Windows 10 on a good amount of machines at this point, bypassing the NRO during the install process, and have not had any issues that prevented me from installing software/games or just using it like a normal PC, even after connecting it to the Internet.
However, my experience may be dated. It's been awhile since I've had to freshly install Windows. Perhaps things have changed.
Yes, I believe LTSC does have a harsher shutdown setting if you're out of the 90 day "evaluation" window. Standard Windows keeps working just disabling the wallpaper and showing a watermark which you might be able to ignore.
I'd push even further and say it encroaches, if not outright invades the conversation about who owns what data. Both are terribly muddy waters, to be sure, but something worth hashing out since we live in an age of information that is both accessible and under threat, so the real question is where do we want to collectively steer this ship?
The word "thinking" can be a bit nebulous in these conversations, and critical thinking perhaps even more ambiguously defined, so before we discuss that, we need to define it. I go with the Merriam-Webster definition: the act or practice of thinking critically (as by applying reason and questioning assumptions) in order to solve problems, evaluate information, discern biases, etc.
LLMs seem to be able to mimic this, particularly to those who have no clue what it means when we call an LLM a "stochastic parrot" or some equally esoteric term. At first I was baffled that anyone really thought that LLMs could somehow apply reason or discern its own biases but I had to take a step back and look at how that public perception was shaped to see what these people were seeing. LLMs, generative AI, ML, etc are all extremely complex things. Couple that with the pervasive notion that thinking is hard and you have a massive pool of consumers who are only too happy to offload some of that thinking on to something they may not fully understand but were promised that it would do what they wanted, which is make their daily lives a bit easier.
We always get snagged by things that promise us convenience or offer to help us do less work. It's pretty human to desire both of those things, but proving to be an Achilles Heel for many. How we characterize AI determines our expectations of it; so do you think of it as a bag of tools you can use to complete tasks? Or is it the whole factory assembly line where you can push a few buttons and an pseudo-finished product comes out the other side?
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