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Microsoft Warns That Windows 11 AI Might Install Malware On Your PC - Kotaku (kotaku.com)
submitted 11 months ago by to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/39011502

Um.... What the f....

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[+] -8 points 11 months ago (17 children)

Most of the time, a MacBook is the only logical laptop choice. Gaming laptops mostly suck, either at actual gaming, or at being actual portable laptops. If they aren't portable, just spend less money on a gaming desktop. If they are portable, they suck at gaming, and if they're not MacBooks, the battery life isn't as good and/or they aren't as powerful. The best gaming on laptops is cloud gaming, and that works on MacBooks too.

Apple Intelligence isn't miles ahead of anybody. It's dead last, which is why I like it. I feel like Google and Microsoft are gonna push AI on you whether you want it or not, and that's the point. Your hardware, serving them. Additional power draw, you pay for, so they can make more money (and naturally, not give any back).

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  • [–] 7 points 11 months ago* (13 children)

    My lemming on the internet, the Steam Deck costs less than a third of the price and the most expensive variant is just around half lmao

    (Although I think one aspect where that argument for best laptop has holes is the used market for slim x86 devices. Apple Silicon may have advantages in terms of battery life, but software compatibility is still rough AF if you're not an artist or in music production)

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (11 children)

    Software compatibility on the Mac is fine, unless you mean emulating Windows for gaming like the Steam Deck does so well. In that case, I've gotten Fallout 4 to work with Whisky, but that's not a huge accomplishment. I have an M2 Pro Mac mini from 2023 and Fallout 4 came out in 2015. It's not a great platform for gaming in any case. I play Blue Prince on it and that looks good. Stray, too. Those are newer games, but not particularly demanding. They look okay, but the framerate isn't good. Xbox (Series X) is a better platform for both.

    I'm not discounting or disregarding the Deck, I just haven't got one so I cannot say what it can or can't do. I've only heard good things about it. I have a friend who may be trying to unload one, I just can't spare the cash right now and I'm not that interested in owning one. And I think he does have the most expensive version. And I think he's upgraded the SSD in it. So sure, it would be a good deal and he'd make a good deal for a friend, I just don't really have the room for it. Still, it is tempting.

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  • [–] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

    Steam Deck (or any Linux device) does not emulate Windows for games. A translation layer is much different.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (1 child)

    I'm aware, but I'm not fully educated on the difference between the two.

    It's like alien dogs — the creature is not a dog per se, it's not a canine, but you call it a dog (as a writer) so the reader understands it serves the same role, socially. I think there are a lot of colloquial terms like "dog" that get reused in science fiction where it's not that thing, but it's like that thing and that's what people understand.

    So you can explain why WINE is not an emulator (that's actually what WINE stands for) but at the end of the day, it's a program that lets you run programs designed for another machine or operating system. It accomplishes the same goal for the end user as an emulator, even if it does so a little differently. I guess it's like Boomers calling Xbox and PlayStation "Nintendo." They're technically wrong, but they just see video games and go with the name they know.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Emulators have far more performance overhead compared to a compatibility/translation layer that WINE tries to accomplish. There can even be performance improvements overall due to the lack of additional Windows overhead.

    This makes it different from say, DOSBox or PCEmu, since a machine with the same hardware specifications that the software was initially designed to run on can work well, or even exceed expectations. Emulators usually require much more power than the original core system.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago (7 children)

    Tbf, I haven't touched a Mac in ages (and never personally owned one in my life), because the combination of the "luxury(tm)" device tax and Apple's vindictive anti-repair stance (and their walled garden on principle but that's not relevant here) basically put them on my "never buy and never recommend" list. I have heard of good work being put on a compatibility layer similar to Wine on their front, but I'd imagine specialist software that depends on GPU acceleration (in my case, CAD software) would struggle to run in that scenario on Apple Silicon.

    (Plus, a used thinkpad is cheap as cheap can be and again, an entry-level, fully repairable and upgradeable deck will run you around $300 with much better game performance for it's portable weight class)

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  • [–] 3 points 11 months ago (4 children)

    Tbf, I haven't touched a Mac in ages (and never personally owned one in my life), because the combination of the "luxury(tm)" device tax and Apple's vindictive anti-repair stance (and their walled garden on principle but that's not relevant here) basically put them on my "never buy and never recommend" list.

    All good points. So here's what ya do - slide on over to your favorite used gear hub and pick up a 10 year old 8GB model for like $50 or $100. These things sold for thousands back in the day but now they're just beautiful old advanced-for-the-time hardware (that often run linux super easy if you get bored).

    A little research will keep you to the ones that can be upgraded easily.

    Grok all the rounded edges and backlit island glass-touchpad beautifulness. Wonder at how they got a good sound from tiny speakers in 1847 or whatever. Enjoy kicking around the candy colored icons and see how the configurations are just two clicks to wherever you want to be. It's like a vacation from scrolling through a textfile. Or, get jiggy with the BSD and go nuts. Get a free apple ID and smile guiltily when all your other cheap rescues line up behind it and interact seamlessly.

    Just don't use your real name, keep behind your favorite recipe of networking, etc., obvs. And you might decide it's a good thing.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (3 children)

    The Linux elders warned me about those who would tempt me towards ecosystem damnation... (/s)

    In all seriousness, I just don't care. I have a nice, personal DIY desktop, and my work/business laptop is literally a rescued x86 device from an e-waste pile that I replaced the display panel for, installed 32GB of ram, and added an 1TB SSD. I have no value for those "Apple comforts". I've spent enough time in my IT career inside of those damned things to know I hate looking at one or holding one.

    My favorite part of my last contract job was to smash an entire school's collection of discarded Macs with a sledgehammer.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (2 children)

    Ah yes. I know you. You didn't swelter under the obnoxious blaring idiocy of Windows long enough. You're either too young to be terrorized by winsock issues or nerdy enough to have bypassed all gravitational social tech support requirements in the 90's/2000's.

    Either way, the inevitable troubleshooting still holds appeal of some sort, and that's good. I've got a couple of classic stinkpads running various flavors of (well, I'm sure all Debian really) and they're lots of fun, it's true. But the idea that I can use a single laptop for weeks or even months without ever once encountering an error or odd behavior or required updates or even restarting is wonderful enough for me to be happy with it.

    It's like if you ever got an ink-tank printer and suddenly didn't worry about buying printer cartridges anymore. That feeling of enlightenment, like there's a whole level of experience where no one gives a shit how many pages of things they print because it's free. Glorious.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (1 child)

    (You do realize that some Linux distros are quite stable compared to Windows right? I haven't had to troubleshoot my Mint installation in years.)

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago

    Oh sure, sure. But the last time I had to troubleshoot my main system was . . . Probably a decade ago. I troubleshoot rebuilding old ones or some twit friend-or-family that has to run some microsoft garbage but for me, troubleshooting’s like - nothin’ at all! . . . nothin’ at all! . . . nothin’ at all!

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago (1 child)

    All fair.

    To be clear, Apple's compatibility layer is mostly inaccessible to the user. Even with the latest macOS, so you should have GPTK (Game Porting Tool Kit), you can't just run a Windows game. You have to do some work... or use something like Whisky. And the guy who made Whisky stopped working on it so people could pay subscription fees to CrossOver (which is not a bad product; in fact, it funnels money into WINE which helps everyone). So in theory with CrossOver your CAD software may work... or may not... but it sounds like it wouldn't be worth it for you to try.

    But wait — just out of curiosity, how upgradeable is a ThinkPad? Typically the motherboard limits what you can do (e.g. if it's an AMD system, an AM4 means you can use most of the newest stuff, but there's some stuff locked behind AM5 you won't be able to touch, but it's the same on the Intel side as well). So, just curious how far you can actually take a $300 used ThinkPad. I used to build, so it's just that, a curiosity.

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  • [–] 1 point 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

    The Steam Deck is the most upgradeable, you can do all sorts of crazy stuff (I probably phrased that poorly in the prior comment), but the used thinkpad's milage probably varies based on which model you buy. Standard stuff like RAM, storage, and so on are easily upgraded though (unlike Apple who SOLDERS THEM IN for some "fuck you" reason).

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  • [–] 5 points 11 months ago

    I think the best choice is to get a non-gaming Windows laptop and install Linux on it.

    If you don't need something super powerful then get a refurbished Thinkpad T14 or Elitebook 840 G7 from eBay or Amazon.

    Or if you need more CPU, a better screen, etc get a new Omnibook (7 or above) or Ideapad (5 or above) for a Macbook like feel or a Thinkpad for repairability.

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  • [–] 2 points 11 months ago

    Apple Intelligence isn’t miles ahead of anybody. It’s dead last, which is why I like it.

    Exactly, in the same boat with this one. It's not exactly like shoving copilot into freaking notepad.

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