Daily Archives: 2023-04-02

The day Windows died

Source: OSNews

Article note: Using Windows is starting to induce the same feeling that using the Web without an ad-blocker has had for a long time, or coming face to face with someones' toolbar-infested browser did in the bad old days. That very clear sensation that the technology is working for someone-not-you.

So, there is basically little you can do with Windows out of the box but buy subscriptions and log into pre-installed social media apps. One thing I knew right on the spot: That’s not an environment I want my kid to make his first steps “on a real computer.” Not in a hundred years. Never.

Some people recommended tools to me which can be used to switch most of those things off. But honestly: How do you trust a system (or its manufacturer) if you can’t even know if those settings, which you deliberately chose, persist? What if I remove app x for a reason, and it suddenly pops up again after the next Windows update? Or the news section in the search menu? No way. I can no longer see a good use case for it, at least not in my home.

Windows 11 is a dystopian experience.

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iAPX432: Gordon Moore, Risk and Intel’s Super-CISC Failure

Source: Hacker News

Article note: The 432 tale is always interesting. The HN thread is one of the few places I've seen someone-not-me make the Burroughs large system done wrong comparison, and a place to make my usual "learning to hide whatever cutting edge processor behind a fancy dynamic JIT-in-hardware was the winning trick" argument about why many of the ambitious designs of the 90s failed and the P6/K6 designs basically ended ISAs.
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