Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Your Computer Isn't Yours

sneak.berlin

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

421–430 of 764 posts

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#421

Post by m4rtink »

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #406
amalantony06 wrote: post #354

I'd strongly advocate fellow hackers/technical users to move out of the Mac ecosystem and get yourself a Thinkpad. My Thinkpad X1 Carbon that I got a few months ago runs Fedora as seamless as the Macbook runs MacOS. I haven't had a single hardware compatibility issue to date. I don't even miss the Apple Trackpad since I've gotten used to the Thinkpad Trackpoint which is an order of magnitude better as an input device…

> My Thinkpad X1 Carbon Are they easy to repair? And is 8/16GB enough? Looking to buy something similar too.

My t460p can go up to 64 GB. Some of the newer ones have part of the ram soldered on though, need to watch for that if you want to max it in the future.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#422

Post by aydwi »

szc wrote: post #127

I'm not going to comment on the linked article, other than say I think it contains serious mistakes in describing what OCSP is for and errors in other statements. In the background there is a war going on, but it isn't what you think. It is a war between malware creators and OS creators. From my perspective it goes like this: To "identify" malware you need signatures. Signatures need valid certificates. Signing keys…

> For me, Apple products really are designed to protect my personal information.

For me, the cost of "protecting my personal information" is too high.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#423

Post by superkuh »

zepto wrote: post #59

For most people, if there computer was ‘theirs’, it would be that way for about 10 minutes until it was pwned by a bad actor. The general issue of other people (I.e. Apple et al) having a lot of control over your computer, is entirely valid even if some of the points in the piece are exaggerations. The problem is that people want it that way. They are in fact correct that computers are scary and too complex for them…

Feudal lords protected their serfs too.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#424

Post by raxxorrax »

rednum wrote: post #266
kebman wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not. Since the last few iterations of Apple hardware and OS software, I've decided to switch to something else. I'm also advicing all friends and collegues to do the same. There is simply no reason to stay with Apple anymore as a professional. It used to be stability and ease of use, but Windows has since closed that gap, and Linux is a close second (and a must for programming). Most likely that means I'll run a…

I haven't used Windows in long time, but it feels like "the gap" was closed by Apple, by letting their system degrade. The high end 2019 MacBookPro is in many regards less reliable for music production than my old 2012 MacBookAir, which is really, really sad. Unless Apple gets their act together my next music production setup will be Windows-based (or maybe I'll even try Bitwig on Linux).

Apple still is best for audio and animation applications and there are synergies in certain industries like game development.

But apart from that it is a bad deal.

Windows degraded itself with its bad store, telemetry and PaaS dream, but yes, as soon as they could Apple developed in the same direction. Microsoft suffers from bad decisions on some management level.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#425

Post by m4rtink »

the_only_law wrote: post #380
m4rtink wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the issues you list should not be a problem if you use a Linux distro on a fairly standard pc/laptop. Pretty much all inside it is open for you to look into and change as needed.

At the OS level sure. Its still running on a completely non-free / hardly hackable platform though riddled with all sorts of backdoors and other curiosities. I'm aware of things like coreboot / libreboot, but support is even more limited there and porting involves a deep understanding of the x86 platform in my brief experience.

It really depend on what you want to do - Linux distro on x86 is IMHO good start, but of course its not the only option - there are now some reasonably open arm devices (including an atm laptop) from pine, there is the very open Tales workstation running on Power & RiscV showing up everywhere.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#426

Post by arvinsim »

croes wrote: post #376
eznzt wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what do you expect us to do, install Linux and spend days configuring the touchpad? Computers are a tool we use to do our work. Setting up the computer cannot become a job by itself.

But it should be your tool. Apple just grands you the right to use it like they think it's the best for you. That leads to this https://mobile.twitter.com/lapcatsoftware/status/13269902964... How could it be that people are all about freedom when it comes to governments but have no problem if private companies censor and controll what they write and do?

Because they own shares

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#427

Post by thinkingemote »

eznzt wrote: post #276
zanny wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good thing said hacker culture spent 15 years buying inflated laptops and desktops from them ultimately for convenience to give them the market presence to do this in the first place. Its the same thing with Windows. People will preach all day that they won't make any personal sacrifices to try to avoid feeding literal cancers that are eating the software industry and are shocked when said all consuming voids take aw…

And what do you expect us to do, install Linux and spend days configuring the touchpad? Computers are a tool we use to do our work. Setting up the computer cannot become a job by itself.

We expect you to be a hacker.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#428

Post by arexxbifs »

nojito wrote: post #413
jmull wrote: post #396

There’s a rather strong counter to this is: I, and the vast majority of computer users, don’t want to manage every nitty-gritty detail of the security and privacy of my computer. I have better things to do. In fact, doing it fully competently is more than a full time job. So farming this out to a third-party is a necessity, for me and many, many others. Of course, it’s not perfect. How much can I trust the third part…

Computers are tools to do work. Evangelists do nothing but attach a higher value to computers in an effort to convince others that they are not doing "work" and that their way is the right way. You would be hard pressed to find a better tool to do your work than a Mac/iPad/iPhone in 2020.

> Computers are tools to do work.

They stopped being mere tools for work a long, long time ago. Computers are - apart from nowadays being ubiquitous in many everyday objects - sold as consumer appliances for end users to watch TV and store their personal photos, texts, correspondence and conversations.

And even if people stop doing that, computers are also used to do banking and contact government agencies, in many places so much so that they're _needed_ to do this, creating a massive lock-in for most people to accomplish everyday tasks.

I wonder how many people there'd be who'd really have to "do work" on computers if the above wasn't the case.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#429

Post by morelisp »

nojito wrote: post #413
jmull wrote: post #396

There’s a rather strong counter to this is: I, and the vast majority of computer users, don’t want to manage every nitty-gritty detail of the security and privacy of my computer. I have better things to do. In fact, doing it fully competently is more than a full time job. So farming this out to a third-party is a necessity, for me and many, many others. Of course, it’s not perfect. How much can I trust the third part…

Computers are tools to do work. Evangelists do nothing but attach a higher value to computers in an effort to convince others that they are not doing "work" and that their way is the right way. You would be hard pressed to find a better tool to do your work than a Mac/iPad/iPhone in 2020.

> Computers are tools to do work.

What a despondent and dystopian attitude shift from "bicycles for the mind." If this is the modern attitude of Apple users, no wonder the products have also gone to shit.

Re: Your Computer Isn't Yours

#430

Post by [deleted] »

jmull wrote: post #396

There’s a rather strong counter to this is: I, and the vast majority of computer users, don’t want to manage every nitty-gritty detail of the security and privacy of my computer. I have better things to do. In fact, doing it fully competently is more than a full time job. So farming this out to a third-party is a necessity, for me and many, many others. Of course, it’s not perfect. How much can I trust the third part…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN