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Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

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Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#551

Post by azatom »

SirMaster wrote: post #361
WarmWash wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AI writes code like that, but people get pretty upset hearing it. The program that I use to manage my small business, basically a GUI wrapper on an sql DB is a total delight to use, because everything happens instantly . Even opening it is instantaneous. Modern software is such a bloated mess that you kind of get used to a 20 second start-up and a .25-1 second delay on every action. Then you use something that isn't…

What happens if you keep asking AI to rewrite it to use less and less resources?

just be aware of the exact prompt:

"memory usage is important": creates a 1TB binary

"take multiple steps": uses so much power, extreme global warming, it will just print "hot"

"think outside of the box": it will enslave you so you will not care about weather

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#552

Post by kingkandu »

I grew up a total Microsoft fanboy but Windows today is sadly nothing but a bloated piece of spyware. It's like they rebuilt Clippy, called it Copilot, and somehow managed to make it shittier.

I run a machine that costs ~$40k so I don't expect this to happen overnight but at this point it's absolutely inevitable that Linux overtakes it in the consumer market.

Every little thing that made Linux inaccessible to a normal non techie is now solved by speaking to some model and having it configure/fix the thing.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#553

Post by mapontosevenths »

anonymars wrote: post #353
mapontosevenths wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any manager who doesn't push back when given a perverse incentive should be fired. They are not leaders, they are followers... And not even very good followers.

Fired by whom? Where do you think these perverse incentives are coming from?

Typically from C-levels who offer intuitive seeming, but internally inconsistent goals. For example, "We need to increase sales and decrease spending" might be two inconsistent goals if the only way to increase sales is to increase spending.

A bad manager will accept these inconsistent, and mutually exclusive, goals as if handed down on high by the gods and find counter-productive ways to save money or increase sales - even at the expense of actual profit. There is always a way, if you don't care about the actual outcome. These people will Goodhart the company into a terrible position, as long as it means they meet their arbitrary KPI's and get their full bonus.

A good manager might instead gather some data, then come back to the executive the next day with a data backed explanation showing why meeting both goals might be possible, but still wouldn't be advisable due to the negative externalities. A good executive will actually listen, because it's backed with real data they didn't have when they made the call.

Unfortunately if either the manager OR the executive are bad or thinking with their ego's... The entire thing falls apart. Which is why it's so very common.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#556

Post by edaemon »

metadat wrote: post #332
ndriscoll wrote: post #37

My gaming PC that I built in January 2006 that IIRC I used to simultaneously run Battlefield 2, Trillian, Xfire, Thunderbird, and Winamp with a 1680x1050 monitor had 1 GB of total system RAM.

I still miss Battlefield 2. There is really nothing like it today, not even close. The dynamics with squads and a commander and A+ physics and overall game balance remain unmatched for all FPS games. Fortnite, PUBG, COD, all are disgraceful in comparison.

There is a game called Squad that has a lot of similarity to BF2 in terms of teamwork and coordination. It's a spiritual successor to the BF2 mod called Project Reality.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#557

Post by bzzzt »

inigyou wrote: post #514
drooopy wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was replaying Xenoblade Chronicles on my Switch 2 and the whole time I was thinking about how this ENORMOUS, open world game originated on the Nintendo Wii, a console with only 88 MB of RAM.

Super Mario Brothers is none of that, but fits in a 40kB ROM and a few kB of RAM.

Atari 2600 titles are between 1 and 4Kb and have 128 bytes of RAM. Still enough for some quality entertainment back in its time.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#558

Post by daemin »

I checked this on my computers:

On Windows 10 the Weather application uses 2-4MB when not active, which climbs to around 490-550MB when active. On Windows 11 the Weather application doesn't appear to be running at all when not active and it climbs to about 540MB when active.

No where near the results presented in the article, however:

The amount of memory used could vary by region and provider used to get the weather data, so in my region it would only use half a gig, in the USA it could use a lot more.

Half a gig is still too much for a Weather application to use, even with all the images and animations that it has I would estimate it only needs to be half as big at most.

I'm puzzled by why Microsoft made this into a Web based application since they could have written something much more efficient with native code, it's not as if they needed to target multiple different operating systems, just Windows and now just a single version of it.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#559

Post by ranger_danger »

daemin wrote: post #558

I checked this on my computers: On Windows 10 the Weather application uses 2-4MB when not active, which climbs to around 490-550MB when active. On Windows 11 the Weather application doesn't appear to be running at all when not active and it climbs to about 540MB when active. No where near the results presented in the article, however: The amount of memory used could vary by region and provider used to get the weather…

> I'm puzzled by why Microsoft made this into a Web based application

The number and availability of native UI programmers compared to web devs is a rounding error.

Re: Windows 11's built-in Weather app wastes more than 1 GB of RAM

#560

Post by dzonga »

harshreality wrote: post #459
ndriscoll wrote: post #37

My gaming PC that I built in January 2006 that IIRC I used to simultaneously run Battlefield 2, Trillian, Xfire, Thunderbird, and Winamp with a 1680x1050 monitor had 1 GB of total system RAM.

That's because programmers in 2006 didn't understand programming. They didn't understand how to make their software better . Real programming means writing your own javascript glue, pulling in hundreds of supply-chain-compromised js libraries that you never inspect or profile, and running the whole thing in a browser engine, while making sure to store all state in the cloud. The modern breed of programmers who don't…

2006 programmers - smooth brained - they don't understand now you can just have an 'agent' code for you using piles of JS and massive dependencies. if the app breaks then the agent can fix it for you.
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