Technology

Microsoft is doing things that I can’t complain about

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I really need to stop sleeping when weird shit happens. I awoke yesterday to find Microsoft actually making somewhat of an attempt to make themselves look good on PC for once… where to start? The first thing I read yesterday was the announcement for the Halo Master Chief Collection coming to PC, and you can purchase it on Steam!

For the first time ever, The Master Chief’s story comes to PC. Featuring Halo: Reach along with Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary, Halo 2: Anniversary, Halo 3, the Halo 3: ODST Campaign and Halo 4, this is the definitive Halo experience.

Shorter Microsoft: Here’s the deal, we don’t talk about the first Halo release for Vista, and you can get our game collection outside of our shitty store. :zorak:

This came as a bit of a shocker considering Microsoft wanting to push their store onto people, and placing it on Steam also gives people like me a chance to see if it will handle under Proton. :trollface:

Of course that was shocking enough on it’s own, but Microsoft cranks it to 11 when news of DirectX12 coming to Windows 7 via World of Warcraft.

Blizzard added DirectX 12 support for their award-winning World of Warcraft game on Windows 10 in late 2018. This release received a warm welcome from gamers: thanks to DirectX 12 features such as multi-threading, WoW gamers experienced substantial framerate improvement. After seeing such performance wins for their gamers running DirectX 12 on Windows 10, Blizzard wanted to bring wins to their gamers who remain on Windows 7, where DirectX 12 was not available.

On the surface this seems like really extraordinary news, however if you take the time to think about it DirectX12 never really took off quite like how Microsoft wanted it to. When AMD open sourced their Mantle API (now Vulkan) that left Microsoft a little dead in the water as that looked much more attractive to developers. especially when developing on more than one platform. Plus with more people having little reasoning to switch to Windows 10 to take advantage of DX12 apart from maybe a handful of titles that properly utilize it. It is interesting they would do this so close to Windows 7’s end of life cycle… or is this a sign of them continuing to support it? I might have to turn my dualboot system into a triple. :trollface: My only hope is that if they do go back to Windows 7 they don’t do to it what they did with their newer OS’s/

Then to top it all off Microsoft actually did something to make Windows 10… somewhat better?

Occasionally, startup failures can occur due to hardware issues, file corruption, or incompatible 3rd party software.
If Windows detects that your machine cannot start up successfully, it will try to diagnose and resolve failures due to disk issues, system file corruption, invalid registry keys, or other such causes. If all these steps are unsuccessful and your machine is still unable to start up properly, Windows will determine if the startup issue was introduced after recent driver or quality updates were installed. If so, these updates may be uninstalled automatically to get the device back to a workable state. This is only done as a last resort.
This is only available via the Windows Insider updates, but it’s about friggin time they got to work on a update safeguard. In fact all of the items I discussed above should have been rolled out a long time ago. Anyone that is at least half tech savvy could look at all of this and see this was all possible. We have been on pretty much the same kernel since Windows Vista, porting DX12 to Windows 7 should have been just as fine as adding it to Windows 10, and making Halo games console exclusive was always a boneheaded move on Microsoft’s behalf. You already have people using your OS, why not give them a game to play on it that YOUR own company made if they have the hardware to back it up? Not all of us want to buy a console to play exclusives… unless it’s a $10 PS3 or something. :trollface:

Late Weekend Open Thread

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I’ve been feeling pretty dead the last few nights… to the point that even making simple soup and sandwich even felt like a bit much. I was thinking of making something tonight, but after an accidental nap I pretty much signed off of the idea. I’m forcing myself to stay up later than usual, thanks to Pinky Up’s Tiramisu blend (black tea, coffee, white chocolate and all that good shit) has helped immensely. Now if I could just focus on one thing instead of trailing off onto different things. I’m not in the mood to work on anything, and I’ve been playing games to mainly test my new audio card. Now I’m back under Linux contemplating either tidying up or just gaming for the sake of gaming. It’s been awhile since I’ve tried playing other games under Linux… I’ve mainly been playing Crash Bandicoot during lunch breaks or editing videos, and that one stream I did recently.

So far I’ve been enjoying my new Sound Blaster! I’ll probably do a write up on it in a few days. I want to see if I can work out any other kinks before sitting down and typing to my heart’s content. It’s a Sound Blaster ZxR, an old sound card but still pricey and for a good reason. It’s an audiophile grade card, perfect if you do any A/V work. My only pet peeve so far is the desktop attachment. I LOVE that it has analog volume, but when you have it plugged directly into the sound card it’s super sensitive to the point of it being it’s own microphone! Plugging in my Shure SM58 only made the bugger all the more sensitive as Justin Bieber’s Nipples. For now when I’m under Windows I’ll use my Shure X2U DAC for mic and my sound card for listening… under Linux I’m not having much luck so far. To my knowledge support for this card should be in the latest kernel, but it only seems to show up when it pleases, and the headphone and  mic channels aren’t coming through at all. I seem to be outputting sound, but not from those particular jacks. I also seem to be losing my LAN on random startups but only going into LinuxMint, and the only two things that I’ve changed recently are the kernel and adding in the sound card(s). Going back to a previous kernel seems to fix this situation, but not my audio issues. Will have to sort those when I get around to them.

Microsoft Open Sources Calculator… DaFuq?

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Ummmmm…. why?

Today, we’re excited to announce that we are open sourcing Windows Calculator on GitHub under the MIT License. This includes the source code, build system, unit tests, and product roadmap. Our goal is to build an even better user experience in partnership with the community. We are encouraging your fresh perspectives and increased participation to help define the future of Calculator.

You know… I was actually thinking the other day that there just isn’t enough calculator in anyone’s life. I mean, my decade old mp3 player I bought two years ago has one, my computers have one on each operating system, my calculators have calculators, and my kindle has a fucking calculator! I’m almost tempted to turn on my PS3 to see if that even has a calculator! if not I could see about homebrewing Windows Calculator. :v: That seems to be the only logical point where one might consider the option…

Imaginary Super Highway

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News like this should not be a surprise to anyone.

How much of the internet is fake? Studies generally suggest that, year after year, less than 60 percent of web traffic is human; some years, according to some researchers, a healthy majority of it is bot. For a period of time in 2013, the Times reported this year, a full half of YouTube traffic was “bots masquerading as people,” a portion so high that employees feared an inflection point after which YouTube’s systems for detecting fraudulent traffic would begin to regard bot traffic as real and human traffic as fake. They called this hypothetical event “the Inversion.”

I still remember when these bots were in their infancy back in the early 2000’s, when my family and I ran a phpBB2 forum at the time and we were invaded by tons and tons of  bots several times throughout the day. The concept was still fairly new, as the bots never typed anything but only made tons and tons of accounts usually ending in Petrov or something. It was annoying back then because there were no captcha’s, there was no need for them because nothing like this happened. I ended up having to disable account creation temporarily as a result while having to clean up warzone and block all the account names from ever being used again, as well as any IP address. These days its much more advanced just as described in the article. Their programing is sophisticated enough that they can join all these social media websites and go about the internet as actual people, and these trolls keep taking it steps further when creating websites to further mask their intent. It is so easy in this day and age to come up with a straight up legit looking business or news media site, and people fall for it hook line and sinker. I could easily build a website that looks like a local news rag, or with the right amount of words and pump a straight up legit looking news website that talks about important things, like why the boogieman won’t come out of the closet.

I’ve loved the internet since the day of its conception, but at the same time I always knew that like anything else in life it can be manipulated to cause harm instead of good. I just never could have predicted how far it has come, and I have a feeling we haven’t even scratched the surface yet.

Playstation Classic runs better with RetroArch.

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At this point it’s more than obvious that the Playstation Classic hasn’t been as well received as other miniature consoles, especially since discovering that it is nothing more than Sony’s own version of a retro pie. But to add insult to injury someone installed RetroArch on it and got faaaaar better results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDDY9ABRot4

It probably would have been better in Sony’s interest to have proper emulation enthusiasts tweak and setup their mini console. It’s no wonder they’ve gone on sale so quickly after launch.

Auf wiedersehen Gutenberg

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In a recent update to WordPress (starting with 5.0 IIRC) they changed the text editor style to a new version called Gutenberg that changes the way you write your posts. This was being tested in earlier versions of WordPress as a mere plugin, out of curiocity I took a quick look at it during that period and went back to the regular style at the time just because I didn’t have much time to scope it out. Fast forward to the 5.0 update and now everyone has to use it (unless you install the classic editor plugin). I was tempted to go back to the classic editor myself, but then I decided to test myself by writing some posts with it.

Upon immediate glance I can tell this is designed for posting via smart devices… that’s strike 1. It’s great to include more devices so you can give writers a chance to post their thoughts or content from almost anywhere, but at the same time you shouldn’t neglect your other audience that holds a powerful tool that most mobile users sorely lack, a well sized keyboard to type on.

Gutenberg’s most praised feature is the “block” system… because this is 2018 and blocks are a thing. Instead of having a small toolbar and clicking an icon, like blockquoting something or posting an image, you click a plus and choose if you want an image, a quote, hell even a paragraph! You know, something you could write NATURALLY! Again, it makes more sense on mobile… but on PC that’s just an added step. Though not to completely bash it I do like being able to move paragraphs and other blocks around if I feel the need to arrange something.

I’ve mainly gone back to using the classic editor plugin. I like some of the ideas they’ve put into the new editor, but the inconveniences outweigh the new features. I’ll stick with the classic editor for now.

AMD Trades Oculus Support For SteamVR Support

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AMD released their new 18.12.2 driver; Featuring a new addition to AMD’s Radeon Adrenalin Software that will enable users to stream their games to Android and iOS via the AMD Link App, including SteamVR across a wide selection of VR Headsets, however… it appears Oculus headsets will no longer be supported by AMD.

AMD’s Radeon ReLive for VR feature won’t support Oculus devices, despite at first being claimed to. The functionality allows for Radeon graphics card owners to stream PC virtual reality games to standalone headsets. Unfortunately, this is inherently tied to SteamVR, which puts it on Facebook’s bad side. Therefore, as AMD has now informed us, it will not support any Oculus devices.

Apparently AMD’s choice to support SteamVR was a step too far, looks like NVidia now has their own exclusive headset… and they didn’t even have to bribe anybody! :trollface: But seriously, that move is going to cost Oculus a pretty penny

Not that any of this matters to me. Facebook’s involvement was enough to discourage me from ever buying into it. The HTC Vive looks sexier by comparison… although I’m not sure if my eyes could handle VR.

Paying to be guinea pigs

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As if Alexa sharing a local neighbor’s echo information wasn’t bad enough…

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Millions of users of Amazon’s Echo speakers have grown accustomed to the soothing strains of Alexa, the human-sounding virtual assistant that can tell them the weather, order takeout and handle other basic tasks in response to a voice command.

So a customer was shocked last year when Alexa blurted out: “Kill your foster parents.”

I’ll admit, that line really pulled me into the rest of the article. It also reminded me of a story that I heard from one old man who owns one of these Echo’s, apparently his was shouting out “Praise Satan” among other things.

Meanwhile the news just keeps getting better:

Alexa has also chatted with users about sex acts. She gave a discourse on dog defecation. And this summer, a hack Amazon traced back to China may have exposed some customers’ data, according to five people familiar with the events.

Companies like Amazon and Microsoft are blatantly making average everyday end users into beta testers for their products. Microsoft has recently stated that they’ve made it so that every single person using their operating system is a guinea pig. It seems that modern day devices, programs and projects all seem to be stuck in the alpha or beta stage, and Jeff Bezo’s is taking a fairly similar stance with Alexa:

The project has been important to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, who signed off on using the company’s customers as guinea pigs, one of the people said. Amazon has been willing to accept the risk of public blunders to stress-test the technology in real life and move Alexa faster up the learning curve, the person said.

Translation: Thank you for beta testing the future!

The privacy implications may be even messier. Consumers might not realize that some of their most sensitive conversations are being recorded by Amazon’s devices, information that could be highly prized by criminals, law enforcement, marketers and others. On Thursday, Amazon said a “human error” let an Alexa customer in Germany access another user’s voice recordings accidentally.

Right now the only “human error” that I see is owning one of these if you value your privacy. Again, this would be another case where I would look at building my own, or at the very least hack these devices if applicable.

The Internet Of Things and Stuff

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Oh Canada…

Leave it to the Canadians to hack into someone’s security system and politely tell them that it’s insecure, then finish it off with an apology. :v: 

Seriously though, it was a nice gesture and better than the alternate universe version where someone hacks into his security camera and starts livestreaming it to Twitch. Stuff like this is the reason why I wouldn’t want to invest in the smart-enabled setups. If it’s connected to the internet there’s a good chance someone will see it.

All of these electronics are made overseas, on the backs of cheap labor with the idea of turning a profit while providing some form of convenience to the consumer. Things like security are not going to be a top priority in most cases, unless you decide to make your own. If I were to buy a security camera or system I would probably make my own setup using a Raspberry Pi kit. It would be cheaper, have no hidden fees and ideally it would be much more secure.

But, if you thought the above story was bad enough…

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – A user of Amazon’s (AMZN.O) Alexa voice assistant in Germany got access to more than a thousand recordings from another user because of “a human error” by the company.

The customer had asked to listen back to recordings of his own activities made by Alexa but he was also able to access 1,700 audio files from a stranger when Amazon sent him a link, German trade publication c’t reported.


There’s this funny thing I’ve noticed over the years. A good chunk of the people that I know who happen to own these devices and praise how convenient they are also happen to fear things like the government spying on them (as if they were that important to begin with) and yet they have no problems signing over their privacy to corporations that collect data on their users to sell them more stuff.

We seriously need to have laws put in place that encourage companies to do a better job securing their merchandise.


The future is Chromium based

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Ever have that feeling where you wake up from a nap, or from a good night’s sleep and feel like you entered another dimension? I think I can add this to my top 10 WTF did I wake up to moments.

For the past few years, Microsoft has meaningfully increased participation in the open source software (OSS) community, becoming one of the world’s largest supporters of OSS projects. Today we’re announcing that we intend to adopt the Chromium open source project in the development of Microsoft Edge on the desktop to create better web compatibility for our customers and less fragmentation of the web for all web developers.

Translation: Our browser has sucked since the day of its conception, fuck it let’s go open source!

As part of this, we intend to become a significant contributor to the Chromium project, in a way that can make not just Microsoft Edge — but other browsers as well — better on both PCs and other devices.

Extend, Embrace, Extinguish, EXTERMINATE!

Working with open source is not new for Microsoft Edge. Our mobile browser has been based on open source from its beginnings over a year ago.

Shorter Microsoft: We’ve been lazy longer than you think.

Ultimately, we want to make the web experience better for many different audiences. People using Microsoft Edge (and potentially other browsers) will experience improved compatibility with all web sites,

Shorter Microsoft: Our browser will offer you the greatest things that you’re already able to do on almost any browser that isn’t currently ours. INNOVATIVE!

Not that I care… I’m Waterfox master race.