Then they would have to remove the various hooks in the Settings app that actually call and open the Control Panel.

How many are there? I can think of several (advanced mouse settings, advanced network settings, printer properties, date & time has a callout back to the old panel…)

Windows 10 came out nine years ago, so they don’t seem in any particular rush.

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s CEO, “has taken on the responsibility personally to serve as the senior executive with overall accountability for Microsoft’s security,”

Err. Wasn’t that already true? He’s chief executive officer, not chief some shit that doesn’t include security officer.

In a more perfect world, people would demand union representation, and flee from “right to work” (anti-union) states.

Unfortunately the billionaires have used millions to convince the thousandaires that the hundredaires are the real threat.

But we already know the answer to that question.

Odd that they put “Toyota-owned automaker” in the headline instead of Daihatsu. Or something like, :“Daihatsu, owned by Toyota”.

Whether the problems go “up the chain” to the parent company is TBD, I guess.

Hmm. I just moved into a new house in SoCal, and I’m not having any of the problems he describes. In fact I’d describe the installation of my symmetric 2gbps fiber connection as very clean, and WiFi propagation has been excellent.

I’m not ecstatic that the router they provided is an Amazon eero, but I could replace that myself if I wanted.

a mandate that stands to require all new vehicles to have AI-driven technology that can disable your vehicle if the technology determines you’ve had one beer too many

This, too, is a false conclusion. The bill specifies that a monitor-and-disable technology exist to prevent impaired driving, not that it should be based on AI, nor does the bill require the detection of alcohol.

Does anyone believe that in 2027, if the NHTSA requested that system manufacturers turn over the information they collect, it would be told no? Don’t bet on it.

And there is nothing in the legislation mandating data collection or storage.

I’ve been limiting Google Chrome for about 5 years now.

It’s a bold strategy, Satya. Let’s see if it pays off.

I mean… the headline is basically wrong. There are plenty of purpose-built tools for public administration, often configured and supported by the same big players (e.g. IBM). I’ve worked with several of them.

But I think the article hints at the real problem:

They are more complex, less well funded, more prone to change as democratic needs evolve

Governments have requirements, often legislative in origin, that making no f*cking sense and that are incredibly tricky to model in software, because they’re written by legislators who have a poor understanding of automation and how to write clear prose. And those requirements change with the stroke of a pen. Keeping up with them means the constant attention of a large team of software developers.

By contrast, most commercial enterprises can pivot to line their processes up with whatever the industry common practice is. Governments rarely have that freedom.

This statement seems incredibly naive to me:

Build an equivalent stack as a conceptual framework for local government needs and processes, and the things they all have in common will create a huge market for sustainable services despite no two organizations being the same.

The entire reason that governments go to companies like Oracle and SAP for help is that building, maintaining, and changing bespoke applications, and the full stacks to support bespoke applications, in a way that is compliant with government-grade change management is incredibly expensive. The entire selling point of tailoring a commercial ERP system is that it should nominally do a pretty good job of handling “the things they all have in common” at least as well as anything you build yourself. The projects still fail because accomodating the stuff that IS different ends up being a bespoke software project all of its own, and because things that appeared to be “in common” turn out to require bespoke configuration, because the government bean-counters didn’t tell you about a bunch of the nitpicky requirements up front.

The prosaically simple explanation for these failures is that companies like Oracle over-promise, but they do that because almost ANY contractor has to over-promise and under-price to get a government contract.

Source: I work for a company like Oracle, and I work on projects for regional governments.

I don’t like Worried Al. I want Weird Al back.

Well, throw it in the closet with the electric guitar, the karate suit, the Boring Company, and that crazy vacuum train thing. Just another one of Musk’s dumb ideas that never got anywhere.

Had to do a double take. Adam Engst… THAT Adam Engst?

I read the first issue of TidBits when it was a Hypercard stack released to the Info-Mac FTP archive.

Well, if the router is within 1 meter, and there are no sunspots, and you drain the blood of a freshly castrated rooster into a silver bowl underneath your computer.