Le 24-05-2024, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> a écrit :
> On 2024-05-24 2:29 p.m., Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>> Le 24-05-2024, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> a écrit :
>>>
>>> It's part of what I was saying about Microsoft not having an interest in
>>> replacing the Windows core with the Linux kernel. Microsoft has no
>>> interest in using a superior kernel as long as they have one that's good
>>> enough to offer the world which is simultaneously under their complete
>>> control. By using Linux, they're handing over control. They won't do that.
>>
>> Does it really look like Android lost control using Linux? Do you
>> believe Microsoft couldn't do the same? If they can reduce the costs
>> when keeping control, they will.
>
> All the power to them if they do, but I just don't see the corporation
> using selling something they don't have complete control over.

They are using Linux to run their azure servers. What do you want? They
already do. They sell Azure, they sell Office 365. Office deployed on
personal computers is the past. It's no more where the money is. They
want the money.

--
Si vous avez du temps à perdre :
https://scarpet42.gitlab.io

On Fri, 24 May 2024 17:43:38 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> If they rely on Bing, people might as well just use Bing. I was rooting
> for Brave Search to be decent, but I find it very inaccurate for my
> searches. Bing, on the other hand, is rather good.

I use Brave's search by default but it is noticeably poorer for some
searches. I could definitely live without the AI generated summary. Most
of the time you can tell which site it scraped.

On Fri, 24 May 2024 17:42:31 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> On 2024-05-24 2:22 p.m., Stéphane CARPENTIER wrote:
>> Le 24-05-2024, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> a écrit :
>>> For people who aren't audiophiles, there isn't a difference in audio
>>> quality,
>>
>> You don't need to be audiophile the hear the difference, you need a
>> better system.
>
> Yeah, Chris's $15 speakers probably won't allow him to hear the
> difference between a lossless Apple Music song and some crappy 128kbps
> Spotify one.

My very experienced ears after a lifetime of shooting high caliber
handguns without hearing protects, riding motorcycles, driving cars with
Cherry Bomb mufflers and other activities are fine with $15 dollar
speakers.

On Fri, 24 May 2024 16:54:38 -0400, Joel wrote:

> You don't know that term? It means someone who's keen on high fidelity
> sound reproduction.

I remember audiophiles from back in the day. They could hook up an o-scope
and prove their system was reproducing 22000 Hz signals flawlessly. I
suppose dogs appreciated it.

On Fri, 24 May 2024 14:45:02 -0400, Joel wrote:

> Pray tell, then, what do you think MinWin is?

More like ‘was”. It was a failed attempt at stripping down the Windows
bloat. I don’t think Microsoft was ever able to do anything useful with
it.

On 24 May 2024 19:43:13 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 24 May 2024 03:41:48 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On 24 May 2024 03:05:54 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>>
>>> ... Microsoft inherited the safe choice crown. The same process is at
>>> work in the consumer world too.
>>
>> Never worked for mobile devices, though.
>
> They must have had one of those fully automatic black rifles to shoot
> themselves in the foot so many times.

And now there is PC gaming. This is probably Microsoft’s last undisputed
stronghold--at least, on the desktop.

On mobile, however, it’s a different story. The Linux-based Steam Deck,
even with its less-than-stellar compatibility with Windows games, is still
managing to make significant inroads in the handheld gaming market. It
works because it has a nice purpose-built UI for that form factor, that
Windows cannot match.

Microsoft has been making noises about a new “Handheld Mode” for Windows
for about two years now. But it’s all still vapourware.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:

>> Pray tell, then, what do you think MinWin is?
>
>More like ‘was”. It was a failed attempt at stripping down the Windows
>bloat. I don’t think Microsoft was ever able to do anything useful with
>it.

Of course you can't "do anything useful with it", it's a concept, it
demonstrates that underneath the bloat is a sleek operating system
core.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Fri, 24 May 2024 19:19:51 -0400, Joel wrote:

> Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 24 May 2024 14:45:02 -0400, Joel wrote:
>>>
>>> Pray tell, then, what do you think MinWin is?
>>
>> More like ‘was”. It was a failed attempt at stripping down the Windows
>> bloat. I don’t think Microsoft was ever able to do anything useful with
>> it.
>
> Of course you can't "do anything useful with it", it's a concept, it
> demonstrates that underneath the bloat is a sleek operating system core.

What a techno-wank. Except it wasn’t very sleek, was it?

On Fri, 24 May 2024 07:57:24 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> On 2024-05-23 11:03 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 23 May 2024 20:06:47 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>>
>>> By using Linux, they're handing over control. They won't do that.
>>
>> They’re losing control over the sheer complexity of Windows as it
>> stands.
>
> This was the same problem they had in the mid-2000s when they rewrote
> the core and implemented it into Vista. Looking back, they actually did
> a good job. People forget that the beloved Windows 7 was just an
> optimized Vista.

Windows 7 was a cleaned-up Vista. (Also see: “Windows Mojave”.)

Remember why Vista was late: the big reason was because somebody had the
bright idea to reimplement core parts of Windows in Dotnet. This turned to
be terrible in terms of resource usage (RAM, CPU etc). So they had to rip
all that code out and start again.

Even with that, they still couldn’t do things efficiently in Windows that
Linux can do, and that still applies today.

>> Look at the ongoing quality problems with Windows releases. Delegating
>> functions to Linux would actually be a way of regaining that control.
>
> When referring to quality, what exactly are you pointing at? The
> security problems? Updates breaking the desktop?

Buggy updates, and buggy patches to fix those updates, requiring more
patches to fix the previous patches.

> The desktop experience itself is rather stellar.

With new “UI paradigms” introduced in one part but not used in another
part? With the inability to properly support multiple desktops, which *nix
systems have been doing for years, nay, decades? With a UI that is not
adaptable enough to compete with the Linux-based Steam Deck for handheld
gaming? With the advertisements gradually seeping into every part of the
desktop?

On Fri, 24 May 2024 08:00:39 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> On 2024-05-23 11:08 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> This is a sign of declining investment on the part of Microsoft. Which
>> in turn must be a consequence of declining returns on that investment.
>>
>> Making more use of Linux would be a way of saving money.
>
> Microsoft is still invested in Windows, but they are having trouble
> finding every possible way hackers will use to break into the system.

The security part is important, too, but look at the revenue part: why is
Microsoft going to the extreme of pushing advertising into the Windows
desktop experience itself? That’s a sign of trying to squeeze every last
bit of revenue out of a stagnant or declining market.

On Fri, 24 May 2024 17:47:24 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:

> I always hated that about the original iPod. It was by far the best
> music player on the market, and its interface was excellent even if you
> were using it in the car while driving, but the fact that you couldn't
> copy back or forth was horrible.

That was strictly a limitation of the original Itunes software, at
least before Apple starting encrypting some data files on later Ipods.
The open-source folks had managed to reverse-engineer the protocol
<https://libimobiledevice.org/>. There was this nice pluggable
filesystem called “ifuse”, which makes the entire contents of the Ipod
look like a filesystem volume. Plus there was a Python module called
“gpod”, which would let you manipulate the associated database,
playlists etc, and copy files back and forth while keeping the
database in sync.

On 24 May 2024 22:56:10 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> I remember audiophiles from back in the day. They could hook up an o-
scope
> and prove their system was reproducing 22000 Hz signals flawlessly. I
> suppose dogs appreciated it.

So the ones you met would actually *trust* oscilloscopes? Because the
“true” audiophile didn’t like CDs because they could “hear the gaps
between the samples”. You could hook an oscilloscope up to the audio
outputs from your CD or DVD player and show that it was producing flawless
continuous waveforms, but that wasn’t enough for them: their ears were
hearing things that no mere electrical signal could reproduce!

On 2024-05-24, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
<snips>
>>
>> You would have better ears than I have to tell the difference.
>
> The ears are one thing, but even if you only know about the
> specifications, you would know that what Spotify offers can't compete.
> Apple's lossy codec is the best there is, so a song encoded at 256kbps
> using it will sound magnificent no matter what kind of speakers you use.
> If that is not sufficient for you, it also offers lossless at no extra
> charge. Meanwhile, the default for Spotify is AAC at 128kbps, using an
> inferior codec that is probably the one offered by Nero. High quality
> there is 256kbps, more or less on par with what Apple Music offers at
> the low end but, again, with a worse encoder. There is no lossless option.

I'm not an audiophile and I'm certainly not going to buy a $1,500 iPhone or
$2,000 Mac simply to listen to music. What I've got sounds great to me.

--
[Self-centered, Woke] "pride is a life of self-destructive fakery, an
entrapment to a false and self-created matrix of twisted unreality."
"It was pride that changed angels into devils..." — St. Augustine

On 2024-05-24, Chris Ahlstrom <OFeem1987@teleworm.us> wrote:
> Andrzej Matuch wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>
>> On 2024-05-24 3:00 a.m., RonB wrote:
>>> On 2024-05-24, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
>
><brevsnip>
>
>>>> Probably because some people think that Apple Music also requires Apple
>>>> hardware. Even without Apple hardware, the sound quality is superior as
>>>> is the selection.
>>>
>>> You would have better ears than I have to tell the difference.
>>
>> The ears are one thing, but even if you only know about the
>> specifications, you would know that what Spotify offers can't compete.
>> Apple's lossy codec is the best there is, so a song encoded at 256kbps
>> using it will sound magnificent no matter what kind of speakers you use.
>> If that is not sufficient for you, it also offers lossless at no extra
>> charge. Meanwhile, the default for Spotify is AAC at 128kbps, using an
>> inferior codec that is probably the one offered by Nero. High quality
>> there is 256kbps, more or less on par with what Apple Music offers at
>> the low end but, again, with a worse encoder. There is no lossless option.
>
> But is the "loss" noticeable to human ears?
>
> And if so, does it matter? I enjoy a tune the same whether I listen to it
> through earbuds, $15 logitech speakers, whether in quiet or a bit of
> background noise. Most of musical information is low frequency (under 5 kHz),
> though the harmonics increase that up to maybe 16 kHz.

That's basically where I'm at. Except I don't like the $15 (or $25) Logitech
speakers. I gave mine away and bought some old Harman-Kardon HK195 speakers
(which is I what I used to use). I do notice the difference in quality
compared to Logitech.

--
[Self-centered, Woke] "pride is a life of self-destructive fakery, an
entrapment to a false and self-created matrix of twisted unreality."
"It was pride that changed angels into devils..." — St. Augustine

On 2024-05-24, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> On 2024-05-24 11:32 a.m., Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>> Andrzej Matuch wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>>
>>> On 2024-05-24 8:30 a.m., Chris Ahlstrom wrote:
>>>> Andrzej Matuch wrote this copyrighted missive and expects royalties:
>>>>
>>>>> On 2024-05-24 3:00 a.m., RonB wrote:
>>>>>> On 2024-05-24, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> <brevsnip>
>>>>
>>>>>>> Probably because some people think that Apple Music also requires Apple
>>>>>>> hardware. Even without Apple hardware, the sound quality is superior as
>>>>>>> is the selection.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> You would have better ears than I have to tell the difference.
>>>>>
>>>>> The ears are one thing, but even if you only know about the
>>>>> specifications, you would know that what Spotify offers can't compete.
>>>>> Apple's lossy codec is the best there is, so a song encoded at 256kbps
>>>>> using it will sound magnificent no matter what kind of speakers you use.
>>>>> If that is not sufficient for you, it also offers lossless at no extra
>>>>> charge. Meanwhile, the default for Spotify is AAC at 128kbps, using an
>>>>> inferior codec that is probably the one offered by Nero. High quality
>>>>> there is 256kbps, more or less on par with what Apple Music offers at
>>>>> the low end but, again, with a worse encoder. There is no lossless option.
>>>>
>>>> But is the "loss" noticeable to human ears?
>>>
>>> It is. There is an additional punch to the Apple AAC encoder that is
>>> lacking in Nero's. Nero's does a good job, but it isn't as good. It's
>>> better than MP3 though.
>>>
>>>> And if so, does it matter? I enjoy a tune the same whether I listen to it
>>>> through earbuds, $15 logitech speakers, whether in quiet or a bit of
>>>> background noise. Most of musical information is low frequency (under 5 kHz),
>>>> though the harmonics increase that up to maybe 16 kHz.
>>>
>>> For people who aren't audiophiles, there isn't a difference in audio
>>> quality, but they will likely notice the greater selection from Apple. I
>>> also think that Apple has an excellent interface, with YouTube's being
>>> the absolute worst.
>>
>> I stopped listening to YouTube while walking. Sick of commerials in the middle
>> of a 10-minute tune. Also the slightest accidental touch of the phone screen
>> can stop the playback.
>>
>> Switched to SomaFM... their Secret Agent channel has some good walkin' tunes.
>
> YouTube Music doesn't have commercials if you pay for it. It also
> removes ads from YouTube itself, making for a much more pleasant viewing
> experience there too.

It doesn't have ads if you use uBlock Origin either.

--
[Self-centered, Woke] "pride is a life of self-destructive fakery, an
entrapment to a false and self-created matrix of twisted unreality."
"It was pride that changed angels into devils..." — St. Augustine

On 2024-05-24, rbowman <bowman@montana.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 24 May 2024 08:04:25 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> The ears are one thing, but even if you only know about the
>> specifications, you would know that what Spotify offers can't compete.
>
> The ears are the only thing.

Yep.

--
[Self-centered, Woke] "pride is a life of self-destructive fakery, an
entrapment to a false and self-created matrix of twisted unreality."
"It was pride that changed angels into devils..." — St. Augustine

On Fri, 24 May 2024 13:17:10 -0700, % wrote:

> so you're an audiophile what is that ,
> you get off on the sounds kids make

I wonder what this person thinks “haemophilia” means ...

On Fri, 24 May 2024 23:31:42 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote in <v2r80t$2hlvu$4@dont-email.me>:

> On Fri, 24 May 2024 08:00:39 -0400, Andrzej Matuch wrote:
>
>> On 2024-05-23 11:08 p.m., Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>>
>>> This is a sign of declining investment on the part of Microsoft. Which
>>> in turn must be a consequence of declining returns on that investment.
>>>
>>> Making more use of Linux would be a way of saving money.
>>
>> Microsoft is still invested in Windows, but they are having trouble
>> finding every possible way hackers will use to break into the system.
>
> The security part is important, too, but look at the revenue part: why
> is Microsoft going to the extreme of pushing advertising into the
> Windows desktop experience itself? That’s a sign of trying to squeeze
> every last bit of revenue out of a stagnant or declining market.

IAWTP.

👍️

--
-v

On Fri, 24 May 2024 23:46:22 -0000 (UTC), RonB <ronb02NOSPAM@gmail.com>
wrote in <v2r8se$2hodo$1@dont-email.me>:

> On 2024-05-24, Andrzej Matuch <andrzej@matu.ch> wrote:
> <snips>
>>>
>>> You would have better ears than I have to tell the difference.
>>
>> The ears are one thing, but even if you only know about the
>> specifications, you would know that what Spotify offers can't compete.
>> Apple's lossy codec is the best there is, so a song encoded at 256kbps
>> using it will sound magnificent no matter what kind of speakers you
>> use. If that is not sufficient for you, it also offers lossless at no
>> extra charge. Meanwhile, the default for Spotify is AAC at 128kbps,
>> using an inferior codec that is probably the one offered by Nero. High
>> quality there is 256kbps, more or less on par with what Apple Music
>> offers at the low end but, again, with a worse encoder. There is no
>> lossless option.
>
> I'm not an audiophile and I'm certainly not going to buy a $1,500 iPhone
> or $2,000 Mac simply to listen to music. What I've got sounds great to
> me.

No need to spend $2K: it's all about the DAC.

https://www.amazon.com/S-M-S-L-AD18-Amplifier-Bluetooth-Subwoofer/dp/B071JN7GXN/

Feed that with TOSLink or USB, and you will have a pure digital path
to the DAC in the device.

Connect to some decent bookshelf speakers, and you're in business.

Figure $350 for the whole kit.

--
-v

DistroMan, RonB, Uncle_Matuch, rBowman,
Ahlstrom, DFS, ChrisV, Huntzinger & Crump,

You guys should try (Up_Mixed) Stereo_To_Surround_Sound someday;
until then, you won't know what you're missing.

"Relf" <Usenet@Jeff-Relf.Me> wrote:

>DistroMan, RonB, Uncle_Matuch, rBowman,
>Ahlstrom, DFS, ChrisV, Huntzinger & Crump,
>
>You guys should try (Up_Mixed) Stereo_To_Surround_Sound someday;
>until then, you won't know what you're missing.

Nope, not buying it, two speakers or normal headphones are ideal. It's
not a movie theater, it's music, it's not "effects", it's high
fidelity reproduction.

--
Joel W. Crump

Amendment XIV
Section 1.

[...] No state shall make or enforce any law which shall
abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the
United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of
life, liberty, or property, without due process of law;
nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws.

Dobbs rewrites this, it is invalid precedent. States are
liable for denying needed abortions, e.g. TX.

On Fri, 24 May 2024 23:29:21 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> Remember why Vista was late: the big reason was because somebody had the
> bright idea to reimplement core parts of Windows in Dotnet. This turned
> to be terrible in terms of resource usage (RAM, CPU etc). So they had to
> rip all that code out and start again.

Ah, .NET. MS managed to confuse that as much as was humanly
possible. .NET Framework was happily chugging along with its release
numbers, 3.5, 4, 4.8.1, when they started .NET Core with its own series
so .NET Core 3.x was a contemporary of .NET Framework 4.x. Different
animals. Then with a stroke of genius they released .NET 5.x which
was .NET Core. Framework died at 4.x.

I'm lagging a little on my Linux boxes and am only up to .NET 6. GUI
support is lagging but it otherwise works fine.

On Fri, 24 May 2024 23:45:36 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:

> On 24 May 2024 22:56:10 GMT, rbowman wrote:
>
>> I remember audiophiles from back in the day. They could hook up an o-
> scope
>> and prove their system was reproducing 22000 Hz signals flawlessly. I
>> suppose dogs appreciated it.
>
> So the ones you met would actually *trust* oscilloscopes? Because the
> “true” audiophile didn’t like CDs because they could “hear the gaps
> between the samples”. You could hook an oscilloscope up to the audio
> outputs from your CD or DVD player and show that it was producing
> flawless continuous waveforms, but that wasn’t enough for them: their
> ears were hearing things that no mere electrical signal could reproduce!

CDs? Who said anything about that digital crap? I'm talking about an era
with 20 lb turntables with built in strobe rings so you could get the
speed exactly right. Styli cut from diamonds mined by virgins in South
Africa. Tone arms with verniers on the counterweights so you could get the
tracking force exactly right. Built in spirit levels in case the world was
tilting. Pure analog, baby.

https://www.audio-technica.com/en-us/at-lp7

That's a modern day version. Even those new-fangled cassette things had to
prove their worth.

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/03/749019831/the-voice-that-shattered-glass

On 25 May 2024 04:33:40 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> CDs? Who said anything about that digital crap? I'm talking about an era
> with 20 lb turntables with built in strobe rings so you could get the
> speed exactly right. Styli cut from diamonds mined by virgins in South
> Africa. Tone arms with verniers on the counterweights so you could get
> the tracking force exactly right. Built in spirit levels in case the
> world was tilting. Pure analog, baby.

And those sharp needles wearing away a little bit more from the delicate
grooves with every play. Not to mention embedding the dust ever deeper
into the soft, yielding plastic, where you can never get it out.

There’s a reason we normal people left that technology behind in the
1970s. That’s where it belongs.

On 25 May 2024 04:06:58 GMT, rbowman wrote:

> On Fri, 24 May 2024 23:29:21 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>> Remember why Vista was late: the big reason was because somebody had
>> the bright idea to reimplement core parts of Windows in Dotnet. This
>> turned to be terrible in terms of resource usage (RAM, CPU etc). So
>> they had to rip all that code out and start again.
>
> Ah, .NET. MS managed to confuse that as much as was humanly possible.

Remember, Vista was long before the whole Dotnet Core fragmentation.

Microsoft should just give up on Dotnet. Nobody wants to use it for
anything important. It was basically a corporate vanity project that Bill
Gates started in his last days at Microsoft (maybe as some kind of “take
that” response to Java), and it seems nobody still at the company is brave
enough to declare it a pile of crap and get rid of it.