Yes, in another comment I explained that many years ago I wrote a software package to map program functions to the F keys, which on my keyboard were arranged in 2 columns of 5 on the left. It was before putting them in a single row across the top became the standard. The software displayed a diagram showing the key functions, laid out in the same pattern as the physical keys. I found it very easy to get the hang of looking at this diagram and pressing the right button without looking at the keys. Each keypress brought up new options, basically a multilevel submenu system, but using the buttons was faster than moving a mouse around and clicking.

Of course the concept is very obsolete for normal computer keyboards because that f-key layout isn’t around anymore. But if the device had the buttons right under the screen the key functions could be displayed above them. I could see that “soft buttons” concept becoming popular.

I think we’ll see multipurpose function buttons under the display, that change function programmatically depending on what the app is doing.

No I wouldn’t say touchscreens are out, I would say augmenting them with physical buttons is about to get popular.

Yeah that’s the part that isn’t easy.

I don’t think so, because if you had infinite monkeys an infinite number of them would get it on the first try.

I’ve read there are so many permutations of a standard deck of 52 playing cards, that in all the times decks have been shuffled through history, there’s almost no chance any given arrangement has ever been repeated. If we could teach monkeys to shuffle cards I wonder how long it would take them to do it.

Correctamundo! Intellectual property law is yet another thing that needs reform. I don’t even like the term “intellectual property”. It’s a modern invention. For thousands of years everybody just repeated what they saw other people do, in a process called “the spread of civilization.” It worked great until inventions like the printing press created opportunities for business people who didn’t create anything to get rich by getting exclusive rights to other people’s ideas. But even then, copyright was always something you held not something you “owned”. The modern IP industry has done a very effective job at converting everybody to think of rights as property and infringement as theft. We need to return to the original concept that creators, who used to be freely imitated, can temporarily have exclusive rights to what they create because the public lets them. There’s nothing evil about this, it’s just a return to sanity.

Dunno how that’s relevant but thanks - LOLOL worth the watch.

FoxOS - coming soon?

Speaking of a chromebook experience, installing ChromeOS Flex on my wife’s slow, outdated Surface Pro made it sleek and fast again. Can you suggest a Linux distro that would be similar on old laptops?

As a retired software dev, for me Windows is simply a longtime habit enforced by past work environments. I did use Linux for over a year on my main PC but went back to Windows so I could keep using my old copy of Visual Studio. My deeply conditioned shortcut keystrokes didn’t work in VSCode - in fact, why did they change so much of the UI? But now that I’m used to VSCode, which I only use for hobby coding anyway, there’s no excuse and I intend to go back to Linux by year end.

Same here. And speaking of bubbles I haven’t seen anything about NFTs in quite a while. I don’t think that bubble burst tho, it just sort of shriveled up and blew away.

LOL the first trick is my go to. I regularly read Washington Post articles in notepad.

Yep, that’s what I heard. They also do overnight backups so it needs downtime, kind of like people.

The AI bubble might be the 2020s’ dotcom bubble.

So they’re more worried about misinformation about the results than misinformation that influences the actual voting. Well alrighty.

Unrelated, I can’t help noticing how much Altman reminds me of Luke Dunphy from Modern Family.

Doesn’t seem that hard to get. From observation it appears that grown men can still long for father figures.

I just got into lemmy, and compared to reddit he seems refreshingly scarce here. Come to think of it so does Bonespurs.

Same. At least Bonespurs will probably soon have his final Big Mac Attack and the news will be all about MAGA self destructing as the hangers-on claw each other to pieces to get on top. Musk has a lot more years left in him. His smartest move would be to announce that he’s trans and make social media implode like a supermassive black hole.