I donated my old laptop to a dear friend who also helps with the TROM project. I used this laptop for many years but I needed a more portable one and luckily others helped me buy a better one for myself. I am happy to know that my dear friend the laptop, that helped me make 80% of the TROM II documentary, and trom.tf, and tromcasts, tromjaro, and so many books, and so on, now has a new home 😀 Others helped me, I am helping others too. We should all help each other. We should share the vast amount of stuff we have in this world, rather than keeping that stuff around and not use it, or throwing it into the garbage.
I too often see these in the town I live in: Massive waste of stuff. Unacceptable!
BUT:
We are incentivized to buy and buy and buy; every day bombarded with such messages. And thus people buy even when they don’t have to.
There is no sharing platform that is useful enough, or some place where you can put these things to then be repaired and shared with others.
People have no time to take any initiative. If people had the time to get involved they can create all sorts of sharing platforms and places. Like for the place where I live: imagine if some people can have the time to take the stuff people put at the garbage bin, repair and clean, and have a central place in the town where anyone can pick that stuff.
So. Yeah, anyway, I am super happy I could send my laptop to someone who will likely make good use of. I have 1 more laptop and a tablet that I want to give to others. I don’t like to have much stuff anyway. I will try to get more and more involved with this physical-stuff sharing in the future, like https://sharebay.org/ that’s made by our friend Colin. I will try to share stuff on that website too after TROM II is released.
When I scream about how trade is the origin of most problems, some people think that I am crazy and I exaggerate. Well either read the thousands of pages I wrote so far or watch the tens of hours of videos that I made, or here’s another clear example:
I and Sasha. Much love. Love love, you know. We are together for the past 3 or so years. All we want is to stay on this planet somewhere. Can we? The answer is no. It is yes. It is maybe. It is confusing. Is it any answer?
After going through the bullshit of the marriage ritual, and went to lawyers here in Spain and all that, we still didn’t figure that out until today.
Ok so listen. If you want to be able to stay in Spain, 2 humans that is, one of you is a resident in Spain and an EU citizen, one an American citizen, here’s what you have to do:
Prove that you are together and you love each other.
That’s it. Now you can live here and we (Spain) will take care of you to make sure you won’t end up in the streets, or doing bad things.
See how easy that was!?
Oh wait….that’s just my imagination. Hold on. Hmmm….Sorry, actually no one cares if you love each other, can take care of yourself, or you are a good human. Sorry, that was a different planet.
On Earth here’s what you need:
Be “married” (the ritual) with a resident/citizen of Spain.
The resident/citizen has to prove that they have a job for the past year (so at least a year contract) and make at least 1.000 Euros a month.
A bunch of other IDs and documents.
OR:
Does not matter if you are with someone or not, you just have to stay in Spain for 3 consecutive years. Illegally.
Do not get into any sort of issues with the police.
Get a criminal record from your country of origin.
Do a course (at least 40 hours) for the local language, in our case a dialect….
Get a job offer.
A bunch of other documents.
Alright Planet Earth, I see you are so kind with your hoomans.
So, a tribe (say Spain) will give 0 fucks about love, relationships, health, being a good human and such. But they will give 100% to TRADE. If you TRADE in their tribe, that’s all they need really. If you invest money into a tribe, guess what, they will let you in no problemos – see. How many rich fucks that have been in jail or did so many illegal things are traveling all around the world!? Countless.
Fuck the “morality, ethics”, equality, human rights, being a good human, and all of that crap. Or being a Christian, a Muslim, a whateverthefuck. These do not matter in our society. All it matters is that TRADE.
SO. It’s all about that trade, ’bout that trade… – sing with me!
Back in 2015 I wrote a book for TROM about humans and the machines they have created. It is called the Human Machine and you can read it here. Back then it was one of the first hypes about A.I. And as you may know by now, AI stands for Artificial Intelligence. Back then Google and Apple started to promote their AIs: Google Now and Siri. You could talk to these bots and they will provide you a lot of answers from many different domains. Ask how many dogs are in the world, ask them to set up an alarm for you, how’s the weather, you name it. It would integrate with a lot of apps and devices.
People were asking these bots existential questions like what is the purpose of life:
I remember the Google supercomputers generating these weird images and the news outlets calling them “machines dreaming”. Meaning, how machines dream:
And that Pepper robot that you could talk to…
These came after a few years of another hype: the self driving cars that were about to revolutionize transportation. In the book Automated Autonomous World that I wrote for TROM in 2013 , I partially fell for that hype and wrote in a very non-skeptical way about them. To be fair with my past-self, I was focused entirely on how in a saner society the tech-part of the world could look like. So I presented many prototypes and unproven tech. I talked about how we have to change the infrastructure for these to work, and so forth. However, what I did not realized as deeply, was how misleading the world is. You see I naively thought that the big tech companies may not exaggerate as much about their tech. I sourced their own claims from their own engineers. But 10 years later I could say for sure that the vast majority of the tech I showcased in that book, was BS. For the most part at least. That means, the words that came out of the mouths of these engineers and “specialists” that work for these big companies, were mostly crap. Marketing.
That book may be removed from TROM when we do a cleanup this month in preparation for the upcoming TROM II documentary.
Back to AI.
In 2016 I started to be more and more aware of how the tech world is full of bullshit and bullshitters. For that reason I chose to present tech that was already there, working, and when it was just in testing phases I would present it as such and link to scientific papers about that tech.
When it came to AI I already smelled the bullshit. The stupid fear that AI will take over the world, and all of that crap. But I said let’s educate myself. And so I said the best way is to understand a bit how these things work. I took several courses and read a bunch of stuff. I learned how AIs can categorize objects: How it interprets text and speech: I learned how facial recognition works: I looked at how AIs learn to play games, drive cars, do science research.
Of course I only scratched the surface of these since they are complex. But I got a solid understanding I think. I realized that these are Statistical Software. Added with a bunch of filters and rules. They are complex, cool, interesting, but nothing WOW in terms of how they work. I learned that data and computer power is what makes the difference. I realized how non-magical these AI look when you have a clue about how they work. The end result is mesmerizing only for those who have a very dim understanding of these pieces of software.
I then talked about how they compared to humans. And of course the conclusion was that AI is just a complex set of statistical software with filters and rules and a lot of data, and has nothing to do with either artificial or intelligence (whatever that means). Of course there are some applications for these pieces of software that I touched upon in the book, but mainly it was a grotesque hype.
Anthropomorphizing
That’s a new word that I learned while writhing this book. It means “to ascribe human form or attributes to (an animal, plant, material object, etc.).”. That’s what AI are mostly.
The present.
7 years later and the AI “revolution” has resurfaced again. This time it seems even more mesmerizing, although not so much for me. I fee like I’ve seen this before…
ChatGPT and the like, Stable Diffusion, Dolly, now they have different names and do similar things. They are fun to play with. Can create some weird images out of text, something I was showcasing in 2016 in another book about Language.
And the craze is starting again with people thinking these AIs will revolutionize the world, or will take over, and then no more jobs, no more artists, no more life. If you look again at how these work, they seem a lot less mesmerizing. The companies that push them use anthropomorphism to make them sound like they “think” and are like humans: neural nets, learning, hallucinating, and so forth. In fact they are still the same statistical machines that produce probabilities and that results in interesting outcomes.
Without going into specifics I recommend this funny video that explains the entire situation quite well: A.I. is B.S. ->>> https://ytb.trom.tf/watch?v=ro130m-f_yk
Also read through the sources of that video.
When I asked chatgpt about TROM I got this: Which is not bad. But when I asked who made TROM I got a very bad and totally wrong answer: No idea who Catalin and Andrei are, but it is totally wrong. The project did not start as a research project, whatever the hell that means.
You see although it says some true things, it also says some entirely false things. Because this AI only knows how to put words together. Has no clue about anything else. And it will always produce well written sentences that can be totally wrong. Thus, this chatbot is entirely useless for factual information. And if you think it will get better and better, for one let’s wait for that and then “hype” it, but second it may never be able to due to how it works (statistical prediction of what words go with what other words).
When I tell chatgpt that the project was not created by those two dudes, it invents new ones:
And so on it goes:
AI is ASS!
AI is actually Anthropomorphized Statistical Software, or ASS 😀
We may find good uses for this ASS, maybe when they only rely on a main source of information like some specific research papers and provide exact quotes and sources. They are fun to play with for a bit tho. They may help us create more creative content or video/photo/audio effects. But “they” are as much as “they” as websites are “they”. Depends what websites we are talking about. Same here, these ASS are diverse and made for a diverse set of purposes.
But what it is clear to me is that the HYPE is just that, a HYPE. Pushed by companies who want to make these ASS more appealing and sell them, by the bloggers and youtubers who jump on the hype train for clicks and views, by the media that does the same. Combine that with the fact that we live in a dumbed-down society where humans are just workers who have no time to learn/digest any of these things, and we are faced with an Idiotic society that has no clue about any of these.
Our trade based society is at fault here again, for incentivizing humans to hype these things all the time, in order to trade them. And for the fact that it keeps us all busy idiots for the sake of trading to survive. This has created a Land of Confusion.
My mother has a Samsung Galaxy J5 that she bought several years ago. The phone is in great condition physically. However it only has 16GB of internal storage. Problem is she uses 99% of that space, making the device extremely slow and 0 updates possible or the ability to install any new app. Only 10 apps out of perhaps hundreds on her phone can be removed, since the rest came pre-installed with the phone. Bloatware. Google + Samsung apps that are 100% useless. And they cannot be removed.
So, we cannot uninstall/remove anything. Now what can she do? Buy a new phone probably.
And this is how you create a massive amount of waste. On these phones you have no control over your OS, so if your phone is a few years old you can say bye bye to system updates. You cannot remove the bloatware. You cannot change the battery or any other components. And yes probably you can do some of those if you have a ton of time and skills to install a custom Android and have the guts to unglue your phone and change the battery. But most people will never do this.
I tried to make the SD card of her phone part of the system to expand the storage. Worked. But then what for if I cannot move 99% of apps there? I then enabled the developer mode and enabled the “force move the apps to the SD card”. That allowed me to move a bit more apps but still 80% cannot be moved.
However when these moved apps update, they are reinstalled on the internal storage again. Basically ‘d have to move them to the SD card all the time….sucks. Not sustainable…
I eventually managed to install adbmanager and luckily that allowed me to remove any bloatware I wanted. Problem is you have to know the exact name of these apps and they look like “samsung.android.visioncloudagent” so you have to figure which app does what…. I found some websites where they list this bloatware like this or this. But it takes time to remove because you have to be VERY careful not to brick your phone.
After doing all of these she has some 1.7GB of free space. Which is fine for now but still unsustainable. I wonder if the next Android update will add back all of that bloatware….after all when I got some updates years ago Samsung decided to install Facebook and Instagram for me, without the ability to remove them.
So, her laptop uses Linux and not Windows, despite having Windows pre-installed when we bought it. Why not install a sane Android OS on her phone?
With laptops is a ton easier, especially for older models, to install an OS. My mother could do it if I gave her the instructions. With the phones it is a different world. People are already googlefied so you can’t just install a new Android without connecting it to their previous account since everything is tied to that. You need to root the phone and hope that it won’t brick it. That’s something that can make your phone useless. Plus all of these custom Androids that have removed the bloatware only support a tiny fraction of all phones.
The rest support mostly the Pixel phones, namely the newer ones. And that’s another issue…even these custom OSes will support this or that device for a bit, then bye bye. Therefore you still have to buy newer devices even when you want a custom Android that is bloatware free. Some of these even add their own bloatware like https://e.foundation/e-os/ – with their own subscription models.
I was considering to compromise on buying a second hand but newer model Pixel and then install one of those bloatfree Androids, but then if you buy such a phone second hand and the battery is crap and you can’t replace it….what can you do!?
Linux phones, if anyone wonders, are an experiment at best at this stage. Plus they only support a few models too.
It is such a different world when it comes to computers. This Microsoft tablet is more than 10 years old: And it still works with TROMjaro Linux. Granted to make the bluetooth and wifi work I had to install a custom kernel and do some gymnastics. Easier than installing a custom Android on a phone. But this tablet receives constant updates. And this was a special case since these tablets used some weird hardware for the bluetooth and wifi. Most decade old laptops/computers work just fine with the latest Linux.
So you can bring to life old computers but not old phones.
That’s one major reason why I hate smartphones. They are disposable. They come bloated with a ton of crap. It is hard if not impossible to block ads on phones. Plus they are with you all the time so notifications and all that crap will make your life a hell.
Even a Linux phone would not be something I would use much since I do not want to always be trapped in the digital space.
In this trade based society companies are incentivized to release newer model of phones constantly. They support each model for a few years then bye bye. They pre-install a lot of crap to make more off of you. Trades: attention, data, subscriptions. So we end up with a world full of disposable ad-devices that people call as “smartphones”. The irony of using the word “smart” for those devices.
And I get it, these devices if they were Linux based only, and supported indefinitely, could be useful in certain circumstances such as navigation, keeping in touch with close friends, etc.. But the rest seems to me like just a tool for consuming, trading. Your life being sucked away from you by companies and individuals who want your currency, your attention, your data.
UGLY.
I will eventually install a custom Android on my own personal phone, a Galaxy S7, 8 years old. To put some life into it. Just so that I get rid of the pile of shit that the software is on all phones nowadays, even if I only use my phone for GPS, maps, and such purposes.
School can be seen as an abusive and inefficient system that has little to nothing to do with “education”. Children are forced to wake up at a certain hour, every day, 5 days a week, for 12 years. They are categorized by ages and their “knowledge” level. School creates a competition between the kids, makes then hate science and learning in general, it is a boring and colorless place for these young minds, and overall ends up not teaching children much at all about the world we live in.
In a trade-based society the parents NEED to trade themselves in a job, so these kids need to be “livestocked” somehow. That’s what school is, a place where kids can be while their parents trade to survive in this society. More to that, Universities almost exclusively prepare these young creatures to become workers, like their parents.
All in all, kids go to school to compete, memorize, get ready to be workers. NOT to be EDUCATED.
If humans could have a decent life without trading in this society, they could have the time to engage with their kids, discover, learn, enjoy. And schools could be places where kids of all ages can go because they want to. A place where experts can teach them about the world and how to do something productive.
EXAMPLES:
Tell kids: See this red dot? This is the farthest thing we can take a photo off. They call it a “star”. And you show them a real photo taken by the WEBB telescope. From there on you and your class of kids will investigate what this red dot is, and in the process you’ll teach kids about light, physics, maths, distances, stars, the universe.
Or show kids a real dinosaur bone and tell them: Our mission is to understand how old it is and what creature this is. And thus you can go into a journey of discovering what geology is, paleontology, rocks and fossils, and so forth.
Or tell them that our mission is to build a robot. And they will learn mechanics, programming and so forth.
We could create real schools where kids can become curious and learn so much about our world. So that they can become the next Einsteins, the next Teslas, the next ones who can discover new things.
That’s the world we should have had by now….
And we wont be able to have it unless we change the trade-based society into a tradeless society. Where humans are not forced to trade in order to survive. Where humans like “teachers” can engage and develop such schools as explained above, to have time for that, not to go to school because that’s their job since they have to pay their rent so they are forced to do it.
We create documentaries out of our eBooks. These documentaries are entirely based on the books themselves but they may differ here and there in terms of the script and overall presentation, but in general they are the same as the books.
Yesterday I went to the dentist. I didn’t have to go for the past 4 or so years so that’s the positive side. I used to go there for 3 or so years almost weekly, not long ago, because I had braces. I had really fucked up teeth and it took 3 years to fix them.
Anyway, I go there and they tell me to wait in the waiting room. I enter and I see a few C’s. Some young, some oldish. By C’s I mean people. Why C? Because that’s how they look to me, like the letter C when they sit down and are bent over their phone screens. I said a timid “Ola”, and I think an older dude said “Ola” on just 5% volume.
I remember not long ago when I was going to the same dentist, waiting in the same waiting room, that most people were just sitting around. They had some magazines there and some were picking them up and browsing through them.
So I sit down and look around like I normally do. I could see through a big glass door how strongly it is raining outside. It was pouring. My mind shifted to the TROM II documentary, the stuff that I want to do next, my plans for the next months, and so forth. My mind drifted towards the scenery for a bit and I was thinking how weird that this water falls from the sky and how it sounds….those rain droplets falling on the pavement make a lot of sound. And sound is basically energy. The atmosphere, the stuff around, shaking, and the vibrations reach our ears. How cool.
I remember waiting in this waiting room for many hours when I was going for my braces. And had a lot of thoughts. I like to think about stuff.
I then look around me and the C’s are still C. I am thinking “Do they think that I am a weirdo…the only one here just sitting like that and not bent as a C? Am I more like an L when I sit down?” – but then I thought…..are these people even thinking about that? Or thinking in general?
Not to be mean, but it seems to me like pretty much everyone nowadays has no more “free time” to think. That time is completely eaten by the phones and the computers and the tv…. Like….if they go to school/work, then they have to solve all sorts of issues they may have, then they have to buy food, cook, drive, take care of family members (like the soft-brained kids they may have), have homework…..then they are nonstop on their phones….Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, Youtube…..Netflix….Amazon….shop, take photos, consume, like, share, chit-chat.
Honestly, does anyone nowadays have inner thoughts? Because even when you sit in your bed, before going to sleep, probably most humans are on their phones. They wake up with their phones in their faces too.
I was amusing myself thinking that in the near future people would go to a psychologist and be like…
Patient: I hear voices in my head! Psychologist: What do they say? Patient: idk….like words at times… Psychologist: Do you hear them loud? Patient: At times yes…. Psychologist: How often and when mostly? Patient: Not that often, and usually when I do not do anything for some reason… Psychologist: Ok, you may suffer from ITD. Patient IDT? Psychologist: Inner Thoughts Disorder. A lack of outside stimulation of the brain can cause the brain to shoot random thoughts. It is nothing to worry about. Back in the days people managed to deal with that on a daily basis. I recommend you these apps to keep your brain more engaged, and take one of these sleeping pills an hour before you want to go to bed. 😀
That’s how I was amusing myself.
You know, I used to spend at least 2-3 hours in bed before going to sleep, thinking about stuff. And it is damn fun. At times I would spend 5-6 hours or more, staying in bed, thinking. Actually this thinking time allowed me to create TROM, the documentary. The many books I wrote and projects I created. Heck yeah, this article was created last night while I was sitting in bed, in darkness, just with my brain. Now I too have reduced the night thinking to say 1-2 hours for some reason, but I still think every single night before I go to bed. 😀
These moments of you inside your brain are, I think, essential to get to know yourself and the world around you. To plan ahead, to talk to yourself, understand yourself and your relationships. And the world that is out there. Without it you are like a Rumba cleaning robot. Or other sorts of robots. You observe and are pushed by the stuff you are observing. But have no time for self-reflection. Your brain is a read only software by you, and read and write for the big companies that are keeping you busy. People have become robots. And there is a good reason why. An explanation that have predicted that. TRADE.
The same way that humans became physical robots for the past centuries, working 8 to 12 hours a day, same way today their minds are being trading assets. Facebook, Google, Netflix, TikTok and the like, they NEED your mind to trade. Your attention and data are so valuable today. So they do all they can to transform you into a livestock animal, milked daily, because that’s all they want.
It is a very ugly society we live in. Driven by the same force of trade.
When the printing press was invented some said that humans won’t even think because they will spend time reading other people’s thoughts. Wasn’t true really. Newspapers and the invention of the TV, others said, will make people dumber by keeping them glued to those media outlets. Not entirely true, but to some degree truer than before. The “smartphone” and the internet era is on a different level tho. They do keep people busy most of the time, because it is run by a cancerous invasion of companies and individuals who want BRAINS. Mindless consuming BRAINS. And you carry that consumption device with you non stop, and rely on it.
I too rely on a phone….to keep in touch with my parents and because they require one when you have a bank account, go to the hospital, the dentist, and so on. But I decided to only use the phone for that. And for the weather at times. Plus GPS. The rest I do not care. Although I spend a ton of time online, I do so only on my laptop. On my phone I rarely even have credit. And on my laptop I do a lot of work for TROM. Besides that I do scroll through reddit at times, but mostly I use our own tools like TROMnews, I watch documentaries and so forth.
But man…..this is a scary world for me. I see most humans as zombies who are not alive, but simply are automatons that are fed and milked non stop for an endless trade society.
And I genuinely wonder if people still have inner thoughts nowadays….what do they dream at night about….what do they think when they are not C’s….? Are they L’s, I’s anymore? idk….
One thing I am 100% sure is that if I did not spend a lot of time with myself, in my head, I would have been lost today. It is what allowed me to get rid of my suicidal and depressive behavior, what allowed me to change, what made me make TROM, write books, make videos, and so forth. Without these, there is no me.
It’s been almost a year since the war started. Here are my condensed thoughts.
1. It is only Russia’s fault. And by that I mean a few who control Russia.
A bunch of talking heads say that US pushed Russia to invade, NATO bla bla bla. Does not matter if that’s true, it is Russia who invaded Ukraine. They are dropping the bombs, they threw the first punch and keep on throwing more.
2. Russia has no excuses.
Russia is a nuclear weapons collector. They have the most numerous nuclear weapons in the world. Even if Ukraine joined NATO, even if Ukraine hosted some American nuclear weapons, it made 0 difference for Russia. No one is suicidal to ever attack Russia. For fucks-sake no one dares to attack North Korea because they have one and a half nuclear weapons…
So when Russia or others are blabbing about how they had no choices, that it is the Americans’ fault for this, then this is pure nonsense of course.
3. The situation is very complicated.
Some say the world should keep on providing arms to Ukraine, some say this is terrible and only prolongs this war so more people will die, some say they should defeat Russia (now is the moment), some say Ukraine should accept some compromises and negotiate some peace talks…. But now that this war has created a lot of damage already it is hard to say wtf anyone should do next. Allowing Russia to take those Ukrainian territories seems like an invitation to grab more from Ukraine in the future. And it just feels wrong to let them do that…like terribly wrong.
4. The others are also big bullshitters.
On the other hand “the rest” are also complete idiots by thinking that Russia wants to take Ukraine, then the other tribes. Same way that no one dares to directly attack Russia, Russia cannot dare to attack any NATO members. It is pure suicide for both sides.
5. The profiteers. Lots of people take advantage of this war. The ones selling weapons, the ones hosting the refugees, and lots of others who deal with the tons of money transfers for aid purposes or other purposes. Many people are getting rich because of this war.
6. USA and the rest are the opposite of saints.
USA; France, Germany and others, are supplying weapons to all sorts of dictatorial tribes around the world. They have killed, tortured, and destroyed a lot over the past decades. They are charlatans who pretend to care about Ukraine. Some might, but very likely they only follow their own interests. So fuck off with your superheroes attitude. You are not here to defeat the evil, you are here to prioritize only your own interests while sitting on the shoulders of dead and enslaved people.
7. The damaged ones. Like with all wars, the ones suffering are not the ones who started the war. Are the ones that do not want any of this. Some are dead, many are refugees now.
8. I don’t trust Ukraine.
The image of Ukraine, the heroes, I do not buy. I am sure there is some truth about what is being negatively said about them. Like them being influenced by the US, being engulfed in corruption, abusing in the past the areas that Russia occupied, that a bunch of people from those regions wanted to be part of Russia, especially in Crimea, and so forth.
9. Putin has failed. Let’s be naive and take Putin’s words as true. If he wanted for the Russian people in those occupied regions to not be persecuted and treated badly, he achieved the opposite. He destroyed those areas, those lives. And made most of the world hate Russia and Russians.
If he was scared of Ukraine and how it was becoming a US puppet, and how they were getting new weapons and such, well…now Ukraine is even more a US puppet and has more weapons than they ever had. And they will get more. So, another failure.
If he wanted to push NATO further, then he achieved the opposite. NATO is closer and has more weapons now.
If he wanted to flex his muscles, he showcased that Russia has none.
All he achieved is dead people from both sides, destroyed homes and families, a worldwide hate on Russia; he isolated Russia in all regards, he showcased how badly prepared his army is, and made everyone look good and “come together” in this fakish fashion but one that made USA and Europe produce more arms, and ally against Russia.
10. The future is a constant suffering.
After all I am seeing, this war will drag for a long time. At best they get tired, exhausted, and will seek for a “peace deal” that may last for a bit of time, to then fight over those bordering regions again. Russia would love to destroy Ukraine, USA would love to drag Russia into a prolonged war.
It is an insane game that should not have existed in the first place.
I’ll leave you with this image: The nearest galaxy to us. Billions upon billions of stars. Even more planets. We are in this vast Universe….on a small round rock. Why aren’t we helping each other, create a wonderful life for us all, and go explore the rest of the Universe? Why do we fight…?
We know who we are, from a scientific perspective. But almost no one understands….humans, despite the vast amount of knowledge about the universe and us, are still living like “citizens”. Patriots, workers, statuses….Zombies.
@Aaron and @Alexio made me aware of this chatbot called ChatGPT and I said to give it a try. I was so impressed. Like….shockingly impressed. You need to make an account at https://chat.openai.com and then you can simply use it. I asked it many questions and the answers are impressive.
How many male cats are in the world? Well the answer is complex so it gives you a more complex answer telling you that it is hard to answer that.
I’m sorry, I do not have a specific number of the number of male cats in the world. The number of cats, both male and female, varies greatly depending on the country and region and also it is hard to measure this number accurately. Cats are popular pets around the world and many are not registered, making it difficult to estimate the total number of cats in the world. Additionally, there are also many stray and feral cats that live in cities and rural areas. However, it’s important to keep in mind that the number of cats, both male and female, is constantly changing due to births, deaths, and adoptions. It’s worth to mention that the number of cats should be controlled and managed to prevent overpopulation and to protect the health and welfare of the cats and the environment.
Is trade bad? Again, it gives you a more balanced answer.
Trade is not necessarily bad. It allows countries and individuals to exchange goods and services, which can lead to increased economic growth and greater access to a wider variety of products. However, there are some potential downsides to trade, such as the displacement of domestic workers and the potential for exploitation of workers in developing countries. Additionally, trade can also lead to environmental degradation if proper regulations are not in place.
It’s important to note that trade policies are complex and have many aspects that can be evaluated differently by different people. For example, some people may be against free trade while others may be in favor of it. It’s also worth considering that trade policies can have different impacts on different groups of people, and not all trade policies are created equal.
I may not agree with that answer, but it is a balanced one and non-controversial for our society. I managed to talk to the bot about communism or mental disorders and dive deeper into the studies made about mental disorders and how placebo plays a role. I was impressed.
Now, I wanted to make a short article about it to point out a few important things. Mind you I only tested it one day and read a little about it, but my points are still valid. Read the wiki page here.
So, first of all you have to test it to see how good it is. I can’t just tell you that. If you don’t have time, trust me I am not easily impressed by these AI-BS chatbots. But this one is damn good.
However….second….despite being so damn impressive it is deceiving. I asked about TROMjaro and it said
“it includes several features designed to protect the user’s data and online activity, such as the Tor network for anonymous browsing, and support for encryption. “
Well NO. We do not include Tor. And we provide “support for encryption”? haha all Linux distros do….what’s that answer….
Also
“It also includes a wide range of pre-installed software that covers most basic needs, including a web browser, email client, and office suite.”
We do not include any email client.
You see, it can say things in a confident way, and yet be so wrong. I now wonder how many of the things it said to me were also blatantly wrong….
TROMjaro Linux is not a widely used distribution and its development status is uncertain, it may not be a good choice for beginners or those who need a more stable and supported system. It is more suitable for advanced users or those who are looking for a more privacy-focused and customizable Linux distribution.
Well TROMjaro was built specifically for those who are not technical….which is exactly the opposite of what this chatbot said.
In any case, the fact that it does not provide any sources for whatever it types, makes it pointless for me, and dangerous for everyone since it can misinform you quite easily. Double checking every fact it says makes it pointless anyway.
This chatbot is like a “smart friend” that everyone think he’s smart. But can you just believe this “smart” friend and ask him about anything? Nope….that’s naive. Worse is that this chatbot is created by a company who wants profits. I can never trust that.
I tried some technical questions too, that are not fact-based really, like how to do this or that for this or that program. And it gives you instructions and pieces of code. That’s fabulous. With CSS seems to do great, with others not so much. It failed a couple of times by providing wrong pieces of advice or outdated. You see this bot is trained with data up to 2021….so it lacks new data.
But it can create really cool poems. I asked it to create a poem about boots and shoes 😀 and it did:
Boots and shoes, oh how they march, Through rain and snow, and city arch. From stilettos to work boots, Each with their own unique roots.
Boots, rugged and tough, Built to withstand and never huff. Shoes, sleek and refined, Always looking sharp, never behind.
Together they take us to new heights, Through all our daily plights. Boots and shoes, our trusty feet friends, Until the very end.
Quite an impressive job.
So these are my thoughts overall:
The chat is fabulous and awful. It is fabulous how it can create sentences that make sense and keep up with a normal conversation. I think it has great potential. It is amazing to be able to quickly ask something and have such a piece of software deliver a quick and friendly answer.
But it is awful because it can tell you untrue and dated info. And even if it may do so rarely, it is dangerous to use it. You can become very confused and misinformed. And being owned by a company can never become a tool for the betterment of humanity, but a tool for selling more shit and collecting data. They are already in bed with Microsoft and wanna make huge profits.
If this would be open source (fully) and not owned by any company but community driven, I’d be over the moon excited. I’d look forward to new improvements and even help test stuff. But right now am not at all interested, despite it being impressive in many ways. I may at best use it to get some CSS code and stuff like that, but likely I’ll forget about it. For now 😀
In 2011 after I released the TROM documentary someone who was helping me proofread parts of it suggested that I should run a donation campaign to buy a new computer that I desperately needed in order to redo the documentary with a proofread script and voice overs instead of the text-to-speech I had used.
Seemed like a crazy idea to me to ask for so much money. But I did. And I raised over 1.000 Dollars. I was shocked. I was sleeping in a bunkbed in the same room with my sister. I woke her up to tell her. I was so happy. I had a super shitty computer but then I managed to buy a fantastic one. I remade the TROM documentary and released in 2012. Even before this, from 2007 to 2010 I had a blog in the romanian language that had a decent traffic. I asked for little support to help me pay for the hosting, but only got a 1 dollar donation one time, despite so many considering my blog very interesting and useful. I did some video series like today’s Daily Dose of Internet and such, that had thousands of views per episode, and was recommending movies, documentaries and more on my blog. So it was not simply a personal blog. Regardless no one helped me financially despite being broke as hell.
After I released the “remastered” version of the documentary I created the TVP Magazine. Monthly issues, digital, well made. I wrote for it, designed, all that. Did it 8 months for free then I had to go for a massive donation campaign to help me work for a full year. By that time I was so broke, yet I was doing a bunch of online projects that thousands enjoyed. I had to survive in this trade bullshit society.
The golden age of donations.
It was a period of time when websites like Indiegogo or Patreon started to emerge. Platforms where people were mainly asking for donations to support their projects. Looked genuine. Honest. Real. Not many were using them, I was one of the first to create an account with Patreon.
So we did an 18.000 Euros Indiegogo donation campaign for TVP Magazine: To my shock we raised the amount. It was exciting.
It felt like a genuine help. We were doing THIS and to keep on doing THIS we needed THAT. There were no “perks”, no bullshit, no special clubs for those donating. That’s how donations should be. If you donate because you want a tshirt, or be mentioned on some page, or whatever other crap, then you are not genuine. You are not there to just support a project, you want a handjob too. A scratch on your back, a thank you so that you can feel a bit more special. It is about you, at least a bit. And that’s awful.
We got support for some 3 years but in that meantime websites like Indiegogo, Kickstarter or Patreon started to become more and more scammy and full of prostitutes. The notion of “donation” morphed into pay-me-and-you’ll-get-to-see-my-tits sort of thing. Plus the so many scams…so many “cool new tech” that will become reality, you just have to chip-in a bit and you’ll also get a piece of the pie when we bake that cake. Then these projects disappeared. And people were angry.
But what angered me was the complete and utter rape of the action of donating. How can you call it a “donation” when you get something out of that? If I give you some money and then you’ll give me something, but you’ll only give me that something if I give you that amount of money, then that’s a TRADE my friends. THAT is NOT a DONATION. So Patreon transformed into a marketplace where people were buying access to special clubs, merch, and all sort of “perks”. Pretending to “support” the “creators”. In fact they were buying shit from merchants.
SciShow, who joined later on than we did with our projects on Patreon, relies on subscriptions rather than support: For 500$ a month you can have sex with one of their staff members. Look at this: Are you telling me that these are “creators” that others “support”? Fuck off, these are merchants like everyone else, and they sell shit. And people pay to access that shit. The same ol’ trade game. These are some of the most popular merchants on Patreon.
Hell yeah, even Mastodon sells shit: Access to their select club and ads on their joinmastodon website for your “company”.
This is a very very sad world.
Of course it does not work for me to rely on donations when I do not engage into these marketing tactics. If it weren’t for 3-4 close friends who helped the project/me over the years, I don’t know what I would have done. To give you an example I am trying to raise 250 Euros to pay for the backups for some 30 websites: like our Friendica instance, Nextcloud, Peertube, Matrix, SearX, Cryptpad, VideoNeat.com, TROMsite.com, TROMjaro.com and so much more. Currently only 35€ was donated. At least hundreds of people are using these websites/services, if not several thousands. If only 100 of them would donate 3€ a year we could over the backup costs. But they don’t and they won’t.
In general a small fraction of people donate to the projects that they use. A few years ago when I looked into this, it was like 0,1% of those subscribed to some youtube channels who also donated to these “creators”. Even when these “creators” (merchants) sell shit, the support is relatively small. But probably there are more such people supporting you if you also give them shit in return. After all, humans are used to this “I give you but you also give me” mentality. So now that TROM provides nothing but the TROM project, probably it is not as exciting to “support” as the other projects are.
Fuck me The Moneyless Society who are blabbing about how this monetary system is the cancer, has this on their front page: The link leads to here: The irony is astonishing. Their Patreon is equally as bad:
You see I wanted to walk that talk. If I say this bullshit trade-based society is awful, then I won’t play by its rules when it comes to TROM. Never sold anything, never inserted ads, collected data, provided special access to those who provided financial support for the project. That’s the real way of doing this sort of work. I prefer that over selling shit. I’d rather see the TROM project dying than transforming into yet another trading practice, marketing nonsense, influencer-on-patreon whore.
TROM is not a popular project, maybe in part because of our content that’s at times lenghty and upsetting for some. Maybe in part because we don’t play by the marketing rules. I had the dignity to move from facebook, twitter and youtube, to the fediverse entirely, despite “losing followers”. I had the courage to write/publish some 40 books and never sold any. I had the guts to provide 20+ services over trom.tf and treat everyone as equal. To me that’s priceless, and I am so thankful to a handful of humans who still see that value in what I do, and follow the work, and some support it financially in order to keep this boat afloat.
Humans nowadays trade nonstop. For games, in games purchases, netflix, entertianment, crypto-investments, buying special access from the people they follow, and generally being consumed non-stop. Even if TROM gets more popular, it may not be exciting for these consumers since TROM gives you nothing but TROM. And they may want a hanjob or some other stuff like that.
TROM is not a whore and never will be. It will stay honest, decent, humble, and non bullshitter. We are walking the talk until we cannot.
If I do not raise the money for the backups I will pay for them myself. If I cannot sustain some of the TROM.tf project I will discontinue them. As simple as that. To rely on donations, the real ones, is the only way to stay unbiased in this trade-based society. But it sucks that donations have transformed into purchases.
BUT:
I need to remind you that all of these whores and charlatans that I’ve been talking about, are like that because of the trade based society we live in. We are forced to be like that. At the end of the day I am NOT accusing any of them. Just pointing them out, as they are victims, nothing more.
This is it: I needed a new laptop to get rid of my old one that was not portable. I made 3 posts already about this journey: 1, 2, 3 – so I will try not to repeat myself.
My mission: get a sturdy and powerful laptop that can last me for a decade. Upgradable and fixable in a reasonable manner. Big screen, yet portable. Do it!
After months of searching and thanks to Roma and Guil primarily, who donated 98% of the money for the laptop, I settled for the Dell Inspiron 7620 2-in-1 16 inches. It has a core i7-1260p – 12 cores 16 threads. An Nvidia MX550, 64GB of RAM and 4TB NVME. 4k screen, 16:10 aspect ratio.
I will tell you why I chose this one.
First let me tell you the negative parts of this laptop, since none can be perfect for me I guess. Then I’ll tell you why overall it is a great laptop for me.
What I don’t quite like.
The keyboard. You see I write a lot and I want a great keyboard. This one is too shallow. I miss the depth of the previous keyboard….but I guess I’ll get used to it eventually. The keyboard is also in German….since I bought the laptop from germany, ebay, second hand but unused. Basically brand new. The Y and Z are switched but I chose a QWERTY layout in TROMjaro so despite showing differently, the letters are in a QWERTY format. I will try to also manually switch them but I am affraid not to break them.
I also kinda don’t like the arrow keys… The up and down arrows are too tiny. This is a bad design on any keyboard.
To add salt to the injury… this layer: It is a layer of some sort of plastic/glass on top of the metal chassis, that is great for the touchpad but the edges are a bit sharp so when I type my arms get cut a bit in these edges….that happens when I sit on my desk. Like 99% of the time….
SO the typing experience is not that great. Not awful, and I will get used to it, but yeah….that’s the biggest downside so far.
Another slight discomfort: opening the laptop to upgrade was a scary experience. You have a few screws but once you start unscrewing them the top part of the bottom case starts to violently try to get out, and things are bendy and make noises. Maybe the captive screws on that side should not be fully unscrewed but loosen and then try to open the case little by little. Like all laptops (almost) the bottom detachable case has plastic bits inside that clip into the laptop, and these are always sketchy…so I even broke 2 while opening it. Was not a great experience but I guess next time it will be easy. Luckily the entire laptop is made out of aluminium so even without these plastic things everything can close pretty tight.
It can be loud and it is a bit heavy. Having a dedicated GPU the fans will be pretty loud when you do intensive tasks, but probably that’s quite normal… Also it is heavy for a “tablet” and quite huge. So this is not really comfortable to use it like that. On the desk is properly fine.
Software-related issues.
Since this laptop is quite new, not even a year old, the hardware is not flawless with Linux. The worst of them all: the speakers will stop working after a few minutes of use. You have to restart pulseaudio for them to work again for a bit. Then they stop again. This seems to be a bug that was reported and should be fixed with newer releases of the kernel. I can easily put up with that since I never use the laptop’s speakers – I have external ones – but for most people this would be a reason not to use Linux on this laptop.
The Hibernate mode kills your laptop. I found out the hard way. I had to fix some bad sectors on the drive because it was not booting up anymore. Probably another issue that will be fixed in the near future, but for now no Hibernate mode. Suspend works ok tho.
If I turn the screen brightness down completely, from the keyboard, I cannot bring it up again. I have to shut down the laptop from the power button….that sucks.
The face recognition camera does not have any real support in Linux so that’s not usable….this is the case for all laptops as far as I know.
Closing the lid won’t respect the XFCE settings I setup for it, so it won’t turn off the screen, or lock, or else.
Basically, with Linux, this laptop is not easily portable. You can’t use the speakers, you can’t hibernate it, you can’t even close the lid to have it turn off the screen….
So, you may wonder, why did I keep this laptop if it has these issues?
First of all the software related issues will be fixed and they won’t bother me much at all. Pretty much every laptop I had to install Linux on, had some sort of issues like that. It is normal when you create an operating system for ALL laptops out there.
Second, the hardware-related issues are not that bad. I am getting used to the keyboard and I won’t have to open up the laptop that often anyway.
So, then, the good parts.
The build quality is great. This is all metal. Slimbook for example felt flimsy, this one feels really sturdy. I can kill a human and a dog with this laptop and I am sure it will still work 😀. The hinges, metal, feel like they will last me a lifetime. It barely bends, no cracks, and feels really solid overall…
It is also super slim and of course bendable 360 degrees: Look how great that looks. So thin, so portable. This is a lot more slim-book than the Slimbook one 😀. And the charger is also tiny compared to the Slimbook or my previous laptop:
The touchscreen is also a plus since I can test TROMjaro directly on my own machine.
Speaking of the screen, the screen is AMAZING. The blacks are so black that if I were to select a 16:9 instead of 16:10 resolution I can’t even tell since the black borders are as black as the screen’s chassis. The colors are vibrant and it looks amazing from all angles.
Also…am I crazy or 3-4k resolution is no different from Full HD!? I tested with this laptop and there is 0 difference in how it looks. That’s good since I can use the FullHD resolution and this improves the battery life. From my initial tests it can last some 5-6 hours on wifi doing things. Others have tested this and it can last some 20h if you are not connected to the internet and just watch local media.
When the speakers work they are very loud and sound great, despite only using 2 of them out of 4 in Linux…..when they will all work this laptop will sound amazing am sure.
The touchpad is great. Smooth, HUGE, and looks neat. The glassy surface that cuts my arms while typing feels great when using the touchpad 😁
Speaking of looking neat, there is only 1 logo on the back. And that’s not even that visible. I like that.
The port selection is perfect. On the left side you get an HDMI, normal USB, and two USB C / Thunderbolt – meaning they support any sort of connection basically. On the right side you get another normal USB port, an audio jack, and a full SD size card reader. So you can be sure that this laptop can connect to anything.
For example the way I set it up now that I have to work on TROM II and need a bunch of external stuff, I use a USB-C dock. It connects to the laptop into one of the USB C ports. One cable, mind you. This dock has the following connected to it: 3 HDDs totaling 14TB of data + my headphones + speakers + external microphone + mouse + external display + projector + 1GB Ethernet + power charging so that it also charges the laptop + webcam. This is so amazing. It means I can quickly unplug one single cable and take the laptop. Then plug it in and all of those are connected.
The webcam is also better than your average laptop camera, like for example many times better than Slimbook’s. The built-in microphone I’ve heard is also very good but I have not tested it yet. The webcam also has a physical shutter so you can block it.
THE INSIDES! I think this is the only laptop-convertible in the world that’s 16inches and has a 16:10 aspect ratio, is so slim yet all metal build, but allows you to replace the RAM and has 2 slots for it. This was a must for me. It was advertised as 32GB max, but I easily added 64GB of RAM. DDR4. And I upgraded the NVME M2 to 4TB.
To compare it now with the Slimbook Executive 16, that one costs 1.750 Euros with 16GB of RAM and 512GB SSD. Sure, the CPU is a bit better and the GPU much better (useful only if you play video games which I do not). This laptop, the Inspiron 7620 costed me 1.100 Euros and with 64GB of RAM + 4TB SSD around 1.700 Euros. MUCH MUCH MUCH better in all regards than the Slimbook offer.
Lastly the power button it is also a fingerprint reader: And I managed to make it work in TROMjaro – wasn’t that difficult. How amazing that now I can unlock the computer with the fingerprint and works perfectly fine. Or when I install new packages….FINGERPRINT! NO more typing my very long admin password 😀.
OVERALL.
For 1.700 Euros I got a great laptop. It has a big and amazing screen, great port selection, fantastic build quality, great touchpad, good webcam and mic, ok upgradability and repairability, great CPU and good GPU. Touchscreen, bendable 360 degrees, consumes less energy than the Slimbook, small power charger (USB C), great price overall. In time I’ll get used to the keyboard too and the software related issues will be fixed.
Ok ok, a very long post…..but to me this machine is important since it allows me to do the so many projects I am doing. It is an extension to my brain. So it matters to me.
Now I plan to give my old laptop to a dear TROM friend who has helped the project a lot for the past year or two. If I manage to send it to the other side of the globe somehow to not break our pockets. I want to give my older stuff to others who can use it for longer.
I will try to get “laptops” out of my head and in a week or so to focus again on TROM II. I spent a lot of time searching for a good laptop and I feel like I have finally found it. It is time to move on 😀
UPDATE
I wanted to post an update about the laptop now that I’ve used it for a bit.
I got used with the keyboard. Of course this was meant to happen. I still think is not the greatest keyboard I’ve used but it is ok. You don’t think about it after some time. I also managed to physically switch the Y and Z keys without breaking them 😀
Now everything seems more “natural” in terms of typing.
However the trackpad makes some rattling sounds when I use the laptop in bed. Almost like it is a tiny bit loose. I may try to fix that another time.
Build quality is not as great as I thought.
I opened the laptop today to properly look inside. I have to say it was easier to open than before, as I was expecting, but still not a great experience. The worst is what I discovered…I realized that yes the laptop is a metal built BUT inside where the hardware is, there is a plastic mesh/backbone where everything is held into place…which means the screws are screwed into the plastic, and so are the hinges. Watch this video to see my disappointment:
I was and still am very disappointed. I did not realize that the first time I have opened it. Thing is even if I did, I cannot find a better laptop overall. From the screen size, to the ports, outside chassis, specs….cannot….so it is what it is. But it is deceiving and stupid to make a metal chassis but not have the components screwed into it. Now I will have to be extra careful with this laptop to not break the plastic….my worst nightmare. I have used it today all day while sitting in bed and felt very sturdy and all that. So I hope it will be ok and last me for a long time. And if not I can later on sell it and hopefully Framework can make some 16inch ones so I can grab one of those.
Don’t get me wrong, the laptop feels very well built, but now that I know how it is screwed inside, I will be more careful with it.
It is many times better than my previous laptop so….that’s great.
Software issues?
Almost no more software issues. Everything was fixed with the new 6.1 kernel and with the 6.2 one the 2 speakers out of 4 that do not work now, will also work. So yeah, as I was predicting, in Linux is not a big deal if some hardware does not work ok. It will in the near future especially when we talk about a newly released laptop.
I LOVE the fingerprint reader. Install/remove packages, unlock the computer, are done in a split of a second now. The fingerprint reader works like a charm and I will add a package for it for the next release of TROMjaro and a tutorial about how you can enable it.
The rest?
The screen is wonderful. FullHD or 4k look the same so I use it in FullHD. The laptop is fast, allowing me to compile a new TROMjaro ISO in some 15 minutes compared to 50 minutes before. The mic and camera are good. The speakers very good and I could only test it with 2 out of 4. The battery is ok…nothing special about it.
I made a shitty quality video about it today to show the laptop a bit and the fingerprint reader 🙂 – I am lazy to record it properly but here you go:
Overall.
I cannot find a better laptop for my needs now. This one is indeed great. Even if the insides are plastic….it is ok (at least I hope so). Having this portable laptop is fantastic and 64GB of RAM + 4TB NVME are heaven for me haha.
I should leave this behind and work on TROM II, to finish it in 2-3 months. 😉
LAST AND SMALL UPDATE:
Today I got another kernel update and all speakers work. 4 speakers. They sound great for a laptop. Very loud, very clear. Very happy about that. Also, am less and less disappointed about that plastic inside. The laptop feels sturdy so I hope all will be ok.
Touchpad issues update
After 2 months of use there are 2 issues with the touchpad. Mind you I rarely use the touchpad so perhaps these are much bigger issues for most people than they are for me. But there is a fix for them.
The noises, the rattles.
From the beginning I noticed that when I use the touchpad it made a sound when I tapped it to click. As if it is not screwed well into place. And after a while it gets annoying and more noisy. Basically the touchpad is a bit lose. To fix this I had to add some paper tape and some sticky foam pads. Here is the video:
As you can see this requires a little bit of effort since you have to test and see what works best for you. The other issue is that if you fix it you may make it too stiff and if you are used to push-to-click instead of tap-to-click it may become annoying. Mine is a bit too stiff but I much rather prefer that. I never push-to-click on the touchpad. Tapping is much easier for me.
The electrons are mad.
One HUGE issue with this trackpad is something I’ve read about before buying it but I did not think it would happen to me. Basically the mouse pointer would jump chaotically on the screen when you used the touchpad, or click, it was a mess. There are many forum posts about it and this is the main reason people return these Dell 7 thousand series back. I finally found this forum thread where people discovered that there is an issue with the grounding and static electricity building up. So basically a hardware issue. Funny enough if you were to create a friction between your palm and the touchpad for a few seconds, it would work again.
The real solution is to create a better connection between two pieces of metal on the touchpad. And so I did:
I hope it will work from now on, if not I’ll try to connect those bits better.
Yeah for such an expensive laptop you expect better. But I am happy that these are the only issues I experienced so far and are quite easy to fix. Overall the battery is very good, the build quality is great, the speakers are ok, the keyboard is fine, the port selection is bloody useful, and the screen is AMAZING. I love it.
It is powerful enough for me for the many years o come, it is portable, and overall I love it.
That’s all I hope.
Touchpad update
The electric tape solution didn’t work at all. In a day or two it went back to how it was. Since then it became worse and worse. The trackpad/touchpad was unusable. I then decided to go for the soldering. I really didn’t want to do that to my laptop but I did it. For details see this forum post. I did a really bad job at soldering because I was tired and the bits I was soldering to on the trackpad were so tiny. I did that some 3-4 days ago and since then the trackpad works like a charm. I still can’t believe it. This really stressed me out and made this laptop unusable as a laptop really, unless you always have a mouse with you.
Anyway, so far it works perfectly fine and I really hope this did it. It is the solution that everyone recommends.
The laptop itself is great. Very well built, amazing screen, very good speakers, powerful and all of that, so I would not know what else to buy if it wasn’t for this one, so I am beyond happy if this issue is finally solved….
As for the rattling I realized that the simplest solution is to put a paper tape between those two little metal things and the laptop’s chassis. So that when they touch they make a lot less noise.
So bellow those as you see in the photo, I added one piece of tape. Now all is fine.
So right now the laptop is well and dandy. I love it overall considering the alternatives. I really hope this is the last update.
