Microsoft Remote Desktop app grows up

The most stable release of Microsoft Remote Desktop so far

I kept waiting for ‘the fall’ for a week.

That where Microsoft Remote Desktop – the Windows Store app, not the built-in applet – just freezes up. Requiring a user to shut down all running instances of RD.

Yes, I know: you don’t lose any data running on the remote systems. However, the distraction rankles.

Until this latest rev of the app.

Apart from the much better, and thankfully “un-flat” icon, the applet just works.

It starts up perceptively faster, and, so far hasn’t locked up or failed.

I am able to run multiple instances of local HD videos from several systems concurrently without the applet freezing up.

This is a definite improvement.

It is now almost as good, and hopefully, as stable as the very rock solid MacOS version of Remote Desktop which hasn’t failed ever!

Good job, Redmondians!

  © 2002 – 2020, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited

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Force Internet giants to offer straight, non-algorithmic feeds

Headline:

“YouTube & Facebook Radicalized the Christchurch Shooter, New Zealand Report Concludes”

How seriously eff’d up is this?

That terrorist killed 51 people before being apprehended.

And how does YouTube and Facebook radicalize people?

Easy: by constantly feeding you the same crap their shitty algorithms think you want to see.

This nasty, default, and unchangeable practice has to stop!

While for YouTube a suggestion algorithm might be needed, it mustn’t be one that recommends violence or worse.

Is this hard to do? Yes. However, Google, YouTube’s parent, has enough experience with search to make it happen.

As for Facebook, the only reason it has an algorithmic timeline is blatantly for money, even more so than YouTube/Google.

I believe the very first remedy to be asked by the attorneys-general of the 48 states suing Google, and the EU, is for tech giants to immediately stop forcing algorithmic timelines and suggestions on their users.

They should make it unlawful to ever revert t algorithms unless asked for in very definite, multi-assent dialog pages, and make reverting to a normal, no-algorithm timeline the default within 24 hours.

Make them work for it, I say.

 © 2002 – 2020, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited

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Gaming consoles to re-home

We are replacing these devices.

We have 3 replacement devices right now.

However, the other two devices rarely get used, so now is a good time for a giveaway.

I am keeping the Xbox One X and the newest Xbox 360. I am also keeping the [limited edition] gold Playstation 4.

The kids did a raffle among their friends, and have selected the new owners.

All our physical games inventory will be given away as well.

© 2002 – 2020, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited

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Abercrombie & Fitch seemingly recovers from 'Edifice Complex'

Edifice complex.  

Edifies complex is a very debilitating disease, a malaise if you will, that infects corporations both large and small, from the boardroom, down to Wall Street. 

Yesterday I read the story of Abercrombie and Fitch closing seven of their locations. 

These seven Abercrombie and Fitch locations where these flagship stores, represented 10% of their total real estate spend every year, but delivered less than 1% of sales.  

How could the management of Abercrombie and Fitch allow this to happen?  

How could they, year over year, justify the amounts of money that they were spending on this flight of fancy? How could they? And how, that the board let them get away with it? 

This is the epitome of edifice complex.  

And it is sick. 

I am not a holder of Abercrombie and Fitch stock. However, I am most incensed by this stupid plunge into silly stranded costs. Hopefully, Abercrombie and Fitch has learned a valuable lesson. 

Are other companies paying attention? 

What can we do to stop this? 

 © 2002 – 2020, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited

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Will Microsoft pivot to using its own homegrown CPU?

Apple seems to have delivered a masterpiece of a CPU chip in the M1. 

If reporting is to be believed, this first iteration of the chip is a revelation. 

It seems to be delivering unprecedented performance especially in gaming. 

If so, this presents a conundrum for Microsoft in the gaming space. 

Right now, Microsoft uses specialized AMD CPU and AMD GPU in the Xbox. 

If the M1's performance scales as is projected, whither Microsoft? 

That sort of raw performance means Microsoft now has to flex its muscles on this matter. 

Microsoft has two choices, as I see it: 1) commune with AMD and see if the AMD roadmap obliterates any and all inklings of [gaming] grandeur by Apple, and/or 2) create their own CPUs using an ARM core. 

The easier option, for now, is for Microsoft and AMD to come up with x86 CPUs that move the needle. 

Conversely, with the heavier lift, using an ARM core, may allow Microsoft to do some new things not currently possible with x86, namely a vastly better thermals. 

Then again, the M1 may have shown AMD ‘the way’, by letting AMD be able to designate some cores as low-power units, for basic housekeeping, and the rest of the cores as vroom-vroom performance cores. 

Suffice it to say, exciting times are back in the currently staid world of CPUs. 

 © 2002 – 2020, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited

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Initial batch of Xbox Series X and a Playstation 5 has arrived

We use Xbox devices as media streamers at the Orbiting O’Odua.

Currently we have a mix of 3 Xbox 360s, 3 Xbox Ones, and an Xbox One X.

We were able to snag two Xbox Series X units and a PS5.

I have dibs on a Series X, as does #2 Son, while #1 Son who is primarily a Playstation guy, has the PS5.

We will be replacing the rest of the units over time.

© 2002 – 2020, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited

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This is just sad.

In the past, becoming a successful author required hard work, imagination, and much, much more.

It was, dare I say it, meritorious.

No longer.

Aspiring authors no longer put in the work. They no longer have to possess any imagination.

They forego the ‘ghost writer’ stage.

All they have to do is become ringers for established authors.

They get to write the established author’s books, coming on as co-writers, and having almost instantaneous name recognition.

The scions of established writers are being presented as de-factor authors.

The late Clive Cussler was the first I saw.

Today, this, at Costco: Lee Child.

Listen: I am all for giving your kid a helping hand, a leg up, whatever.

This, though, is totally infra dig.

© 2002 – 2020, John Obeto II for Blackground Media Unlimited

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