Well, most of those can either run natively on Linux or have web-based clients.

• Teams works fine in a browser as long as you don't mind some slight differences in the UI. There is also a well-maintained Electron app.
• Excel and other Office apps already work fine in the browser on Linux.
• OneDrive has unofficial clients on Linux, but you might as well just commit to accessing those files in a browser as well.
• SharePoint is already browser-based and integrated with OneDrive.

That said, CAD is definitely going to be an issue. In general, I wouldn't recommend trying to switch all the way to Linux in a Windows-only office ecosystem. A better option if you can get permission is to dual-boot, or to run Windows in a virtual machine.

Just a reminder that it's illegal for Trump to unilaterally impose these tariffs without congressional approval. Again. Again.

The important thing to remember is that it actually has zero access to information, because that's not how LLMs work.

At their core, they're vector databases, and they're trying to probabilistically come up with the next most likely token in a stream of tokens found in the DB. You can manipulate the stream by injecting text such as the content of existing files (which becomes more tokens) into the stream, but it never actually understands any of it.

That's why hallucinations are inherently unavoidable. It's really all just hallucinations. It's just that you can sometimes get useful text from their hallucinations if they happen to comport with reality.

No, they really don't. That's not how they work. At least, not if the "information" you're talking about is real semantic content that real minds can process.

Every piece of information you think an LLM has access to is actually just converted into a stream of additional tokens that are fed into the model to (hopefully usefully) modify the next tokens it predicts. That's not the same thing as having actual access to information. Tokens are just numbers with statistically more (or less) likely relationships to each other.

I'm not trying to downplay LLMs. They're architecturally interesting and have genuine uses. I'm just trying to head off a bit of technical inaccuracy.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, not if by "information" you mean semantic content that a mind can process. What they have are vector fields (essentially just numbers) with statistically more or less likely relationships.

If I say, "take me out to the ballgame" to an LLM, the tokens representing the words in the next verse of the song are statistically "close" in the vector database, so it's likely to generate them. But that doesn't mean it actually knows the lyrics... or even has those lyrics recorded in a regular database anywhere.

That's why they hallucinate. The model determines that the next token is something nonsensical, but it has no way of understanding that it has made a mistake. In a sense, it actually hasn't made a mistake. It's done exactly what it's designed to do. It's just that in the case of hallucinations, its output isn't useful.

They're information, but not the same information that was used to create them.

"Cognitive amplifier?" Bullshit. It demonstrably makes people who use it stupider and more prone to believing falsehoods.

I'm watching people in my industry (software development) who've bought into this crap forget how to code in real-time while they're producing the shittiest garbage I've laid eyes on as a developer. And students who are using it in school aren't learning, because ChatGPT is doing all their work - badly - for them. The smart ones are avoiding it like the blight on humanity that it is.

Suggesting that a war should be waged against the democratically-elected government of the United States seems... Well, it seems kinda treason-y to me. Just a smidge.

My son is trans. Please vote for Joe Biden so he can have the protections he needs and I don't have to stay up at night worrying about him.

The message is clear: Do not come to the United States as a tourist. Do not spend your money in the United States. Do not support businesses that operate from the United States. Our borders are closed, our economy crumbling, our government falling to fascism, and our culture dominated by a relatively small minority of aggressively ignorant morons.

Don't come. We've gotten unfathomably stupid over here, and it's no longer safe.

Hey, uhh, Europe? Can we talk?

Look, I know the way the left has been handling immigration has you upset, but could you please take a closer look at the absolute freaks you're electing today?

I mean, just take a good look at the United States, circa 2017 through 2020. Did we look like electing an absolute freak worked out for us? Did it fix our own immigration problems? Did it make electing your own Donald Trumps look like a good idea?

The fact that he ever had an approval rating with Gen Z is mind-boggling.

Revolting that this is now a "crime."

This is awful, and there are no good sides to it. Hamas are terrorists, and the Israeli government's actions have made this kind of thing inevitable.

A lot of innocent people on both sides will die, nothing will get resolved, and both sides will continue to do horrible things to each other.

This sucks.

Miscarriage of justice. Hopefully the DA is ready with an immediate appeal.

Great. So once Stack Overflow is dead, where will ChatGPT get actual, correct answers from?

Are we going to pretend he gives a shit? He doesn't. He got what he wanted, and he can't be elected again (barring him fucking our systems so severely that he manages to force a third term on us). He's going to wreck the justice system to avoid any consequences for his actions after his term, and he could very well kick the bucket while he's in office anyway (dude's got KFC gravy for blood).

He doesn't care. He no longer has to. He can play his country-destroying games with impunity. He has no reason to give a single fuck what the American people want.

I will never understand why that's so difficult for some people. Calling on Israel to stop the illegal "settlements" in no way indicates support for Hamas.

To be 100% clear, the horrific murders and mutilations they've committed are inexusable and Hamas should be utterly dismantled, with every surviving member put on trial for war crimes. That can be true at the same time as it's true that Israel's illegal annexation of territory and treatment of Palestinians is wrong.

Please, can someone tell me they understand that? Am I taking crazy pills, here?

I am disgusted to live in a world where Joe Fucking Rogan is king-maker, and it's a legit political strategy to keep your opponent off his stupid podcast.

I'm under no illusions that Linux is a viable alternative for everyone, but if you're just using your computer as a web terminal and light gaming system, a decent Linux system + Steam makes for a very usable option these days.

I have exactly one computer in my house that has Windows on it. It was provided by my employer, and I turn it on maybe once every two weeks or so, for special-purpose activities that can't be done on my Linux laptop. And most of the time, for most activities my Linux laptop is the clearly superior performer - it's not even close, despite their similar hardware specs.

I don't think everyone should - or can - switch. But if you've got an old beater laptop gathering dust, try popping Ubuntu or something on it, see how it performs. See if it's something you could legitimately switch to full or part time.