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AI sure killed the motto KISS. Copilot for notepad is literally using a nuclear reactor to light a single bulb.
Figuratively
That too.
- Literally has meant figuratively since it first appeared as a word in the 1700s and this usage is listed in every major dictionary
- https://edition.cnn.com/2024/09/20/energy/three-mile-island-microsoft-ai/index.html
Literal is the exact opposite of figurative…
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/figurative
I wonder, why is ‘literally’ so special?
Someone steps out into unexpectedly cold weather and says, “It’s freezing out here.” But it’s not below freezing.
Someone that hasn’t eaten all day takes a bite and says, “I was starving, this is the best burger I’ve ever tasted!” They weren’t really starving, and they probably didn’t just rank every burger they’ve eaten.
We exaggerate and/or use words incorrectly for the effect so often, people are constantly using words “incorrectly” but then they say, “I’m literally dead right now.” and dictionaries change their definitions and people point out semantics. It’s like literally is figuratively magic.
It’s almost like language is radically democratic and words only mean what we largely agree they mean, with fluctuating cases based on particular contexts.
Yeah, somehow “literally” is the only word in a figure of speech that cannot be part of the figure at all! They are so smart for pointing that out
I think “literally” should be an exception because it’s the only word to clarify when we’re not speaking figuratively. It’s like making your safe word “fuck me harder”.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/literally
That’s one of it’s senses, yes, but how many of those definitions are the opposite of figurative?
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The use of “literally” is part of the figure of speech you’re pedantically referring to. Saying “figuratively” would be redundant, as everyone knows Copilot is not a nuclear reactor, and also declaring that you are using a figure of speech “weakens” it (like /s for sarcasm). By saying “literally” they are saying “wow, this fits so well that this isn’t even a metaphor anymore”.
If you want to correct everyone for saying literally instead of figuratively, correct every teenager saying “I’m actually dying rn 😂” with “ackshually you’re not ACTUALLY dying, as I can see you are still alive typing tips fedora”I do apologize for using exaggerated words to beautify my sentences, tostiman, sir.
The new moto is “keep giving me money stupid”
How wasting billions on AI accomplishes that goal, I don’t know but I’m sticking with FOSS apps and platforms just to be safe
But why vivaldi of all things?
Its UI and UX are very nice, I loved it while I used it, however, Im now using waterfox for privact reasons.
This is a pretty random Notepad story, but: in 1999 I was doing web development for Internet Explorer 6 (yes, I know) using Classic ASP and Visual Basic (5 or 6? I can’t be bothered to look shit like that up). Probably my most important debugging tool was the “View Source” menu option in IE6, which would bring up the raw HTML of whatever page I was working on in Notepad. One day the “View Source” option just stopped working, completely. Clicking that menu wouldn’t do anything at all; I tried everything I could think of but just couldn’t fix the problem. For six months I was basically coding blind - I had no way of directly seeing the HTML my code was producing.
Somehow I managed to still get my work done. Then one day I stumbled across an obscure forum post that said “View Source” in IE6 would not work if you had a shortcut to Notepad on your Desktop. I of course had a shortcut to Notepad on my Desktop since I kept everything on my desktop (yes, I know). I renamed my shortcut to “NotepadX” and suddenly “View Source” in IE6 started working again. Possibly the happiest day of my programming life. I played around with it and found that it didn’t have to actually be a shortcut to Notepad - it could be a shortcut to any program or file, but if it happened to be named “Notepad” it would block View Source from working.
I would give anything to find out where this particular bug came from. It’s really bothered the shit out of me for the past 26 years. I don’t see how it could ever happen accidentally, so I have to assume that some MS programmer somewhere really hated people with shortcuts to commonly-used programs on their Desktop and decided to punish them.
I love that story. Thanks for sharing. What a crazy bug. Maybe IE6 was integrating with windows in some weird way? I almost want to fire up a VM and see if I can replicate it. Think you can remember which version of windows it was?
IE was literally embedded into the OS. There’s no surprise there were bugs like that.
Wow! Thank you for sharing; what an weird bug! Perhaps some ancient code to make use of notepad for view source if available, then the available function got changed, for other reasons, to if on desktop, then a different version of notepad broke the chain of borked code?
Well, IE6 did open Notepad to show source by default, but it makes no sense why a shortcut to Notepad just existing on the Desktop would prevent that. Especially when it didn’t even have to be a real shortcut to Notepad.
Probably tried to execute Notepad.lnk, because Desktop came before /system in the path, and however they were calling it did not resolve the link before executing - and that meant a hang, silent error, or no op
Notepad had one job. Operate on a damn text file. Operate on the damn text files I choose.
I knew it was going down the drain when I reopened Notepad and it opened the files that were previously open. No. Don’t do that. That’s overly helpful. You were only supposed to operate on the damn files I chose. These files I’m about to work with aren’t necessarily the files I previously worked on. If I want this functionality I might as well open it in vscode.
I’m, like, screw it, might as well keep Emacs running if I need random temporary text editing.
Personally I find that feature (including tabs in general) very helpful and is something i’d expect from a text editor in the 20th century.
Just my opinion. To each their own, but just wanted to share that it might also be many others’ opinion too.
I like how the tabs save when I close notepad. Its super helpful when I just need to jot down some quick notes or a serial number or something.
And I’m really dumb so I often close my notepad window before I’m done and this feature has saved me numerous times.
I don’t have copilot in my notepad tho. Which is good.
Gotta agree here with you. Yeah theoretically maybe someone really just needs a text editor with absolutely no additional convenient features (maybe the older versions of Notepad allowing different fonts and word wrap was too much for someone as well?). But this is such an objective improvement in 95% of usecases it’s kind of ridiculous to complain about it.
In the 20th century I’d expect something that can open, edit and save plaintext files. But we’re 1/4th of the way into the 21st century.
I find I have two uses for a plaintext editor: plaintext, and computer script. I don’t like using rich text editors like Word for writing notes and such because the formatting options just get in the way; plaintext lets me “just write.” And for this, there’s very little automation that will be helpful.
In the Linux ecosystem, plaintext editors are all trying so hard to be IDEs. They’ll close parentheses or quotes or whatever for you, and if you’re doing something like 15" to mean fifteen inches you’ll get two, you’ll hit backspace and it’ll take both away…it doesn’t help.
If I’m programming anything of any size I’m going to open an IDE, probably because I’m working within some ecosystem. If I’m writing a couple lines of Bash I’ll probably use Vim. So I’d rather tune my plaintext editor to write actual .txt files, as prose.
I think I’d be able to agree with you if new notepad didn’t take a noticeable time to load. It used to be the 2nd fastest thing I could launch, after the Run dialog itself.
I hate it when my technology tries to be smart. Be predictable, you piece of junk. I dont need my laptop to sleep when I shut the lid because all that foes is stop it from shutting down. And opening it doesnt need to turn it on ffs. I blame company policy.
I miss when things were simple, predictable, and you could simply work around them.
VSCode: We already have an IDE.
Windows: But what about second IDE?
For folks who cannot do this due to it being a work-controlled machine or otherwise, you can use notepad++. (Obviously id rather this be a tipping point to ditch all the junk at once, but sometimes that isnt feasible)
That said, i find i still need a throwaway notepad for fast trashy notes. In that case ive just uninstalled the new notepad and re-downloaded the legacy notepad then re-aimed “notepad.exe” to the legacy one.
There are a few guides out there, just search your standard “how to get legacy notepad”
No need to download anything really.
- Go to System -> Optional features and verify that Notepad is listed and if it isn’t add it.
- Go to Apps -> Advanced settings for apps -> App executions aliases and disable Notepad.
- Enjoy the classic notepad again.
Ah you are indeed correct. I’m probably thinking of classic paint, not notepad.
Either way, i have the downloader for ye old notepad and paint tucked away on and off my machine for future sake when my company middle management decides they want to try to push the new AI tools down our throats for productivity again.
At work I have to use Windows, Notepad++ is my safe place. It is fast, there’s plugins for years, and it handles (with some wait time) 100 000 line long documents.
I mourn Notepad as well, but Notepad++ is great and it hasn’t smeared shit on itself yet.
Notepad++ really earning the ++ once again.
I used notepad precisely because it lacks features beyond writing text, this is such an anti feature
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Isn’t notepad++ better?
Not if you don’t use windows, or if you want a more modern looking and less busy interface, or integration with what I consider the best git GUI. I used to use N++ long ago, but after trying ST I realized it just feels clunky.
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Yeah I have that as well, and I’m surprised how fast and light weight it feels compared to something like VS code
I think in general you can also just expect that any OS, techy or not, ships with a basic, lightweight text editor. The fact that Windows seems to want to change that is an anti-feature for the entire OS.
Use Copilot to write your own Notepad. With Blackjack. And hookers.
People complain that Linux is inconvenient but then prostrate themselves upon the broken, buggy, ad-infested spyware that is Windows. Doesn’t seem very convenient to me. This person thought that their Notepad data was private before Copilot? Ha!
Sadly most people grow up using and are tought Windows from the first time they touch a computer so its quirks and workarounds of bugs are engrained in the users mind.
Uprooting their entire (current) knowlegebase is inconvenient… but it’s still for the greater good of their privacy and in my opinion effectiveness of whatever they do.
The fundamental roadblock here is: people are generally done with ‘learning’ when they become adult. Not learning computers or software, or anything else in particular. Just learning. There seems to be a somewhat common idea that ‘education’ and ‘learning’ is for children, and as an adult, you should have better things to do. Sadly, we can see all around where such an idea leads us.
Oh wow, I have never heard of such a thing. I hope those people are okay. I know if I stopped learning things i’d probably die from boredom, because all you can do at that point is repeat yourself.
That view definitely needs to change for the people who hold it.
IMO usually a lot easier than learning Windows too. But I can understand them not knowing that if they’ve never tried. All they know about Linux is that it’s nerdy and technical.
My findings: Microsoft keeps changing Windows. You have to keep learning because oh the Start menu looks and works different for the 7th time in my life. All the settings menus are different. Again. Right clicking on this doesn’t work now. I stopped using Windows 10 years ago and I don’t know how it even works anymore. Learning Linux did not feel much different from being presented with Windows 8.1. And Linux doesn’t shift out from under you as fast as Windows does.
“convenient” ≠ “best option” or even “easiest option”.
Linux is inconvenient because they would have to go out of their way to switch to it. Windows is convenient because it’s right there and ready to go on essentially any computer.
And people dont care about “best” or “easiest” options because to most people a computer is just a means to an end.
I liked notepad for it’s simplicity.
Even notepad++ was way more complex than notepad ever was.
It literally just used ASCII (or similar) characters to a file. You can’t open anything other than text on it, it won’t allow you to attach pictures, graphs, videos or even links. You need to type out the damned URL in its entirety.
N++ is great for what it is, but notepad, aside from it’s simplicity, was also great because it was everywhere.
Windows 11 started the down fall of my favorite simple text editor when they introduced… tabs.
I hate that. I close notepad, and then open it again and… Why is all this shit still here!!!
Get fucked Microsoft.
Vivaldi
Ahm, sure?
Yeah, was wondering about that. I’ve just installed it for the first time and while it looks OK, i’m wondering what the catch is.
Any privacy or security holes that one might to be aware of?
Just the usual one: it’s a proprietary fork of Chromium.
Ah.
Upset about notepad, so downloaded a bunch of random software that has nothing to do with editing text files?
Thought the same thing, nothing wrong with Libre Office, but why not Notepad++?
For me personally, I was using Notepad++, but the enshitification of notepad, to me, was just the last straw. It was another thing in Windows becoming worse, & there was no sign of the enshittification stopping, so I finally jumped ship & switched to Linux.
I think a lot of “Windows 11 sucks!” is kind of overblown. For example:
Have an issue with Co-Pilot in Notepad? Click the gear in the upper right hand corner, scroll down, “Copilot - Off”.
Kind of like when they tried to force Cortana on everyone in Windows 10… super easy to disable, enough people did that, then it got removed.
It sucks that the user has to take steps to clean this crap out of Windows, but it CAN be done and it’s not THAT different from clearing out all the bloatware vendors like HP used to install by default.
For example:
“My start menu is full of advertising!”
So, turn it off.
“I keep getting ads as notifications!”
(They really want people buying Xbox stuff)
Turn that off too:
If you can’t figure out these basic configurations in Windows, switching to Linux will not be an option for you. You’ll have no hope of figuring out Linux settings.
Operating Linux isn’t an issue for me.
None of this is relevant. Whether or not I could or couldn’t disable copilot in notepad would have had no effect on me as I didn’t use the app. You missed the point entirely. The enshittification of software by a company signals a shift in the company’s priorities. A shift I’m not willing to support. I’m not saying Linux is for everyone, but it also isn’t as difficult to operate as many people like to make it out to be, especially the more popular distros. And with the progress it has made over the last few years with regard to gaming, I think a lot more people would be happier with Linux than Windows.
Besides that fact, my biggest issue with windows is forced updates.
You can get gedit for Windows.
Kate exists on windows and linux
Notepad++ does way more out of the box. I’m saying this as someone who has used npp for over a decade and been using Kate since last September since indefinitely switching to Linux.
linux is definetly not all of that anymore.
but yes, one step at a time, its time will come for ya.
I’m gradually immersing myself in Linux until my Macbook loses macOS support, at which point I’ll go full time on Asahi, having learned the ropes from Mint on my old Mac mini.
There are still some things that send me scuttling back to macOS, glad that Preview exists with its easy to operate editing and PDF viewing. But I’ll learn to make that stuff second nature in Linux. Eventually.
Hopefully Asahi will support it
It’s an M2 Air, so it does. Runs very well on it, in fact. But as it currently doesn’t support external displays it’s a little limiting. Other than that, it’s a decent experience. But ultimately macOS is still somewhat more polished.
My next toot will be drafted on a blank Libre page with no AI checking anything.
I have bad news for you. It’s in your OS, there is no space safe from surveillance in Windows. That said, LibreOffice is a pretty heavy and complex application compared to notepad. I’m sure they can find a much lighter and simpler text editor to use as a replacement.
