4 ms·

Just because they’re singing sweet songs now doesn’t mean they’re fundamentally different. Frankly I think it's only because Google, Facebook, et al. invented

by causi 5y ago

Just because they’re singing sweet songs now doesn’t mean they’re fundamentally different. Frankly I think it's only because Google, Facebook, et al. invented new kinds of evil too fast for Microsoft to keep up that they seemed warm and fuzzy at all. They're still the company that force-upgraded users to Windows 10, and they're still the company that's requiring you to have a Microsoft account for future versions of Windows 11.

simion314 5y ago
And they are the company that bought Skype, forced me to create Microsoft accounts and then mess things up, now they boutght Minecraft and I just receive an ultimatum to switch my Mojang account to a Microsoft account. F U MS, can't you let me login with existing shit,. On a different topic, I am using some MS APIs at work (TTS stuff) and my impression of this MS products is bad, it feels like different teams that hate each other were forced to work on this shit and some other team is forced to cover it up with documentation. I don't recommend MS stuff if you have alternatives.
- moron4hire 5y ago
  What are you talking about? Microsoft's Text-To-Speech APIs are the best on the market. Google's are definitely a distant second: not as many languages, not as many voices, and the output is nowhere near as good. After those two, there isn't really anything left worth mentioning.
  - causi 5y ago
    Microsoft's Text-To-Speech APIs are the best on the market. Wow, I had no idea they were that good. Is there a way to get at them from a consumer level? For example, there are plenty of e-reader apps that use Google's TTS to read epub books as audiobooks. Anything similar for Microsoft or is it all on the developer side?
    - zidad 5y ago
      You can just try it out here from the browser if you like: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/text-to-speech/#features https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-service...
      - causi 5y ago
        That's a good demo, but it isn't much use for making audio content from ebooks.
        hobo_mark 5y ago
        Transcribing an entire ebook this way is going to be _expensive_.
    - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
      They have basically been licensing L&H then Nuance until they bought it outright.
  - simion314 5y ago
    I am talking about they have one documentation but if you look deeper there are 2 products, thay say here are 2 options long and short API , but look closer and see one uses names like "Name", "Voice" the other "name", "voice" , the list of voices of this 2 options are not the same , and you randomly get weird errors with shit message that will solve themselves in the next few days. If my memory is correct you authenticate in2 different ways. So I would prefer MS do this; 1 this is our 2 completly different and incompatible APIs , they might look similar but are not the same, outpiut can differ even if you send same params to each one 2 give me good error messages, like if is your fault a request fails make it clear , if is my input the problem make it clear it is me and what is wrong
    - moron4hire 5y ago
      I mean, there's the old Windows-only SAPI from the Windows XP days that they haven't been developing for several years now, and the current Azure Cognitive Services, which is just a REST API with a pretty standard auth scheme. There's an official .NET package for wrapping that REST API, but it's certainly not necessary to use it if you know how to handle REST APIs. Is that what you're talking about?
      - simion314 5y ago
        Yes, the Azure API, there are 2 different things under the hood, the short and login APIs, that are different names, different auth headers, different voices supported, voices with same name that have different styles supported. Bad errors messages that popup and get fixed in a few days but only on one of the APIs. The issue is that I am trying to combine the short and long APIs in one product and I am hitting this big inconsistencies, I see lcearly there are 2 teams and do things different , if you use only one section you have a completly different experience. Edit. I do the REST calls directly, not via an SDK and use the documentation from MS for the REST API so no SDK documentation or SDK code that hides the issues.
- stickfigure 5y ago
  I don't understand this complaint. You want separate logins for every service? You can't even argue that there are privacy issues - these are now all part of the same company. Separate logins incur a cost to both the service operator (who has to run multiple secure identity systems, build multiple 2FA systems, manage multiple customer service teams, etc) and the client (who has to remember multiple passwords). Consolidation of identity services is natural. One secure login is better than dozens of insecure ones. Before you yell "password manager" admit that the average person doesn't even know what a password manager is. "Every user changes their workflow" is not a practical solution.
  - simion314 5y ago
    This is a lame excuse, say what after the forced account migration is my pourchase invalid? Will Microsoft just drop the db table with my purchase and logins? Will they refuse to migrate people after? No, they have to keep all that data and confirm even 2 years from now that I paid for this game and migrate my logins , Tell me know what is more expensive 1 Keep the Mojang logins for Java edition. do nothing 2 Write ton of code to force migrate Java edition players into the XBox ,Microsoft accounts. It is not lke I can play from Linux PC with an XBox person multiplayer so there is Zero benefit for me, just some mangers and develoeprs at MS getting busy. They fucked up my skype account move so this is why I don't like when they are trying to move me to their shit account, Now what? when they block my MS account I lose Skype and Minecraft too?
    - causi 5y ago
      They fucked up my skype account move Ah yes, the old "you had a Microsoft account you didn't know about so when we merged the two any contacts you didn't have on both accounts were permanently erased" trick. Happened to me.
  - zimpenfish 5y ago
    > You want separate logins for every service? I want a separate login for Minecraft than for MS services, yes. > the client (who has to remember multiple passwords) I'd guess that the majority of Mojang accounts don't have a corresponding MS account already. > "Every user changes their workflow" is not a practical solution. But that's precisely what MS are enforcing - you have to migrate your Mojang account to an MS account.
justsomehnguy 5y ago
> requiring you to have a Microsoft account for future versions of Windows 11. How quickly people forgot about mandatory iTunes activation... > They're still the company that force-upgraded users to Windows 10 This is response for all those cries what MS should take the security of the OS seriously. No wonder what after a decade of disabled Windows Update on the endpoints (to conserve resources, to not to receive WPA update so a pirated copy would continue to work, so it wouldn't waste the precious Internet traffic and bunch of other ridiculous reasons) they took the forced approach.
- causi 5y ago
  But that forced approach only worked on the people who had auto-update enabled. For people like me who had WU disabled it didn't affect me at all.
  - justsomehnguy 5y ago
    > For people like me who had WU disabled ... Yes. This is the reason it is so hard to disable WU now. YOU are one of those reasons. > forced approach only worked on the people who had auto-update enabled Also I want to hear what kind of magic should they used to do that on people with WU disabled.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      Also the fact that WU breaks things. Might be worth considering that.
    - causi 5y ago
      I would've been one of those people, if I'd ever had a security breach. At this point I've been saved so much time and hassle not putting up with Microsoft's nonsense I could spend a month dealing with a stolen identity and I'd still come out on top. Of course I'm not one of the numpties that runs untrusted JS in my browser or installs rando programs.
      - 5y ago
rob74 5y ago
Well in my book the order is still something like Google < M$ < Facebook < Amazon when it comes to "evilness". Not sure where I would rank Apple on that scale (and I also don't use Apple products a lot), so I left them out. About Windows 11: I switched my home desktop PC to Linux when I upgraded it early last year. I still have Windows 8 lying around mostly unused on a partition, but since it's a 32 bit version I would have to do a complete reinstall, and most of the software I'm using (including most games, thanks to Steam) runs just fine on Linux, so I haven't worked up the motivation to do it yet. And stories like this don't really increase my urge to install Windows...
- fartcannon 5y ago
  Apple and Microsoft are equals.
- Shared404 5y ago
  > Well in my book the order is still something like Google < M$ < Facebook < Amazon when it comes to "evilness". I find this an interesting order to think about. Amazon has directly lead to fatalities and ( I would describe as ) an abusive work environment, but Facebook I would say has done more harm on a larger "societal shift" scale. I suppose just looking at direct consequences of actions, I agree with your assessment - Amazon knowingly builds itself of labor abuse, and Facebook can at least lie to themselves.

by causi 5y ago

simion314 5y ago

And they are the company that bought Skype, forced me to create Microsoft accounts and then mess things up, now they boutght Minecraft and I just receive an ultimatum to switch my Mojang account to a Microsoft account. F U MS, can't you let me login with existing shit,. On a different topic, I am using some MS APIs at work (TTS stuff) and my impression of this MS products is bad, it feels like different teams that hate each other were forced to work on this shit and some other team is forced to cover it up with documentation. I don't recommend MS stuff if you have alternatives.

moron4hire 5y ago
What are you talking about? Microsoft's Text-To-Speech APIs are the best on the market. Google's are definitely a distant second: not as many languages, not as many voices, and the output is nowhere near as good. After those two, there isn't really anything left worth mentioning.
- causi 5y ago
  Microsoft's Text-To-Speech APIs are the best on the market. Wow, I had no idea they were that good. Is there a way to get at them from a consumer level? For example, there are plenty of e-reader apps that use Google's TTS to read epub books as audiobooks. Anything similar for Microsoft or is it all on the developer side?
  - zidad 5y ago
    You can just try it out here from the browser if you like: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-services/text-to-speech/#features https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/cognitive-service...
    - causi 5y ago
      That's a good demo, but it isn't much use for making audio content from ebooks.
      - hobo_mark 5y ago
        Transcribing an entire ebook this way is going to be _expensive_.
  - AshamedCaptain 5y ago
    They have basically been licensing L&H then Nuance until they bought it outright.
- simion314 5y ago
  I am talking about they have one documentation but if you look deeper there are 2 products, thay say here are 2 options long and short API , but look closer and see one uses names like "Name", "Voice" the other "name", "voice" , the list of voices of this 2 options are not the same , and you randomly get weird errors with shit message that will solve themselves in the next few days. If my memory is correct you authenticate in2 different ways. So I would prefer MS do this; 1 this is our 2 completly different and incompatible APIs , they might look similar but are not the same, outpiut can differ even if you send same params to each one 2 give me good error messages, like if is your fault a request fails make it clear , if is my input the problem make it clear it is me and what is wrong
  - moron4hire 5y ago
    I mean, there's the old Windows-only SAPI from the Windows XP days that they haven't been developing for several years now, and the current Azure Cognitive Services, which is just a REST API with a pretty standard auth scheme. There's an official .NET package for wrapping that REST API, but it's certainly not necessary to use it if you know how to handle REST APIs. Is that what you're talking about?
    - simion314 5y ago
      Yes, the Azure API, there are 2 different things under the hood, the short and login APIs, that are different names, different auth headers, different voices supported, voices with same name that have different styles supported. Bad errors messages that popup and get fixed in a few days but only on one of the APIs. The issue is that I am trying to combine the short and long APIs in one product and I am hitting this big inconsistencies, I see lcearly there are 2 teams and do things different , if you use only one section you have a completly different experience. Edit. I do the REST calls directly, not via an SDK and use the documentation from MS for the REST API so no SDK documentation or SDK code that hides the issues.
stickfigure 5y ago
I don't understand this complaint. You want separate logins for every service? You can't even argue that there are privacy issues - these are now all part of the same company. Separate logins incur a cost to both the service operator (who has to run multiple secure identity systems, build multiple 2FA systems, manage multiple customer service teams, etc) and the client (who has to remember multiple passwords). Consolidation of identity services is natural. One secure login is better than dozens of insecure ones. Before you yell "password manager" admit that the average person doesn't even know what a password manager is. "Every user changes their workflow" is not a practical solution.
- simion314 5y ago
  This is a lame excuse, say what after the forced account migration is my pourchase invalid? Will Microsoft just drop the db table with my purchase and logins? Will they refuse to migrate people after? No, they have to keep all that data and confirm even 2 years from now that I paid for this game and migrate my logins , Tell me know what is more expensive 1 Keep the Mojang logins for Java edition. do nothing 2 Write ton of code to force migrate Java edition players into the XBox ,Microsoft accounts. It is not lke I can play from Linux PC with an XBox person multiplayer so there is Zero benefit for me, just some mangers and develoeprs at MS getting busy. They fucked up my skype account move so this is why I don't like when they are trying to move me to their shit account, Now what? when they block my MS account I lose Skype and Minecraft too?
  - causi 5y ago
    They fucked up my skype account move Ah yes, the old "you had a Microsoft account you didn't know about so when we merged the two any contacts you didn't have on both accounts were permanently erased" trick. Happened to me.
- zimpenfish 5y ago
  > You want separate logins for every service? I want a separate login for Minecraft than for MS services, yes. > the client (who has to remember multiple passwords) I'd guess that the majority of Mojang accounts don't have a corresponding MS account already. > "Every user changes their workflow" is not a practical solution. But that's precisely what MS are enforcing - you have to migrate your Mojang account to an MS account.

justsomehnguy 5y ago

> requiring you to have a Microsoft account for future versions of Windows 11. How quickly people forgot about mandatory iTunes activation... > They're still the company that force-upgraded users to Windows 10 This is response for all those cries what MS should take the security of the OS seriously. No wonder what after a decade of disabled Windows Update on the endpoints (to conserve resources, to not to receive WPA update so a pirated copy would continue to work, so it wouldn't waste the precious Internet traffic and bunch of other ridiculous reasons) they took the forced approach.

causi 5y ago
But that forced approach only worked on the people who had auto-update enabled. For people like me who had WU disabled it didn't affect me at all.
- justsomehnguy 5y ago
  > For people like me who had WU disabled ... Yes. This is the reason it is so hard to disable WU now. YOU are one of those reasons. > forced approach only worked on the people who had auto-update enabled Also I want to hear what kind of magic should they used to do that on people with WU disabled.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    Also the fact that WU breaks things. Might be worth considering that.
  - causi 5y ago
    I would've been one of those people, if I'd ever had a security breach. At this point I've been saved so much time and hassle not putting up with Microsoft's nonsense I could spend a month dealing with a stolen identity and I'd still come out on top. Of course I'm not one of the numpties that runs untrusted JS in my browser or installs rando programs.
    - 5y ago

rob74 5y ago

Well in my book the order is still something like Google < M$ < Facebook < Amazon when it comes to "evilness". Not sure where I would rank Apple on that scale (and I also don't use Apple products a lot), so I left them out. About Windows 11: I switched my home desktop PC to Linux when I upgraded it early last year. I still have Windows 8 lying around mostly unused on a partition, but since it's a 32 bit version I would have to do a complete reinstall, and most of the software I'm using (including most games, thanks to Steam) runs just fine on Linux, so I haven't worked up the motivation to do it yet. And stories like this don't really increase my urge to install Windows...

fartcannon 5y ago
Apple and Microsoft are equals.
Shared404 5y ago
> Well in my book the order is still something like Google < M$ < Facebook < Amazon when it comes to "evilness". I find this an interesting order to think about. Amazon has directly lead to fatalities and ( I would describe as ) an abusive work environment, but Facebook I would say has done more harm on a larger "societal shift" scale. I suppose just looking at direct consequences of actions, I agree with your assessment - Amazon knowingly builds itself of labor abuse, and Facebook can at least lie to themselves.