I miss using Rhino, but no longer trust Microsoft with anything

Rhino Rhino for Windows
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Having used Windows since version 3.01, I have phased Microsoft out. With their legal reputation and AI aspirations, I don’t trust Microsoft not to use “Recall” to take screenshots of my work. I have left Dropbox, and only use it for cat pictures, as it was meant to be.

I had planned to installing Windows 11 for a game-server, but when it by default began uploading my files to OneDrive, by default, I was angry. So, I have 8 computers presently in the house, 4 with valid Windows 11 licensees, and barely use them.

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Windows Recall requires specialty hardware, from what I’ve read.

– Dale

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If you have 4 computers, then just air-gap the one you want to use Rhino with and call the license to be local, rather than Cloud Zoo?

I don’t think Microsoft cares that much about people’s local work, given the wealth of information on the Internet.

You can always keep security updates to a weekly schedule of your own by connecting to the Internet with everything else closed for an hour or so per week or month. There’s also a difference betwen Copilot, and Copilot+. It would not run on your PC anyway if you don’t have a Neural Processing Unit (NPU). So for desktop, anything up to Intel Arrow Lake and I think Zen 5 won’t run it.

In themselves, I think both of the Desktop variants don’t have strong (or any) NPUs to even run Copilot+.

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It takes a bit of futzing with de-bloater scripts (more than it should to be sure), and depending on your install method some maneuvers during setup - but its very feasible to build installations without a MS account and also to turn off all the telemetry and AI stuff. Takes about an afternoon in my experience, but its well worth it to also not have an onslaught of ads and games and unwanted notifications and pseudo-social media functions built into the OS.

On Win10 for the main work machine still (can’t change the tires while the bus is moving), but have several Win11’s around and overall - with all the bloat stripped 11 is as streamlined and lightweight and (and so far more stable) than most of the last couple decades of MS products, just takes some monkeying around to get there.

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Welcome back @Brenda
Hope you find a way around it

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Looks like just about any workstation.

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Well, I am trying, but creating change is going to take more than just me.

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I am not comfortable with being a gazelle next to the watering hole, hoping that the lion doesn’t eat my work. Hope is not a plan.

What it comes down to it: Recall has little of any benefit to the user, and has every appearance as AI spyware.

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It now takes far longer to try to de-clap Windows than it does to install Linux Mint–and I still don’t trust it.

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It feels worth stating that Rhino does also run on Mac, and they don’t have any planned or existing Recall features. That said, I’m sure you know this, and maybe you have reasons to not use Mac OS also.

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Well the rest of us have actual work to get done instead of a hobby of hating Microsoft. Their AI crap is well on the way to failing all on its own.

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My next desktop computer will need 256GB of RAM. On that note, OpenFoam support is a bit sparse for the Mac.

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I don’t think that it’s fair to draw a circle around problems with potential spyware problems–and call it a hating hobby.

Just so you know, other than my own, and my friends. I have installed and configured Windows on well over 100 computers I’ve assembled for our customers…and had worked on a few WOW servers on my lunch break, when I was doing interior-design for them. While I’m not working on computers professionally anymore, I try to keep current. Over coffee, I spec’ed a few Threadripper workstations for my friend to do HFSS on. Just before the RAM crunch, I was planning a microATX luggable system, as I grow weary of $3,000 that can’t cool themselves.

But more importantly, I’ve tried to help people with hardware, here in the forums.

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Sounds familiar. I also predominantly use Rhino to clean up, and occasionally create, CAD data before meshing for my CFD models, on a Windows laptop. When Rhino wants to get the licence, I will go on-line, fetch it, and immediately go off-line again. More than 95% of the time the laptop runs Linux, and all on-line stuff is done on that side. Therefore, I would welcome Rhino running native on Linux (it must be relatively easy to port the Mac implementation to Linux). I would never consider a Mac, as Apple is in a way, worse than MS (not the OS, but the company).

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This, or run rhino on a virtual machine.

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Are you so willing to give up 10% of your CPU performance?
What about the extra memory usage?

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I like modeling in Rhino, but FreeCad is pretty good at OpenFoam case-prep and meshing. Paraview still excels at post-processing.

A few years back, I tried Butterfly under Grasshopper, but it was complicated, and optimized for buildings. I asked them to do a wind-tunnel kind of thing, but I am not even sure if Butterfly is updated, any longer.

I wish we had a fairly close copy of CfdOf, for Rhino. It’s already designed.

While I like the benefits of an open hardware market, such as choice, I have nothing against Apple.

[Back in the day, I knew a few people who worked at Apple. I have had lunch in their cafeteria, and even saw Steve Jobs overlooking the courtyard. I have an old Macbook-air. I looked at the Mac Studio, and noticed that before the crunch someone could put a good amount of RAM, but now only 96GB. I need to make meshes. ]

Sadly the SnappyHexMesh is still temperamental, and its results beg OpenFoam to fail, which is ironic, as it is their pet mesher. I stick with what that runs, a uniform (non-biased : ) meshes. I have chatted to the posted to the creator of CfdOf, and improvements have been made in it, perhaps allowing layered meshes that grow in complexity closer to the vehicle’s surfaces and less toward the test section. I did the tutorials for OpenFoam, creating an academic-style case in OpenFoam, they hard way, and if someone is preparing the cases by hand, they aren’t going to have much time for modeling.

Oops, posted the following twice : )
I wish we had a fairly close copy of CfdOf, for Rhino. It’s already designed.

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What a wild thing to say

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I still have to learn and play with Grasshopper, and SnappyHexMesh. My own code, called dolfyn using modern Fortran (2008+), can deal with those meshes (dolfyn is based on the same principles as OF, CCM, and Fluent). More sophisticated meshing is planned for next year, perhaps using Grasshopper as well.

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Hey Brenda,

I’ve long admired the work you’ve posted here, like the diner and the lighthouse (that sent me down a rabbit warren into studying the design of Fresnel lenses for them). But unless your pursuit of realism sees you modelling realistic steam from the diner, I can’t help wondering what you use OpenFlow for. What is the day job that you want to keep from MS?

I’m just being nosy, so if you don’t feel comfortable about that question do ignore me.

Regards
Jeremy