A huge portion of their revenue is from AI data centers and there is going to be a huge push to create custom built hardware specifically designed to accelerate those workloads. You saw the same thing with Bitcoin where custom hardware was built and it outperformed gpus.

This means that a few good pieces of custom hardware have the potential to completely wipe Nvidia out. This is especially tough because everything is still consolidated into a handful of monopolies and duopolies that the couple of companies that are going to rule the roost for AI within the next few years will have more than enough resources to build their own custom hardware to do it. And they aren't going to like being dependent on an external company like Nvidia.

Nvidia may be able to stay ahead though by monopolizing engineers. It'll cost them literally hundreds of millions of dollars but it's doable.

I do Wonder though how long the wage arms race will last. Usually big companies like this don't like to get into bidding wars for talent and before long they are making deals at country clubs. Golf is a popular game for that because you're out in the open where it's harder for people to overhear what you're doing.

Is to give access to information that otherwise just wouldn't be there. If you're in a position where you can actually measure academic performance then you probably have a semi-functional public school system and you don't need programs like this.

These programs work well in intensely impoverished areas where the school systems have broken down or just never existed in the first place and information isn't available. Places where you're lucky if the kids are taught to read.

But it's going to be a really shitty two or three years. Eventually though the build-out will be done and will be in bailout territory where we're burrowing out Banks who loaned these idiots money to spend $1,000 on a 64 GB ram kit.

Without knowing precisely how Explorer is structured, it's conceivable that there may be different dynamically-linked libraries and/or execution points for running the desktop and for the file explorer, in which case just having explorer.exe running in and of itself doesn't mean that new modules have to be loaded if explorer.exe process fires up. The solution could very well be to load the libraries involved in file browsing when the desktop opens.

Just guessing here. There was a time when there was a lot more horsepower required for GUI elements than folder browsing, but this is 2025, and explorer.exe probably uses orders of a magnitude more resources now than it did in 1995, because... well, who knows really. Probably to sell more ads and load up more data to their AI.

That, on modern hardware, they have to preload a fucking file browser so that it pops up faster is just an indication of what a steaming pile of garbage MS is. They had sweet spots with Win2k-WinXP and with Win7, but their incoherent need to be a whole bunch of contradictory things --- with AI! has led what was a rather iffy OS and UI experience to begin with to become a cluster fuck of incoherence.

I do most of my day to day work on MacOS and Gnome, and fortunately the Terminal services version I have to RDP into is Server 2016, but every time I have to work with Windows 11 I'm just stunned by just how awful it looks and how badly it behaves.

In Google's case, they're under quite a lot of FTC scrutiny, operating under two consent decrees, and they have an employee population that isn't known for keeping their mouths shut. It's possible that Trump's FTC might not act if he were paid off, but a leak would definitely generate a lot of press.

You compose music on your phone? Sounds masochistic! 8^)

Tell me you have no knowledge of the Apple spectrum integration without saying you have no idea about the Apple spectrum integration.

As for image, or social clout, I don't give a damn. I use my Apple products because they work together. I bring my iPhone near my Mac, and suddenly I work the phone like I work the Mac. The integration into ApplePlay on my wife's Jeep, and my Jeep is tremendous. It knows who is driving and acts accordingly. I'm not certain, but it seems to know who is in the drivers seat when we are both in the car. So routes I take regularly show up with driving time and any traffic issues. I have AirTags for my wallet and all the other crud I lose regularly.

Do some people buy iPhones because they think it is a flex? Of course. The other side of that coin is those who buy Android because they think that is the only reason people buy iPhones. So it's a wash. You can like whatever you like, but no need to pre-judge those who do not have your opinion. There are reasons a lot of people prefer the iPhones.

Yup, my son's cheap androids have been more expensive than my overpriced iPhones for some time now.

But the fans like to compare the rock bottom Androids to the top level iPhones.

I still have my woodburning Android, it was good enough for great Grandpa, so it's good enough for me.

I don't replace my iPhones all that often, but updates supply me with new features in addition to bug fixes. The way they integrate between my cars, my computer, and my wife's iPhone is primo. I'll stick with them, as long as they aren't that iPhone17 orange abomination.

https://support.apple.com/guid...

The idea that people are putting so much stuff on their smartphones is scary to me. After all, they are just crappy little computers that have terrible ergonomics. Which is why I love how my iPhone can be worked from my Mac when I bring it near.

I guess I use mine differently than most. Take some images load them onto my Mac, then delete. I keep texts forever. No selfies other than one I took looking up my nose closeup. I do have a credit card on it, but otherwise, they seem like nuisances to me.

Which flies in the face of Android fans who tell us that iPhone users are all about having some kind of social status because they have the latest shiny iPhone.

Certainly in my experience, my son replaces his Android phones at twice the rate that wife and I do. And his phones aren't the cheap ones either.

They clearly do NOT think it is safe. From TFS, emphasis mine:

"It is important to differentiate between the highly toxic PFAS such as PFOA and PFOS for which the EPA has set drinking water standards, versus less toxic PFAS in pesticides that help maintain food security," notes Doug Van Hoewyk, a toxicologist at Maine's Department of Agriculture, Conservation and Forestry.

Less toxic is still toxic. So, they *know* it's bad for you (and probably the environment/local ecology too), just not as bad, and yet they still expect you to be grateful for their efforts and quite literally lap it up. Good luck getting that shit on the shelves of places like the EU that have reasonable food standards, regardless of any tariffs or TACOs.