I learned SAS In the early 80s and used it extensively. At the time, it was easily the best data analysis software available. About 15 years ago I wanted to get a few copies for my consulting team and we were looking at more than $50K / seat. Do you think Chinese users want to pay that sort of money to a US firm?

SAS sued a source compatible competitor (World Programming) out of existence some years back, to destroy competition and maintain their high prices. I had trialled the World Programming solution and it worked very nicely.

These days I use Python and a few other open-source tools. I suspect that Chinese data analysts are mostly doing the same.

There are numerous facts and points about how stupid this all is, and I am not going to cite all of them other than the fact this thing is now a huge GDP impactor on the USA economy.

Which I would like to point is nothing but a search engine. The Emporer has no clothes and there is nothing intelligent about it artifically or otherwise.

If it fails or tanks we could be looking at a sudden death of entire sectors of technology and industrial capacity which won't recover for decades, if ever. I wish I could say we had great minds, and wonder men like VonNeumann working on it with great chances of success.

I am sad to report however, that most of these people are not particularly bright nor are they all that great business leaders other than the fact some moron gave them all this money for one purpose only: Fire everyone nwo that we have a wunderbar machine and travel the Universe with our trillions and live forever.

I am not shitting you, that is what these people that head these A.I. companies are thinking.

I wish I could say this is going to be worse than the 1930's by some measure when it blows up, but alas, it will be unprecedented when it does and the only we to restablish order world wide after it does blow up is war, and authoritarianism.

Such a bright future too look forward to you 20's and 30's somethings.

I bought a whole bunch of op-amps and rheostats, but I'm having a hard time trying to get them to implement all of my lighting "scenes". The voltages often won't converge to a stable solution, and it's really hard to analyze all the differential equations with just my slide rule.

Perhaps, but the universe doesn't owe you any easy explanations.

According to TFA, the dark matter isn't glowing. Instead, it is annihilating when it collides with another dark matter particle, which turns it into normal electrons and positrons, which then ionize normal gas and create the glow.

It's a long sequence of events, but in case it pans out, at least it might be able to address the unwillingness of most people to accept that something could possibly exist unless it somehow interacts with the electromagnetic field.

In 2025, that statement is 100% false.

Or my pet peeve: If they do show the text, it's some ceremonial name for a highway that nobody uses or knows, like the "Honorable Colonel Harland David Sanders Commemorative Memorial Highway" instead of "US Hwy 123".

I think that the theory is that mercury in the environment is converted to methylmercury by microbial activity, then it bioaccumulates in fish. Presumably, anything that is leaching from fillings is metallic mercury, which is far less toxic than methylmercury.

I've seen claims that the mercury is so firmly bound in the amalgam with silver that your exposure is negligible, but I'm not sure how much I believe that. I've had quite a few worn out mercury fillings replaced over the years, and I always wondered how much of the ground up fillings ends up getting ingested in that process.

Of course, the newer fillings are largely some kind of UV-activated epoxy resin, probably a different exact brew of chemicals for each one. I wouldn't be surprised if someone eventually figures out that some of those chemicals pose risks as well.

What can you do? Not getting your mouth fixed is known to be risky as well. Bacteria cause inflammation that causes your own body to release highly toxic chemicals.

I think they should go back to their original pre-CD business plan:

1. Mail out a lifetime supply of free floppy disks to every household in the USA.
2. ???
3. Profit!

It was demonstrated long ago that most all trading markets are chaotic. By definition, you won't see a sign of collapse in sight.

Unlike useful markets, (but similar to 17th century tulips), crypto has no intrinsic value. Therefore, there is no bottom to a potential crash.

Are they smart enough to know to pull those gains out before the tulip market crashes?

I'll know that AI has achieved a major milestone when one of them eventually says:

"Crypto is a strange game. The only winning move is not to play."

Greenhouse gasses, by orders of magnitude.

The gasses leverage the vast energy available from the sun over a span of decades. The server heat is one and done.

Undoubtedly, the greenhouse gasses released from powering these servers will warm the oceans far more than the servers themselves will.

Once again, that is out. White males are in.

At least ones who bother to keep up with current events.

Obviously, you have been living under a rock for the last 9 months.