It would work a lot better if Cloudflare and any competitors would adopt a model that allows companies to easily use any of their services and rather than subscribing to one company's service to implement a pay-as-you-go option. That way if Cloudflare gets hit websites can flip to using something else on a temporary basis. Companies could even load balance across the different services so that all of them are always getting a little bit of use. This isn't particularly good for any one company (who would much rather prefer to be a sole contractor and get all of the business) but it makes it practically impossible to take out websites by taking down Cloudflare. If any one provider has problems everyone temporarily switches to the other providers on a temporary basis until service is restored and then they can move some or all of their traffic back. This makes for a far more resistant Internet as a whole.

But also entirely predictable. Anyone paying attention for the last 30 years or so should realize by now that:

1) Data aggregated for any purpose will eventually be abused.

It is probably the only thing as certain as death and taxes... (sorry could not resist)

Of the top of my head...

People trying to mis-characterize leisure/personal travel as business expenses. Claims of S-corp business related deductions and credits are generally cited high audit trigger risks. I assume that is because the IRS at least believes they are widely abused.

Just as a general top line way to flag people who have life styles that don't seem align well to their reported incomes...and by extension are likely not reporting things they are required to do. The US tax codes is very well weird, we should never forget. You are for example required to report income from illegal activities, but the 5th amendment protects you from having to disclose what those activities are. So for an example that might fit here:

let's say fraudulently arranged some business travel for yourself to meet a client that does not exist, because you want to take a free trip to Monnaco on the company dime. That trip is income. As far as the IRS is concerned you need to report those 10k business class tickets and those 4k hotel fees you received. They may be curious if that was really a business and just how someone with AGI of 68,000 with three dependents managed to bank roll such an extravagant trip if it wasn't.

It is like saying: someone will do some work for free, because they like it, lets then make sure that we take away the product of their work, they don't need it anyway. How is that a moral stance, how is it good economically? People feel a certain way if someone tries to steal from them. One thing is to work, even if you don't have to, but to understand that the result of your work is yours. It is a completely different proposition to enslave someone just because they can survive without keeping the results of their work. Practically speaking, if someone sees this type of attitude, they choose a different jurisdiction to do their work, where there won't be such blatant abuse.

I disagree with this approach because I am against theft. Whatever an individual can create for himself is his to do with as he desires, not anyone else. I don't understand this sentiment, is there anything in it except for envy?

Clearly this is what the world was asking for in Windows 11. Never mind fixing bugs like the bottom of windows getting stuck under the task bar and having to faff around to resize them (hey, maybe allow the task bar to be moved!) , the "Oops no internet" setup error loop even when windows had connected to wifi in the previous screen and so on.

No, lets introduce Son Of Clippy!

FFS, get a grip MS.

Well I can't argue with that. I was there too and saw a good deal of it.

I was looking at this at a macro level. At that level I think the net number of people will be around the same but you are right we will rotate out competent people who understand this stuff for a smaller handful of expert fixers, and ultimately a number if incompetents who will inherit systems they don't understand and can't maintain, and more inflexible policy band-aides.

There is a way to play that too. Government; especially one as divided as our current one; can't do anything fast.

There will almost certainly be in the event a major market crash the idea ballots floated.

Someone like Massie or Rand Paul will threaten to be votes to derail it.

- Sell this news (in this case exercise those PUTs) because we all know after Washington does its things for a couple weeks (maybe longer) something will get done.

There is a pretty simple script here. People say you can't time the market, that is true. However if you get the initial hypothesis right (there is going to be an AI driven crash in this case) you absolutely can time it; if you are not trying to call the absolute tops and bottoms. If you buy those puts now.. sure maybe we go up until q4 earnings start get turned in, so what you shave a couple percent. Maybe on the other end the bailouts take a little longer to get done and its four weeks not two like the current shutdown. Again you'll still do just fine.

The only things you have to be right about is proposition #0 - there is a major crash coming in the somewhat immediate future.

- For the record again, I say "Aint happening"
I think we are going to see a 'correction' we go down 10% or or less from recent highs and trade sideways for a while. Maybe that correction happens now maybe in a couple months and I am not investing in tech right now, because that will be epicenter of said correction.

Here is the thing, you are posting on Slashdot. Don't tell me you are not sharp enough to find a broker, and buy some long dated at the money PUTS either on the AI and AI adjacent firms or just the market over all with funds like SPY / QQQ.

You If you really had conviction about truly big enough crash for Main Street to feel it to commit 18 or 20K; you'd make enough to keep the mortgage current and food on the table for a year right there after there return of the principle.

The thing is you don't really believe in such a crash. The bigger part of you thinks this will all just blow over in couple quarters, you might not get a great Christmas bonus either for 2025 or 2026 but mostly you don't think your financial life will be all that greatly impacted. I think that bigger part of you is right. OpenAI's investors are going to lose a lot of money, probably Anthropic and anyone else not actually in the business of making the compute hardware, or using the compute hardware to make physical things like drugs, better plastic, etc. I don't think there is going to be any 2008 like crisis..

 

People building actual stuff will do just fine.

NVIDIA and anyone building the rest of the compute support chips to run the ML accelerators.

There is huge money to be made ultimately, once drug companies, like GSK, BASF, Dupont, 3M, etc use it to advance chemistry and materials.

OpenAI and its peers on the other hand is likely to crash to earth in a flaming wreck and many of the hyper-scalers that have over invested will probably have to suffer some big write downs on data centers once people realize the LLMs are not going to replace actual thinking persons, anywhere where the outcomes matter. Ditto for reading X-rays and such, it might aide actual techniations and doctors but it won't replace them. Even the self driving cars, it might move your cabby to some desk some place rather than in the car with you, it might even let him monitor 4 or 5 fares at a time; but it wont cut the numbers or the expense by 5x - you'll still have to have people to do the other things he did like clean the interior etc. All in all it might represent a 2x savings, in the end.

Long story short trouble there is a profitable business in the like OpenAI as well but nothing like the current valuations reflect.

I am talking about Bezos in the exact sense, that as any developed human individual, he needs to feel useful, which is what motivates him, because clearly it is not money that is his motivation. You added the 'virtuous' part, which is why you started on the path of class division. I did not prescribe a moral aspect to his behavior, only the fact that he is moved to do more than just enjoy his leisure, this has no relation to him being virtuous, this has to do with him losing himself without work.

and safe deposit boxes are not all that strong, the vault is open all day, and if someone walks into the bank waving a gun around the the staff will step aside and let them take whatever they want.

The real security of the bank is - the cops will show up in 5 to 10min and insurance will cover whatever cash disappears. That last part importantly not so for the contents of your box if that does get cleared out. Nominally bank robbers don't go for the boxes because prying them open would use to much of that 5-10 they have, to get out of there..

Ultimately its a lot of security; but I am not sure I'd want my bulk of my net worth relying on it. The FDIC/SPIC seems like a little more secure bet there.

The other thing you have to ask is does it really protect your person. If the guy with the wrench is any less than entirely convinced that you don't have a copy anywhere else, or know the information - they are still likely to beat you to death trying to get. Look at it from their prespective "I swear the only copy of that wallet information is locked up third-federal, I can't tell you anything" - "Sure buddy, let's just see if your story changes any after I take this hammer to your left hand then.."

so I can spend my mental cycles on something more better...

Don't forget lobbying and consulting.

Loan sharking.

Underground gambling.

bitcoins are highly trackable; most activities that can convert large sums of crypto to spendable cash are typically trackable. At least by nation state actors.

The norm right now and they way they get away is people say - "Oh Salt Typhoon, nothing more we can do than have the ambassador send a pointed but respectful letter" is in China.

If instead we just had some human intelligent asset, kill some of those operators, things might actually change. They could also escalate of course, but then that is really just acknowledging we are in a real conflict rather than letting our enemies bleed us and gather all the intel they'd like.

For private enterprise I'll agree you might we right that private enterprise paying ransoms emboldens criminals, and encorages more of the same. I don't agree people should be told they can't pay. It is not *MY* responsibility to fall on my sword suffer the destruction of my enterprise because law enforcement / national defense can't or won't do what is needed to protect me. Kinda like I have a dead bolt on my door, someone could still kick it in. I rely on the local sheriff to create an environment where few criminals would be so bold.