If Megacity existed, I guarantee you they'd have at least one of the judges in statue form looming over it.

The problem for the west with this sort of philosophy is that there is great profit potential is selling weapons to both sides in combat zones, and nothing creates a combat zone like insanity run amok. This is reason #2 that the entire middle east is one of the western world's obsessions. Reason #1 of course is oil. And while Israel may not be a provider of #1, they're damned good to the military industrial complex when it comes to #2. And let's face it, we long ago decided that profit comes before any other concern. In fact, we play a part in keeping the insanity stoked high and wide, because it's far more profitable that way.

CHA-CHING, baby. CHA-CHING.

AI investment is growing exponentially and has been for some time. Meanwhile, AI productivity is already slowing, and shows further signs that as we move forward it will slow still more. While tech companies are attempting to shovel more of it at the businesses and end-users that rely on them, there's only so much the current LLM driven systems are going to be able to accomplish without some massive change in basic operation that, thus far, doesn't appear to be happening. And while they continue to rake in investment money to continue to build out infrastructure for the fantasized giant leap forward in productivity that LLM driven systems are supposed to provide us, even *IF*, and that's a might giant if, but if they managed to accomplish *EVERY* goal the companies behind them are promising they would be able to accomplish, there is still no chance at all that they will be able to generate enough revenue to ultimate pay for the expenditure.

Do I think there is some potential in the current LLM obsession to create future productivity gains? Yes. Do I believe that anyone involved in it is holding a realistic view of how far that productivity gain will actually take us? Absolutely, positively not. This is a bubble. A bubble built on fantasy that has a foundation of bullshit mixed heavily with snake oil. And when the "correction" comes, it's going to be so much like a bubble popping that most will not be able to tell the difference.

I know, our world doesn't much care about reality these days, but reality has a funny way of reasserting itself in the most brutal and cold ways. And the longer and harder people try to fight it, the more implosively it collapses on them when it finally does come back to them. At the rate we're going, attempting to tie up the entire economy in the hype cycle, we're gonna make the economic implosion make the Titan Submersible look like a kid's game gone a tiny bit wrong.

This makes me genuinely sad. The only cars left selling new are sports cars / other forms of gas guzzler.

Note to self: Check used in Mexico next time you need a vehicle.

How is what we're doing now progressing humanity? We're concentrating so much of build-out to make sure we keep funneling wealth, and resources, to a select few, that we're literally neglecting entire populations of people in favor of making sure we keep funneling wealth and resources to these select few. How is this progress? How is this helping anything long term? Unless the end-goal is a lowered population due to dwindling resources, I can't see how anything we're doing as a collective society is helping the average person. In fact, it seems policies across the board are specifically focused on creating situations to hurt the overall population, in favor of propping up those who already have plenty.

In short, what the fuck are we even doing?

Climate scientists didn't really overplay their hand. The media took what they reported and whipped it into panic inducing headlines. Actual climate scientists are now having to deal with a legacy of media hype on the subject on top of doing their actual jobs, because people are remembering the hype cycles, and then blaming the science rather than the shit-slingers.

Sometimes it pays to dig beneath the headlines and the media itself. I learned this lesson as a teen when they were reporting on something we were doing with our dairy cattle and showing all sorts of scare footage that bore zero resemblance to anything actually happening. Turns out, media's been hype-cycling everything they can for at least as long as any of us have been alive, and the truth behind their stories is often far different than what ends up in the reporting.

Chevy has the Malibu, at least in the 2025 year. Though, to be fair, it sounds like there's discussion it may not be made in the 2026 year.

I have no idea WTF I'm gonna do for a used vehicle in five to ten years. I don't enjoy driving giant-ass SUVs. And while I like my lighter pickups, even those are starting to disappear in favor of the king cab monstrosities that all look like penis envy relief on wheels.

I knew somebody called "vomit machine" back in high school, but I'm pretty sure the cause was he couldn't hold his liquor, yet insisted on continually drinking it anyway.

They can pry my DAW system from my cold, dead hands, if they dare.

I've bought Crucial upgrades for the last few laptops I've owned, both RAM and SSDs.

I used to joke around about how the AI companies wouldn't be satisfied until all resources on the planet were directly routed to them and everything else was eroding because of it. Now? Now, it's not seeming so much like a joke.

Precisely. Someone told me that's all he hears when humans talk anyway.

You got it backwards. If AI were involved, it would have chosen the correct file, and this wouldn't have happened. AI is infallible, neigh unto God, and humans are silly and stupid. That's the lesson to be taken from this. Remove humans from decision making, for their own good.

I cast disbelieve. Nobody fucking requests recaps. I'll sometimes poke at my history specifically to find that video by that one band that I remember being good, but can't remember the name of, but I *NEVER* want a summary recap of my history. This sounds more like some marketing department wet dream come to life than something any normal user would request.

We're almost to the point where it seems we'll be getting recaps of our recaps on top of our recaps to recap our recap from the previous years' recaps.

It's an accumulative thing. Having a free U2 album shoveled into your bits may be viewed as a minor offense, depending on how much you despise U2, but life is filled with minor offenses, and all Apple had to do to avoid causing yet another was simply *offer* the album for free, rather than force-loading it automatically.