Comment Re:Let's be honest here (Score 1) 54
We have AI to summarize the AI slop articles.
We have AI to summarize the AI slop articles.
The difference between the AI slop machine and Amazon or Uber is that even when those were losing money, it was none the less clear that if they scaled up then scaling efficiencies would yield a lower cost/unit and they'd become profitable. The pathway to making money instead of setting it on fire clearly existed. It also existed because it was clear even before they super-scaled that Amazon and Uber were doing something useful for which where existed a demand.
So far all we are seeing with the generative AI delusion is an exponentially exploding waste of resources in order to pollute my Youtube feed with slop. Every enterprise is trying "AI" and essentially all of them are finding it does not do what the people selling the tin claim it can.
There were no Amazon, or Uber or Internet evangelists trying to convince everyone that those things were useful or invent uses for them because there was no need: the value was obvious and real.
Isn't Uber still losing money?
Amazon had a plan for profitability, so much so they took on more debt in the early days to scale up. A gamble that paid off because they had a solid plan to begin with, not a "hope the magic beans drop into our laps before we run out of money" type of plan that AI companies have. Uber's business plan was "lets keep doing illegal shit that our competitors cant and just hope we become big enough not to fail".
Shove Ts&Cs down users' throats and blame the victim while trying to deflect the responsibility.
Erm... that's the whole point of a T&C/EULA/et al. To limit legal liability and as a defence against being sued. Which is one of the reasons most countries do not treat them as binding contracts.
I'm the same, always use a good credit card, but the occasional hassle is worth it. The prices are 1/10th the Amazon ones.
Used to be, but Trump has kinda ruined it for the rest of us. He complained that they were charging Americans more, so instead of reducing their prices, they just increased them everywhere else.
As an example, Mounjaro went from around £180 in the UK, to around £300.
I saw a YouTube video from a guy who bought a mini excavator from AliExpress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
It's surprisingly good. Japanese Kubota engine, everything else looks decent quality, especially considering the incredibly low price. I've seen similar videos from other people who bought heavy machinery like farm equipment and lathes.
On the one hand it's a shame that our domestic manufacturing is finding it hard to compete. On the other, they aren't doing themselves any favours with things like DRM to stop you working on your own tools. The price competition is a good thing for consumers.
Take Germany luxury/performance cars, for example. The Chinese ones are every bit as luxury and well made, and often exceed them for performance. On top of that, the German manufacturers can't resist screwing their customers with bullshit like subscriptions for heated seats and no owner access to the engine bay.
I regularly buy from AliExpress. Their customer service isn't as good as Amazon's, but the prices are 1/10th of the Amazon ones so even though the odd things gets lost or is of poor quality, I'm still well up on what Amazon would have cost me.
Occasionally I need to do a credit card chargeback. Had to do that on a computer case that got damaged. For small stuff costing literal pennies I don't bother with the maybe 1 in 20 items that is lost or no good.
As you say, it's the same stuff they sell with a hefty mark-up on Amazon, and in every other shop.
If chasing ratings is taken too far, you end up with Fox used to be, where shows would get cancelled a few episodes into their first season because they were not instant mega hits. Netflix is nearly as bad, cancelling stuff days after it premiers.
A lot of shows took a season or two to really find their feet. A lot of shows that struggled early on ended up doing very well in syndication, or started a long running franchise.
They will probably charge a much fairer price for their treatments too, which will be very welcome.
It's probably overkill in most people's homes. However, it may be more valuable in a commercial setting, such as a convention center or hospital. Cutting down on the crud even by a small fraction could be worth quite a bit.
Like I've said before, this is just yet another financial system being created to have a minority of people manage the majority of the wealth, to their own advantage. This is just a new competing system with less regulation created by the crypto bros to wrestle the current system away from the Wall St. bros.
I think this view gives the crypto bros too much credit. They might now be thinking about taking advantage of the opportunity to wrestle the system away from the Wall Street bros, but there was no such plan.
too much hassle. build a shadow fleet of well-armed fast interceptors with untraceable munitions and sink the saboteurs.
To intercept them you still have to identify them, which you can't do until after they perform the sabotage. Given that, what's the benefit in sinking them rather than seizing them? Sinking them gains you nothing, seizing them gains you the sabotage vessel. It probably won't be worth much, but more than nothing. I guess sinking them saves the cost of imprisoning the crew, but I'd rather imprison them for a few years than murder them.
Working on the older machines and supporting it on those older machines are two very different things. If Microsoft put a "use at your own risk, this system is not supported" on the screen, there are too many stupid people who would install it, then the moment they have a problem, they would be going to Microsoft to get help. Linux being almost completely without paid support makes "use at your own risk" a given, but I've seen too many people who just assume that anyone offering help must be "paid support".
If you run the Windows 11 installer with the command line: setup.exe
That will allow the upgrade from 10 to 11 to work on the unsupported hardware, but if it breaks, that's the risk you are taking.
Trump and his band of criminals doing SOMETHING stupid, criminal, or both at the same time could definitely cause a crash. Look what the tariffs have already been doing to the economy.
For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong. -- H. L. Mencken