It is precisely because I don't want to mess around that I get an Android phone. You want to take a video with you on a plane but it is .MKV. on Android I just copy over wifi and go but what would I have to do with an iPhone? I want a copy of the photos on my phone on my PC, I connect a usb cable and copy them. A buddy of mine asked me once how he would get CAD files from an old PC with usb-a but no Ethernet. With Android I am pretty sure it would be possible but he had an iPhone so I really had no clue. I just want to feel like I can use my phone as a storage tool.

With the 99 dollar phone comment I felt when I had a MacBook that the OS was designed to work better if you bought Apple products. This is what I mean about pressuring people to buy other Apple products. Apple could have used open source software to do the same things but instead they almost seemed to make workarounds more difficult.

Yes currently I have the fire TVs with 8gb ram. If they die then I will need to look for something else as I am not sure if I want to give Kodi up.

If AI thinks like a human then why can it not interpret a page of handwritten notes? I recently did a course and made notes with a stylus on a tablet. I was writing expressively so I wasnt concerned about being in straight lines or printing clearly. Words are clumped together in sections. There are words written over sections of screenshots. There are formulas and hand drawn illustrations. I challenge you to tell me what AI can make sense of this like a human. I think the weakness of AI and what sets it apart from a human is that it only understands specifically formatted queries. Without a correct query it cannot do anything. But seriously, if you do know of an AI that can convert my notes into searchable text I would love to know.

In my opinion, an area where is it glaringly obvious that AI thinks differently than humans is in handwriting recognition. Make a page of notes with text at angles, pictures, diagrams, an arrow pointing to a diagram with a description, more text written down the side of the page with a function. Even if a human doesn't understand the content, they will see the words and join them together to read as phrases. They will pick out the pictures from words. I have not seen an AI yet that can do this.

I generally say nothing but "talk to an agent" to the AI. Though now that there are AI agents I would try "talk to a person". I find it I keep saying that I eventually get a person.

What does an LLM understand if there is no query?

It seems to me that we could trace the reason for every conclusion made by AI if we wanted to. It would just be extremely large and hard to work with.

An LLM calculates based on its database of words. Calculation is not interpretation.

Did you live under a rock for the entire pandemic?

I don't understand how people even happen upon AI music in Spotify. If I want to listen to Dire Straits, i ask for a Dire Straights CD. If I want to listen to all the System of a Down music I make a playlist with all their CDs. If you are too lazy to do that and are going to listen to what they feed you then you will get junk whether it is AI or not, and it's your fault.

That's why I would never lock myself into a limited smart tv. Id rather grab an old laptop and use that.

I spent a couple hours with Plex. I was constantly bombarded by them begging me to pay them. It was clear that they were prepared to dictate how I used the software. Then I switched to jellyfin and never went back.

I have a usb port in my car so that I can charge while I drive and my phone is still fresh when I get where I'm going. It has the added benefit of removing the uncertainty about who is driving so there is no confusion.

The problem with the Apple ecosystem is that it locks you into their walked garden. I used to have a Mac but I would really rather have the freedom to buy a $99 phone and stay free of their marketing pressure. In fact it is a point of pride for me that I know how to do these things myself and can therefore stay free. They could make their products work as well with everything but they have people like you who willingly volunteer to give them money for tiny benefits so they won't.

The element you are missing is the wealth gap. As much as it pains the wealthy, we never should have let the lowest paid person fall so far behind the highest paid person. We need to go back to a wealthy person being paid 5 times as much as the poor instead of the 100 times we have today. And let prices settle out. Even a lot of the wealthy are being asked to be taxed more.

You aren't listening. The poor care about rent, food, transportation, child care. All those things have gone up many times inflation, leaving them with much less.