I'm a huge fan of AI. I predict that it will help us solve previously intractable problems in science, engineering, medicine and maybe even politics. Artists and musicians already do what they do beautifully. We need AI that does things we can't do.

Unfortunately, some are misusing AI tech to make "art" and "music". I accept the possibility that some of it may actually be good, but strongly suspect that most of it will be artless, mercenary slop. Even worse, the general public tends to follow silly fads, and this one may be no different. I hope it fades fast.

Viewed from a different perspective, this is not new. Pop music has effectively been made by a system that acts very much like AI. A highly skilled team of trendmongers figures out what's popular and hires a team of composers, lyricists, arrangers, engineers, choreographers, video directors and studio players to copy it almost exactly, including just enough difference to avoid copyright lawsuits. This is very nearly the same method that LLMs use.

Musicians will continue making music, it's part of our essence. The music business is a different story

>"to justify to insurance companies why you are using a free open source project as a main tool."

This assumes that MS-Office is somehow less prone to bugs, errors, issues. Just because more people use it, or that it is closed source, or that it isn't free, or that it is from Microsoft, doesn't mean it is safe (or "safer"). It also doesn't necessarily mean there is any liability that can be shifted. Most commercial software requires you to sign away liability (or greatly/specifically limit it, perhaps to only the cost of the software) in the terms of service.

Donâ(TM)t worry, the Climate Doomers listened to Bill Gates and already changed their stories: https://blog.sciandnature.com/...

Strangely, all were able to transition to Libre within the time frame.

Let me guess: when push came to shove the users quickly found out that the two programs were similar enough that they could make them work without any extra training.

>"So a very tiny amount. Europe pays the vast majority..."

Europe is not a country. And not all of Europe is in NATO. Even the concept of "Europe" isn't perfectly well-defined.... some would say Russia is also in Europe. The NATO protection is, primarily, of European nations. Yes, it helps everywhere else, too, to keep NATO's "enemies" in check. But the USA is 1 of 32 members and yet pays more than five times 1/32nd.

>"I don't have an issue with Donnie hammering on those, I just wished he would have made clear that this was about overall defense spending."

He is often unclear, unfortunately.

>"Of course by abandoning Ukraine he now gives EU[...]"

I am not aware of him ever vetoing any support legislation, or threatening to do so (I could be wrong on that). He was confident he could work out a deal and quickly. Apparently Putin is not so cooperative.

>"It was Putin who succeeded in getting these countries to up their budgets."

Keep in mind the big invasion didn't occur until 2022, years after Trump left office the first time (which is when he was calling for them to live up to their obligations). Of course, Putin was already hostile before that and had already invaded during Oboma admin, but that apparently didn't motivate them.

Part of the treaty is to keep up their own military/defenses and they were not doing so (and for a long time and getting worse). Member states were expected to pay at least 2% of their GDP into defense/readiness, annually. "Donnie" wanted to make sure that the countries were ready and able to defend themselves and come to the aid of other member states, instead of immediately relying on other member's resources when it is too late. That is not an unreasonable expectation.

There are also direct contributions to NATO, itself, to cover its operating and management costs. "The total budget for these common funds is approximately â4.6 billion for 2025. Contributions are based on a cost-sharing formula that considers each country's gross national income." And the USA covers 16% of that operating budget, more than any other member.

It doesn't matter if they know about other tools or not because most of the time their work machines are locked down to keep malware off of them so that they're not able to install Libre Office even if they want to. Excel is all they have so they do what they can to make it work, for some minuscule value of "work."

>"And then you look at Europe, with their two years of maternity leave, and worker protections, and way more paid holidays, and universal healthcare, and they all like to look down their noses at Americans, while they benefit from a massive security umbrella that the US provides, which frees up the funds to spend on social programs."

While simultaneously NOT PAYING THEIR AGREED OBLIGATIONS TO NATO, leaving the USA to absorb that as well. I will now get downvoted by reminding people that it was Trump that demanded they start paying their obligations, and succeeded. https://www.usatoday.com/story...

"Rutte then nodded along as Trump recalled demanding that NATO nations pay up their fair share during his first term as president. [...] very few were paying, and if they were, they weren't paying their fair share, [...] After making it clear that U.S. wouldn't support NATO if member states didn't step up, the money started pouring in, [...] The U.S. contributes 3.4% of its GDP and about 16% of NATO's annual budget. [...] By 2024, all non-U.S. NATO allies spent the 2% target on average for the first time."

...are three different things
From what I've read, their technological problems is that there are too many rules and their economic problem is that labor laws restrict flexibility

I seriously doubt any streaming provider is actually going to invest in the kind of quality Australian content that really should be made and instead will invest in more of the same cheap junk that infests our free-to-air networks.

This is just dumb. There are conflicts over water, but when you include incidents that are part of a larger conflict that is not over water (Israel/Palestinian or Ukraine/Russia), you're just swamping any insight you might have gotten with meaningless noise. This is obvious, so I assume they're not looking for signal but just trying to make a big number for some other reason.

>"Saying Libre Office replaces MS Office like saying a tricycle vending cart replaces a step van."

I never said that LibreOffice can replace all the functionality of MS Office for everyone. You must be thinking of someone else. It can, indeed, replace all of what most people do with MS-Office, and most of what the rest do.

>"For instance, Libre Office has no support for group editing."

It does support tracking, authorship, and also "check in/out" on remote file locations, but not really true group editing. They are thinking on that, though:

https://design.blog.documentfo...
https://bugs.documentfoundatio...

The cloud is a trap
Run away