and low bars for academic performances have been the norm for a long time.

You can put a web server on an inexpensive ESP32 these days. That server can be a lot simpler than the one in the cloud since instead of having to maintain many accounts, it only needs to handle 1.

It's not that long ago that I found myself with a box of 8" floppy discs from a legacy product and no way to read them. Yes, the software on them was long obsolete. But I would have liked to be able to preserve a bit of company heritage.

The product in question (Glenayre GL-3000) had been updated in the interim to use 3.5" floppies, though with a bespoke format. I figured out how to use Linux and creative parameters to dd to write disc images. We packaged this as a bootable CD for customers to write their own disc images. After a sharp drop in floppy quality around 2005 I discussed other storage options with my boss (e.g. USB) but the business case just wasn't there.

...laura

I own, but do not operate, a few IT companies that manage corporations in the $600MM-$1B receivables range.

Based on our own help desk ticket software, our clients have opened 40% fewer tickets since ChatGPT was rolled out to every desk and phone. 40%. I expect another 40% drop (total 80%) by next year as end users just manage things themselves.

I won't downsize as the tickets aren't really generating revenue as much as headaches. One of my engineers had a broken PDF file that took her 6 hours to fix, and the end user spent 6 days trying to fix it themselves with Ai.

But -- the basic stuff? Reboot your computer stuff? Email rejected because you mistyped a domain name stuff?

You don't need a human, and we would probably have outsource that stuff to India anyway next year if not for ChatGPT etc.

When Reddit announced they would sell user-generated data to AI companies for training purposes, I went back to literally thousands of my old technical posts and inserted subtle nonsense in them.

They look legit, and a competent human being reading through them would very easily realize they're nonsense (you know, things like "Type taskmgr and kill systemd"). But AI doesn't, and I've already read AI-generated "help" pages containing some of the shit I seeded on Reddit.

So if you too want to debase AI, poison the well: it really does works.

I'm sure you won't if there's enough money to be made...

I spend quite a bit on Discord server services, but I'm out.

GFY, Discord and governments, for mandating this bullshit nonsense.

Today's TiVo is to TiVo of yesteryear what today's Sharper Image is to Sharper Image of yesteryear: a pointless company bearing the name of something great that used to exist for real.

How about if this one guys is 1 million times better off and he uses his insane wealth to install a raging fascist in the White House who ruins everybody's lives and threatens world peace?

I can easily do without the technological disruption this one guy, and all the other guys like him, bring about.

is fine if it doesn't create obscene inequalities and equally obscene psychopathic billionaires. If that's the cost of disruptive technology, I'm perfectly happy to hamper it.

I was about to say the same thing. It's really a sad statement on the state of processor development when the metric isn't an awe-inspiring number of operations per second but a depressingly high power consumption value.

Did you even watch it before running your mouth?

Someone should go to jail for this

Please, please call it MAGAputer.

Talking to people in public isnâ(TM)t harassment.

Talking to people on taxpayer funded grounds also isnâ(TM)t trespass.