It's not just for Microsoft anymore

Based on nothing more than my own intuition (and a high-school-level understanding of economics), I predict that the AI bubble will pop in 2026. Possibly as late as Q4.

When it pops, it will not be utter collapse, because there is enough real value here that there will still be an AI product and market. But there will be a significant market correction, as the current levels of excessive optimism will ratchet down to something more realistic.

So there will be some hardship, but it won't be the next Great Depression.

Microsoft has been publicly and loudly called-out and shamed for creating an ocean of needless e-waste, and forcing people to buy new PCs that they would not otherwise need (and in many cases cannot afford) or to continue using out-of-support software (with resulting risks of malware or lack of support from other software vendors).

Microsoft's response has been to laugh all the way to the bank, hand-in-hand with their hardware partner vendors.

I understand why technicians would think that people are "retarded" for choosing Windows (I run Linux and Apple myself), but the greater retardation is the continuing and widespread belief that we can modify the behavior of wealthy industry moguls by trying to make them feel guilt.

They are incapable of feeling guilt. They aren't normal people; they just pretend to be. Normal people with normal moral compasses don't ever attain positions of such wealth and power, as they are at far too much of a competitive disadvantage against these "natural leaders."

If we want to change their behavior, words will not work. We must apply force (in the form of legislation and/or boycott). These are not easily done, but they are the only things that will work.

That's just the golden rule at work.

"He who has the gold, rules."

That doesn't seem right to me at all, given that the only reason these devices stop working is a matter of needless dependence.

There is no technical reason why these devices must be dependent on Logitech's servers. They can operate as smart home devices entirely on a local network. The cloud piece is a completely needless tether. I understand that Logitech doesn't want to be on the hook to pay the server maintenance costs for a device that isn't making them money. That's fine. They should be free to cut off the cloud-specific features. But the device should remain otherwise functional. In this case, the device is completely ruined, for no good reason.

That is not ok.

The ability to use AI to create a video exists. OpenAI is not the only one who provides this, and competitors will make even better ones in the future, one way or another. Eventually people won't need to remove watermarks, because they will be able to make AI powered videos that are just as good or better without any watermarks in the first place. This whole watermarking thing is just a PR gesture with no real impact at all.

We live in a world of deepfakes. There is no way to prevent their creation. All we can do is find new ways to adapt to this reality.

For anyone who is interested in privacy, Windows is clearly the wrong choice.

I'd mod this up if I could. The extra middle men all have to be fed as well.

For firing the Woz and canceling the IIgs line

Correct.

If you are not a tech person, right now from all the hype and news and bullshit, you would rightly assume that AI is an amazing revolution and you would barely have heard about its shortcomings.

Though that might've just been him thinking "stupid Europeans know only Moscow, St. Petersburg and Novosibirsk. I'll just say Moscow, close enough."

This. I've had to descend a mountain as the sun was going down once (got stuck at the top due to weather for some time, and when it let up enough for a safe descent, it was late). It's absolutely not fun, even when there's still some light. Had it been dark, I think I would've taken my chances staying at the top rather than going down.

That said, anyone not a complete idiot checks things like "time of last cable car" a) in person, b) at the day, c) at the location. Because even there is an official website that is well-maintained (and that's already two big if's) things might change at the location due to weather, workers being ill, no tourists that day or whatever.

Also, checking in person means at least one other person knows that you're up there.

I shouldn't need to point out the obvious, but this IS slashdot after all....

On private property, everyone is a guest of the owners. They have very broad authority to ask you to leave. So, "making my other guests feel uncomfortable" is a plenty good enough reason. But even that depends on details. The owner of a public store can't ask a black person to leave just because he is black. That is straight up illegal. But what if the other white customers are white racists who all complain that the black person is "making them feel uncomfortable?" Even if he is doing absolutely nothing wrong, and his blackness is the only thing that is making those racists feel uncomfortable. Does their discomfort justify asking him to leave? Absolutely not.

Oversimplification can lead to injustice, and discomfort in-and-of-itself is not actionable.

Incidentally, coughing and sneezing in someone's direction is illegal, depending on the specifics. It qualifies as assault and possibly battery.

It is also relevant that freedom matters. People are and should be free to do things even if others don't always like what they do. There is no legal protection against "being made uncomfortable." People can feel uncomfortable for all kinds of crazy reasons that don't give them any leverage over whoever is causing it. A muscular man simply walking down the sidewalk, on the other side of the street, might make a person feel uncomfortable. That doesn't mean that the muscular man is doing anything wrong, nor that he should be made to stop.

Sorry to belabor, but this is the critical point: "his actions made me uncomfortable" is NO MEASURE of the appropriateness of a person's actions. Not by itself, anyway. Precisely because any idiot can say that about any action, and any crazy person can feel uncomfortable for any normal and reasonable action on someone else's part. In order for actions to warrant a reaction, there needs to be more.

See Seyonic's Youtube video.

The 512-SIM racks can only addreses 64 at a time. This comports with what people noticed about the antenna count.

8x is nearly an order of magnitude difference and chaged my mind about the likely purpose.

Presumably the spammers expect the SIM's to get blacklisted and move on?

But WHO is provisioning a quarter million cards at a time without tripping flags?