If you remove a handful of ultra-wealthy billionaires from the US calculations the Oz GDP is probably double that of the States, too.

Third world countries are famous for their reliable power sources with vast amounts of excess power in the grid, stable goverments, large well-run supplies of water and their total lack of corruption. Perfect for building and running massively expensive data centres.

So much better than, I don't know, building more solar and wind power in Australia, actually paying a relative pittance to authors and artists for the work AI companies are training on, and ensuring those data centres provide their own water instead of sucking up all fresh water in the entire area and driving prices through the roof.

Company: Good news! We're adding AI to ...
Users: no

If companies are happy for their workers to use AI for everything, as you suggest, why do they want applicants with degrees? They might as well advertise for people who know how to use AI effectively instead.

Actually, I think people with a thirst for learning (languages or anything else) generally have a different outlook on life to people who feel overwhelmed all the time, and are unwilling to take on anything else. And perhaps those people also spend time researching good eating habits, get exercise, and keep themselves healthier?

So the 'more languages = longer life' thing could just be the type of person who keeps learning, whether by choice or environment.

Yes, and computer programming degrees should be under the languages department at universities, not the science or computing department.

One of the reasons English has so many words is because over the centuries it's just hoovered up anything it wants from other languages. Other languages seem to be more static somehow, although since I learned Spanish in the 70's my vocab has nothing related to tech at all.

My family moved to Spain when I was 8, and I still remember getting dropped off at the local village school. They didn't speak English, I didn't speak Spanish, but kids learn fast.

About six months later my parents moved me to another school with German owners, so I had to start learning that (it was compulsory). At the same time, my mum knew an old lady who needed help with her garden, so me and my brother would go and work there on a weekend and in exchange she taught us French.

BTW for people who only speak one language - programming languages also count, and programming is a great way to keep your mind active unless you just vibe code your way to an early grave.

And I bet I'm not the only one. It used to be a pretty cheap way of trying out some new releases on PC before I decided whether to buy ... I mean, license them ... from Steam.

Then they decided to screw more money out of everyone, and I decided it wasn't pretty cheap any more, and I would continue playing all the other games in my Steam library.

You reap what you sow.

And if ads weren't occasionally a vector for malware, fewer people would be determined to block them all. Imagine an alternate universe where one in ten million vitamin pills is cyanide. Who'd take a vitamin pill every day?

Firefox has been my browser of choice for well over 20 years. Neither Chrome nor Edge - with their ties to Google and Microsoft - ever appealed to me.

I'm running Ubuntu on my 2011 Mac Mini, which I put an SSD into some years back. Great little media server running Kodi.

I've seen a couple of gas stations in my neighourhood turned into residential lots already, and another is boarded up. Half the internal combustion cars on the road means only half the gas will be sold, and so you only need half as many gas stations.

How many residential/local gas stations will be left when EVs are 70-80% of the market?

Under Australian law too.

I've noticed most AI slop videos have a slow-moving snowstorm moving across the image. Label all those for a start.