Their crazy linear city in the desert didn't pan out: https://news.slashdot.org/stor...
So now they are going to make fake movies instead?
A country can afford to do stuff like this if they are a monarchy with a giant pile of oil money.
The USA is not immune. The state of Wisconsin has already voted to ban the use of VPNs. The vote has already passed the State Assembly and is moving to the Senate: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/...
OK for one, like the roads network, homes and offices couldn't pay for the electricity grid without industrial loads (which includes datacenter). The roads you drive on are paid for by registration and gas taxes, which 80% come from semi trucks. So let's get over this "they are costing us money".
Wear on roads goes up according to the fourth power of the vehicle weight. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
So the wear and tear caused to a road by cars is tiny compared to that caused by heavy trucks.
Gas taxes and vehicle registration don't cover 100% of the cost of highway maintenance in the US anyway, the government has to keep dipping into general funds from other tax revenue: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
The Meta AI(s) that regular people will use are being thwarted by this dipshit. The next time you think you have something clever to say, just trust me, you don't.
You're right, it never did cross my mind that sensible people would be using this meta "AI" crap for anything important. I would suggest such people will face bigger problems than a bit of Bruce Ediger's junk text though.
Intentionally making systems that humans who have no connection to Meta will use isn't pissing in Meta's cereal bowl
What humans use "meta-externalagent" in their useragent string?
And if that doesn't work, ebrake and do some drifting.
I don't speak fluent American but I think other English speaking countries call this the "handbrake." New cars don't even have a real handbrake these days, it's just a stupid software button. If the NHTSA (or their local equivalents in any given country) were paying attention, such things wouldn't be allowed, and a real cable/hydraulic brake would be mandatory.
And I'm Gen X, not millennial or Gen Z. The nearest ATM to my mansion in the hills is a 10 minute drive away, one way. I face challenges with driving after dark. If I need to pay a cleaner, painter, etc. in cash, and it is dark, which unfortunately is very early in the winter after the time change - before 5pm, it is easily a $20 Uber ride to the ATM and back. $2.99 compares very favorably to that.
Not sure if joking... if you can afford a "mansion in the hills" surely you can afford a decent safe and then put a few hundred bucks in there to pay contractors. You don't need to stash a fortune and make yourself a target for thieves, just enough to pay contractors until next time your schedule takes you near that ATM.
You're one natural disaster away from being completely fucked.
Imagine a regional power outage lasting a few days. Now imagine it lasting a few weeks. Phone and internet out. No one will be taking your cards. Cash only and no functioning ATMs for miles. That could never happen, right? Except for Hurricanes, earthquakes, tornadoes, ice storms...
For this stupid cash delivery service to be useful in a disaster, they would need to: somehow survive the disaster, have access to a source of cash* that other people in the region don't, have drivers willing to deliver it in a disaster zone, and finally NOT dip into the cash themselves to help their own families.
*Oh and to protect that "source of cash" they would also need premises and a security team.
If you're relying on a "cash delivery app" to bring your cash during a disaster, you're already screwed.
Not saying this is a good idea, but I don't think the gig worker would know if you're paying $6.99 or $2.99 for the delivery, which is what would tell them if you have more than $100k in assets.
Either way, the delivery guy is literally holding a bag of your cash.
Drug delivery is the most obvious. I remember a couple of times I was preparing to head to the airport, needed cash, and might well have used something like this.
I've never been to an airport that doesn't have an ATM.
Who doesn't have a bad feeling about giving data to Sam Altman?
This is why I will never use ChatGPT.
will lose my business
I follow the same policy. A nice side-effect is that I seem to spend less money.
Finally I strongly suspect that if they actually did try to force people to download their shitty app... the EU will step in and say nein, non, no y fuck off in 3... 2...
Here's hoping. Until then I will continue never using Ryanair.
I also have a smartphone. And on one recent trip, as I innocently paraded around the airport before boarding, with my iPhone gently swaying in my shirt pocket as I walked, I found myself irrevocably locked out of my phone for an hour. All that swaying was interpreted by the phone as failed attempts to unlock it. At that moment, all my means of communication went poof, and with them any access to a mobile boarding pass. That would have been super fun if I didn't also have a printed copy.
Or you have a flat battery. Or the airport wifi doesn't work for whatever reason. Or you are overseas and don't have international data roaming.
Using your smartphone for something critical like a boarding pass is insane, and this is before we consider the security implications.
I'm in a slow but steady process of dumping my smart phone. I don't have social media apps and I don't have a web browser. That's eliminated most of the waste of time I've used my cell phone for. I may have reached a nice place though. I have more productive things to do with it like Babbel.
I live in a country where 2G and 3G networks have been phased out, so I can't go back to using one of my older dumbphones. So I looked for the "dumbest" new phone a person can buy. Most of the "simple" phones seem to be targeted at seniors and they are awful - the UI tends to be really slow and laggy.
In 2022 I settled on the Nokia 2720 flip phopne. It's small, has no touch screen and will happily use the 4G network. It has a very rudimentary browser built-in but if you need to do web stuff it will act as a hotspot or a USB modem. It uses KaiOS which I think is orphaned now. I needed to get root access in order to delete its inbuilt Google voice assistant and Telegram client, but that was straightforward following the advice on the bananahackers forums.
As the trials of life continue to take their toll, remember that there is always a future in Computer Maintenance. -- National Lampoon, "Deteriorata"
