This might be the case in the US, for Europe I beg to differ.

As individual you _can_ make a difference: energy consumption per capita for the US is about 279 MMBTU, for the EU this is 86 MMBTU - less than a third so it is possible. Due to larger distances you won't get to the European figure, but reducing your energy consumption by 50% would already account for 350 million times 140 MMBTU = 49 billion MMBTU per annum. The cut down in CO2 emissions for 49 billion MMBTU is approximately 2,597,000 kg (5,725,405 lbs) - roughly the same as the annual emission of countries like Niger or Surinam. All to say that it _will_ have effect.

Also, governments _do_ regulate a lot here and companies threaten all the time to relocate to cheaper countries (read: countries where there are fewer regulations and where climate change is an afterthought). It's too bad (for the world) the US is becoming one of them, while already being very energy-hungry.

Well, they can always recommend a new CPU and expanding the RAM. That used to work on Win95 so it should work now, right?

That's a (much too) pretty way to say it crashed.

Maybe, maybe not. I've used plenty of Google-Fu but the last 8-10 years the results kept getting worse, mostly due to SEO and advertising. The Gemini AI results now usually make more sense than the actual search results below it.

I'm interested to see where it goes. But with everything AI - you will need to verify. The LLMs may be trained on all kinds of data, including biased ones (e.g. right wing, specific religious standpoints, regional differences and plain misinformation). Not only that, they are continuously trained by us, asking them about stuff and arguing with them. You can have a pretty dark conversation regarding Nazism and the "Endloesung" with it if you prompt it correctly, but also a fun conversation about unicorns and dragons and what their babies would look like.

10 years using Duolingo, 4 years in Diamond League, and earlier this month I just had enough of the low-quality AI bullshit.

Out. Done. Gone. Waste of my time, every damn day.

The decline in quality and accuracy was just too much. As an English speaker learning a handful of other languages and concentrating on two, it was interesting to me that the first real noticeable patterns of errors and general slop were actually on the English side. Increasingly obtuse questions or statements, ok fine, I will spit those back in French or Spanish with good accuracy. I don't have any issue whatever with the occasionally-dark humor or the gender related topics that might push others' hot buttons, and I appreciate the occasional foray into curious stories and situations. But... over the past year there has been an increasing level of nonsensical AI-generated questions, erroneous answers accepted, multiple correct answers, etc etc... and it's obvious that no actual native speaker looked at a lot of the new content -- either from the native or foreign perspective. A couple years ago there was an increasing level of having to hit the button for "You should have accepted my answer." But for the past year, it's become a daily occurrence to have to hit the button for "You shouldn't have accepted my answer." The latter is a clear indication of AI slop and drift in the language models, and lack of QA. Real human QA is not optional, and Duo has apparently dispensed with it entirely. The result is gameified garbled nonsense. Playing the game was fun for a while (seriously, still in Diamond league for more than four years straight), but the goal is language learning not to compete with other stupid little games on my device. Feh. Done. Cancelled my subscription, et je vais dépenser cet hundred bucks de mon argent pour un spritz et une charcuterie chaque après-midi pour le reste de l'été.

True indeed. I'd rather wait a few months for an MRI and get the proper treatment 2 weeks after the scan than have the MRI within a week and not be able to afford the treatment or go bankrupt because the insurance doesn't cover it.

Especially HP laptops. They come preloaded with... well HP.

*types in password case insensitve a few times...

***The password you have entered is incorrect. Your account has been locked.***

See? Case sensitivity matters. And I _do_ see mynotes or MyNotes as 2 different things, and most people I know do too (as they should).

Example: Windows explorer kindly hides the file extension by default. The MyNotes (or mynotes) can be the executable and have a mynotes.ini on top of you having a mynotes.txt file.

Next to the AI sauce / A1 tech from Linda McMahon. Get yours today!

Oh no, they won't do that. They'll keep prices the same across the globe, making the rest of the world pay for the US tariffs as well. And as soon as the tariffs get lifted, nothing happens to the price.

You gotta keep the shareholders happy...

If you go to a Ford dealer, the salesman isn't going to recommend a Porsche. If you go to Taco Bell, they're not going to recommend Wendy's.

Lots of folks have experience installing gas furnaces. That's what they know. They don't know heat pumps. They could learn, but learning is hard. If they can keep selling gas furnaces, that's easier.

My home is made with cement blocks - just like most houses in the UK. It's a massive thermal mass.

I installed heat recovery ventilation which also helps hold heat in while maintaining a constant supply of fresh air.

Which means that temperature swings outside don't really affect me.

I don't plan to move. My roof is cement slate; it will last around 50 years.

In less than four years I've generated over half the money I put into it.

I've been using it for five years now. I'm aware how much electricity costs. But for me, it's discounted by 33% due to solar PV. And my heat pump is 150-300% efficient.

When it makes sense to replace the roof on my house I can double my solar capacity and I'll increase my electricity storage capacity.

So long term it will cost me way less. And, as I noted, the benefits go beyond cost. It's quieter, it's not spewing fumes outside my house, my home has less fire risk, etc.

I installed a heat pump back in 2021. It's fantastic in an Irish or British climate. Home's much warmer and much quieter. Don't need to have CO monitors in my house, don't need to remember to schedule oil deliveries, and so many more things. I can stand outside my back door and not get assaulted by fumes.

All the energy I use at this point is electric - heating, cooking, transportation, all of it. And I offset 33% of the electricity I use via solar PV. When I need to replace my roof, I'll put panels on my house and double my solar production.