Yeah I worked for dial-up / cable ISP support as well. Our performance wasn't even evaluated (as in you got no bonus whatsoever) so incompetent call handlers didn't really get dealt with (They would hire people out of High School, give them 2 weeks training in how the UI of Outlook Express worked, then push them out on the phones)

If you had a bad call and a customer phoned back to complain, the only way the bosses had to track it, was to check every single users workstation for the call history drop down list, and match it with the customers name. But it only showed the last 10, so you'd just open 10 random users. They were running PII's on Windows NT 4 in 2007.

They would try to bully us into coming in 20 minutes early for our shifts, so the computers would be ready to answer customer queries. Yet if you were late by over a second, you were punished. So most people, for the first call of their shift, just stalled and lied to the customer until the computer was ready. We had the same bathroom break / lunch break thing as well - had to ask which I'm sure violates labor laws.

So with the calls mysteriously dropping out - I tried to be the best worker I could be, but after almost a year I was basically burned out - so when I'd get that angry customer shouting and swearing, I'd start speaking "I am sorry you are ha-" then press to hang up. Did this for 3 months probably once a week with nobody noticing or perhaps caring, before I finally found a real job.

The problem was maybe the fact it was outsourced. The outsourcing company really doesn't care if the ISP's customers get angry and cancel their contracts. They have no incentive to spend money for better machines, training, and employees - why cut into their profits? And as far as the ISP is concerned, if the outsourcing is still cheaper - it's all good. And if it isn't - how would they even know? For the bosses it is easier just to outsource and be done with it, even if it cuts into company profits.

And this was one of the better rated call center because it was on shore! We'd have people without accounts phoning up for computer help because of the "not useless" reputation (which we would generally handle as it was a premium rate line though only a dollar every 5 minutes or so)

Yeah I have to agree - those "smart" people who get caught up thinking things will work because that is how things should work in an idealized world, when in the real world things are messier - those "smart" people are not smart at all. They are not considering all of the variables, accounting for human nature etc - in short, not thinking over everything.

My own example being the "smart" sysadmin working in a school - installed digital signage in school coridoors, with the power sockets and on switches at shoulder height, because "that's how it is elsewhere" Totally not understanding that with the off switches being easily accessible, the students will mess with the power and the digital signage will be off more than on. His reply "Well the students shouldn't be playing with the power switches". Would you class this guy as smart???

If people don't consider all the variables, how people act in the real world, all of it, in my books they aren't smart no matter how middle class they try and make their accents sound.

Yeah, and AI has a much less chance of sabotaging contractors like we saw with the latest M&S hack (outsourced Indian tech support were bribed), or looking through your private data out of boredom.

So if I google for the answer to a question, I could either a) use the AI summary which takes 10 seconds of reading - or b) spend 2 or 3 minutes per query opening the paywall, signing up for an account, verifying my e-mail address, potentially entering in payment details... just for a chance the article will answer your question and not just be 5 pages of waffle with 2 good sentences in it as they so often are.

And people wonder why these sites are dying? For me I am staggered they even show up on search engines at all - they don't really provide the quick answers you are looking for after all. I think these sites would have slowly died even without AI as people learn quick - when you do a Google Search, these are the sites not to even bother clicking on due to the paywalls. To the extent there are browser plugins to remove them from appearing.

Do you have a modern (11th, 12th gen) Intel CPU? They have a hardware design fault that makes them crash often - mostly in heavy calculations (e.g. unpacking video game textures) - there is a tool online you can run to see if your CPU is affected and you may even be able to RMA it if so.
And Windows doesn't save data on the fly so it would be affected similarly (though they are changing this - Notepad saves on the fly now - the youth are used to phones and think having to File - Save As every time is laughably crude)

Yes - perhaps their Google traffic is dying largely because people know - if they click a Google search result for one of these sites e.g. NYP - they will get half an article then a paywall blocking the rest? When I see one of these news sites in the Google search results, I won't even bother with it - I bet that'll cut most of their traffic, the rest of it being people who haven't learned yet, clicked it, then clicked Back as soon as the paywall appears.

They basically offer nothing of value, why would they be suprised that nobody clicks their links?

Didn't the USA switch to some kind of fructose syrup for Coca Cola around that time, instead of sugar? I know there are bought and paid for "studies" that claim it is no worse than actual sugar - but here in Europe we have regular old Cola ("Mexican coke I believe they call it in the USA) - and people here are a lot leaner. It can't be good that most foods in the USA can't actually be sold in the rest of the developed world because they are banned?

Yeah I wonder how many startups are just total scams... Why bother working 8 hours a day, 5 days a week (over 50% of your waking adult life) - when you can start a hilariously dumb startup - e.g. Juicero - even if the thing totally falls over, you've already paid yourself millions over the few years it was in operation, and when it fails you aren't on the hook for that money - you've made more than you can earning honestly. Part of why our society is such a fraud - it does not reward hard work, it rewards grift and scamming.

In the UK we pretty much all drive manual, little old Grandma Ethel will have a manual transmission Kia box car.
I'm not really into cars but I've always driven a manual because pretty much if you want a cheap car around €2000, it's guaranteed to be a manual transmission.

Automatics used to be garbage in the 1980's / 1990's but now everyone I know who is into their luxury cars will buy an auto - my dad who likes his jags says "Automatic is the only way to drive" - but these people I know are more into their luxury and comfort - not into speed and racing. (we are all too old for that now)

I like being able to drive manual still as it guarantees if I need a cheap car I'll be able to drive it, in any country, (in fact I've only driven an auto once in my entire life, for about 2 minutes) - but would I be bothered if my kids only learnt how to drive auto? Not really - 15 years from now I bet there'll be plenty of electrics on the market second hand for a decent price.

Yes some website leaks a copy of your conscious mindstate onto the darkweb, and now millions of teenagers bored at cyber school torment copies of your mindstate in a flash game type sim. You go for your brain scan/upload and as soon as the scanning helmet comes off, you are suddenly in a grim dungeon with a chainsaw floating up and towards you.
Or it ends up like the Voyager episode with the psycho clown. Think I might give it a miss

What is a true perpetual license agreement then?
We are a podunk little school and we have a perpetual license - I can log onto Vcenter and see the words "Expiration: Never" - to me that means the license expires - never - if Broadcom send us one of their joke letters it's going where it belongs, in the trash. And if we have a full license I can imagine a huge amount of other people do as well. We'll use another solution when we upgrade servers

I've seen the video myself - these people couldn't even tell you which COUNTRY was involved, let alone which commanders. They gave a blank stare, blinked a few times, then would come up with answers like "Germany? Europe? Iraq? Golly I don't do well with History!" - Even if they cherry picked the responses the fact that there were multiple people like this over the few hours of filming is bad enough.

Yeah that may be true, but I'd have wanted at least a little oxy to take the edge off, as well as make the bill worth it. This is America after all!

Have you experienced the intelligence of the average human? George Carlin was right when he said we get the rulers we deserve in a democracy - we elected them after all did we not? If the average person had any intelligence there would have been mass protest votes for third parties since at least the 1980's

I found Notepad++ took too long to load, and I was badgered by update notifications I found no way to disable (I'd imagine there is a way but I wasn't able to find it. Windows Notepad opens in a second which is great for quickly writing down quick notes (I work support so it's great for writing down IP addresses or scripts).
I do have it though but only use it for editing complex scripts, where its additional features come in handy.

Co-pilot or other AI is not what I would use Notepad for - Word is surely the better place for it. But as MS have scrapped Wordpad and Word doesn't come with Windows by default, they have to shove it somewhere right? I'd be suprised if it's not already in Paint - Co-Clippy - you are editing a quick image and it pops up "Buy 100 Co-Pilot credits and our AI will make kinda-sorta what you need for you!"