I wouldn't call myself bilingual, but my experience is that there are lots of nuances that an author imbues their work with, based on choosing various turns of phrase. Learning to see, understand and translate the author's intent is a learned skill. I question whether AI is yet capable of discerning the author's intent.

A lot of the engineers that the Soviet Union and then Russia used in their space and nuclear programs were Ukrainian. I imagine even a signing bonus won't turn up many volunteers today or for the next 20 years.

--Why still have cables up in the air? --

While I agree that it would be much preferred to have both power and telecom cabling underground, the fact is that people demand lowest-cost services and it costs a lot more to place cables underground than aerially. I work in telecom and if someone asks me for a rough estimate of placement cost, I tell them that underground is often about 3x what aerial is. But customers insist on low service prices and aerial is cheaper. (if building the infrastructure costs more, then monthly service pricing has to pay for that higher build cost.)

--but if you are not actively looking for a job, you shouldn't get any benefits from the government (including SNAP). --

I think we should have temporary benefits for those who hit a rough patch. But I agree that it shouldn't be a continuing, open-ended thing.

Sadly, it then costs additional money to maintain a system to prod recipients to continue their job search.

"jobless boom."

What a mix of negative (jobless) and positive (boom).

Next thing you know they'll say that all those eliminated SNAP benefits (and resulting purchases) are saving money on storage space, refrigeration, gasoline (for transport), labor. All that money saved!

--Enough to be statistically significant? --

No, not really. Maybe 20 servers over the course of time. I have tended to keep them in a cool, dark place. ;)

I've run many Mac servers over the years and the hardware just keeps on chugging away. Web, email, even DNS (at one time) I typically don't retire a Mac until it's 8-10 years old. I have a couple at home right now running SurgeMail. Never give me a lick of trouble.

For those who'd like a chuckle at how sideways translations can go, take a look at English as She is Spoke, circa 1883.

The book was meant to be a serious attempt to offer a Portuguese to English translation guidebook. Unfortunately, the (Portuguese) author knew no English, but he knew some French and he knew a guy who knew French and some English.

It's still in print - there is even a version with a Foreword by Mark Twain: https://www.powells.com/book/e...
 

"It is not something for nothing. It is something for your money. A capital investment."

Quite right. Sorry, I didn't mean it literally. It was more along the lines of whether they could find a way to not expend effort.

Now that could be because the job market sucks. There's a limit to what you can do there.

But there was the hint that they were looking for a means to replace labor with just investment. Which works when you start off with a lot of money, but kinda falls flat if you have little to start with.

If it were a real hustle - effort going into creating value - then call it a hustle.

But this is just another case of people looking for 'something for nothing' and avoiding a real hustle.

It's not that most of us don't share a desire to have an easier life (financially). But, except for a very few, the rest of us have to work. It's dangerous (for society as a whole) if groups of people start to feel like working for a living is 'optional'. What kind of mindset does that create/reflect? You put yourself at a disadvantage compared to those (at home or abroad) who are willing to put in the effort. You'll pay for it eventually...

"Our goal is to make glasses that make you super intelligent the moment you put them on"

I'm thinking my definition of intelligent and yours are different...

"...with a clear case and LED lights ($349)..."

"...125,000 gigabytes per second..."

"...50,250 Gbps..."

Try to be consistent between bits and bytes.

I could be wrong, but this seems to touch on the larger issue of 'let's do it because we can, not because we should'.

This seems to be a mindset that is rampant these days. Someone comes up with a clever idea and everyone just leaps on it. (ChatGPT, 'filters', AI companions, deep and wide data mining, etc.) Seems to me a mindset that comes from greed, fear of being left behind, fascination with the newest shiny object, a search for self reassurance, etc. None of those seem like motivations that lead to a more mature society.

I believe the faster we leap to 'the new', the sooner we cheapen our humanity. I mean, we could "choose" to not extract/stockpile/use everyone's personal data.

Now get off my lawn!