Citation needed.

My current citation is Microsoft Secrets by Cusumano and Selby. Kind of old, so maybe someone can say how much things have changed over the years, but the point is that they are too optimized about getting more money. And they dominate the real world.

OSS is "stronger than ever"? In which dimension? I can't think of one. Even programmer satisfaction.

Me? I'm still hung up on the notion of a better structured charitable approach. Recovering costs, where the costs include appropriate payments for the programming work. The CSB (Charity Share Brokerage) will earn their way be providing project planning and management support. But I'm sure there will never be a CSB and it is too late to even try at this point. Very minor consolation that Microsoft also found project management difficult even back then...

Maybe the story is a bad target, but I'm not going to start with the rude jokes about what happened to IBM Research. Too close to the my own heart?

I did spot a few mentions of Xerox PARC and I think the managers deserve some sort of special funny booby prize for missed opportunities.

Mod parent funny but I can't concur because I have no bucket list and my fsck-it list has overflowed its bucket.

Still an interesting place to read about, though this story reminds me of an old article in Scientific American before the Germans bought it. Using large arrays of microphones in Houston they tracked the paths of individual lightning strikes. Pretty sure that was when they learned that most of it is cloud-to-cloud... (Two AI's agree over 75%. Trust no single AI? (Cue the married to an AI joke?))

Best of the Funny, though the story had many more opportunities.

However if you were trying to persuade a buffoon you didn't get there. That's why buffoons love the YOB so much. They worship their YUGE Orange Buffoon/Baby/Bollocks.

Loyalty over competence.

But I was hoping to see more Funny for the target-rich story.

Okay for the FP branch, but... I wonder if the rude Subject limited the scope of the discussion.

My take is that "love of money" is basically evil and always destroys any philosophic principles that get in the way. Love of money is a fake problem because there is no solution. There is no amount of money that can cure the sick "need" for infinite money. But only people with that sick love can wind up with the kind of sick money the richest people (claim to) have these years.

I do think "pandering" is a better kernel of the analysis, however. That's what destroyed the "Don't be evil" google, though they were initially just trying to pander to the users by providing the "most useful" search results. It took the "profitable" business model of advertising to drive that approach into the cesspool it has reached today. The advertisers CAN handle the truth, by destroying the truth, and the "brand new branded" truth shall make you an addict of whatever snake oil they are pushing. Or dependent on widgets like smartphones if you don't like the drug analogy, though I think chemical addiction is the closest comparison.

Me? Fortunately I seem to be immune to the effects. Like Spock and the purring of the tribbles? My contacts with generative AIs just make me more and more angry--even though I acknowledge they can produce "useful" artifacts. Maybe "time" is more important than "pandering" as the root of the analysis? The real threat might be that whatever they do, the genAIs and LLMs do it so much faster than humans can?

Philosophic tangent time? Naw. Slashdot don't feel worth it no more. I've been turned into a newt and I ain't expecting to get no better. So just give me Funny? But not much Funny to be found these years, even in the depths of Slashdot.

Really? That's the only Funny on this rich target? And doesn't even strike me as especially funny. Maybe later?

But now I can't even remember if the real FBI director's passing got a mention on today's Slashdot.

I'm not questioning you. I'd read it just on the author if it was available around here. Rather you should file it as among my personal problems. First, I'm trying to get rid of all of my books, not buy new ones. Second, I choose to live in Japan where the libraries basically treat English books as an afterthought. (By using lots of libraries I'm able to find enough good stuff to read, and I'm reading more and more Japanese books these years.) Third, my second and final Amazon purchase was decades ago...

So I ran the narrow search and got zilch, even in Japanese. Then on my mistake with Levy's book I ran that search, too. Still nothing. The broad search on "house" overflowed, but not just with some silly book about a prairie...

So now I'm off to search for Steven Levy books.

I use a meta-search that covers about 25 local library systems, and couldn't find any. (However I didn't fully expand some of the libraries that I don't have cards for. Depends on the local rules.)

Whoops. I should check but I trust you and know I've read that book, too. My bad.

Not an excuse, but the explanation is that both books were years ago and both authors write well. (But not difficult to write much better than I do.)

Actually I think you should have been more explicit. I'd guess the later Chamberlain, part of the appeasement thing, but I'd have to websearch and expose myself to AI to find out.

At this point I think the only way I would donate money to support Mozilla is if they promised NOT to change and break anything for some period of time.

And I think the only peace we're going to find around this world may be the peace of the grave.

This story is obviously a red herring. What they are worried about is the screens getting used too much and burning images into them.

Why would they care about burning out humans. Pesky nuisances whose main virtue is how cheap they are. But what do you expect when they are mass produced in such quantities but such unskilled labor?

Didn't dislike the FP, but the Subject was vacuous and should have at least hinted if you [Junta] were going for serious or funny. I'm definitely going for Funny, but it's funny I should say that when that trick never works. But I'll still check the Funny comments on the theory that finding the jokes was part of the moderators' job.

Trick that never works.

But I am personally offended by the original sloppy and vacuous Subject, apparently motivated by the lust to FP because of something Colbert said that made the rest of us laugh. Probably at the actual Insight, to be contrasted to whatever idiocy that motivated some moderator to designate such an FP as insightful.

A hug? Thanks? Or no thanks? Mostly seems like it's too late for that trick to help much.

I'd propose a solution approach, but the moderators have already declared this a no-Funny zone.