Please create an account to participate in the Slashdot moderation system

 



Forgot your password?
typodupeerror

Comment Re:The problem with SAS (Score 1) 27

SAS has been dead for 15y; it started with R and then Python absolutely destroyed it. No one teaches SAS in universities any longer, why would they? It's terribly expensive and absolutely fucking dead.

We migrated away from SAS back in 2017 and never looked back. The only verticals still using it are heavily regulated and running long-standing legacy code that they're slowly migrating to Python.

I remember absolutely dying when they tried to renegotiate our contract UP back in 2015. I flat out told them they were dead and we were moving away from them and they told me, "good luck managing your data without us!"

Two companies and 10 years later, we're doing just fine and they are not.

Comment My takes on this presentation (Score 1) 6

1. There are a lot of empty seats; a lot.

2. The demo wasn't live, likely due to the huge failure of an event that the Meta one was.

3. They noted that you do all of this 'hands-free', likely an intentional knock at Meta's offering.

4. The examples were...odd. Who the fuck is going to be using this to shop for a fucking rug? Come on; give some real-life examples that are IMPORTANT. None of these were.

5. The entire presentation's style, across multiple different presenters, was...exhausting...halting...jarring...and...really undergraduate level. It was almost as if they were being fed what to say in their earpieces, not from memory and not in a fluid and practiced way.

---

Personally? I love the idea of AR glasses that work well. I want to have live subtitles for humans talking to me as I'm hard of hearing and hearing aids do not work well for me, particularly in public spaces.

I want it to give me important information, respond to my environment in ways that are useful (telling me where I am really isn't that; I know where the fuck I am--tell me what I should be doing or where I should be going next, perhaps?)

I know these are early adopter level devices, but they're just fucking ugly due to their bulk.

I strongly prefer this option to Meta's simply because I don't have to do stupid fucking mime-style hand gestures, but I want this technology to be useful, now, not in 5 years. We're going to see this largely flop just like so many other AR/VR toys out there unless they make this something more than a gimmicky piece of shit.

Comment Re:Complete failure all around (Score 1) 140

You clearly do not live in the US. The legal system does NOT do anything about anything (other than child support and alimony) as outlined in a divorce decree.

And, even if they MIGHT do something, you have to wait 12+ months to get on the court's docket, paying thousands of dollars to glorified expensive secretaries in the process while you wait.

The entire system is fucking broken.

Comment Great; it shouldn't be a thing. (Score 4, Insightful) 45

> The law "undermines the basis of the cost savings and will lead to bulk billing being phased out," the group said.

Good; it's monopolistic, predatory, and ultimately unnecessary. The entire practice is aimed at driving consistency and forced adoption rates, not anything else.

Comment Re:Enlighten me (Score -1) 10

I own, but do not operate, a few IT companies that manage corporations in the $600MM-$1B receivables range.

Based on our own help desk ticket software, our clients have opened 40% fewer tickets since ChatGPT was rolled out to every desk and phone. 40%. I expect another 40% drop (total 80%) by next year as end users just manage things themselves.

I won't downsize as the tickets aren't really generating revenue as much as headaches. One of my engineers had a broken PDF file that took her 6 hours to fix, and the end user spent 6 days trying to fix it themselves with Ai.

But -- the basic stuff? Reboot your computer stuff? Email rejected because you mistyped a domain name stuff?

You don't need a human, and we would probably have outsource that stuff to India anyway next year if not for ChatGPT etc.

Comment Re:for profit healthcare needs to go and the docto (Score -1) 51

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.

Comment Re: trump take electricity (Score -1) 238

Nah.

Iâ(TM)m 51. Iâ(TM)ve had health insurance continuously for 35 years and have used it exactly ZERO TIMES.

I am self pay. For everything but true life threatening emergencies, which Iâ(TM)ve had zero.

Even the ER is cheaper when negotiated self pay.

My urologist is stunned that I pay $85 for his visits. Self pay. Including labs. My colleague goes to the same urologist and his insurance pays $550 for the same visit and naturally it comes out of his deductible lol.

Insurance is a scam. All insurance is legal gambling and gamblers never win.

Slashdot Top Deals

Every little picofarad has a nanohenry all its own. -- Don Vonada

Working...