It seems like it was just last week.

I am not going to get into this one or that one is best.
There are several that work. I think most people prefer what they are familiar with.
The main point over all is, the internet with a good script blocker is radically better than running without one.

I had one that I used at home and traveled with for two years before I accidentally discovered that it literally cannot be turned off. Even if you press the power button on the speaker and the little power light goes out. As long as it has battery charge, it's in BT listening mode and can be activated by the manufacturer's app running on a device in range. The default device name was BOOM.

I had one (from a major manufacturer with products that are common in USA retail stores) that actually could not be turned off. I didn't realize it for two years, because I always manually pressed the button to turn it on and off. It was just a cheap, plain, passive speaker; not a wifi/smart/internet device. I had never bothered to download the manufacturer's app because I just wanted to play basic audio. But apparently, even when you manually turn it off with the button, it keeps Bluetooth in listening mode. Only reason I discovered this is because I bought a second one and downloaded their app to sync the speakers. Their app lets you turn the speaker on, regardless of whether the speaker was previously on or plugged in. Once I realized that "off" wasn't actually OFF, it made sense because there'd been a couple times when I didn't use the speaker for 2-3 weeks, and was puzzled that the battery was fully drained when I tried to turn it back on. I decided maybe I'd left it on and forgotten. Nope. Speaker literally does not allow you to turn it off. If it has any charge left, it's on. Had I known I never would've bought it - especially because it also has a built-in microphone (which I never used). Makes me wonder how "plain, passive" that always-powered-on microphone truly is.

Raise the price, then apply the discount so you think you're saving money. Only the final new "sale" price is more than you'd pay elsewhere.

Seems like Amazon is playing the same game they *all* play.

Right! That's what I was wondering too. Is Barcelona somehow less capable of dealing with a possible bomb?

Hey, there's one of those in MY neighborhood too! Clearly, the FBI is *EVERYWHERE*!

Please switch it back, all this direction-changing is making me dizzy!

So your telling me that no one @ Meta corporate leadership or IT asked the question "What if someone asks our AI to hack us?" now that is amazing!
It would be #1 on my list!

>"Still, the XPS comes with compromises of its own"

Yeah, it runs MS-Windows 11.

Nope. When the term was created the Personal Computer was not affordable for the average man. Not for years, not with the first clones, only a bit later than that.

I suspect otherwise. The CPUs will be no more AI than Intel's and Apple's latest CPUs. What we are seeing is Windows trying to deliver a non-Intel Windows to the general PC population. Something we have not really seen since WinNT 4.

My company has a large Windows app. For fun I built it for Windows 11 ARM on a Mac M4 using Parallels. This is running Windows 11 ARM, Visual Studio ARM, and the existing Windows source code built normally. The app ran fine. If an app is just making Windows API calls it will probably be fine too.

Absolutely!

The IPO push is tied to their profit forecasts, and they expect to be profitable in Q2. They're revenue is growing rapidly and it's likely true they'll actually turn their first profit, so don't bet against it.

Sure. That could happen again. And again. It's even likely with these LLM operators. A few years from now the necessary hardware be lower cost and lower power. The models they've built will be cloned and surpassed by multiple competitors.

But in the immediate future investors will fill Anthropic's pockets. One benefit in all this is that there will be more scrutiny of the spending, which will create friction in the both the Buy All The Silicon and Datacenters Everywhere departments: the investors of both Anthropic and OpenAI will want to milk the value of tokens while spending as little as possible and avoiding risk.

Normally candidates are chosen by all the party's voters. The insiders cannot stop determined voters. That is how we got Barack Obama. He was introduced by the Clintons at a previous convention as a young up and comer. In a later election cycle, Hillary was supposed to be the next candidate. She had the backing of the insiders, the establishment, inserting Bill's political machine. Obama was an upset candidate chosen by the voters, defeating the establishment insider Hillary despite Bill's machine backing her. He jumped the line, he did not wait his turn, he beat the party establishment.