The ability to convert a spectrogram to sound has long been known in the speech research community. In 1950 a device known as the Pattern Playback was built at Haskins Laboratories. You would draw an artificial spectrogram and feed it to the machine and it would play back the corresponding sound. It was used to perform experiments on the acoustic cues for speech perception. The original machine was last used for research in 1976. See the Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

I did a diploma in performing arts in the the 90ies. The first half of my 20ies was dancing 5+ hours per weekday. I still benefit from that phase. As a teenager I was into climbing. I still have the shoulder muscles from that time, despite totally slacking on strength training. But no smoking, no drugs, no alcohol. And I have been dancing Argentine Tango for the last 18 years, 9 of which where an artsy minimalist lifestyle built around intensely dancing Tango 3+ times a week. My sleep schedule was as off as with my other thing, software development, but otherwise my health was awesome, physically and mentally. Intensely hugging hot ladies 3+ times a week for hours on end does wonders for a hetero-males well-being. I regularly get judged 10 years younger than I am.
Processed foods are organic as much as possible, I avoid junkfood 95% of the time and I've started cooking for myself 10 years ago. Huge impact.

I've since have taken Tango down a notch and picked up motorscooter/motorbike as means of travelling and getting around. Getting slightly overweight for the first time in my life. Not good, don't like it. I'm roughly 10 years too late in picking up a daily excercise/yoga, cardio and strength schedule, a thing I definitely need to get going this year. Started hiking with my sweetheart, we want to pick up the pace and intensity of that to stay healthy in old age.

I keep telling my 28 year old daughter that she dare never not stop her daily yoga practice. I hope she can do that.

It's this simple: Objectively the very best retirement plan is actively working on your health, strength, endurance and flexibility multiple times a week. Way more significant than being wealthy at old age.

I'd rather be top fit at 70 living off 700 Euros per month than overweight with two bipasses living off 2000.

Latest top performance is expensive, and electronics in general are more expensive, if you haven't noticed. There are still plenty of Wi-Fi 5 devices, and a lot of networks don't go faster than 1 Gbps anyway. If you need faster, the USB-C port is capable of 5 Gbps Ethernet via USB-CDC NCM, so there's probably enough there to connect a 2.5 Gbps USB NIC.

The whole design is supposed to be open, so maybe you can gather a few friends and figure out how to install faster components that meet your expectations.

Where is the shovelware? Where's the killer app?
Shovelware requires some form of userbase. That doesn't exist anymore if every software solution any normal person can think of is just one Google query and one URL away. The Web has won. Nobody will go through the trouble of even installing software these days in most cases.

... might just give the IC industry the kick in the butt it needs, just like with spacecraft and electric vehicles. He recently stated that the whole IC-Fab thing is done wrong these days and that he might just end up eating a hamburger and smoking a cigar right next to a microfab with higher cleanroom efficiency to prove his point once the first Terafab is up and running.

I'm no engineer, but the "copy-exactly" and "clearroom design" of the late 70ies sure has become long in the tooth and my intuition says Musk might actually be on to something (once again). It's going to be fun to watch how this Terafab thing plays out.

I happen to know Germanys most popular fantasy author Bernard Hennen a bit. He is mentally preparing for AI to take his job and has been for a few years. He says it's likely that he'll just be managing and steering the world and it's characters and that AI will do most of the writing and come up with new ideas that he then decides on.

That sounds very plausible and AFAICT as someone who GMs table-top RPGs and does quite a lot of writing as a naked ape this is basically where we are at right now already.

... Did they really phrase it that way? If so, that would be the most *sshole move I've seen by corporate douchebags in a long time. And if so I can't wait for the bots to replace those folks too.

Obviously AI is taking most of the whitecollar jobs. This isn't really news anymore IMHO.

I can't tell you how relieved I am right now that I took a breadless diploma in performing arts mostly just based on personal interest, with zero concrete career aspirations in mind. The arts helped me with every aspect of life, personal, private, public and job, even though it was completely breadless.

That my days making money by developing software are numbered is obvious to me too. I got incredibly lucky with my current gig but since have morphed into an entire team of software experts with me as the lead basically telling AI what to program. Never been this productive. It's only a matter of time that AI will take my current position too.

Here's the harsh reality: AI doesn't work.

Looking at AI doing the job I just did a year ago I'd say AI is working pretty good. Better than me in fact. And waaaay faster. Basically replacing an entire team of developers. ... Perhaps you should look into the newest models?

Curiously enough, what won't be working for long anymore is Facebook itself, when it's just AI talking to each other. I never got why FB had a business case in the first place. But then again, I'm a computer expert that isn't to bedazzled about the ability to upload text, images and video to the internet.

If Ebola catches on and goes viral globally it will be a very serious problem. A true pandemic. The current death toll for Ebola infections is around 50%. We're talking Resident Evil/28 days later/I am Legend type shit.

I never quite got all the noise and hysteria about vaccinations going during CoViD 19 on either side and I always said we should - either way - be glad that it's just CoViD 19 and not Ebola 19.

If we now actually have global Ebola 26/27 on the menu, the fecal matter is going to hit the rotary air impeller at levels that will make SARS v2 / CoViD 19 look like a laid-back undressed rehersal during a beach vacation. I sure do effing hope this does _not_ happen.

Either way, I already got my Goggles, professional filter masks, water-filter, cooking gear and gas, etc. when the last reports about a SARS variant came around last Winter. I'm sure as eff not getting caught in some apocalyptic level pandemic without being (somewhat) prepared. That much I learned from CoViD. And everyone else should've too. It would be quite dumb to die an unpreventable death just because you where to cheap to drop 150 Euros on some basic survival gear.

... that this sort of problem you're describing is one where having a monotheic revelation cult like Christianity, Judaeism or Islam as a your cultural foundation can actually make sense and come with quite a few benefits. Having the universe humbling you does seem easier if you humanize it with a stern god that punishes hedonism and misbehavior in a world of abundance. One of the countless benefits such a cult does bring along.

... throughout the developed world. Especially for college grads. Same thing here in Germany too. The rate of unemployed academics has surpassed that of trades people, just like in the US. It's AI. Mostly.

Supporting Windows XP means modifying it to deal with changes in hardware and patching bugs, especially security problems. That requires on-going effort on the part of Microsoft, so it is understandable that they will not keep at it indefinitely. (You would, I imagine, justifiably feel ripped off if a year after XP came out Microsoft dropped support.) Keeping a game playable in the sense required by the bill just requires the publisher either to keep the server running or to distribute a version that allows players to run their own server. Neither of those requires the kind of ongoing effort that continued support for an OS would.

... he sure is effing serious about getting us back into space. Good stuff, like it!

... they're about selection. Mix those two things up and you won't get very far in solving this.