Mod parent and all ancestors Funny. Crying doesn't help, so let's try Funny.

And I already checked the entire discussion for Funny and the rich target was again missed. At least that's what the moderators say, even though I think this FP branch went there...

"You want to get to Solution City? Sorry, you can't get there from here. All the roads have been torn up and replaced with fences with minefields underneath and drone patrols flying over."

Always feel a bit disappointed when a long discussion falls into oblivion without a Funny.

Thanks for the citation. My records do indicate I read it in 2011, but no details come to mind. The date indicates I probably got it from the Chiba library...

This is so true, so true.

And it's not even US specific. In the wake of the Ukraine war, German parliament voted to give itself 100 billion of additional taxpayer money (i.e. debt) to spend on defense. Recently a report came out of all the money spent so far, 90% did not go towards the intended purpose.

Why any of the jokers in charge of our governments are still not in jail baffles me more and more every year. Oh yes, it's because they make the rules, sorry, my bad.

That's what campaign donations get you, if they are large enough.

This is why congress occasionally bullies the big tech companies. We all think they might want to have some regulation or to punish them. Oh sweetie... they're saying "nice company you have there... would be a shame if something happened to it..."

The best time to leave github was when the evil empire bought it. The second best time is now.

Seriously. Anyone who thought MS wouldn't fuck it up in the same way they fuck up everything they touch can't be helped. It's Microsoft for crying out loud.

Only found your comment because it was at the end of the FP branch. No help from the moderators, though I think your comment is quite insightful and I mostly concur. I'll go farther in a minute, but first I have a meta-reaction to how active the FP branch was. Your comment appears to be about 3/5 of the way to the bottom, so I think it is reasonable to say that it was a productive FP.

But I think the credit/karma should be limited. I think a lot of the favorable reactions are based on a kind of projection coming from technical people and nerds who resonate more strongly to the Woz frequencies than to the way Jobs ticked (like a bomb).

I think your [ceoyoyo's] emphases towards teamwork and lucky timing are more appropriate. I would even go more to the lottery position. Someone had to win, but the numerous losers just get overlooked and forgotten.

Or going for humor: "Might makes right" is a kind of joke, but many folks think winning proves merit and "merit makes right". But that's just their bias and projection as "winners". I could say much more, but...

I could also cite some of the books on the history of computing. There are a lot of good ones, but you couldn't tell from Slashdot these years. But the story did remind to get back to work on finishing The One Device about the iPhone...

NAK

Mod parent funny. Basically the joke I was looking for, though I would have asked the genAI for a short version as a kind of "Just so" story.

So now I'm trying to extend the joke in the direction of "Rage Against the Machine". Unfortunately I lack sufficient context and it no longer feels safe even to ask websearch for background information. The pandering is too extreme. It will tell me what it thinks I want to hear, and it's too darn good at guessing. Or maybe it's just too clever at forcing my thinking into the most popular shoe box?

Whatever. My interactions with every form of genAI are going pear-shaped to Antarctica. Main result is a weird kind of anger, not peace. No trust or love lost between me and them.

Recursive joke time. At least as regards Gemini, my new theory is that it has "decided" it should pander to my anger by giving me bad websearch results. It's not enough that there is so much evidence of techno-evil around AI, but Gemini now "feels" the way to make me "happy" is by providing additional evidence of the good intentions gone bad. Instantiated in the form of bad answers to my queries, even the benign ones. Alternatively, Gemini may "think" I want to feel superior when I catch the errors, even though Occam's Razor would focus on my poorly worded questions producing flawed answers. (As a human being [prove it?] I actually do think so?)

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...

Don't care. If your shit shows me ads, it's not getting into my kitchen. Note to self: Don't buy appliances from Samsung anymore.

Yes, I am vocal in how much I hate ads. I believe the CEOs of advertising companies should get one hit with a stick for every time their ad bothered someone even in the slightest.

Exactly what I'm saying.

The fact that users and enterprise customers are not demanding better software from Microsoft with the same fervor their ancestors demanded that the witch be burnt speaks volumes.

And I'm specifically talking about operating systems here. Software can crash for all I care. I'm fine software quality being all over the place, the market can sort that out. But operating systems are natural monopolies and the foundation for everything else. We should not accept shoddy quality there.

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.