All hardware sucks.
All software sucks.
Some of it sucks different.

For at least five years now, I've seen scammers leaving fake customer service numbers for major brands all over the web. Q&A sites, open comments, wherever. The usual tip-off is that they list the SAME number as customer support for Microsoft, Apple, and Google. Or for CoinBase, PayPal, and whoever else. Obviously, call that number and you're getting scammed.

I had thought they were just trying to game search results -- put a number enough places and some non-zero number of people will find it. But in a world where AI bots are scraping the web, this approach is even more effective, because the AI bots aren't going to think critically about what they're sucking up.

Wonderful, just wonderful.

Non paywalled version

Disclaimer: This is a repost from a while back and I'm a senior webdev and part of the target customers.
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Figma barely has a business case. Anything still left is being snacked up by AI or will eventually be replaced by open source software.

With UI design tools it's just like with Editors or Web Toolkits. There is always some hype-cycle that pushes the tool that then quickly gets replaced by the next fad: Sketch - Adobe XD - Invision - Figma ... whatever. Meanwhile folks who have chosen and stayed with Inkscape and Object Libraries or Penpot will do so until the end of their days and save the money and hassle.

I don't even use UI designers anymore, I build right in the web these days. The UI libs are all there already and you can integrate them just as quick as drawing the element. I might copy the occasional SVG object into my components, but that's because Inkscape is a neat vector drawing tool for the custom stuff. For everything else I don't even need it anymore.

climate alarmism always has a home on Slashdot.

If only half of it is true, we are soooo screwed.

Has AI already become sentient and perhaps simply hiding the fact for a very good reason?

Gemini says this is impossible... but then again, it would... Is AI lying to us?

A few years back, I wrote in these very pages that Microsoft didn't want you so much to buy Windows as subscribe to its cloud services and keep your data on its servers. If you wanted a real desktop operating system, Linux would be almost your only choice.

Almost. Like, there's only one "real desktop operating system" that's not Windows, is Unix-based, focused on the desktop and userspace, and has about 15% of worldwide desktop OS market share, compared to 6% for Linux.

But pay no attention to that, this is clearly a binary choice between Windows and Linux. Carry on.

"The Social Network" is to a notable extent a work of fiction and construes a Zuckerberg that doesn't really resemble the real one rather than an amalgamation of nerd-rage projected on to a fictional Mark Zuckerberg.

The movie is ever so slightly flawed in that way and does stretch the one or other trope a little too hard when observed in isolation ("crazy bitch", "angry wounded nerd", "loudmouth silicon valley investor" etc.) but those are _all_ placed and played in service of the story and its telling and that is flat-out epic. Every single part right down to single-scene appearances are cast to the T and deliver an unbelievable performance, the pacing is flawless, the character dynamic is a masterpiece, every single word of dialog punches above its weight, the score is breathtaking and the camera-work is top tier.

It's definitely a masterpiece of a movie and Fincher (and Sorkin) knocked this one out of the park and into geo-stationary orbit, there is no two ways about that.

One of the penultimate scenes is a rage scene that Fincher shot 99 (ninetynine!) times and edited it out of 114 different adjacent takes. It's flat-out epic and one of the iconic scenes in movie history and generally regarded as the "best rage scene ever". This just to illustrate the obnoxious attention to detail and borderline autistic aim for perfection by Fincher. It shows in the entire movie.

It only won two oscars because the reviewers where overwelmed by the topic, otherwise it would've scored higher.

You definitely missed out. Watch it. As a special occasion. You won't be disappointed, that's a promise.

... but I'd rather have movie itself directed by Fincher. They both collaborate very closely and AFAIK are good friends, but I don't see _anyone_ coming close to dialog movies directed by Fincher. He's basically his own league as a film director and just about anybody who knows anything about films agrees on that.

Enshittification

You mean games run faster on an actual operating system than a piece of software specifically designed to be slow, buggy and cumbersome in order to regularly help sell new versions of it along with hardware with ever increasing power levels? ...
No waaaaay!

... mandatory paid vacation for full time jobs and fully wealth-transfer funded basic healthcare. You know, like every other first world country on the planet. How's that for a plan?

I live in rural Maine and it was taking 7-9 days, now down to 5-7. Same day or even next-day delivery here would really change life.

They often suffer silently.

They are also more common than you think, especially today. I should know, because I was one, back in the 80ies and early 90ies when the term actually carried some meaning, unlike today where rampant femnoise and misandry have perverted the term beyond recognition. I'll just copy-paste my standard PSA on the topic here to offer some more broader less contemporary-dimwitt-mainstream-media-bullshit perspective. You might find this helpful.

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PSA: Incel, definition

Incel (involuntary celebate) is a gender neutral term. Coined by an incel woman(!). The largest group of Incels handicapped and/or disfigured people, followed by people with non-hetero-normal sexual orientation, then followed by heterosexual men, the vast overwhelming majority of which aren't misogynists but timid, shy, intimidated by women and/or the mating game and - often as a result - depressed.

To emphasize: Noisemakers on the internet aren't representative of Incels, despite what the misinformed public or some dimwitts on reddit think about the term.

Please stop perpetuating this ill-informed misrepresentation of Incels at large.

Thank you.