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Comment Re:King George the Third... (Score 1) 245

We're already in a second civil war. It was started by the left years ago.

We never finished the first one. The losers were allowed to keep their flags and their guns. Instead of trying to be one big happy country we should have freed all the Africans and enslaved the Southerners, since they love slavery so much. Then we could have them picking fruit right now.

Comment Re:Astonishing one company can do this (Score 1) 115

In fact, a significant percentage of them will probably get Windows 11 installed on them using the bypasses...

If that's the case, why won't the current owners just do that? Are we too stupid/lazy/rich to do that

Mostly too rich. There are potential problems we don't want to deal with, and will pay to avoid it.

so they can be used by people that get their power from coal-fired power plants and run native language OS versions with English keyboards?

They can probably get local character set equipped key caps from China.

Comment Re:There is already a safe subset of C++ (Score 1) 75

Closed world is like ethe transmission in a traditional car. All of the parts are created to exacting standards and fit together only one way. Transmissions are not user serviceable. Any modifications to the transmission likely degrade its functionality.

People can and do service their own transmissions, in particular doing a fluid and filter change is generally a pretty easy job. There are also modifications and upgrades to transmissions. You can buy "built" transmissions which include heavy duty parts which can handle larger power, torque, and/or shock loads than stock ones. There are "kits" of aftermarket parts which either address wear over time or even correct design deficiencies like either lazy or excessive engagement of clutches.

Comment Re:Kind of funny (Score 1) 73

He's talking about the money already spent and spending right now. Just the build out investments, given we're talking about trillions of dollars, must be boosting the economy.

What's the measurement? If it's "GDP" then sure, the economy is booming. But GDP is itself meaningless to sustainability, which is the most important thing to measure in anything you hope to keep doing. If you want to keep having an economy, for example, you have to keep having consumers who have money so they can participate in it...

Comment Re:The infrstructure will get reused when it pops (Score 1) 73

Just like we got a lot of cheap office furniture on eBay when the dot com bubble popped, I am sure there are going to be some firesales on cloud computing hardware or services when this horrid AI bubble finally pops.

Hardware, yes. But what will you do with it? It's only really good for a few types of task. Where it's GPU-based, as all the Nvidia stuff is, you could use it for lots of different types of tasks. But Services? Energy needs to get a lot cheaper for that to be feasible, because providing services on this hardware is predicated upon using a lot of energy.

Comment That's not how anything works (Score 1) 73

A bubble is "a good or fortunate situation that is isolated from reality or unlikely to last". What's good about it, profit for those who are profiting. Why's it isolated from reality, all three of those reasons. Why's it unlikely to last, reality is inexorable, no amount of ignoring it will cause it to change.

One bubble, at least three reasons why it's bubbling. Probably we could identify a bunch more, like nerd fantasy. One of the consequences of techbros being in a position to decide what society does with itself is that they will send us on tech-related wild goose chases.

The goal of making ourselves obsolete is typically self-defeating when we can't even agree to let humans have free time when they don't need to be working.

Comment Re:Astonishing one company can do this (Score 1) 115

C4C destroyed mostly old shitpiles with poor efficiency, so it was effective in reducing hydrocarbon emissions.

I suspect a lot of these machines will go to the third world and get refurb'd into PCs there, so people will benefit anyway. In fact, a significant percentage of them will probably get Windows 11 installed on them using the bypasses...

Comment Re:Already? (Score 3, Informative) 115

I've never used Windows past version 7. I definitely feel better off. 8.1 was ridiculous, 9 got lost, 10 peeked into your private life

Microsoft put the same telemetry they put into 10 into 7 and 8 via updates. Some of those were "updates" that included nothing but telemetry, sometimes they bundled the telemetry with actual updates so if you wanted one you had to have the other. There are scripts and other tools to remove those updates, but if you are not using those and you have been doing updates, they all spy on you.

Comment Ordered from Aliexpress, marked up for the US (Score 1) 41

Pretty much everything not big-name-brand that's on Walmart or Amazon is marked up 25% or more from the Aliexpress price for exactly the same product. If you're willing to wait for it to come from China, you can get the same crap for less. I've just placed an order for an item that's $200 on Amazon and was $150. I expect it to take maybe an extra week.

Comment Re:Where is the like button? (Score 1) 39

Calc will generate pivot tables, but not with a live WYSIWYG interface where you can tweak it as you go. It creates a new tab in your sheet after you fill in a dialog which is static, so if you want a current one or want it to be slightly different, you have to create it all over again.

I hear that these days it handles very large files OK, so IMO this is the last major feature needed before it can really be taken seriously as an Excel replacement.

Comment Re:Wrong Model (Score 1) 113

Large houses in hot climates don't have enough roof space to accommodate the number of panels you would need to displace grid power.

Simply putting panels between the sun and the house substantially reduces the need for cooling, even if you didn't connect them to anything, because the back of the panel is white and the other side is dark.

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