TurboTax is so annoying. It doesn’t ever technically lie to you about all its useless add-ons. But, I wonder how much time the engineers spend creating a good tax filing product (making it easy to use, keeping up to date with new laws, forms, etc.) vs tweaking the hell out of the workflow to subtly (and not so subtly) guide you into giving them more of your money. Yes, I know: capitalism! I’ve got no issue with them turning a profit. I do have an issue with them clearly using various bits of UX trickery, that, unless you are a dolt, are clearly designed to obfuscate their true intentions. With a slight veneer of truth to prevent class action lawsuits.

(Yes, I have moved on from them, which is my ultimate solution. They still are dishonest)

Let’s take a disaster and start experimenting with a new payment scheme, that we know somehow is profiting someone. (Yeah, I know what stablecoin means).

Only in Trump world is this lunacy given credence.

Don’t you like how he took 10 billion taxpayer dollars and transferred it to himself, I mean the board of peace, without legislative approval , and there was nary a whimper.

Nuts.

Leaving aside the creep factor, I believe people just don’t want to interact this way. It’s goofy.

We’ve been down this road before with glasses, augmented reality, whatever.

“This time it’s different. It will actually be useful in ways you can’t even imagine!”

Well, that’s a little scary on its face. And I still recoil from the basic use case/form factor even assuming complete benevolence.

I thought they were going to re-write the whole thing in 30 days using AI. Weren’t they sleeping on the floor until they got it done?

Maybe that was social security. I’ve forgotten.

It’s so stupid. Do you honestly believe this will happen, where real money is on the table?

I am sure there’s nuance: he’s saying it *could* happen, I suppose, and only if companies endorse his view. If they don’t, and stay in the dark ages, then that’s on them.

Sounds like the same drivel we get from Muskie.

He’s probably been told by someone he’s not visionary enough. So he gets out there with some projection, because everyone is doing it, and no one seems to pay a price for getting it wrong.

Good grief.

I once saw a guy say his system sounded better after the new cables he bought “rested a few days.” I.e: stretched out on the floor, routed from his amp to his speakers. I’m no EE, but that sounds a bit daft.

As Trump pardons him, I can hear it now:
“He’s been treated very very very very unfairly. Very very unfairly. Some people say more unfairly than anyone. I think worse maybe. It’s a disgrace. “

Then onto the big-eyed blonde in the black turtleneck with the fake deep voice .

Seems like some cash, or a gold bar in the shape of the Msft logo, delivered in some sycophantic ceremony in the Oval Office should help here. All the cool CEOs are doing similar now.

Have you done an analysis of all his public statements on business ideas and compared them with reality? Me belief is it’s far worse than you are giving him credit for. How’s the car company doing? And self driving (that is: full self-driving where I can take a nap in the backseat). It seems like he’s bored with it, so, he’s given up. Now it’s robots. Billions of im not mistaken.

You should try not to buy into the whole “business bravado.” It’s tiring when it’s detached from reality. He think he’s being visionary. He’s not. His stuff is so unhinged, what I would call him is a futurist. Futurists are a dime a dozen. People have been writing books and spouting all sorts of wacky ideas like this for a century. Anyone can say “I’m going to make 1 billion robots, and they will do everything you’d ever want!”

You do realize that talk is cheap.

One tell that he’s got some issues: he’s always telling people that he’s sleeping on the office floor because he’s working so hard. Seems like he’s trying to impress just a bit too much.

But sure, at the end of the day, he’s on his way to being a trillionaire, and I am not.

Can someone shut him down for a while? I can’t remember where his switch is.

I know they dropped that motto long ago. I still find it both sad and funny.

It’s getting harder and harder to remain with their tools.

I do get value from YouTube to help with home improvement projects and electronics hobby how-tos.

But the level of crap that comes through. How do these guys take themselves seriously? Ads for get rich schemes, perpetual motion machines (some variant of ‘free energy’ devices), bitcoin, ed drugs, etc. I don’t have particularly salacious browsing habits. So I assume a lot of users in my general demographic are getting similar.

The guys at google love to think they’re changing the world, or doing some big useful tech projects. Face it, guys: you are just enabling a bunch of seedy con men in their efforts to fleece people. That’s it. You are no better than Craig’s list, or the back pages of various weekly newspapers back in the day. No different at all in terms of the crap you’ve become addicted to, and much worse in terms of your reach.

Seems like there is too much money out there.

Famously, they’ve been buying up residential homes and apartments at a torrid pace, with all the fun that will bring.

But they are also buying up small service firms like my plumber (and funeral homes, and insurance agencies, and medical/dental practices, and). My plumber probably has 100 employees. So, not tiny, but not huge, either. I knew the guy who started it. He sold out. I suppose I can’t blame him. First thing I notice next time I need help? Hourly rates doubled. Parts much more expensive.

I get these PE masters of the universe are going to buying and selling companies. It’s what they do. But can they stay off Main Street?

We will wake up 10 years from Now and none of the local businesses you use will be locally owned. I think that’s a bad thing.

Spare me any talk that they are providing some sort of efficiency service here. I bet my plumber’s business is well run. What they found was that they could charge a lot more for worse service. That’s all.

Well said. I agree.

I am consistently impressed with powershell. Yes, it is verbose sometimes. But I have been able craft some one liners that are useful, and ‘just feel right’ to me.

Tariffs are always and everywhere good. No one has better tariffs. There are no price increases. Prices have come down. Got it?

If Jassy doesn’t get on-script by the end of the day, he is toast.

No deviations from this world-view are allowed.

I’m shocked he could make such a juvenile error, actually. It definitely calls his judgement into question.

I disagree. I’m at a tech firm and all product groups have been instructed to add AI into their products. It doesn’t matter in which way. Any way. We just need something to say and look like we are doing something. So, get cracking.

I have had a single customer mention AI in the past year, and I’ve been on about 75 roadmap calls.