Google says that patent expired in September of 2025, as it was filed in 2005. Yes, we are getting old.

Personally, I prefer the old rectangular Thinkpad charging connectors.

One could also just have business hours change instead of switching around the clocks. It's a bit more logical for humans to alter how they interact with time due to their needs rather than periodically switching what time represents.

Your use of the word "most" did not go unnoticed, and I am fully aware that the plural of "anecdote" is not "data." With that said, I have met plenty of people just like me in my career. I do not believe that "most" people running Windows shops" are "stupid and incapable." Some certainly are, but I've met plenty of dumb *IX people, too, especially back in the 90s.

I've met my share of assholes, too. Just saying.

Come the fuck on.

In my career, I have worked (professionally) with Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, Linux, OS/2, SCO ODT/OSR, a bunch of shit I can't remember, and every Microsoft server platform since NT4. My current environment is 98% Microsoft. That doesn't make me stupid and incapable, that's just where my career took me.

Is... English not your first language? I ask because you appear to be way overthinking this.

The metaphor was perfectly clear to me when I read it.

I don't know the protocol but old phone headsets had a 2.5 or 3.5mm jack with an extra ring that got you play/pause/hook/next/last.

Hypothetically that could have been implemented. I had a collection of Alexas that got binned as soon as they got caught spying for police so I never got that far. ESP32 is better for nerds anyway.

One thing Australia does right is a statute naming removal of features as a violation of contract requiring full refunds in these circumstances.

We use Hubspot. Here's what we use it for:

- the "live chat with support person" bubble on our web application
- single funnel for incoming/outgoing support tickets & support communications with our customers

Adopting it was an old decision.

We would love to not use hubspot; the service delivered vs. the ongoing costs seem like a bad deal now.

At some point, we'll get around to migrating to something else.

Err... definitely not "regional slang." Literally the dictionary definition of the word "hatch" i.e. "to emerge from an egg."

As Eric Raymond (ESR) says, AI is a force multiplier. My elaboration: If you are good at what you do, it will let you do accomplish more good stuff faster. If you are not very bright, AI will let you be not bright more efficiently, but it won't make you bright. It's just a tool. It needs to be utilized correctly. There is no shortage of things in this world that can do tremendous damage if not used properly. AI is nothing new in that regard.

"AI slop" is so 2024. That argument isn't valid any more.

I'm surprised you didn't use the word "slop". Spewing a bunch of slogans that would have to be more clever to make it on to bumper stickers makes you look like the people you are complaining about. There are legitimate criticisms to make about AI, and ways to support and defend those arguments. You are not doing that.

That nightmare scenario actually did play out not long ago near me. A woman from out of state was falsely ID'd by an AI camera of some kind and was detained for months and it wrecked her life.

My sentiment is that the process was wrong and that the officers and other parties involved in this should all be fired, and the woman compensated.

None of that is what normally happens; that is not happening "millions of times". That's why it was newsworthy when it _did_ happen.

It's hard to believe that a Jordanian teenager learned the PeopleSoft vendor integration API well enough to exploit it.

Probably somebody whose dayjob is related.

Maybe he was just Vibesploiting, but it seems less likely.

The original comment was philosophically open ended.

I made the example in my response very specific because arguing about hypothetical generalities is usually not productive.

The difference is this: it's difficult to ascertain if someone is guilty or innocent without arresting them. YOu don't arrest people via a random statistical sampling; you arrest via a biased selector: You arrest people you have high odds of beleiving are likely to be guilty. And you arrest them because you cannot ascertain their guilt via non-destructive observation. Without arresting them, they are allowed to simply walk away while you are trying to ascertain their status.

An arrest rate of 10% of all humans would be ridiculous.

A false positive rate of 10% _among the population of people you arrest_ is acceptable.

So the applicable comparison isn't "your cell phone doesn't work 10% of the time", the applicable comparison is "when your cell phone wasn't working, the tech support team guessed correctly as to the root cause 90% of the time, but guessed incorrectly 10% of the time"

IOW, 90% success rate with a 10% FP rate amongst a problematic cohort.

>No I maintain it would be pathetic performance by LEO if they were willy nilly arresting people hoping to bag the perp.

Nobody is advocating for that.

The cops should only be arresting people they have a plausible reason to arrest. If it turns out that 10% of the time their guess was incorrect, that's acceptable. They are not performing random arrests and getting a lot hit rate. They are doing targeted arrests and getting an ultra high hit rate.

>AI is being forced inappropriately into peoples lives with no opt out *everywhere*

I agree with you, and I also don't like that, and I think stopping that via market choices and legislation, as appropriate, is the right thing to do.

In my mind that's totally separate from what I am talking about and commenting on.

That said, you can make legislation so that you're not forced to use it (or be spied on by it), but you cannot make a law that stops AI development. If nothing else, the law won't reach beyond our borders. And eventually a nation hostile to you will develop ASI and then they will impose it on you (and worse)