People would believe in the hardware if they put it out, because IBM is not really known for exaggerating specs. But they don't seem to be able to.

I don't want even a new Samsung phone with its crappy nonstandard apps, let alone an old one which also has old Android.

Mega corporation advocates for regulatory capture, this is my surprised face

Valid! (Including the gray and the beard, though my hair is still mostly black. Mostly.)

The point, though is that there are lots of grandmas with varying levels of computer knowledge, many of whom can and should be moved to a Linux system that is harder to screw up. Or, honestly even better, a good Chromebook.

On that topic, I did that for my father-in-law around 2010. I got tired of cleaning up the mess he made on his Windows laptop, so (with his permission) I upgraded him to Debian. It was hugely lower-maintenance for me.

The really funny thing about that particular case is that my father-in-law was a retired Full Professor of Computer Science! His problem wasn't that he didn't have the background or ability to manage a system himself, it was that he didn't want to. At his life-stage, the computer was a tool that he used, mostly as a web browser to buy parts for the farming and antique furniture refinishing that were his passions. Also, he had very thick fingers and constantly fat-fingered stuff, literally. What he really needed was a Chromebook with a full-sized laptop keyboard (a bigger-than-normal keyboard would have been even better), but Chromebooks didn't exist yet.

I'm a grandpa and I'm using a computer. My wife is a grandma and she's using a computer, too.

Sure, but putting storage online is cheaper both initially and ongoing than putting a bunch of GPGPU online, and in both power consumption and dollars. It can take up just as much space but use an order of magnitude less electricity, therefore be quieter, and have no one care

It might actually turn out good for IBM if the bubble pops sooner than later. Then they get to look smart for not participating when all the AI stocks (and the stocks of any other company that bet big) slump.

IBM has been more of a services company than a hardware company for decades, it's true. And yet, they are still a hardware company despite that, and their hardware is supposed to back up their services.

In fact if any politician caused the Internet boom it was Al Gore

"the race to AGI is of the same National Security importance as the race to be first for the Atomic Bomb.

Whomever reaches that goal first ( assuming it is reachable at all ) will enjoy an enormous advantage
over everyone else."

Or they just get burned for fuel first

Same for modern Christianity, despite women doing most of the reading of the religious works in the household at the beginning.

Faltered is right. Isn't IBM a hardware company among other things? Why didn't they have a hardware product to offer customers who wanted to experiment with throwing away money?

I wrote a file searching utility in C++ about 30 years ago. About 15 years ago I ported it to Python and found it to be faster than using the Windows directory enumeration APIs, and I've been using that ever since. It just searches filenames, but that's all I need.

"NOTE: Experiences vary by region." says to me that Microsoft doesn't even know what their changes will do.

It's so sad that your comment got a 5 despite your conclusion, which wasn't supported by the body.

They are literally advocating for democracy, which prompted you to cry communism.