That is where the "assholes" comes in.

How is it an asshole move to tell customers there is a minimum 15 minute wait, so they know what to expect - meanwhile the companies that HIDE a minimum wait are not the assholes??? What the heck.

It may be stupid to have a minimum wait but telling customers what you are doing is ALWAYS better than hiding things like that from them.

I only upgrade every two years or so at this point (and then only for camera improvements really).

So it's lucky for me that my last upgrade fell on the 15 Pro! I was a little sad I wouldn't get to try the Visual Intelligence stuff but now I'll be able to, very kind of Apple not to make me upgrade to get it.

Heck who knows maybe I could even wait until after this year if there's enough back ported stuff (and they don't put anything amazing in this years camera update).

But they don't transmit all your search data and response valuation to Apple.

The search photo and response may run through Apple (not if offline) but Apple doesn't "see" any of it, please read up on the details of how Apple keeps server AI private even from Apple.

You don't use dark mode to save electricity,

On mobile devices with OLED screens, Dark Mode actually does save electricity because black pixels require much less power to display.

Interestingly, that story (from 2021) sort of says something similar to what the article here says, in that it doesn't help much. However it also states if people are turning up brightness higher anyway dark mode savings can be pretty significant, so I don't know if the main story linked here has factored in how much dark mode saves on a higher brightness setting of if they are using a baseline power savings from a lower display brightness.

A bit of a counter take I'm sure, but thinking about it a little there are two good sides:

1) A lot of people probably do need to just read the docs a bit more carefully, or to look online, to find the answer they are seeking. Or even just an AI pass asking it what to do!

2) If I actually need to call a company with this policy, it's kind of nice to know there is a minimum as I can simply put the call on mute for 15 min and start a timer, doing anything else I want. The real horror of support calls is not knowing if you are going to be done in five min or out in five hours...

Instinct...that's how I code. I can feel the sweet smell of algorithm floating on the breeze.

You joke but this is not far from the truth in a lot of cases, you can tell which way is going to be better to go in terms of architecture by feel.

I'm also not going to judge anyone for weighing algorithms by smell. :-)

No argument that having a few extra pairs of eyes, including one always looking behind you, would have stopped the United Health care exec from being killed. The attacker was not especially rapid.

But realistically is anyone going to hire this service 24x7? It seems like if you hired a service like this there'd always be some kind of gap in coverage someone could find just by watching you for a few weeks. I got the feeling Luigi was actually keeping tabs on the guy for a while in order to know when he was going to be coming out of that building 9or that he was even there).

Is Zelle "highly popular"?

I do some online purchases of various collectables from individuals (got tired of eBay fees) and a lot of those take Zelle. I think it has gained some traction since so many banks make it easy to use.

I still personally prefer Venmo for a little separation from my bank. Plus some Zelle integrations have failed for me in the past.

Note to self: Always spring for the helium drives when storing really valuable data.

This seems like a distraction for the driver. Distractions cause accidents. Accidents cost money.

This is very true! You might wonder "how can it matter if you are stopped"?

But even fully stopped you have to be aware if people are coming from behind you not knowing you aer stopped, so you can brace or avoid.

Or if you are distracted you might not notice a light just turned and fail to go, again getting rear-ended by the driver behind you coming in at a speed that assumed you would start moving.

Just never a good time to surprise a driver on purpose for something not vital to the operation of the car.

Heck even just the chime and subtle message my car puts on on the bottom of the screen when the temperature reaches 37 degrees, I often find annoying and distracting as I have to search out the cause for the chime!

Interesting note about it being SMS only, I had not seen that anywhere. Still useful though for the aforementioned checkin uses.

What would people say the odds are the drive can even be read at this point?

Sitting outside in English weather for years... I'm assuming some old platter drive, it seems like by now the case would be rusted through and if the elements got to the platters it has to be toast, right?

I was always happy I could potentially use my iPhone in the wilderness to send emergency SOS messages via satellite. It made me feel a lot more comfortable going on remote hikes.

But this is way better - using this I can just send status updates as often as needed along with background location updates to others back home.

And, best thing, this is not limited to iPhone (AFAIK)!! I don't know if Android devices had this same remote satellite SMS in recent years, but if not now they have this option.

I just wonder what speed would be like and just how much out in the open you have to be to use this.

Pretty rich you are concerned about Musk when just a few weeks ago we had teh story about Chinese hackers having full access to all Treasury Department computers!

Musk is well vetted and does not NEED your personal info, nor was he even looking at that part of the data - unless YOU have received payments from the U.S. treasury?

why would any employer want second-rate code from an in-house programmer when they can cheaply copy the first-rate stuff?

I've been a professional programmer for decades and have been trying to work AI into my workflow for a while now.

The thing is almost every time I ask AI to do something, what I get is not that first rate stuff you are talking about. It's often stuff that is incomplete or doesn't even work at all without modification. And yes, coding is not at all immune from hallucination as it will also simply make up whole Frameworks to link to, that do not even exist!

So what companies will get that mostly use AI is a lot of second rate stuff, that I am highly dubious will fare well in maintenance and changing over time.

Maybe sometime it will improve but it seems like a bad idea to plan for that being inevitable when we are not really close yet to any kind of really remarkable level of ability.

If you know how LLM's work you can see where there might be a wall of ability an LLM simply cannot climb beyond.