Personally, I find electronic payments to be a nightmare.

There is always an extensive, ever changing technological barrier there. It seems like every time I need to do something like that, there is some annoying compatibility problem - site accessibility, browser versions, OS versions, hardware compatibility, screen size, ad blockers, VPN, ISP network, e-mail blocking, and more frequently these days places require smart/cell phones even if you have a powerful computer sitting in front of you.

Try to deal with a new business/service/site and that means wasting lots of time learning how they want to to things this week. It is an ever changing maze.

A check, on the other hand is just a simple piece of paper. Write it, mail it in, done. No effing computer or smart phone required.

If you are on top of all of that tech puzzle and want to pay your bill electronically, that's fine. But don't be a pinhead who expects everyone to do everything the same way as you.

Meh. After all this time, I still don't own a smartphone. Don't want one. Don't need one.

Oh, the horror. People actually had to do their job instead of copying and pasting mashed up versions of other people's code using some third party service.

They should be putting a big fat button on their installer instead that says "create a local account instead of a ball-and-chain Microsoft account"

Why would ANYONE want to put logging in to their own computer under the control of some remote internet system? That's just STUPID.

But here we are, Microsoft has made it clear this bullshit is mandatory, so they can better watch and monetize everything you do.

I'm embarrassed to be a member of this country. For that matter right now I'm embarrassed to be a member of this planet, or even this reality.

Ok, wise salesguys, what does this magic AI enabled chip actually DO for me? Why should I want it?

I'm waiting for you answer.

Still waiting.

No answer? Then why should I buy it? I don't need it. I don't want if. You act all surprised that tacking on the letters AI aren't magically selling new PCs. The marketing hype still has sailsdroids brainwashed on this useless crap and someone still has enough money to bombard us with unwarranted praise for AI every five seconds.

It's like how Windows 8 tried to turn desktop PCs in to large cell phones. Nobody wanted that.

What needs to happen is all of these companies need to keep competent tech people on staff, and managers need to be punished for making bad decisions - such as allowing a critical update to go out unchecked. Or allowing such an update to come in to your network without another layer of checking. Or not having sufficient backup or contingency plans when systems go down.

Practically speaking, I think one real change that is needed, there needs to be a better, quicker, way to rapidly automate recovery of computers that are so hosed they won't boot their normal OS.

Blaming Microsoft for all of this is kind of like blaming the construction next door to Champlain Towers South for the building collapse. There is MUCH more to it than that. In both cases, the real culprit is a deep systemic management failure to make sure things were and are designed properly, built properly, maintained properly, and that problems are corrected before disaster hits.

But, you know, that all costs money, so it won't happen. Instead some security company will put on a show, come up with some new buzzwords, throw some AI at it, and nothing will really change.

"X.com Announces It's Ending Business Operations"

Now, that is how it really should read.

The local Walmarts here have locked up a lot of their items, that requires an employee to open the cases - even things like cheap hand lotion and men's underwear! (not ladies underwear? Huh.) And many more products are behind these flip covers, mainly intended to collect fingerprints, that scream "THANK YOU FOR SHOPPING AT WALMART, BITCHES! BWEEP BWEEP BWEEP" when you lift them.

The entire thing is really damn insulting. And for some kinds of people that is simply a no go. Personally, I would smash one of those flip covers things if it started yelling or beeping at me. And who is going to try to find an employee to unlock a case? It's Walmart FFS, where employees would rather spit on you than help you.

I heard the other day that Costco will start only allowing "member" in to their store. Why do people put up with "membership" bullshit and tracking cards?

Walgreens? I haven't been in one of those for ages. All the shelves of stuff are just a consumer trap for idiots going to their pharmacy. They already demand twice the normal amount if you don't have their consumertard tracking card. Locking up stuff there makes zero sense.

Of course, if you want to pay two or three times the price for something, go to Publix - Shopping For Rich People!

At the rate things are going, I fully expect in a few years, stores will have tanks sitting out in front pointed at you and a TSA style anal probing before you can go in. They will probably find some reason to require that you own a smartphone too just for good measure.

Time to nuke this planet from orbit just to be sure.

I can easily foresee any Walmart where they try this - broken, smashed, hacked, missing, flickering price displays, and the ones that work still don't display the correct price. They still won't put the products in the right place.

The "anti-theft" caging they installed this last year is already falling apart. A long time ago they used to have product price scanners located around the store but those never worked. Shelving itself is usually pretty dilapidated. They can't even keep their restrooms operating and clean.

I can't even begin to list how much cost and complexity such a devices would add over simple paper. I mean, you could run these off of a few tiny micro controllers and a handheld remote, but everything these days has to have a huge AI based cloud keeping track of everything, corporate service contracts, metric piles of Indians drooling the latest gibberish code, and so on.

I would have expected an unrealistic idea like this to float around perhaps 20 years ago when small flat panel screens were suddenly looking cheap and fancy. Such as the attempt to replace paper ads stuck to the front of shopping carts with displays. Where is that now? Ha.For a while, Walmart had tried placing screens spouting lout advertisements at the end of many isles. Also gone - people wound up avoiding those areas, at least when the stuff was working.

I'd imagine that the real motivation behind this crap is to display animated advertising, show LESS information (the paper tags usually have part of the UPC code so we have some idea which product it actually goes with), and getting brainless people to scan unique 3-d bar codes for enhanced tracking.

So are these boosted minimum requirements the previous boosted minimum requirements, or did they just now pull a new set of minimum requirements out of their asses again? I lose track since they started changing shit mid-version. Might as well just buy a new computer and throw it directly in the trash these days.

So what exactly CPU features is it that this glorious AI shit needs? ... Right, there isn't any actual CPU feature.

And what does this AI shit give me anyway? ... Right nothing anyone wants or needs.

Wait I, "can't use" this AI shit without a CPU that supports it? Well, stock up on those then.

Somewhat ironically, they just finished killing the last bits of Gmail classic, which was more or less their original user interface. Basic HTML and light weight enough it could be used over dial-up as well as with less capable web browsers.

I was still accessing Gmail classic via an old Firefox until a couple of weeks ago it finally started forcing a redirect.

Or, smartphones are really just annoying business tools, and the market has only been kept alive by the Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field (TM). Break that spell and everyone will go back to proper landlines.

Yea, so this is what modern communications have devolved in to. Communications by grunting via cell phone text messages. It is just too much to ask for people these days to elaborate on something or spell it out in enough detail to eliminate ambiguity or possible misunderstandings.

Of course, you know how they will "fix" the problem... add yet another Unicode character/emoji/unintelligible hieroglyph specifically for accepting a contract!

Because those pesky old letters A-Z are just too damn hard to combine in to ideas!

Imagine sitting at your desk staring at your screen and your annoying cow-orker comes up and stands behind your desk so you get a nice view of his crotch through your screen.

How about text contrast against a potentially moving background?

I already makes me want to reach through the screen and punch a web developer in the face every time I come across a web site that has a dizzying full motion video background that makes the entire site impossible for me to even look at.

I've long since gotten tired of translucent user interface elements back in Windows Vista/7 - Take a look at someones screen shots, and you get bits of the picture of their baby in the background or some dumb crap.

Of course, what will happen is Apple will start selling transparent screens, and then all of a sudden everyone is expected to have one, even if it kills them.