I've been very wary of AI since the beginning, but I'm starting to warm up to the [careful] use of it. Here's where I've found it to be extremely useful in my daily life as a contract software developer:

1. Parsing data: I love being able to upload a CSV of some random data to [insert favorite AI tool here] and have it return specific results. Like "Take this CSV and return MySQL insert statements with columns x,y, and z, ordered descending by the "Date Added" column". Another example was when our local county fair decided to publish an _alphabetical_ list of their scheduled performances in PDF form. There was no easy way to plan a day to visit the fair and decide which performances we'd like to watch. I used ChatGPT to distill several PDFs down into a chronological text list of performances, grouped by date and sorted by time. That would have taken me a LOT more time to do manually or with a hand-built script.
2. I've been playing with the "cursor" IDE (https://www.cursor.com) for some of my projects, and it's almost scary how well the autocomplete works. I'm old-school and am used to crafting HTML code for a web form, then copying the HTML to another script in a comment block to do the actual form processing. The Cursor IDE actually _mostly_ recommended all the code needed to process said form post data and insert it into my database. It even removed the comment block when it noticed I had addressed all the form fields. I'm still blown away by the time saved by it!

But like others have said, _always_ verify the outputs of the LLM you are using, because it's not 100% accurate.

Definitely this ^^^!

We've had an EcoTank printer for several years now and it's served us very well. The only issue we've seen is with elderly parents who hardly ever print, the printer can dry out and refuse to print if left alone for extended periods of time. Not an issue if you have a busy family that's printing all the time!

One thing to be aware of with the EcoTank printers: they have a "maintenance box" (that's the actual name!) that requires replacement after 2-8 years depending on usage. This component collects excess ink during the printing process. When the printer decides the Maintenance Box is at EOL, it will simply refuse to print (although the scanning and other functions remain active) until the Maintenance Box is replaced. This got us a couple times when we really needed to print but had to wait a few days for a new Maintenance Box to arrive.

"No Artificial Intelligence" in the spec for a new project. At first came as a bit of a shock to me since I've been slowly warming up to the idea of "AI" being a useful tool as a developer (not just in code analysis/completion, but for use in client projects). Upon further thought, the project in question relates to safety when it comes to vehicle calibration/diagnostics after a collision, and rather than rely on "AI" to make decisions, I'd much rather have a human in charge of creating the rulesets that govern the operation of the application.

MHO, we don't need a "hallucination" causing a calibration to get overlooked and thus a real-world accident to occur with tangible loss of property, or worse, someone gets injured or killed.

Actually the "strike" is from a small "hammer" mechanism being slammed into the piezoelectric crystal by pressure released from a spring.

This video shows it well: https://youtu.be/Tbjc19Z89ic?t...

Agree 100%... I worked for a company years ago and the CEO went to Vegas to one of their "Dreamforce" events. Came back and announced to the whole company that he had signed on for a 3-year contract and we'd be moving everything from an on-premise MRP solution to a Salesforce "solution" that ended up being a bunch of 3rd party add-on modules each with their own billing account, etc. Plus it was ~$250 per hour for any "customization" work.

They ended up spending months trying to make it all work before abandoning it completely (and likely paying very high fees to get out of the contract) and moving on to something else. It was a nightmare!

I was able to get Apple's "Notes" app to crash as well with that search string.

A couple years ago we moved and tied to "port" our existing landline to the new address. Seemed like an easy move, just like all our other utilities, since there was copper at the new address. We were wrong.

After 8+ months of going back-and-forth with AT&T, and given every excuse from "the work crew had to stop digging because of the rain" to "one of your neighbors isn't allowing the crew to work in their yard", we were told that the lines were too old (installed in the 1970's) to be repaired to the point of being able to provide us a POTS line like we were used to. This was despite having given us multiple "activation dates" up to that point. They tried to offer us some sort of VOIP solution.

We declined and decided to try Spectrum's "voice" service since we already used them for our ISP. We were able to plug our home phone system into one of the phone jacks in the back of our Cable Modem and it's worked fairly well for us so far. We have a UPS on all our networking gear, so *hopefully* we can still use the "land line" when the power goes out. There's some decent online tools for managing blocked numbers, voice mail, etc.

We would have considered just utilizing our mobile phones like a lot of friends/family, but the wireless coverage isn't the greatest at our new address.

So I agree, although it was comforting to have a copper POTS line, the future really is in VOIP.

Maybe you're thinking of Insignia? That is definitely a "Best Buy" only brand: https://www.bestbuy.com/site/b....

^ This. When I worked as a developer for a major corporation, I was let go due to a "last hired first fired" policy when the department got downsized. Before I even realized I was being let go, my network access suddenly stopped working. I went to my boss's office to ask about it and he said "there's some people from corporate in the conference room that want to see you". They handed me my severance check and I was escorted out of the building by security with a few of my personal belongings and mailed a DVD with personal (non-work) documents from my company issued laptop a few weeks later.

Looking back, although this was painful to go through, it was the correct way to handle it from the company's perspective. You never know how people will react when they find out they are being let go. Better to be safe than sorry. It still doesn't excuse the individual for their actions, but the company should have handled this better.

From the research paper:

and

This definitely seems to be GPU-related, even if it's an "iGPU"...

I highly doubt he would be granted a patent even if he applied for one... I've been involved with several software projects and it's extremely difficult to get a patent granted over a strictly software "idea" because the USPTO often sees those as "abstract ideas" and will refuse to grant patents for them. Especially for software that is very similar to already existing "prior art" out there (in this case, any IM platform or SMS/private messaging software already in use.)

More info here on the USPTO website

Years ago I was managing a Windows server for a [very small] startup I was working for .... the server was co-located in a data center about 20 miles away (we had absolutely no support from the NOC, other than verifying our IDs and escorting us to our server, but hey, the price was right!). While troubleshooting a network issue remotely over RDP, I thought to myself, "OK so I'll just disable the network interface and re-enab..." suddenly to realize the only recourse was to drive 20 miles, go through several security checks, wheel over a KVM cart to our cage and connect it to our server to manually re-enable the now disabled network card. Talk about a waste of time! We quickly learned to have multiple NICs and an IP KVM we could utilize if needed. Not one of my finer moments either!

Yes, but you'd still have to worry who was doing what with the data once it left your guest network/vLAN. Nobody really knows what happens to their video and audio data once it leaves their network and gets stored/shared by unknown entities.

Even Apple is in the news lately for being mostly secure, except if you enable iCloud backups, they can decrypt your data if needed.

Same here -- I couldn't even attempt the installation for the better half of the day here due to the overloaded servers. I kept getting an odd message like "An error occurred installing the selected updates" and I did experience some very weird system pauses and hangs before I was able to actually download and install the update (turns out these were due to Apple's "gatekeeper" web services being online but very slow to respond).

The actual download only took about 15-20min for me at 450mbps, and after about another 15-20min of reboots and progress bars, the installation was complete.

So far after a full day of working with Big Sur, it's been a fairly pleasant experience. I was happy to see that my VMWare installation still works, and every other application I used ran flawlessly. The reorganization of the top bar (especially placement of the search and clock icons) is taking awhile to get used to.

It is interesting to see Apple moving back toward a more "skeuomorphic" UI than before, with more rounded corners, extra padding, and "3-D" looking icons with more depth. It reminds me of automotive trends that gradually switch between angular designs and smooth curves every few years. Comparing Big Sur to the latest iPadOS, it does seem like the two operating systems are converging more than ever; I anticipate this will accelerate even more once Apple is on compatible ARM hardware for the iPhone/iPad/Mac with the M1 announcement. Interesting times indeed, but I'm optimistic and excited about the future and where Apple is headed.

Are you sure? News reports are saying it was from Alzheimer's disease, not Covid-19.