And?

I own, but do not operate, a few IT companies that manage corporations in the $600MM-$1B receivables range.

Based on our own help desk ticket software, our clients have opened 40% fewer tickets since ChatGPT was rolled out to every desk and phone. 40%. I expect another 40% drop (total 80%) by next year as end users just manage things themselves.

I won't downsize as the tickets aren't really generating revenue as much as headaches. One of my engineers had a broken PDF file that took her 6 hours to fix, and the end user spent 6 days trying to fix it themselves with Ai.

But -- the basic stuff? Reboot your computer stuff? Email rejected because you mistyped a domain name stuff?

You don't need a human, and we would probably have outsource that stuff to India anyway next year if not for ChatGPT etc.

I spend quite a bit on Discord server services, but I'm out.

GFY, Discord and governments, for mandating this bullshit nonsense.

Talking to people in public isnâ(TM)t harassment.

Talking to people on taxpayer funded grounds also isnâ(TM)t trespass.

Tax funded?

Not private property anymore.

This is retarded.

1. It isn't for profit healthcare that is the problem, it's THIRD PARTY PAY.
2. I don't use third party pay, ever, for healthcare. I've been insured nonstop for over 30 years, and NEVER ONCE has my insurer paid my doctor.
3. Even when I've had emergencies, I still called around, negotiated a fair cash up front rate, paid cash up front, and billed it to my insurer. My cash up front rate was sometimes below any co-pay negotiated with my insurer, lol.

I just recently had some elective surgery that would have cost me about $2000 on my annual deductible, but I was able to cash pay a negotiated rate of $400 including a follow-up "free". I submitted the $400 to my insurer and they reimbursed me.

Third party insurance exists because YOU VOTERS demanded the HMO Act of the 1970s, which tied health care to employment, and then employers outsourced it to third parties.

Health care is remarkably cheap in the US (cash pay, negotiated) and I don't have to wait months to see a doctor when I call and say I am cash pay. They bump me up fast.

Nah.

Iâ(TM)m 51. Iâ(TM)ve had health insurance continuously for 35 years and have used it exactly ZERO TIMES.

I am self pay. For everything but true life threatening emergencies, which Iâ(TM)ve had zero.

Even the ER is cheaper when negotiated self pay.

My urologist is stunned that I pay $85 for his visits. Self pay. Including labs. My colleague goes to the same urologist and his insurance pays $550 for the same visit and naturally it comes out of his deductible lol.

Insurance is a scam. All insurance is legal gambling and gamblers never win.

Supply and demand dictate this is exactly the case.

If something is valuable to everyone, it should only be accessible to those who have enough saved value to acquire it.

The poor fucked themselves. My parents are poor but worked hard so I wouldn't be.

Being compensated for it means it wonâ(TM)t get wasted and will always have a fair valuation.

Compensation is as cooperative as it comes because nobody can hoard it.

It would be amazing if there was a document that stated in very clear terms just how limited our federal government is and what it can't do at all no matter what.

I am a owner of a FutureHome Smarthub 2 (soon to be sold), and my home transitioned to Home Assistant a few days ago. I have been following closely the situation for a few months now, including the reactions of the user community.

What is especially worrying is that the monthly fees are only nominally monthly - they are to be paid in advance for a full year. If they had been truly monthly I might have been tempted to test it for a month or two, but with this much money being asked up front I am not only worried about the actual value of the service (am I going to save that much on electricity?), I am worried that so few people will take up the offer that the company will be instantly wiped out.

Among the further genius decisions of new owners, this transition period was placed in July: the traditional Norwegian summer month, when half the country is in Spain or Greece, especially a lot of people with larger homes, children and available income (the key target customer group). A lot of them probably never noticed the change and will come home next week thinking the hub broke.

Now, while the TFA claims the MSRP of the FH Hub is $275, it is actually far cheaper - it is about $100, which means the annual fee is more expensive than the hub.

You need to understand that electricity in Norway is laughably cheap (no matter what Norwegians tell you). Today's average price I am paying is 7.81 USD per MWh, as an example. Electricity is so cheap that Norwegians use it directly for heating (even heat pumps are a dubious economic case). Some, including the guy who built my house, use direct electric heating to de-ice stairs (so that's what I am stuck with).

This means that the savings you can achieve with FutureHome are very limited. My largest successes in cost reduction were using a more careful planner for the entry stair de-icing resistance, which used to run anytime temperatures were low and now only runs when there are the right conditions of temperature and humidity. Electric cars (very common here) can also be scheduled to charge at nighttime, and the same goes for water boilers, with simple timers that can be bought for $5.

So the question FH users have been asking: what exactly am I getting for well over $100 a year? It is very unlikely that you would save that amount of money with the FH hub in Norway.

Everyone I know who makes my equivalent AGI, except for my household, has 1+ dogs, work crazy hours, and have been told that their dogs are lonely and depressed.

Not one or two people.

EVERYONE. Dozens upon dozens of my clients, colleagues, peers, friends from grade school, etc, have a dog or two, and then they have to have someone come spend time with said dog when they're putting 10+ hours away from them.

Wag/Rover/etc is part of their crazy consumer spending. I always am shocked to hear they're spending $1000 a month on their pets.

Americans are insane about their pets. Instead of buying a dog, I invest in corporate veterinary hospitals, because it's crazy profitable.

Lots of inaccuracies here.

Firstly it takes far longer to fill a hydrogen car than a gas car due to the careful rate control needed to fill the tank. If you have appropriate cooling and heating systems to maximise density while filling while also preventing the handle from freezing in place it still takes you >6min to fill a car.

Filling time for hydrogen cars is 3 minutes per industry standard. Also, the handle would not freeze in place, because hydrogen heats up when expanding (reverse Joule-Thomson effect): if anything it would warm up. And that happens only for specific pressure ranges (mostly from very high to almost empty tank).

On top of that hydrogen refueling stations do not store hydrogen at bulk pressures required for vehicles since having a large 700bar tank is hugely expensive and dangerous, instead bulk hydrogen is stored at a lower pressure and compressed before being put into small temporary storage and loaded into your car.

It's more complicated than that. There are often multiple tanks at different pressure, and they will be used sequentially to maximise efficiency. First the one with lowest pressure, then top-up with the higher-pressure tank. Promptness of refilling the high-pressure top-up tank is only related to compressor capacity, and this is easily upgraded when customer base increases; hydrogen compressors are off-the-shelf technology.

Also: tanks are not especially dangerous, the tricky parts are usually valves and flanges. Tanks are fairly standardised and are safe ex works; flanges are installed on site and that's where there is potential for errors to creep in. That's why a standing recommendation is to use hydrogen pipes that are "as small as you can get away with" for high-pressure lines.

... You do realise that Toyota has already developed this concept?

I am a researcher on hydrogen technologies at an independent institute and I have led EU projects for about 30 million euros, so I can claim I have some inside knowledge of the industry.

Stellantis never had any significant activity in hydrogen, so they are not really giving up anything. Of all the brands of the Stellantis group I have never met one at the meetings of the EU's Fuel Cell & Hydrogen Joint Undertaking; the only one that was ever active was FIAT, not very convincingly and very long ago: they bailed from the H2moves project more than 10 years ago, never heard from them since.

Other companies have much better developed hydrogen programs: BMW, Daimler, Volvo, each with its ups and downs. Volkswagen and their controlled Scania have a schizophrenic relationship to hydrogen since a previous CEO, Diess, was very much against, but a lot of engineers were in favour. Outside the EU it is of course Toyota and Hyundai that lead worldwide.

In any case, it has been clear for years that it is a lot easier to electrify cars for personal use with batteries, and hydrogen FCs have repositioned themselves for the heavy-duty market (trucks, trains, ships). Stellantis does not have any significant activity in this sector, so it makes sense for them to focus what little resources they have on batteries. Of course, if they had any competence in batteries, since they suck at them too.