Monopolies have always been legal. Abusing one is not. It's literally never been against the law to be a monopoly.

Just wait until Claude impregnates your dog while OpenAI and Grok film it for Meta to post online.

Yes, sadly, they do not cure mental illness.

T-Mobile is on one hell of a downward spiral. It's actually impressive.

It's easy to blame Intel but that was a joint venture with Micron and Intel. IMFlash out of Lehi Utah. Micron was every bit as responsible and if I remember right still holds most of the patents.

You could even make the case it was Micron that killed it because they dumped the entire thing on Intel and sold off the Lehi fab. Without Micron sharing manufacturing costs and with scaling difficulties lagging behind traditional NAND bit density improvements, Optane became financially unviable.

Astra correctly answers all 10 questions in the $2000 lightning round!

And now on to the final round. To win $32,000 cash, a brand new Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser, and an all-expense paid vacation for two to Puerto Vallarta, all you have to do is answer this single question to the satisfaction of our judges:

The Riemann Hypothesis: True or False?

Depends on the studio and position. A very well paid senior programmer might make $150k-$170k in the US. But that's pretty much the top end of the scale. Salaries in the game industry are infamously low because it's so FUN. Aren't you grateful to have such a FUN job? It's FUN, be grateful that you make any money at all so you can be creative!

Designers make less, Artists make less. QA makes WAY less (which is a travesty, because we depend on them so much in the development cycle. As a programmer, I probably talk to QA as much as I talk to design).

But if you're a Canadian programmer, you might make $150k and live in a city like Vancouver which has insanely high housing costs. Maybe you have kids, or pets.

You've kind of hit the nail on the head with regards to the issue, though: many developers aren't paid particularly well, even by huge companies that make billions of dollars (and indeed, that's why the companies are so profitable).

I interviewed at Roblox, and their salary ranges STARTED far beyond where most studios ranges ENDED for my position (Senior Programmer, 20 years experience). They told me that they consider tech companies like Google to be their competition for talent, not other game studios, so their salaries are adjusted accordingly.

So yeah, very easy to believe that people are feeling the pinch after getting laid off. It's not a lucrative industry for the workers.

Isn't limited to reddit. It's every social media site and almost every comment section online. I'm actually appreciative of the sites that don't have comment sections or require an extra click to view them these days.

Truth Social I'm sure. As hard as it is to believe, there are still people who think Trump is a genius, and still want to "own the Libs".

Call centers have been absolute shit for 30+ years.

I've done a lot of incident response, and was a certified trainer for over a decade. One of the things I've observed is that the higher the reliance on technology among the party, the higher the probability that they'll require rescue. People who can read a topo map, can use a compass, who understand the importance of carrying more water than they think they'll ever need, and who have a (tested, working) flashlight rarely get into trouble. People who rely on Google/Apple/whatever maps, who are glued to their cell phones, who can't read a map or use a compass, set themselves up for issues. Of course, thankfully, most of the time those issues don't arise or are minor. But when they're not...

In this particular instance: 6000 feet of elevation gain is rather a lot. I've done 5000 up/down in a single day, but that's a LONG day even for someone who's fairly fit and accustomed to the exertion. Anyone who's not in shape is going to really struggle not just with the exertion but with the altitude, and we see in this instance, as they fatigue they may stumble and/or fall. It's just not a good idea, even for (let's say) young people who are physically active, go to the gym, play a sport or two -- because it's a very different kind of physical activity and because you can't just stop when you've had enough.

Aside: experienced trail runners make all of us look silly. I remember slogging my way up a trail at 11,000 feet when I heard the quick tap-tap-tap of one behind me. He went by with a quick "Morning!" and just kept going. I was still slogging my way up at about 12,000 feet when I saw him coming toward me, on his way back down -- same tap-tap-tap at the same pace, just out for a casual morning trot while we ordinary mortals were trudging along. I'm willing to bet that he did that trail often enough to know every rock, to have every step mapped out in his brain, to just dance his way up and down.

This particular one was exquisitely susceptible because it was managed by a stupid, corrupt crypto bro (yes, that's redundant; all crypto bros are stupid and corrupt) but there are similar ones managed by allegedly sober people with decades of investment experience...and they're not immune to the same market forces. The hype/mania around AI valuations will eventually collide with reality -- and perhaps "eventually" is "soon". A few people will make a fortune (and already have, on paper at least) and a lot of other people will be screwed.