It does not annoy the rich and powerful. It annoys the (human) executive assistants of the rich and powerful, but that's what they get paid for.

Makes sense. According to leading environmentalists, coal use produces less CO2-equivalent than natural gas.

Though probably the best way to react to that isn't to replace natural gas with coal, but just to ignore the environmentalists.

My guess of why Ding uploaded to the Google Cloud: this was the only way to get the information out. That is, it couldn't be physically transported out of Google's office(s) otherwise.

If he could display it on his screen, he could exfiltrate it.

Thinking they will surely never go extinct, despite that having happened to the, what, 6 other alternatives?

Homo sapiens subsp. sapiens is probably the REASON those other alternatives didn't make it.

Tax software is one of the last places I'd expect AI to take over. Tax software is implementing a whole lot of very detailed rules and regulations to produce forms. Any sort of AI approximation, hallucination, or other slop is entirely unacceptable if you don't want to have the IRS auditing you and threatening to send you to pound-me-in-the-ass Federal prison. So no one in their right mind is going to say "ChatGPT, here's my W2s, 1099s, etc, produce a 1040 for me".

Thanks for making our standard of living the highest in human history. Thanks for keeping my house warm and lit. Thank you for helping cook my food. Thank you for helping me to get from point A to point B. Thank you for natural gas derived fertilizer, which helps provide the food I eat. Thank you for lubricating oils (the whales thank you for this one too). Thank you for plastics, in all their various and sundry uses. And thank you for combating the hair-shirting environmentalists who would have me freeze in the dark in the name of the climate.

Perhaps the lack of students will cause the universities to cut their tuition charges

They'd rather die. And they will.

The tech companies have been waving around stacks of bills around and saying "please take our money and build some power plants". So if Trump says "Tech companies have to pay for power plants", the tech companies are just going to say "OK".

Standard interview rules apply, which is that your "failures" should be, at worst, things that turned out really well but not 100% as well as you hoped.

I didn't have an Goldman-Sachs Apple card (last time I had an Apple card it ws Barclays), but I had the GM card when they ran it. Their site was down very often and they screwed up such basic things as sending me bills on time. Chase at least knows how to service credit cards.

I know Slashdot has lost a lot of audience, but I still think having it known here doesn't count as "confidential".

This. Stock options are zip until they're liquid. People learn this lesson in every startup boom.

Which isn't to say they might not be worth millions... but their valuations now are basically fiction.

It's the usual issues. If you acknowledge that homeless people are actual people who have problems which can be partially or fully solved, then you need to work on the problems.

You seemed to be confused. The goal is not to solve the problems of the homeless. The goal is to solve the problems caused by the homeless.

You know what Metrocard could do that Omny can't? Charge my commuter benefit Visa card -- you know, the one that lets you use pre-tax money to pay for the commute? I could buy Metrocard with it. Omny won't accept it. Of course when I call them they refer me to the issuer, who refers me back to Omny. Since it worked with Metrocard and it works with other transit systems, I'm pretty sure the problem is with Omny, but they don't give a shit.

Yes, but that 7mph IS about double their previous speed. You used to be able to win a race with the M14 by accident when walking briskly. Now you probably have to work at it.