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Comment this means absolutely nothing (Score 4, Insightful) 39

Anyone familiar with AI is painfully aware that AI models are ONLY good at what they're trained to do. If you train it to pass your interview, then of course it's going to be very good at that. But as soon as you take a step or two away from what it's been training on, it will be anywhere from bad to horrible. And what's worse, they often have an absurdly high level of confidence in their wrong answers when you go off training.

Comment Re:Price hikes like that (Score 1) 45

that's what I'm assuming. Their recent hike from $10 to $12 seemed entirely reasonable. And then this HUGE hike they just pulled off is just off the charts.

I gave up hosting my own mailserver a few years ago due to the obsessive mail server security hikes that basically made it impossible to host my own mailserver at my own house anymore. RBLs, certificates, etc. So I just gave up and went to Rackspace because their prices were reasonable. $10 a month for basically just an email is a bit high, but reasonable. And now i have to change again.

I've had my own email domain for decades, and I have NO intention of changing my address to a Gmail. But I only have a few weeks to hunt around, make a choice, and make the change. It's likely they'll be getting a month of their blood money from me before I can get my exit plan figured out.

Like you, I'm assuming they're doing the collosal hike to get out of the consumer email business. When I did a text chat with them the rep flat out refused to acknowledge that I was a private individual and not a company. Even after I'd told him several times that I was an individual with a personal domain, he still continued to talk with me about "your company". So I have to assume they've been told to ignore anything the customer says and treat everyone like a company / business. If you're not a business, they no longer want you as a customer, you're not made of money.

Their service has been good, it's a shame they don't want to do business with us anymore. Who's a good alternative for "the common man"? I'm looking for 2-3 email addresses, with capabiity of handling hundreds of aliases. (used for controlling spam and tracking places I sign up for / sources of spam and marketing emails for easy disconnection)

Comment not even a little bit (Score 0) 129

We don't know enough about how the brain works (at a higher level) so we can't make something that WORKS like the brain. The best we can do is make something that BEHAVES like a brain.

LLMs and other AI implementations can be thought of as "brain emulators". They're trying to achieve similar behaviors any way they can. Our current technology could be looked at as "serial", where as brains work almost exclusively in parallel. It's still possible to build a neural network that works like a brain at a low level, but it's hideously inefficient and has absolutely no organized higher functions, so there are almost no practical applications for that approach.

The brain is the result of millions of years of random mutations being selected for what produces the best results. There was never any plan, no design, no intent. And we're trying to plan and design for specific intent. That approach will never produce a working brain. We'll continue to get better at emulating a brain, but we're never going to design one, because it can't BE designed.

Comment china's figuring it out (Score 4, Insightful) 22

In some ways China has much better consumer-protection laws than the USA. Big business over there doesn't have nearly as much control over legislation and government operations.

It's rather ironic that our basis of government, originally intended for personal freedom, has been so heavily leveraged by big business that it can block the majority of common-sense limitations on market control.

Comment how'd it take this long? (Score 3, Interesting) 37

What shocks me here is how long it took to become such a popular thing? Parking domains isn't that expensive, but certainly isn't free, especially in large numbers. The people doing the parking are basically squatting on property they speculate will have value down the road. They may as well collect a little "rent" on them while they squat?

I can remember when "domain tasting" first became a thing, I looked at it and thought, "This is a TERRIBLE idea, it's going to make it more expensive for people to start up their own web site and 'interesting' domains are going to be unobtainable by the average person just because some squatter thinks they're parked on gold." No random person is going to pay thousands of dollars for a domain name they fancy just for a hobby, so it's just going to stifle small private sites.

I don't know how it currently works, but back when it started you could "taste" a domain for months almost for free, and there was nothing stopping you from "tasting" it again the instant your current taste expired, So you could squat domains for an unlimited time almost for free. "gee, nobody would ever abuse that!"

Though now with the explosion of TLDs, it's widened the market so far that the squatters are finding it hard to cover all the bases. Raise their rent! (and make the price go up exponentially to KEEP it parked) Watch the squatters scurry away like the cockroaches they are!

Comment "security through obscurity" (Score 1) 63

Within days of the trade-secret-protected algorithm being leaked in 1994, a researcher demonstrated a cryptographic attack

ah yes, that. Don't DO that.

Anything that can be destroyed by public review deserves to be destroyed by public review.

So if you're afraid of releasing your security code, your code is probably TRASH.

Comment "losing years of photos" (Score 1) 140

If you're too stupid to "select all" and drag-and-drop to a new folder on your desktop, then you deserve to "lose" all your photos and videos.

As for the apps, there's one license of the app on the account, that's no longer wanting to be shared, so it's a "Marital Asset" that a judge can oversee the division of, along with the rest of the martial assets. It gets a little more complicated if one side wants some apps and the other side wants other apps, but they're rarely very expensive, on the order of $3 to $9, making them easily compensated for in the monetary settlement of the divorce. (app installations are just as fungible as cash)

That really only leaves "who gets the email address", and that's not a new problem created by Apple, that's been around for decades. Work it out, with the judge's assistance if necessary.

I think this whole thing is just coming down to bitter Ex'es in a messy divorce, looking for another public place to drag each other through the mud. Go handle your drama somewhere private, the world is not interested in being your stage.

Comment Re:why not use some of the waste heat? (Score 2) 76

The heat pump's working fluid doesn't have to be water, it'd be whatever fluid can phase change at a "convenient pressure". The released heat on the high pressure side would be used to boil water into steam, which could then be moved to a turbine to generate power.

That "working fluid" woud be what is circulating on the low pressure side, through the cooling blocks.

Comment why not use some of the waste heat? (Score 3, Interesting) 76

I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone trying to use the waste heat that all this computer power is generating? I realize that would impact cooling a little, but surely SOME of this can be recovered efficiently? Steam turbines are the usual way to turn heat into electrical power. Is there no way to do it for data centers?

For example, use a heat pump to concentrate the heat to above boiling temperature then use that to boil water to run a steam turbine. The heat pump would require some power to run, but I think you could run that at a net-positive for power?

Comment Re: Good in theory (Score 1) 70

I actually bought it quite recently, so I could take three bricks out of my laptop bag and replace them with just the one. Less space, less weight, and I love that built-in display. (it won't charge my watch unfortunately)

I've got a few spare older bricks from previous laptop purchases, so I can't say I'd need to buy a brick if my next laptop didn't come with one, but that shows my experience that bricks usually outlive their product. I also believe that most people have started accumulating unused bricks. (maybe it'll slightly lower the price of the next laptop I buy?)

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