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Comment "Everybody" (Score 1) 63

"It was just so very labor-intensive to do this," Marz said, despite "all the buzz about generative AI, and everybody saying this is going to revolutionize self-help and democratize access to the courts.

By "everybody" who do you think he means? 5% of programmers? 10%? I think most people would not predict a project like this would work well.

Nothing against trying radical things, but know when you're doing that.

Comment Re:Truck drivers will still be required (Score 1) 175

So you have the truck equivalents of Marine Pilots, combined with an airport "drop and go" style parking system. The autonomous truck arrives at the lot, parks up in the designated assigned at the gate or whatever waiting bay, or queue, and when there's a loading dock ready, the "pilot" manually drives the truck the last few 100m.

Besides, while it's certainly possible that all the loading docks might be in use, if you have a "complete jumble of trucks", then that's a fairly major yard design failure and major safety issue since anyone on foot will need to content with trucks coming any which way. Surely any one with the slightest clue would come up with a layout with a suitable combination of one-way systems, a suitably sized overflow lot laid out like a holding park at a ferry terminal, and a whole bunch of clearly marked safe walking routes. Arguably, the pick a dock and arrival time issue shouldn't be a problem either - modern cars are some of the most connected devices of all time; what makes you think any autonomous trucks will be any different? It wouldn't be that hard to come up with a system that tells in an inbound truck that there won't be a bay free for 30min or whatever, and to slow down a bit on the highway to delay arrival accordingly, or just go around a suitable block a few times.

Comment Other consequences (Score 1) 39

So, ~4,400 satellites that are now going to be a little over 10% closer to Earth. That means they are also going to be ~10% closer to each other and moving across the sky faster as well, and therefore the light trails they leave across the sky in long exposures will be even more densely packed.

I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of ground-based telescope using astronomers suddenly cried out in frustration and were suddenly silenced.

Comment Re:Do Monitors Contain Much RAM? (Score 1) 37

It might just be profiteering, but beside a little RAM they do contain other ICs which, like RAM chips, are all made on wafers. Any fab capable of turning blank wafers into ICs that is interested in turning a profit (e.g. ALL of them) are going to be prioritising those lines with a higher profit margin (RAM/GPUs/NPUs) and ramping up costs to match demand. That is eventually going to create a knock-on supply/demand problem for other chips that are not in high demand to fuel AI startups as well, and as supplies of those chips run low, that will drive thier prices up. Combined with tariff/export tit-for-tats, these kinds of supply issues were starting to impact the automotive industry some months ago, so it shouldn't be surprising it's now expanding into other sectors.

Asus is a big company, so probably wasn't entirely based on a "just in time" supply chain. If they are running low on parts inventory and that lack of supply of general components is now starting to bite, then we're going to see similar price rises from other vendors fairly soon too. If so, then I'd be preparing for hardware pricing to spike across the board before the AI bubble pops and making "buy now or wait" decisions accordingly.

Comment Re:not cheap! (Score 3, Interesting) 15

The analogy you want is "handbags". Leica makes some very capable cameras but, like Hermes with handbags, they realised a long time ago that they have a very devoted following that is willing to pay an awfully big premium for that little red badge, and thus started the seemingly endless chain of Leica's "limited edition, collector's models" and then, inevitably, along came the copycats. Kudos to them for finding a new business model in a shrinking market, I suppose. Anyway. Like the top handbag fashion brands, functionally they are not much better than the equivalent product from any random high street store, and although quality is often better (but not always), you're mostly paying an awfully big premium for the "right" badge.

The purpose is the same, too. It's not just, or at all, about the photography, or having something stylish to carry your stuff in; it's about being seen to be on trend (usually because some random influencer/celebs was recently photographed holding one) and having a lot of disposable cash within the right set. You know what else all these cameras have in common? They are compact enough to fit easily into an expensive handbag ready to be brought out on a moments notice whenever the paparazzi show up.

Comment Re:Not so successful - India is less pro-USA now.. (Score 1) 282

Because if I put myself in their shoes, I would do the same thing. I can't see how they're making any sort of mistake.

Indeed, I routinely do the same thing they do, shopping by price. This set of tires costs $800, but that set costs $650 and its warranty is just as long. So I buy the $650 tires.

Comment Re:Retrain to do what? (Score 2) 151

Who cares, as long as the company that doesn't need that group of workers in 6 more years pays their 1% and the re-training cycle repeats? Well, at least until everyone has been downskilled into menial work at minimal wages; typical peasant labour doesn't generally need all that much training.

As always, when people propose things like this, the first thing to do is follow the money and figure out where is that "1% for retraining" is intended to go, and it doesn't take a genius to realise a lot of it would end up going to companies like the Khan Academy. Not exactly the most subtle bit of shilling for self-interest's sake, but still better than some of the far more blatant "do this (and give me money)" sales pitches we've had of late.

Comment Re:Subsidies (Score 4, Interesting) 271

What's to complain about? They're no secret, nor is their purpose. A government subsides a developing technology to offset the initial investment required for companies to undertake development, drive market adoption once they have a product, and establish a high market share and, ideally, market dominance for your preferred - e.g. domestic - manufacturers. Once that happens, a government will generally try to recoup those subsidies through taxation of sales revenue, and - in some cases - on domestic users of the product (e.g. the UK's plans for a per-mile tax on EVs). The size of the subsidy generally reflects their confidence in the size/importance of the potential market, and therefore their ability to recoup their investment. EVs are not the first market this game has been played with, and it surely won't be the last.

A government pulling those subsidies, while their competitors maintain theirs, is simply them saying they don't feel this market is going to yield a return on their investment because reasons, or that they feel the money is better invested in other markets with a larger potential for return. The governments that maintain their subsidies are simply placing a contrary bet. No, it's not a "free market" move. There never has been a "free market", so stop kidding yourself about it - capitalism and free markets have always been about protectionalism of corparate and national interests first and foremost, and always will be.

The real question here is which technology you feel will be the long term winner, ICE, EV, or maybe even something else entirely? Given that, which goverments are playing their hand correctly should be QED.

Comment Re:Is this a feature? (Score 2) 51

That's what I'm puzzled over. Surely you can already do all this with additional accounts and forwarding rules, and do so without any of the stated restrictions? Google even lets you link multiple accounts and have them appear side by side in the same inbox (in both the web and app UIs) if check the settings, if that's what you want to do. Or you can mix and match (I have three main GMail accounts; two linked for regular email and mailing lists, and one completely separate, plus $deity knows how many throwaways over the years since it was still in Beta).

The only possible usage case I can see for this is for people too lazy/stupid to set up the required forwarding rules and manage the account transition process themselves. I suspect that is going to be a depressingly large number of people though...

Comment Re:never happen (Score 4, Insightful) 152

Hopefully not, at least in the commercial space. If so, that presents a massive opportunity for Linux and other FOSS tools to gain an advantage where it really matters if they do take this approach; on the bottom line.

At some point arguments like: $xxx for RAM (per server, per month) + $deity-knows-what in commerical software licenses (again, per month since we're renting in the cloud) vs. let's say a reasonably achievable target of 1/3 of that on RAM (per otherwise identical "hardware") + no software costs to do exactly the same thing, and probably do it faster, is really going to start to register in the C-suite.

And, with a few adjustments, that argument even more so than cloud if you are doing all this on-prem.

Comment Re:And yet (Score 1) 169

Not quite. There's an implicit dichotomy, yes, but the way to cut through it is more about being tolerant of other viewpoints and accepting of the fact that some people may have views or beliefs different to your own. Free speech entitles you to say what you like without censorship, and specifically government censorship in the US, it does not require others to listen or accept what you say. The flipside is that others get to say what they like about you or things you believe in, but that doesn't mean you have to listen or accept what they say either.

It's perfectly possible to be a devout follower of one faith (or none at all) and still respect the rights of others to worship whatever gods, aspects of nature, or whatever else floats their boat. It's when they decide to act on things like chats of "death to the infidels" or whatever that it gets messy, but at that point it's also more about actions than beliefs, and those tend to fall under much clearer legal frameworks.

Comment Re:And yet (Score 4, Insightful) 169

Yeah, that's the tricky thing about "free speech". It cuts both ways, and the only way to respect it is to allow people to say things that you might not agree with. You can disagree and try to rebut their arguments as much as you like because of those same "rules", but all censoring them does is demonstrate that you have actually no respect for the right to free speech you keep bleating about and don't deserve any respect in return.

It's similar for a lot of the "inclusive" ideologies too for that matter. You can't be truly inclusive unless you also accept the views of those who hate you for what you are or do, no matter how reprehensible they might be.

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