SlowTao

I think it was a combination of all a lot of new tech was being dumped on the tail end of Windows 95/98 combined a bit of sloppyness in how it was deployed. Didn't help seeing how well Win 2K could handle this stuff with its NT kernel despite coming out before ME.

It think you are right but also trying to shove an entire generation into a single box isnt the smartest idea we have. Yes, Nuance is needed.

To use the Donald Horne quote "Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise."

Unfortunately, this has propagated down to a lot of the people. They want the government to be the parent instead.

As Jordan Shanks once said - "I have 6 investment properties" is the entire personality of a lot of Aussies. Many others are the same they just don't have the opportunity.

This whole situation appears to be a failing on all angles. From government over reach, corporate greed by forgoing morals to the people who are so worn down they just don't have anything left to give.

I think a key point of it is that those in power know that if there is bipartisan support, they can ignore all protests.

All the campaigns I was involved in for well over a decade achieved absolutely nothing because of this. It is worse than that now, seeing the screws slowly get tightened on peaceful protests makes this even worse. They cant just ignore it but actively suppress it and get away with it.

A few years back I wrote an essay about the passing of Ted Kaczynski, it was never published as they said to be a topic you do not touch. However my conclusion was that I fear the "children of Ted", those that end up being so silenced, end up radicalized by their own oppression that violence becomes their only answer. I suspect we are only a decade or two away from this on a lot of issues.

This is probably why I havent seen YouTube as being a big issue. The algorithm on my account is so tightened up that non of that stuff bleeds through. So while I don't see the issues directly it is because they are kept away from me.

I do get the very occastionally glimpse when I have to log in fresh and the recommendations on the front page are not great.

This whole situation leaves me very torn. Great arguments on both sides. I just hope it isnt a trogan horse to online digital IDs being linked to all content access.

Yep, it seems like a failure on all parties. Government, civil and corporate.

Hyper optimization of attention to drive up profits for the sake of share holders while ignoring the externalities was a terrible idea but in a capitalist system, they are the winners.

For now. Maybe this will be the incentive to get them to dig into how these things work.

One step ahead is innovation, two steps ahead is a martyr. Microsoft is a lot of the time two steps ahead, but the technology and/or the people are not ready for it.

Hasnt harmed their product Microsoft Profit (TM) too much however.

"I used to think that the brain was the most wonderful organ in my body. Then I realized who was telling me this." - Emo Philips

Time to try "Delphi for dummies!"

"You are Julian Miller, a curious programmer, always eager to learn new languages. Delphi has caught your eye, promising rapid application development and a visually intuitive approach. You're excited to dive in, but first, you need to get Delphi installed and running. The first chapter of 'Delphi for Dummies' is open in front of you, ready to guide you through the process."

Not only startups, when OneDrive (was still SkyDrive at that point) started to offer unlimited online storage, from memory they said there was about 70 users that had over a petabyte of data each on the system.

Essentially people had all their security cameras and PVR units uploading endlessly to the cloud and Microsoft was footing the bill.

Then the 1TB limit came in to stop that.

It wasn't a total collapse like some were expecting, they haven't really done much new however. Cutting some of the fat was a good idea but they might have gone a little too lean in places.

It sounds cliche at this point. It is the focus on the next quarter, next year at best that drives a lot of this due to appeasing the great god of the shareholders.

I think they should do what you say but shareholders are looking for the quickest, best returns now, not in a few years time.

Minor correction. Athlon arrived at 500MHz, 550MHz and 600MHz. But they were still a big shock when they arrived. They were the first chip in a long while to really take on Intel and succeed.

The 650MHz came two months after than, and 700MHz another two months later. 6 months later 1GHz! It is easy to forget just how rapid performance increased in the late 90s.

My desktop is now about 12 years old with a 1650 GTX GPU. Still does everything I need perfectly fine. It is funny seeing some lower powered offerings with iGPUs that run circles around this thing. It is looking like my next machine will probably not have a dedicated GPU, at least at first. The intergrated stuff is pretty decent when the newest games you have are about 4-5 years old or just target lower specs.

I used to say "Never bet against Intel", it was because everytime they seemed to be behind they would pull something out and regain the loss in short order.

But so far nothing of the sort has happened for a long time. If feels like ever since Ryzen landed, they have been desperate to catch up but keep tripping on themselves. Losing Apple, while inevitable, has made them look even more irrelevant. They still do decent stuff for the most part but there isnt anything really exciting.

I do like what they are doing with Arc GPUs but it is clear those are loss leaders and it isnt really gaining that much traction.

Alas, this is a story where we will have a better understanding in five years from now.

If you are playing an RTS, there is the initial stage where you capture as much resources as possible to keep them out of the hand of others. Eventually there is a phase change and it goes from hoarding resources to fighting using what you have to ensure others don't take said resources. It is destructive to both sides with only one surviving at a much lower level.

This is the sceareo I fear in the real world with situations like this. One hopes we use more wisdom than just take to ensure they don't take.

To quote from A Psalm for the Wild-Built by Becky Chambers.

"You’re an animal, Sibling Dex. You are not separate or other. You’re an animal. And animals have no purpose. Nothing has a purpose. The world simply is. If you want to do things that are meaningful to others, fine! Good! So do I! But if I wanted to crawl into a cave and watch stalagmites with Frostfrog for the remainder of my days, that would also be both fine and good. You keep asking why your work is not enough, and I don’t know how to answer that, because it is enough to exist in the world and marvel at it. You don’t need to justify that, or earn it. You are allowed to just live. That is all most animals do. "

Is this a response to the paper replication crisis? Make studies that are so obvious that they cannot be falsified. Next up I have a paper on "Cats hate dogs".

I would say it is the biggest hit since the iPad but the sales do pale. Apple watch in 10 years has done as many sales as iPhone does in a year.

That is very fair. We won't know when things finally tip over into a new state until it is in the rear view mirror.

As an aussie, I am about ashamed of this and looking forward to the total circus it is going to be.

Personally I wouldn't argue Moore's law is dead but I do wonder about the cost per chip. WE can still push smaller for a lot longer but the costs are starting to creep up a bit.

I am not too worried though because adjusted for inflation, we are still saying a lot less for this tech than we were in pre-2000's tech.

Economy of scale used to drop prices, complexity of manufacturing will slowly increase them again.

This is true but it has been fascinating seeing them trying to catch up. Necessity being mother of invention, all of that.

It is still hard to get much of a clear picture on how well they are doing on this stuff. Chinese companies are saying they are near parity, the opposition says they are 15 years behind, the reality is probably somewhere in between.

While they have made a lot of quick progress, that is no guarantee for future gains.

Sounds about right, it looked like they were a loss leader trying to get a foot into the space. They have been vaguely successful in getting a small toe in the door of GPU's, but not enough to justify the costs.

The first act of revolution is contemplation.

I suppose in part it is 'The devil makes work for idle hands to do'. In freeing up time for the individual and not being presently aware of this, you end up just filling it with less than helpful stuff.

I am not advocating for a return to less efficient means but that people need to be aware of how technology can be used create and fill gaps in odd ways.

Yep, don't like the guy or a lot of his business moves. But got a good sense of humor.

Note that this entirely based on share price. While I am but an armchair "expert" a lot of the technology businesses that they are comparing too feel inflated due to AI buzz. This is not to put down AI or what they are doing but the sense of 'irrational exuberance' might be at play.

Now if this was based on the quality of Cooks ability to lead Apple, I would simply say they haven't had a huge hit since Apple Watch some 10 years ago. Cruising nicely in terms of sales and incremental improvements but nothing that has others desperately chasing them.

It is one thing to have someone sneak on a golf club, it is another to be actively promoting this as a business.

Personally I think it is hilarious, but they are two different things.