I trust Weather Underground instead- it's private citizens, not government propaganda, and it's far more accurate.

Post-COVID, I don't trust governments or corporations to do science. I saw too much statistical abuse, p-hacking, politics, and outright lying about the scientific method to trust federal funding OR corporate funding of science.

Science is best done by private citizens funding their own experiments with outside jobs, not academic peer-review cancel culture bubbles.

I'm happily using TDE (Trinity Desktop Environment), because KDE3.5 has the features I need and have built up my work habits around, and Trinity is the maintenance fork preserving and enhancing it. (My particular layout uses an external taskbar up top and a window-selector in the panel-bar at the bottom so I can get at things quickly, the same layout I got used to in KDE1.1 on RHL6.2. Plasma, when I tried it out, didn't support that, so I turned around and didn't look back. YMMV; that's what works for me.)

If there's enough of a userbase for this particular stratum of KDE technology to make it worthwhile, maybe it's time for another maintenance fork, so Plasma users get to keep what they've invested time and attention in working effectively, while the KDE devs get to go on and invent their next paradigm. Elsewhere in this comment stream, mention was made of the value of stability to corporate IT; well, perhaps those corporate types will be willing to donate a bit of time and cash to support what they depend on.

News at 11, the more you use it, the more capable you become.

It's with everything. The more you challenge yourself the more adept and agile your mind will become, it does not only apply to the use of computers and technology in general, but the more problem solving you do - the more likely you are to think things through and become better at decision making as well, even if it was computers.

I've noticed this cognitive ability with myself as well. For example, if I took a look at myself 30 years ago, if I had a down period were I was lazy, not caring, didn't push myself in any way, then the poorer decisions I would make.

I am in a very stressful job these years, and it's been asking more of me than any time in my life, and I have noticed the difference in the other parts of my life that I am simply making better decisions, it's so obvious that I can see it from the real results that is my life, I plan for things better, I don't overreact, I am way better prepared, I focus on things that matter quicker instead of just "spinning" the same loopy wheel like one tends to do if nothing better to do.

It's all about training that brain "muscle" of ours, and it shows results over time.

We know, and we love you. Well - as for Germans, we really do like you, just make sure to leave the garbage IN designated bins, by all means use our free nature to take in, hang out, camp for a day, move on and camp another place. One of the most annoying things is that tourists take stuff with them, never buy anything, leave it out in nature and never use hotels or paid facilities, but basically an RV.

So again - we love you, you're practically our neighbors, but buy something once in a while?

This has been a public message from the good people known as your friendly neighbors.

I Live in Scandinavia,

And the office talks goes like this:
"Did you hear about that poor British tourist that got detained because there was some ESTA issues, she spent 19 days in jail, in an AMERICAN Jail?".
"Yeah, not going there, we've cancelled the family trip to the US".

Etc.
I was planning to go as well as I have a couple of favorite towns I visit over there, but yeah - no one of us is going to America again in that state they're in right now, we do feel their pain, and we have a lot of friends over there. But we ain't going.

Or better yet, since you're apparently able to tell the difference between a webcrawler and a human in the log, keep the site public for humans but start sending invoices to the IP Address Holders of web crawlers.

Could very well be.

But one thing I do know, is that I am in NO way more competent than the 1000s of books of programming tips and knowledge there is out there, and that no matter how little or much I think I know, I learn all the time, and sometimes it can fast-track me towards what I was seeking, and suggest things I wasn't even remotely aware of.

Competence is many things, also the ability to not overevaluate yourself.

The thing about LLM's is that they are teriffic if you know things already, being just mediocre at something will make you fantastic at your work if you know how to use it.

But it will create a very large shift in equality, for example:

- People with zero skills and afraid of A.i. and LLM's will miss out, they will have a hard time competing with people that has just a mild interest in using it as a tool.
- You will see a huge amount of "dummies" that will think this thing is alive, and they'll have a new best friend, which will create beliefs, create readable articles for the feeble minded to believe and follow.
- Those that are already good at something, stand a chance of becoming 10-100 times better than they were, because if you know what questions to ask, if you don't write one-liners "plz. make me rich$", those who spend time researching and read up on their skills, will have an absolutely revolutionary assistant tool at their disposal.

There are dangers and pitfals, censorship being the biggest one (ChatGPT has suggested a "License" to use it, and I certainly understand why), there are millions of "edgy" teens that will use it to do silly things that can lead to real life complications and liabilities, which is why we can't have nice things, they destroy the engine for all the rest of us (which I suspect, is eerily few).

And by license to use it, I don't mean that there should be some who can access it and others who can't, I mean that their censorship engine should be more merit based, so to figure out the users background over time, learn that what answers it can offer. It's a sinch you don't offer ready-made-solutions to dummies that will use it to blow something up, create terror organizations, lead people into bad decisions because of convincing writing etc.

It's dangerous - so use responsibly!

The answer is no, and anybody who incorporates AI Generated Code into an existing human programmed codebase is just looking to quantify their job existence by fixing bug tickets.

woke:dei::bigoted:genocide

Given that the college board now is inciting students to riot through their curriculum suggestions and tests, I don't think they're exactly innocent.

Every revolution has increased the number of hours the average bottom person on the totem pole needs to work to earn food/clothing/shelter.

Hunter-gatherer- 4 hours per day
Agriculture- 5 hours per day
Feudalism- 6 hours per day
Mercantilism- 7 hours per day
Capitalism- 8 to 10 hours per day

this is quite true.
But I made an invention the last 3 hours by using it to figure out the minor details, it's going into production via those online Cad services already :P