My ideal OS is one that is just some minimal base that is enough to run a package manager and perhaps a small diagnostic suite and recovery. And everything else is a package on top. FreeBSD, some Linux distros, etc come very close to that ideal.

While it's soldered in SSD for many Mac models, so a post-purchase upgrade is generally not practical. And while the pricing is a little steeper than NVMe, closer to 40 cents a GB, that still puts the 12GB into around $5, perfectly in your suggested range. Perhaps people buying a 512GB Mac should consider a 1TB Mac (~$200 more) if they are concerned about space wasted by the OS install.

Cloud storage is not equivalent to local storage. Not in how applications use it. Not in performance. And not in availability. The two are apples and oranges.

I generally believe the end-users should decide what is installed on their computer. But most OS vendors do not offer full customization. It seems like every major one likes to put their pet projects into a device meant for general use. And power users with unusual use cases complain that the general purpose consumer device is not finely tuned to their special needs. So maybe people should consider running an obscure Linux distro if they are unhappy with bundled software found in essentially every mainstream computing device for consumers.

Are AI services inciting desperate acts? Maybe I'd agree with the statement a different, and less loaded, word than "inciting" was used.

One of my gripes with the AI industry is these chatbot models are designed around engagement. They prey on human behavior and the elderly, young, and those with mental health issues are especially vulnerable. I don't believe that the AI agent itself has any intent (it cannot) nor does the company that owns and trains the AI likely have any specific harmful intent to "incite" something beyond engagement and purchases.

We're in the unregulated phase of humanity's adoption of learning computers as a daily part of society. We're basically at the same level as the early industrial revolution where we thought it made sense to put children to work in coal mines because they are small and fit in the carts. For whatever reason, we took 100 years of philosophical, ethical, and moral debate and flushed it because we saw a little bit of profit. Humanity has time and time again proven to me that we have learned nothing.

Keeping us safe from hypothetical threats, thought crimes, and dissents.

God bless Dario Amodei and all the other tech billionaires!

How about: No.

And how about fuck you.

The fact that 659,880 vehicles were stolen last year doesn't automatically lead to a suspension of personal privacy and the granting of authority to police officers beyond what they appear to be able to responsibly wield. I don't accept hand waving past the lack of oversight, transparency, and consequences to those who abuse their authority in the hopes that some meaningful portion of the 659,880 vehicle thefts are closed or reduced in future years.

It was 850,708 in 2024. That 23% drop had little to do with Flock, and is mainly the Kia/Hyundai software fixes, post-pandemic crime continuing to trending down, and focused programs in some communities around reminding people to lock their vehicles, hide valuables, etc. (you may have seen these signs in your area or the PSAs). Supporters of Flock and other camera systems tends to claim around a 10% decrease in crime for local communities that install their cameras, while the above shows that some thefts are dropping beyond that percentage regardless if cameras were installed.

Let's not put tools into the hands of people who abuse them. At least not without more significant safeguards and better transparency than we have today.

The lack of transparency makes me suspect the documentation of police abuse is under reported.

Some of the multi units I was looking at investing into include multiple parking space rentals that documented revenue of $250-$300 a month. This was over by GG park and central sunset, not exactly high traffic commercial, really residential and a few major landmarks like hospitals and of course the more interesting tourist spots for GG park.

Because I can't afford the parking in SF.

My Xeon E5-2650 v2 from 2013 is still chugging along. Although I bought it in 2019 as a NOS/server-pull so it's only 7 years old for me.

The government assumes we're all criminals or spies. And we the public shouldn't have access to information for issues of officer safety and national security. It's why agents are masked now and often don't even display a badge number. Yet if I blast a guy toting a gun and breaking into my property that refuses to identify himself, then I'm the bad guy. Somewhere along the line we all forgot who the government actually works for: the People.

Just publicly release Flock data for all your officers.We should only accept a surveillance state if it is completely transparent.

No, I don't think that's it.

There is a vast world out there beyond US politics that doesn't operate with the profit motive being dominate in academic and medical research.

Papers get ridiculed when the data is not reproducible or does not support the claims. Not because the medical industry can't make huge profits sell baking soda. Papers are written and published because that's how you get ahead in academics. If there is a simple miracle cure for cancer, there are a thousand hungry PhDs and students willing to write papers on it.