need do nothing more. They appear to have outsourced the problem to Microsoft.

I don't think cultural collapse is the issue. The issue is what usually ruins things: greed. And now of course AI garbage, which is really just greed multiplied by a factor of 10.

As more and more people tried to "monetize" the Internet, they realized there are only two business models that work: Advertising or social-media-style attention-whoring (as you called it.) And both of those things suck.

Not actually true; I'm not sure where you get your information, but it's wrong.

For decades on end the big federal subsidies were for nuclear. In last year's Department of Energy budget the Nuclear Energy budget plus the Uranium Enrichment Decontamination and Decommissioning budget was 2.38 billion, not too shabby. (And that leaves out the 1.95 billion for Naval reactors.) Solar energy, on the other hand, was 0.318 billion, small even compared to fossil energy ("clean coal" and the like) at 0.865 billion.

Solar and Clean energy technologies was cut by a factor of 4 in the President's 2026 budget request, essentially closing down the program. But, of course, congress sets the budget, not the president, so we don't know what it will be.)

I've played around with AI. I was unimpressed. I don't really know what it means to "learn" AI. As far as I can tell, you just hector it and keep rewording what you ask it until the turds it spews out are minimally smelly and maximally acceptable.

There's no science to this. Given that an integral part of every LLM is a random number generator, I don't see how there can possibly be any science to it.

I do not use AI. And I don't feel like I'm being "left behind".

FOMO is not a good reason to do something.

I retired in April, 2023. Right before all this AI BS exploded and turned software development into a hellhole. As long as AI doesn't destroy humanity or tank the stock markets, I consider myself extremely lucky to have escaped the AI hype.

The AI snake-oil peddlers are pushing hard. But there's yet to be a single company making profit from AI, save Nvidia which profits by selling hardware to the suckers. Not to mention that the gen-AI industry is theft of intellectual property on an industrial scale; a rapacious environment-destroying energy consumption beast; a supremely confident liar; and an exploiter of underpaid workers whose jobs are to make sure the training doesn't go off the rails and filter out the most disgusting or misleading data from the giant training set.

Those are problems of yesteryear. Yes: you can still find examples but by and large plug and play just works.

I was in the solar industry in the 1970s. No.

Solar panels were hundreds of dollars a watt back then. They may have been energy-positive, but that was only because solar cells at the time were being made from scrap silicon left over from the semiconductor industry, which was possible because the solar array production volume was so small.

It is hard to overemphasize how effective the ERDA (later DOE) program to advance solar technology was. Pretty much every advance that led to today's 50-cent per watt arrays was pioneered in the Large Silicon Solar Array (LSSA, later renamed Flat Plate Solar array) program.

It depends on who's you are talking about, not all users have the same requirements.

Most home users just want to do a little word processing and use the web - the web is how they access email - Linux has been able to support that perfectly for over a decade; the users will never need to use the command line. Other things like music playing and picture editing work well as well. Yes the user will need to do a bit of learning but that is quickly done.

Corporate office environments often have specific requirements but a high proportion will work nicely. I have news for you: you do not need to achieve 100% transition; pick the low hanging fruit and migrate harder ones later, some never will move.

All computer systems can be hard so you will need access to someone who can get under the hood. This is true for Linux, MS Windows, Mac or anything else. It is true for home and office use. So find someone. I support several like this, few issues - the last one was "I have forgotten my password", a universal problem.

The hard part of a move to Linux is doing it for the first time. Once done and the fear of the unknown has been conquered it all becomes much easier.

Turns out that the constitution says nothing about that.

This may be a flaw.

Thanks, I'll try it. Yes, anything that can rehabilitate Starbucks' noxious brew is worth looking into!

I think you're right; I became acclimatized to instant. However, sometimes I go to local coffee shops that make espresso or cappucinos and I prefer those to my instant. Maybe it's just the home espresso machines I dislike.

I honestly prefer instant coffee to most other kinds of coffee. I bought a Nespresso machine with high hopes, and it's terrible. Way too bitter for me.

But you have to use the right instant coffee. This stuff is head and shoulders above any other instant coffee and better than most other types of coffee.

The car owners could be out of pocket for all sorts of reasons; will they be paid ?

* Did not get to the theatre, so unused tickets - not just the owner but others in the car.
* Missed a flight, so:
** booked & paid for hotel accommodation lost
** missed cruise ship leaving port
** missed your 60th birthday party to which 100 friends attended, most having travelled a long way, stayed in hotels, ...
* frozen food spoiled as it thawed on the way back from the shop
* 5 y/old daughter stranded at school, she was traumatised, money will not help - what will they do ?
* missed a child's wedding, how do they compensate ?

Jeep will do its best to avoid any compensation and will not pay anything to third parties who lost because of their blunder.

I'm not a musician, but I did a few comedy tracks on an ensemble album. My tracks are available on Spotify, and have also been played on Sirius XM.

I've received north of $1000 in royalties from Sirius XM.

I've yet to break the $5 minimum withdrawal amount from streaming services (including Spotify) for more plays than I've had on Sirius XM.

So yes, Spotify and the other streaming services are rapaciously exploitative and deserve to be boycotted. Go on, boycott them... not gonna cost me very much!