Too true. As for the inability to look beyond "an application to do their work", I wonder if that goes hand in hand with an inability to look very far beyond work at all. I think a lot of people don't engage their learning, analysis, or critical skills much outside of the workplace. They think and explore only in order to earn money, not because of innate curiosity or a drive to learn.

This, exactly. I was saying to someone recently - I've watched too many cat videos in the meantime for me to remember the details - that when we start to abandon our ability to read and write, we abandon the basis of modern civilization. My point was that learning-by-reading and learning-by-listening are fundamentally different, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Oral learning will never be anywhere near a substitute for learning by reading.

When we start to abandon reading - as we are currently doing in the developed world - our industrial civilization is doomed. I won't bother to tease out the threads of that contention. Suffice it to say that as far as we can tell no oral tradition ever spawned mass industrialization, whereas widespread literacy enabled the Industrial Revolution which arguably is still ongoing today. Increasing reliance on AI is just the latest 'both-cause-and-effect' of a decreasing reliance on - and respect for - the written word. (At this point I owe a shout-out to Marshall McLuhan, whose "the medium is the message" message never gets old).

That means that LLMs are ascending while we are descending. I'm pretty sure that you recognize this as not a good thing.

You mean to say that LLMs don't have a conscience? Say it isn't so! ;-] BTW, that "entire problem without even needing meaning" characteristic strikes me as perhaps a defining characteristic of psychopathy.

I guess that's why Trump's approval rating is down by 15%, with only 40% approving vs 55% disapproving: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.economist.com%2Finte... . Oh, wait...

Closing down the government, causing the cost of living to rise sharply, impoverishing people who rely on government assistance, and forcing ICE and National Guard on cities that neither want them nor need them - those strategies are clearly bringing the country together. /sarc

Umm... Trump is ALREADY in his SECOND term. If he manages a third one in '28, then it will be just one more in a long list of examples where he has broken the law, pissed on the Constitution, and confirmed that he is a Fascist and a criminal. If you have no clue about these simple, basic facts, why should we consider anything you say to be serious and rational?

I get your point, but I'd say that TikTok and YouTube are 'passively interactive'. That is, they take whatever (possibly transient) interest you have and give you more More MORE. That can create some fixation which otherwise wouldn't have existed, or deny some other interest that might have been pursued.

TV stations didn't know when you changed the channel, what you changed it to, or whether you were watching or just had it on in the background. Today's more interactive sources have a greater and more effective kind of weaponization than TV ever did. Also, in the past, people generally had a choice between watching TV and being somewhere else. Now, entire families pull out their phones and ignore each other while sitting at the same table in a restaurant.

I'm sorry for the troubles your mother had. I guess I'm lucky that my own mother was more caring and present than yours seems to have been. But her mother was a whack-job. That meant that my mom had 'hidden baggage', some of which wasn't so hidden when I figured out - after she died - where to look for it. Much as I try to let go, I still carry some of it to this day, and keep tripping over missing puzzle pieces.

All that's to say that I may have at least some sense of what you experienced.

Yes, Ubuntu seems to have Windows envy, and Snap is a raging dumpster fire. But tarring "Linux distros" in general for Shuttleworth's misdeeds is unfair.

Try Linux Mint - I favour the XFCE edition, but you may find Cinnamon, MATE, or KDE more to your liking. I never have to reboot my system because of updates, although when a new kernel is pushed I usually reboot sooner rather than later.

For all its flaws, China currently has far more economic and political stability than the US has. The US could go up in flames any time now, and its economy is tanking.

Not to mention that it's still possible to manufacture high-tech in China. The US can't even stop stepping on its own dick long enough to allow a battery plant to get up-and-running.

I get what you're saying, but I think there are some things you're missing. First, when we were kids - and this is also true for kids over the next few decades after that - passive pacification was the exception rather than the rule. Sure, we may have been plunked in front of the TV sometimes. But when we were out in the world - whether at school, in cars, in stores, at the playground, taking walks, etc. - we weren't viewing and listening to advertising and other forms of propaganda. Yes, there are similarities between TV and phones - but telephone screen time today is a far bigger portion of kids' time than TV time was back when we were young.

Second - and this is actually several points - TV wasn't interactive, didn't track usage, didn't tailor content to individual behaviours, and wasn't part of a panopticon spying on citizens. I think all of these things - and probably at least several more - make comparisons between today's phone use and 'old-time' things such as TV, comic books, and penny dreadfuls pretty much irrelevant.

When I consider these points, I find the prospect of smartphones being used to pacify two-year-olds pretty appalling.

Yet that's pretty much the reality of many of today's cars. If I can't disable all OTA software updates and still have a fully functional, maintainable, warranty-supported car, then I don't really own the car. I may have paid for it, I may hold title to it, but it's not fully under my control.

Yo mama so skinny, but even to HER it look like a nano banana

Even enlarging it by a factor of 1,000 still only gets them up to micro-banana size...

Would that be "Birtney Sprees"?

I could be entirely off base here, but I'm wondering if a more accurate statement might read "restructure and establish an appropriate size to ensure future success for SpaceX.

As I commented on the "Amazon's Giant Ads Have Ruined the Echo Show" story posted here a few days ago, if you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas. And Microsoft is very much a dirty dog with many big, hungry fleas.

Ditch that crap and try Proton Drive, or some other privacy-respecting service. Proton Drive isn't yet the most convenient service, but at least it doesn't bend you over and start thrusting at every possible opportunity.

I'd be concerned that putting a Polyswitch-type device on each cell might mess up the charge balance and cause more problems than it solves. The commercial battery packs I've seen videos of - and the ones built by people who seem to really know their stuff - don't have them. Also, these devices add an amount of series resistance which may not be trivial in the context of peak currents delivered by an Li-Ion cell.

Part of that "doing it right" involves using cells that were verifiably made by reputable manufacturers. Some of the reasons for that - along with some other potentially helpful links - can be found here: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fhackaday.com%2F2025%2F09%2F2...

Additionally, study and understand best tab-welding practices. Too much heat, and/or welds that go too deep, can damage the batteries; but the damage may not become apparent for quite some time. And that 'becoming apparent' can be quite spectacular. OTOH, insufficiently deep welds can form hot spots in use or during charging - the dangers there are obvious.

I also recommend starting with smaller cells and a lower cell count, just to gain experience and to have something to evaluate. If such a pack DOES go off, it's both less likely to cause serious damage, and easier to remove to open air. Good things to have on hand are a bucket or two of sand, a steel shovel, goggles or a face shield, and maybe some welder's gloves. Plus a fire extinguisher - not for the pack itself, but for whatever the pack might set on fire if things go wrong.

This isn't the voice of direct experience, but rather a distillation of materials read, videos watched, and decades of experience with a wide variety of electrical and electronic devices. Do thorough research before proceeding, and be serious about safety. But don't let the risks discourage you; plenty of hobbyists deal with Li-Ion packs on a regular basis.