Fed up customers fleeing in droves.

Nobody likes Microsoft. Nobody has ever really liked Microsoft. But everybody puts up with Microsoft's low quality products and abuse because Microsoft is a monopoly that's hard to escape - particularly in corporate settings, and for gaming.

But they've really cranked up the abuse to 11 recently, with Windows becoming a terrible advertisement platform, requiring new hardware when people's old machines were still serviceable, the constant privacy invasion, relentless push for online accounts, for their cloud offerings, and now their godforsaken AI shit that literally nobody likes nor want. Not to mention upcoming price hikes for the privilege of getting all that enshittification thrown at your face...

Microsoft has gone too far for a lot of people, and people react by going to Apple or Linux. And quite frankly, personally, I desperately want Microsoft to continue shooting themselves in both feet like they're doing so they make themselves irrelevant as quickly and as thoroughly as possible, and we're finally, at long last, rid of them at last. 50 years we've been waiting! That's like half a century dude...

It's not the same thing, maybe it has something to do with the nature of the hot air convection inside. Things like fries come out way better in the air fryer than in a convection oven. Also, I find them very easy to clean. Just a quick go with the brush and some washing up liquid, done. The racks go into the dishwasher.

How is this company worth a trillion $? I don't see many assets, significant IP, a strong competitive edge, or a model for monetization other than becoming an "AI AWS" The latter has some merit, if 1) a strong market for AI Cloud services emerges (and that means corporate clients, not generic chatbots), and 2) they manage to secure a corner on scarce supplies like memory and AI-capable chips.

You're kidding, right? The way things work in China is highly conducive to innovation, from small startups and even individuals to factories. From electronics to vehicles and even space flight. They are not afraid to blatantly copy ideas, which gives them a leg up...they don't stop there, the copy is just the starting point of their development. Meanwhile, the government doesn't micro-manage innovation, they provide focus... and that comes with resources. Some advantages they have:
- Companies, even large ones, seem to do very well at scaling up as well as scaling down production runs.
- Extremely short iterations. Want to try something new, with new materials, new shapes? Takes weeks or months in the West, but the Chinese will overnight it. Something that Apple commented on: they did not shift a lot of R&D to China because of cost, but because of speed.
- Lots of cross-pollination between innovators, especially the smaller ones. So-called innovation hubs work in China.

They do go from prototype to production a little fast sometimes, cutting crucial corners. But the speed is impressive. Remember that ridiculous idea of putting a bus on stilts so it could drive over traffic jams? They actually built one. Didn't take more than a few weeks either. I don't think they can get their Starship clone in orbit and back down in one piece before SpaceX will... but if they do, it would not surprise me greatly either.

about as much as having a former WWF executive with a single-digit IQ serving as Education Secy.

I'm sure glad I have a real education in the 80's.

I've used ChatGPT to write code and Gemini to debug it. If you pass the feedback back and forth, it takes a couple iterations but they'll eventually agree that it's all good and I find that's about 90-95% of the way to where I need it to be. Earlier today I took a 6kb script that had been used as something fast and dirty for years - written by someone long gone from the company - and completely revamped it into something much more powerful, robust, and polished in both its code and its output. Script grew to about 20kb, but it's 10x better and I only had to make minor tweaks. Between the two, they found all sorts of hidden bugs and problems with it.

Look, I know "nuclear device" is correctly generic, so that RTGs and things like them, legitimately count. But let's be serious: right around the very same time this real stuff happened, some really great fake stuff happened too: the movie Goldfinger.

And once you've watched Goldfinger, "nuclear device" is just a euphemism for a bomb. So don't go calling RTGs "nuclear devices," please.

No. Not here in the Netherlands at least. There's a few new data centers here (not AI related), but all this growth - and the shortcomings of the grid - were predicted 10-15 years ago. The grid operators warned that billions were needed to modernize and beef up the grid in order to meet the predicted demand. Governments didn't want to spend the money. Same for much of our other infrastructure, there's about €50B worth of work that should have been done already, concerning rail, roads, bridges, waterways.

Actually, my Roomba did a good job keeping my old place tidy, with a wall to wall carpet in the living room, and a rather fluffy cat. I'd use a proper vacuum once every couple of weeks to properly deep-clean the carpet and get the dust in the corners. But the Roomba did the rounds daily and took care of the hair and most of the dust. These robot vacuums also do a better job cleaning under sofas, cupboards and beds.

The problem with iRobot specifically is that they stopped innovating and improving their products. Other companies improved their vacuums, better cleaning, added LIDAR, while Roombas were still trundling randomly around the room on crappy NiMH battery packs.

it is pretty clear trump would pardon or vacate any fine against a right winger org.

The president does not yet have pardoning power over civil judgements. Maybe a constitutional amendment to do that is coming, but we haven't had a vote on it yet.

Some good has come from promoting more user speech online, but also a lot of bullying, harassment, echo chambers, doxxing, stochastic terrorism, and so on.

You make it sound as dangerous as a 1775 soap box that people like Sam Adams would stand upon and shout from, or a pamphlet-printing-press that someone like Thomas Paine might use, where in both cases the goal was often to rowse the rabble into protest and action.

But is the internet really that dangerous?

"The platforms" are, at best, a percent of the internet.

Sign up for a linode, put up any sort of website you can imagine on it, and explain why you would choose for the algorithms you write or install, to work the way that you fear.

It doesn't have to be as bad as you say, unless you want it. That's essential freedom.

This would result in suppression of anti Trump opinion

It will result in suppression of all anti- power/wealth opinion, i.e. all criticism of government or big-pocketed business.

This change is sponsored by litigious motherfuckers. Trump is only the instance-du-jour, a few percent of the overall threat, though very much a shining example of it.

China wanted to lead on science, and made the effort. Now that's paying off, and relatively fast as well it seems. China sent out promising students to foreign universities, to return with valuable learning. They court scientists to move to China, and fund a lot of research. And they have a decent school system with highly motivated students. They have plans and policies in place that work.

What does the West have? Science is beginning to have a bad name here. They tell you you're a sucker if you take a STEM major in college, except perhaps if you study to be a doctor or a dentist, or "something something AI". You're even dumber if you actually pursue a career in academia. Meanwhile we have New Math (a US thing, I know, but here in Europe schooling in mathematics is just as dire), or whatever new nonsense they cooked up. In my country, they are again lowering the nr. of hours per week spent on STEM subjects in high school. More focus on humanities and civics... as they say: "teaching children to be good citizens". Dumb AF, but... good citizens, sure. Taught to challenge everything, and not given the tools or knowledge to do so effectively. One in three kids aged 15 here is functionally analphabetic. Because even reading comprehension and accurate spelling are now optional. Chinese kids work and study hard, ours are taught that being on time is a "white construct", and that STEM education needs to be "decolonized".

No, we're not going to catch up with China. Unless we change our focus.

Plus on many chains, the transaction fee is significant.