Your comment sounds like nothing more than another anti-Apple rant with no substance behind it.

Quite a bit of computer tech gets no real "second life" once the manufacturer decides it's no longer supported. It's insane to pretend this is an "Apple thing". Just going through my small pile of formerly useful e-waste, I'd point out such things as one of my old VoIP modems/routers, which was required for a residential VoIP service that's no longer in business. Looked into it to see about potentially re-flashing its firmware to "open source" it again, but came up empty.

iPads registered to users and impossible to unlock is no different than what happens with Samsung tablets, except using Google and Gmail accounts instead of Apple iCloud. If people could be trusted not to steal, this would never have become a thing. (If you can prove you were the original purchaser of a locked iPad or iPhone, there are ways to provide a copy of the sales receipt to Apple support's "unlock team" and they'll unlock the device again for you. I've had to do that before.)

Monitor, certainly. But why would they have remote control that can set a FREEZER to 50C?

The manager would.

I guess Yandex's DR sites don't have the latest updates installed.

Given that Russia can't refine crude or deliver fuel and now it's data centers are dropping like flies, they're the ones heading for the bronze age.

Sooner or later, the oligarchs will be showing Putin the window. He's making it hard to make a dishonest buck.

Exactly this. I have experimented with using AI, but absolutely forbid it to actually check in code. I just let it show me it's proposal. It can be useful at that, but often needs to be prodded about criteria it left out and frequently the final result needs a re-write for maintainability at least. It has a tendency to use really convoluted logic which can be greatly simplified without changing the result.

It does much better as a search tool. It's pretty good at finding exactly where some feature is implemented in a large codebase.

You wrap them in plastic carefully first. The cameras are perfectly safe in the protective concrete packaging.

I remember listening in on a great phone call to a network provider about sending someone to pick up their expensive Cisco router. It ended with "in 30 days, it's going in the dumpster.

I personally 'uninstalled' another router by disconnecting the fiber cables...with side cutters. 2 months later, they actually tried to bill us for bandwidth we supposedly used from the completely disconnected router. We sent them a picture.

I have a set of 5 Echo Dots around the house and ever since I "upgraded to Alexa+" -- it's a train-wreck. Sure, the AI gives much smarter answers to questions. But they continuously forget my preferences for the voice I chose for them to use. (My wife and I both prefer their "female 2, relaxed" voice, as most similar to the original and more "professional" sounding than the others.) But no, it keeps going back to a voice that sounds like a bubbly, annoying teenage girl. Worse yet, there's no way to set a voice as default for all devices. You have to go around changing it for each one independently.

And that's before all the creepy, info-stealing behavior it has. EG. Someone will come over and ask it a few questions. Next thing you know, it's asking them to share their name since it's a voice they don't recognize.

The difference is that if you pay people to monkey around with things, you get a non-revocable perpetual license to the result. With license rental, you get a perpetual bill. It's the same rent trap as individuals get stuck in but with less excuses.

Yes, and the reason is that they stupidly painted themselves into a corner and never thought about an exit strategy. Had they been thinking about the possibility that they might one day need to migrate from the beginning, it would be much cheaper to do so now.

That's the thing about painting yourself into a corner, a little better planning at the start can always avoid it with little to no additional effort.

The private sector has a solution to all of this that "just works". You acknowledge the supply and demand. Swamped with public record requests? Great! Hire more people to handle them as their job description/title, and charge enough for them to cover their salaries or hourly contractor rates.

IMO, asking one group to pay $2.3 million for a records request is unreasonable. But why can't you ask all of them to pay a fair share so the process works smoothly and effectively for everyone involved? A qualified govt. contractor hired to fulfill FOIA requests is typically paid a midpoint salary of about $88K per year.

Fact of the matter is, TX has been more the extreme, modern Facist-Republican governed state than "traditional Republican" for decades now. It took a lot of people some time to come to that realization. But definitely by the 1990's, watching what was happening in Texas made me solidify my views as more Independent/Libertarian than Republican.

As just a couple of examples?

- TX passed a law requiring people get a permit to legally possess Pyrex glassware. (Thought was, if you weren't a research lab or a school, you probably only had it around your residence if you were making illegal drugs.)
- TX was well known for their "Vampire cops" who were legally allowed to hold a person down after they were pulled over, and draw their blood to check for alcohol.

The general populace of Texas doesn't necessarily reflect this at all, especially with so many liberal-minded people who moved there from places like California in recent years. But the people in political power there operate with a lot of support from those who like the traditional ideals Texas claims to stand for, while acting in ways contrary to some of those ideals.

I've said it before, but I'll say it again for those who arrived lete: If you give an AI agency of any kind, imagine everything you ask of it to be appended with "by any means necessary", because that' how it will interpret it. Slander, doxxing, and murder will definitely NOT be off the table even if you explicitly forbid them. That's the problem.

Honestly it should be called string toolbag. It contains some math that might (or might not) one day be useful in constructing a theory but it honestly has never actually been predictive enough to call it a theory.