They have plenty of creativity, you choose to only talk about and watch the franchise crap.

Unfortunately that's also the case with everyone else, hence the franchise crap remains a prominent use of funds. But that's always been true, pretty much every Wikipedia page for movies made in, say, the 1990s - with obvious exceptions - mentions proposed sequels.

I'm not sure the world was less corporate prior to 1939/1914. Indeed, the 19th Century is basically story of the rise of all powerful corporations and the push back form legislators and workers alike as these enterprises went nuts and became virtually uncontrollable. Particularly egregious examples include the various mining businesses (not just one) that created and ran entire cities with their own currencies to enslave their employees, and, of course, the creation of Rhodesia, the implications of which are still being felt across Africa today.

And all of that was building upon the fine examples of the East India Company and its cousins in the centuries immediately preceding that.

Most of Western Europe went socialist after WW-II, with most large industries nationalized, a direct response to the abusive behavior of their private predecessors by the labor movements that grabbed control of government afterwards. The US didn't go that far (more's the pity, I think it'd have genuinely benefited) but there was an understanding, kept in place by heavy regulation and strong unions, that lasted until Carter started deregulating everything after the economic crisis caused by the withdrawl from the gold standard.

For the most part, it wasn't until the 1980s that the shackles were... loosened, rather than removed. And that coincided with the end of the Cold War.

So no, I don't think corporations were responsible for peace. Far from it, I think it's no coincidence that we're seeing governments fall to right wing extremism in the 2000s, coinciding with serious risks of trans-European war, at a time when the corporate shackles have never been looser. We had a period of peace from 1990 to 2010 as the coalitions changed and countries in post-war Eurasia found their feet, but there never have been fewer barriers in place to prevent WW-III since the 1980s.

It's frightening.

Also numbers by a different standard. It "dropping" by 33x, without any other context, means it now generates 32x as much electricity as previously it consumed. Or it's relative to unseen context such as the previous year's "drop", which could have been by 0.01%, meaning all that happened is the amount of electricity it consumed dropped by 0.33%.

Neither is likely what Google meant, I'm guessing they meant "To 1/33th of what it was", would it have been so hard to actually say that if that's the case?

Totally get it, however, we're talking about Windows 7 + LibreOffice users here. Twenty years ago, installing GNU/Linux on someone's computer meant replacing the supported OS that everyone got with an unsupported one, and everyone got it, even people whose first experience with a mouse was to hold it in the air and point at the screen with it.

Things have... changed in the last 18 years. Computers have gone to crap. Normal users no longer know what a file is. Microsoft Office has changed its UI so learning it literally means you've only learned how to use Microsoft Office and not word processors in general.

But... the people under discussion, the people running LibreOffice - which is a CUA application with drop down menus and consistency throughout - and Windows 7 - which doesn't hide the file system from you under a mountain of OneDrives and other shit - have had time to learn how to use a computer.

Their support load is going to actually be minor compared to the boomers you were supporting 15 years ago. They already know how to use a computer. Give them a MATE UI and OOo or LO, and they'll be happy. They'll probably even customize their own desktops, and appreciate the fact they can.

And if, for some reason, they don't fit into that category, their needs are going to be so inconsequential you're only going to get a call once in a blue moon about whether they should accept the offer to install updates or something similar. They'll not be plugging in new hardware outside of replacing their keyboard, mouse or, at worst, their printer. The support for that should be pretty minor too if you encourage them to make their next printer a Brother laser.

The world has changed. Mostly for the worse. People are getting dumber. But, ironically, people who stuck with the same technology since the late 2000s probably know quite a bit more about how computers work than those being intentionally confused by UX anti-patterns, "algorithms", cloud shit, and so on.

There are actually lots of options:

- Keep using the current version
- Switch to OpenOffice, which at the time of writing supports Windows XP: https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.openoffice.org%2Fdev... LibreOffice is a fork of the latter, and now OO is owned by the Apache Foundation the original justification for LO is obsolete.
- Switch to Windows 10
- Switch to a GNU/Linux based OS. I recommend Debian with the Mint desktop, you may need someone to handhold you for the initial set up but once it's set up you'll never want to go back.
- Buy a new computer with a supported configuration, or maybe even a Mac

So not sure where "two" is coming from to begin with!

You know those batteries need charging and thus do not solve the need for more electricity generation issue right?

They're not giant Ever Ready cells... ;-)

Every product "update" these days seems to be an announcement about how they're making it shittier. "Hey, we're adding more AI! And we're going to take screenshots of everything you do! And we're going to delete random files! And we're going to move the taskbar to the center of the screen! Good news, no more Start Menu! Great news, you can now pay $10 a month!"

It fucking sucks.

Imagine if restaurants did this. "Hey, that burger you like? We're now adding pineapple and ranch sauce! And we're only raising the price by $5! And to make it easier, no customizations, everyone gets pineapple and ranch!"

I HATE THIS FUCKING UNIVERSE.

You are aware that cryptocoins have transaction fees too, and they're variable, making it impossible to predict how much they cost?

Some people have vertigo and dizziness due to a medical condition, or a side effect of a drug they're taking (antidepressants, for example). For these people, seeing the motion of the aircraft (via the window) helps avoid the nausea of motion sickness, and makes the difference between a pleasant trip and hours of nausea and possibly vomiting.

If Delta is going to lie about window seats, this means I can't fly Delta.

> and it's backed by a government (so the peg isn't likely to be lost in a rug-pull).

Governments have issued currencies before that they've then announced aren't worth anything, and El Salvador even adopted bitcoin... and then abandoned it.

Indeed, it's easier, as Wyoming can pass laws to protect itself, while your run of the mill fraudster knows that it's just a matter of time before they have to ask Trump for a pardon.

And... last I heard, states aren't supposed to mint their own currencies anyway. So there's a strong chance that the rug will be pulled for Wyoming without them being blamed.

Did you miss the relentless propaganda from the AI industry, posted here and in every news publication, about how AI is so awesome it'll replace most jobs and you can do anything with it? Did you miss the inherent propaganda of Google putting Gemini results on nearly every search page?

For relatively obvious reasons, Wikipedia generally bans people from working on articles directly relating to themselves, such as biographies and works they've created. They're allowed to use the talk pages, and can suggest edits, but beyond that they're considered an egregious violation of the requirements for secondary sources and the NPOV.

If someone wants to publish something for their fans, their best route, as always, is to create a website, rather than editing an existing one that's expected to at least make an effort to be neutral. It's not exactly expensive, even those who have no HTML skills and can't manage a $1 VPS can easily get a Wordpress site for under $10 a month.

Yeah, came here to say something similar: and not it's just language learning: How many of us could build a social media website in a week? Or a dating app?

Or a search engine for that matter? Maybe even a search engine that's more useful than Google's (AND matches, for example)?

I believe over the last few decades a lot of groups have managed to come up with operating systems that are significantly better than Windows. How's that coming along? Is Windows an also ran, replaced by open source alternatives, yet?

The key isn't just the app, it's the name recognition, marketing, branding, etc. LLMs will only really become a threat to DuoLingo if people get so used to using LLMs that they know exactly what phrases to use to get it to start teaching a foreign language and it's their first choice, and if it does it well. The fact right now a third party can build an app using an LLM does not mean that app is viable, will get traction, or anything like that.

This article is more evidence that LLMs are a bubble that nobody in a position of power quite understands. "I can build that app" is not evidence the speaker can topple the market leader off of its perch.

Unions are socialist, not communist. Communism is a specific ideology involving a transition mechanism that leads to the world being communal. You can argue a union is communal but you can't really infer from that that it's communism because communism neither involves the communes you're talking about, nor just means "anything to do with communes", any more than a short summary at the beginning of a scientific paper constitutes "abstract art".

(And unions being socialist is something to point out regularly, because it confuses Americans who have been taught their entire life that socialism means "Stuff the government does". Unions are socialist because they're a way in which workers can control the means of the production and ensure they themselves aren't cheated out of their work. See also the cooperative movement, which is socialist and has nothing to do with the government.)

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2F...

It's widely available, it's just consumers aren't usually exposed to it given it's considered a niche concept.

(Hotswap SATA probably fulfills the use case most people have, of a fast backup drive not hampered by USB's slowness and clumsy connection system.)