About 1981 to 1984 at my local high school. What memories. Computer lab was in the same room as the Chess Club.

Started off with a single Radio Shack Model III, an Apple II, and a terminal that connected to LAUSD's "something or other" system via a 300 baud acoustic coupler modem. There was a dot matrix printer that was forever printing banners of the USS Enterprise - why? Because someone would come in and slam the door to the classroom and the printer would go haywire, ruining the banner. Programming assignments were in FORTRAN, submitted on punch cards.

Next year, no more punch cards - and an Apple IIe was added to the mix. Every spare CPU cycle was spent playing Wizardry or Ultima I, II, or III on them (the lab was open during non-class times). Around this time the lab got a shipment of about 20 or so Atari 800 computers to set up a real classroom. For all of that 2nd year and part of the third, the teacher could not use them because someone on the school board (he said Roberta Weintraub) forbade their use because they were "video game consoles" simply because they were made my Atari.

Eventually they were allowed during my senior year, and everyone was playing dumped 800 cartridges (Miner 2049'er, Ballblazer) or other video games on them when assignments were done. No one wanted to be on the Apple IIe, which was fine with me as I preferred that one.

Now the shenanigans we would play in that lab... oh the memories...

They want to see a receipt because they want to see if it was filled up nearby and relatively recently. You can drive and burn a gallon or two off of a topped-off tank and the needle will still be on full.

Of course, not having the receipt readily handy is also extra profit for them too.

There's a simple explanation how these huge fees are being racked up.
Superchargers will charge a $1/minute idle fee when a car has completed charging. Combine this with limited or slow charging spots at a Hertz facility, workers are probably taking low-charge vehicles to a nearby Supercharger to get them topped off quickly. This still takes some time, so instead of hanging around for a half hour or more, they go back to Hertz.
Then they don't pick up the car until hours later, or the next day.
So that $15-20 charging session racks up hundreds in idle fees. Since the fees are different than fuel (like a toll charge or red light camera ticket) Hertz just bills it to the customer, rather than working out some arrangement with Tesla.

Out this afternoon. Have Chase card on Apple Pay.

The three times I needed to use it, each time it came up as "updating" for 5 seconds or so. I thought it odd, as I never saw it do this before. After the delay, it was ready to tap and the transaction went though OK.

I do.

I also remember when a big dish and a receiver could get you tons of free (and ad-free) programming from satellites.
The problem is whenever something gets a big enough audience, someone wants to monetize it or shut it down.

So suddenly satellite channels went dark as they went encrypted. Cable channels started filling with ads.

Those legit streaming services are now starting to get as annoying with ads as those sketchy streaming services now. AppleTV is a blessing, but YouTube is total shit on it with the forced ads.

That picture of the Apple TV is not what you think it is.

The top bar is a quick access location, and each icon you move over changes the background at the top of the screen to whatever is new or whatever you left off on that particular app. The AppleTV icon is not fixed there, you can move it off the bar if you wish - mine has Plex there.

There's no advertising of Apple services anywhere on the AppleTV unless you open the AppleTV app where it then tells you everything that's available on the platform, from Apple or competing streaming platforms. The App store promotes too, but then again, if you wanted to avoid self-promotion, why open it?

Steering a beam, only headed in the reverse direction.

The Reflex Gun

Moving the code from RAM to a memory stick is pretty much the same thing - isn't it?

I've seen it do that before - I asked it once about a brief paper on VR and gave it the name of an author I knew. It did write a well-written paper about that person's accomplishments in the field of VR, but it was all B.S. because that author I mentioned wrote comic books.In that case it just substituted the name.

I did the same asking it questions from my daughters class on CRT in education last semester. The instructor would ask for short essays like the following:

"What are social theories for? Explain what Critical Race Theory is and evaluate how it would be appropriate to explain Asian Americans and their experiences in the U.S. (Don't exceed 150 words.)"

So I asked, and it came up with a better answer than I expected. Ah, but the teacher wanted references... so I asked for the same paper with inline references... and it did so, I then went to an online plagiarism checker, and fed the resulting essay into it. It came up with a score of 0% - no plagiarism detected. Here's the response:

Social theories are frameworks used to understand and explain social phenomena (Sewell, 2005). They help to make sense of complex social issues (Giddens, 2009) and provide a basis for understanding how societies operate and change (Durkheim, 1995).

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is a social theory that examines the ways in which race and racism intersect with other forms of oppression, such as class, gender, and sexuality (Crenshaw, 1989). CRT emphasizes the importance of understanding power dynamics (Bourdieu, 1984) and the ways in which dominant groups use their power and privilege to oppress marginalized groups (Fanon, 1952).

CRT would be an appropriate theory to use to explain the experiences of Asian Americans in the U.S. because it recognizes the ways in which race and racism intersect with other forms of oppression, such as class, gender, and sexuality (Crenshaw, 1989). By examining the ways in which power and privilege operate within the U.S. social and political systems (Weber, 1947), CRT can help to explain the unique experiences of Asian Americans and the challenges they face (Omi & Winant, 1986).

For example, CRT would help to explain the ways in which Asian Americans have been subjected to discrimination, prejudice, and other forms of oppression throughout U.S. history (Okamoto, 2004). It would also help to shed light on the ways in which Asian Americans have resisted and challenged these forms of oppression (Kim, 2000), and how they have worked to create a more just and equitable society (Takaki, 1993).

References:

Bourdieu, P. (1984). Distinction: A social critique of the judgment of taste. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 139-167.
Durkheim, E. (1995). The rules of sociological method (8th ed.). New York, NY: The Free Press.
Fanon, F. (1952). Black skin, white masks. New York, NY: Grove Press.
Giddens, A. (2009). Sociology (5th ed.). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Kim, J. (2000). Resistance and representation: Asian American women and the construction of identity. American Journal of Sociology, 106(2), 511-551.
Omi, M., & Winant, H. (1986). Racial formation in the United States (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.
Okamoto, D. (2004). The model minority stereotype: Demystifying Asian American success. Journal of Social Issues, 60(4), 609-623.
Sewell, W. (2005). Logics of history: Social theory and social transformation. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.

Absolutely incredible.

I'd love to audit a class like this and use ChatGPT to generate responses for assignments - just to see how far it'd go before being found out.

Usually, those employees are someone else's "consumers".

That employee only spends a small percentage of their paycheck to their employer for goods and services - likely nothing if it is a Lockheed or Northrop Grumman, and a few percentage points if it is a fast food joint. All that other salary that McD's employee did not spend on McD's products (like rent & utilities) is wasted profit potential. That's where the thought experiment ends with management. Automate and fire all the workers, get a fat bonus and happy shareholders.

So if McD's fully automated and got rid of all their workers, there would be no more money going towards labor costs and instead into profit. The ex-employees would (hopefully) go somewhere else. The problem is (as you point out) when everyone starts doing this, there would be too few/no jobs and no income for the teeming masses. No incomes, no consumerism.

Where have I heard this before? Oh yeah: The Jaunt

"Longer than you think, Dad!" it cackled. "Longer than you think! Held my breath when they gave me the gas! Wanted to see! I saw! I saw! Longer than you think!"

I have such a device.

It's a pet feeder with a camera that shows the food bowl, and anything in the vicinity of the feeders bowl. It does notify if:
1. Food level drops less than 25%
2. Food bowl is full, or there is a jam, filling the chute to the bowl.
3. Notifications that food was dispensed at the proper schedule.

My cat tends to eat quickly then drinks and pukes it up. The feeder allows me to feed him in small quantities every 2 hours or so, minimizing this behavior. This way I can make sure he gets fed the right amounts even when away at work or when asleep. If, for some reason, it shorts a feeding, another will come in not too long. I always have the ability to view it on my phone at work and can manually feed (and watch it dispense) when I am not at home. At home, I can easily hear or see it dump food at the scheduled times. The cat will let me know if he's dissatisfied with the food quantity.

My university had a few they were surplusing out - I didn't get one of those, but the on-campus computer store sold me a cube, mono display, printer, and a 3' stack of software, optical discs, and documentation for a paltry $300 back in 1993.

I used that sucker for the next 5 years (4 as an as an undergrad). It was light years ahead of anything at the time. Went to OS/2 NT4.0 and Windows 2000 until the OS X beta came out, then it was back to Macs and my old OS with a new shiny Mike & Ike interface. Been here ever since.

The problem with NeXT and Postscript is Adobe wanted too much money to license it for OS X. Display PDF wasn't so encumbered at the time, so that was the reason for the switch.