wow, you are right! I didn’t bother to check this whole time of needless suffering, but for what I earn with it in less than an hour I could probably buy 2x8 GB DDR-3, lol!
It just seemed a fair assumption that it would be insanely expensive …
I bought a desktop PC for a little over 2k in late 2011, and still use it. I’m a back-end developer, and certainly I would like to be able to upgrade my 16 GB RAM to 32 GB in an affordable way.
Other than that, it’s perfectly fine. IDE, a few docker containers, works.
And modern gaming is a scam anyway. Realistic graphics do not increase fun, they just eat electricity and our money. Retro gaming or not at all.
Imagine how things were if they were built to be maintained for 15+ years.
I’m retro computing, retro everything tech, and I DO need my collection!
Just had to order a keyboard DIN connector (pre PS-2) adapter for a old 80386. Because I obviously still don’t hoard enough old stuff!
One of the few things I’m afraid I won’t be able to use anymore are UMTS (3G) sticks and routers. Although, the router still works a perfectly fine mobile Wifi router, hmmmmm …
This is a crazy use of AI!
What I have been considering, but haven’t found a readily available setup yet: Make a user with lots of read permissions (most of /etc, API keys & passwords in separate excluded files). That could be done with very restrictive sudo patterns. Let the AI run commands under that user directly (it can do sudo -l to get an idea of what it can do). Then, use it like in Star Trek “Computer - run a level 2 diagnostic”.
Not as the centre of attention when fixing a problem, but as additional input / modern rubber ducking.
Challenging, but not impossible. I think the military budget of all other NATO members combined would just be about the same as the US. However, it’s not like every country has its own independent “mix of everything”; they are supposed to work supplemental. What makes things worse is proprietary hardware and software in modern equipment such as planes. I’m not sure to which degree it would even be technically possible to use it to defend against the USA.
Then there is the nuclear weapon problem. France and UK would have to really stand their ground and follow through with nuclear retaliation. That means that even when the USA or Russia just use a small tactical nuke in Poland, Greenland or wherever, they’d have to use one of their few strategic nukes to destroy something big, possibly dooming Paris. The downside of the idea of mutually assured destruction always was that it only works with somewhat reasonable people who REALLY are not willing to take their entire civilisation with them. But since Stalin, there have never been nutjobs like Trump or Putin in charge, neither in the USSR, nor US, nor Russia.
A victorious Ukraine would certainly be an incredible asset to have in NATO, with all those battle-hardened, highly educated people.
But all things considered, might as well give it a try.
I’m reading AI content there, and when I post, I’m getting accused of being a bot / using an LLM. Fantastic.
Seeing what happens when the US just stops helping makes me realise: The good they did as a superpower over the decades isn’t talked about as much as the bad. Obviously now, there is plenty of that, too.
Ideas?
No, it was also quiet. More quiet than the < $ 100 cheap sweep robots with rotating brushes that actually attempt to capture dirt in a compartment inside.
Sad end, though: One day, it decided to just roll away and we never found it again. We thought it’d be under something, but when we moved out a few years ago, it became clear that it decided to find a new home long ago.
tbf, getting shot in the face IS one of the better interactions you can have with Dick Cheney.
I mean, which one would you pick?
My best buy ever was a $ 20 “dumb roomba”: It was just a little ball with a battery inside that made random movements, and you could put it in a little “cage”.
It did a horrible job, like a 5 year old half-assing it, put hey - $ 20, 0 effort for a little help? Everything was slightly less dusty and hairy, and it pushed most of it into the corners. Saved like 3 minutes per day.
Dick Cheney was among the worst in an administration that disrespected human rights, international law, honesty, trustworthiness and set the US reputation as well as the fight against global warming way back.
Usually, that probably would have been my last thought of him.
Except, we have this crazy timeline. This timeline, in which he was able to stand out just by pointing out that he is still in favour of free elections. At least that was still a given in his time, even though the decision about the loss of Al Gore was considered controversial by some back then.
A low bar, a low bar indeed. But here we go, on this positive note: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6Nq9SpGzic
Could be even worse, look at what happened to Stauffenberg’s family.
Arguable whether he signed up for that.
Fight and die in defence of a NATO ally? Yes. Same as the aggressor, if the elected government decides so, such as in Iraq? Also yes.
Risk having his wife, children, grandchildren taken away and put in Sippenhaft (collective punishment) or put in a reeducation orphanage? Not sure there is a moral obligation to that. Safety for his family was one of the things he got out of all this.
His risks for resisting beyond what he already did are higher than they would be for the average citizen. On the other hand, he also could do more than the average citizen.
A tough call, and I would not judge.
Yes, it’ll all be about “unity” and “healing”.
Note that even in Germany post WW II, where a real effort was made and at least the official line was uncompromising, the large majority of Nazis and their ideas in politics, society, law, industry GOs and NGOs died slowly of old age over the next 50 years. Without that effort, even a future Democratic president (if even possible) would just be a waiting game for the next Trump.
PHILIPS HD9880/90 Airfryer Combi XXL. I can select a recipe in the app and send it, so the settings are perfect for that.
But the downside is that it goes off like a smoke detector and blocks all controls and display until I rate the recipe or select “skip”, on the air fryer display.
I didn’t doubt it; it was just so odd.
Why does it look like previous generation generative AI, where everybody looked the same?
Not sure what kind of “together” we can have. Working with anti-MAGA conservatives is supposedly wrong, working with (even anti Netanyahu) Israel supporters is supposedly wrong - won’t get a majority that way.
The image is really misleading into exactly that.
The one point I don’t completely understand is the tax debt: Wouldn’t a failed business, no matter how ridiculous, be a complete write-off?
Maybe the problem is that he has to tax each fiscal year independently, so a tax debt in 2023 from successful freelance work would not be diminished by a failed “business idea” in 2024.