Would you pay 500 dollars a month to have the possibility to do your movie searches? Or alternatively, would you like your LLM of choice to counter that, having read all your emails and browser history, you are probably interested in a totally different movie that just happens to be playing now at a nearby cinema?

There might be a more direct parallel than originally intended in this with the explanation how one person works hard all day and makes less than another person who pushes a few buttons. The latter knows which buttons to push.

This technology is useless for my movie searches, but it might be useful in the same way as radar was for air defense.

BTW, I’m not sure what I’d choose if offered to pay 500 dollars for knowing what that movie is. There’s one girl, if she’d be interested too to find that movie, perhaps I would.

So if such an expensive technology would allow this kind of nuanced search, and more seemingly efficient wouldn’t, then we have a use case.

Or a model allowing to predict actions of other people sufficiently well, based on seemingly not precise enough data. However much it would cost, that would be justified, similarly to high-frequency trading, because it would operate on all existing value, not just what it generates.

I’m not saying that it IS all a bubble, by the way, as I can’t read the future and these gigantic profits might well materialize in the future. I’m just saying that “bubble” and “useless” are different.

I know, I was making two points, one is that everything is relative (what you’ve just agreed to), another is that it might not at all be a bubble.

Well, one can say then also that US military is a bubble, it also hogs resources far bigger for the same results that poorer nations achieve. There are some things it does that can’t be compared to others because nobody has the need or that much money, but what can be compared is not even factor 10+.

It keeps getting that funding because of the position in the world it occupies.

Or one can say that the Danish kingdom sitting on the Sound relying on custom fees for its budget and then going on adventures with mercenary troops was a bubble. That bubble was inflated and burst a few times before that happened finally (something-something Kiel canal), and for long enough periods of history that just was the reality.

It’s a relative thing if something is sustainable or not. When people are talking about Earth being expected to exist for enough time to be more afraid of global warming and microplastics and such, it means that Earth’s existence itself is usually assumed to be indefinitely sustainable in our frame of evaluation.

So what you said is true, but dotcoms also were a bubble.

In Russia it’s an anecdote about two cowboys with one saying in the end “Bill, I think we’ve both just eaten shit for free”.

What if it’s not a bubble?

So I tried using some AI chatbots to find a movie recently, it made up a few, none being the answer.

(The question was about a historical movie, made in perhaps 1970s by the feeling, set someplace in southern France somewhere around 1650s, has a few beautiful views of nature and castles ; one scene where a guard captain enters a room, asks a question, as a power gesture drinks a glass of wine on the table and a minute later falls ; another scene where for whatever reason a rapier fight happens in something like a tavern, two women in pastel dresses are descending by an open ladder from the second floor, seeing the brawl take our pocket pistols, one of them is stabbed with a rapier ; another scene where a guy is getting questioned with his feet over the fire ; another when another guy is climbing a tower clinging at brick mortars outside and hears guards’ boots on the ladder very loudly ; when I was a kid and saw that, someone said it’s an adaptation of something by Lope de Vega, but I’m not sure that’s correct ; that’s just in case someone reading this knows such a movie.)

But some googling sessions they do optimize, without you the user ever having to browse a webpage, and just getting a textual answer. That’s a valid use.

And some other processes. They don’t have to be useful for all things they are applied to, just some profitable.

Solar energy for computation perhaps, but cooling would be too expensive.

In an existing ecosystem of space mining and processing of all required elements, with no need to exit gravity wells, could be microchips. I don’t think we are closer to that than Vinland settlers were to thirteen colonies.

That part of the problem makes rules of the game more similar to how they were before the Internet. It’s almost a return to normalcy.

If this system was in use by car companies, the consequences would be similar, only 2 or 3 companies worldwide, making a few models each, all of them much more expensive than what they are now.

And, as it happens, those 2 or 3 companies not really following the regulations, practically employing inspectors instead. Like Boeing.

I mean, there’s also no safe touchscreen on a mobile phone, and one would think a main personal mobile communication device should have the least disruptable user interface possible.

A stylus makes some sense, it’s a more convenient tool for drawing on a screen. But touchscreens must die.

I’m trying to dial someone or do anything at all in a dark place, I have to look with my eyes at a burning screen (notably with some crappy flat design of all UI elements, as is custom today) and try to hit it with my fingers. My fingers notably come from factory without backlight or auto-aim.

I could just remember which key is which, and rely on my tactile feeling to find them.

I’m trying to do anything at all in frosty weather (that kind when you feel like scratching your skin, normal winter, minus 10 Celsius is enough to feel that), I have to take off my glove and try to hit whatever with my fingers which become obviously clumsier under such temperatures.

And I can’t simultaneously do something and look at the display, because I’m poking my fingers at that display to do something!

And it’s easier to do something you didn’t intend.

I hope everything with a touchscreen dies as a consumer good, similarly to young nuclear scientist kits for toddlers, asbestos roof tiles, lead paint, you get the idea. Some things are bad.

That’s like muscle atrophying from lack of gravity. The gravity was the importance of such nuance for, well, making money. In this analogy.

Where did it go - well, to picking the right advertising and promotion system, the right platform. Good or bad attention is more important now than reputation.

One could foresee this when the Web, consisting of web directories, web rings and people talking about things in small communities on forums and in groupchats, with their ICQ number being their main identifier, was defeated by Google. It was the first indication that reputation loses to discoverability.

So, why are they cutting this - because this level has become subject to a higher level of competition. Where the specific business going bad doesn’t matter.

It’s new quantities, but an old mechanism, though. Humans were making up shit for all of history of talking.

In olden days it was resolved by trust and closed communities (hence various mystery cults in Antiquity, or freemasons in relatively recent times, or academia when it was a bit more protected).

Still doable and not a loss - after all, you are ultimately only talking to people anyway. One can build all the same systems on a F2F basis.

This and many other new problems are solved by applying reputation systems (like those banks use for your credit rating, or employers share with each other) in yet another direction. “This customer is an asshole, allocate less time for their requests and warn them that they have a bad history of demanding nonexistent books”. Easy.

Then they’ll talk with their friends how libraries are all possessed by a conspiracy, similarly to how similarly intelligent people talk about Jewish plot to take over the world, flat earth and such.

Yes. Except this works only in dynamic, that is, while USD keeps devaluing compared to much of the world’s currencies and goods, that might help exports.

And also revitalize the economy by somewhat hurting speculative assets.

But IRL it’s a gamble, and those who have power keep power.

No. It won’t be. But things change. Some buildings crumble. Some are reinforced and kept standing. Where there were streets, new buildings are erected. Where there were rivers and bulwarks, streets are made with pipes underneath.

So this particular building will have to change to avoid crumbling. Well, as it always happens.

It would be good (and for the US as well), but it’s possible the ship has sailed.

See, such racket schemes, if we use the tone of the article which I mostly agree with, are benefit not only to such US companies. They have already become popular and they will continue to be used.

So no. Unless suddenly a few liberal-democratic revolutions happen and everyone suddenly feels peaceful and reasonable.

On the plus side, maybe the notion of American Exceptionalism will diminish a bit, which is long overdue.

And I have a pet conspiracy theory that this is intentional. American elites are secretly tired of exceptionalist sh*t and think it’s hurting them too. And thus have come up with a solution to return sobriety.

It’s either I get that or a foldable 1 screen phone (like a flip phone).

From the times when things were actually convenient to use. Buttons shouldn’t get random presses while the thing is in your pocket. Screens should be protected from scratches and dirt while in your pocket. It’s more compact when folded while in your pocket, while thicker, but an apple fits in my pocket, so thickness is not a problem.

Remind me what happened? Ah, yes, Steve Jobs went out on a stage and confused the hell out of millions of hamsters, telling them he’s brought them their Star Trek communicator. Well, that’s not what he said, but that’s what they heard and what he meant.

I’ve gotten used to making sure my hands are not sweaty when using a phone, and that it’s practically not usable when it’s cold and your fingers are not very precise, like when walking or when in a crowded place, and that you should be careful with that pocket to not occasionally unlock the thing and repost something personal into apartment building common WhatsApp chat, things like that.

But sometimes I recall that with a Motorola flip phone I could do everything with no loss of ability or speed in all these situations.

Not even talking about battery life.

On another note, after Tim apple bribed Trump with a gold ball I’ve decided to no longer buy apple products again.

Oh, that’s when.

MS has nothing to do with it, except that BitLocker is much better than anything any Linux distro has to offer today.

It’s a piece of software with closed source code. I am aware that people can hide (and have done so many times) a backdoor or a mistake in source code so that it’ll be harder to find than many problems in binaries without source provided.

Still harder to audit.

You need to have the disk decrypt without user input, and you can’t have the secret with the user. (As the user is untrusted - could be someone stealing the laptop.) The normal Linux user mantra of ”I own the machine” does not apply here. In this threat model, the corporation owns the machine, and in particular any information on it.

Smart cards?

Hate RHEL all you want, but first take a look at what distros have any kind of commercial support at all from software vendors. This is the complete list: RHEL, sometimes Rocky, sometimes Ubuntu.

I know.

Basically, corporate requirements go completely against the requirements of enthusiasts and power users. You don’t need Secure Boot to protect your machine from thieves, but a corporation needs Secure Boot to protect the machine from you.

Sigh. Okay.

1. OK. I agree, but personally hate RHEL.
2. Yes.
3. Suppose so.
4. Brightness and sound controls too?..
5. Yep, meant that.
6. I thought of something like company-issued laptops, which might be good to have functional without Internet connectivity sometimes, if it’s remote work.
7. Dependent on the role some users might need to regularly install software you haven’t thought about.
8. Yes.
9. Well, disagree about SecureBoot, there’s nothing secure about MS signing your binaries. It’s just proof they are signed by MS. Setting TPM under Linux is, eh, something I’ve never done.

I think you can:

1. set up something like Fedora Silverblue,
2. disallow root,
3. disallow sysrq and such,
4. allow sudo only for select few things,
5. refresh configuration centrally.

I’m not sure it’s much more work than what I’ve seen in corporate environments with Windows.

That’s a question similar to legalization of sex work.

I mean, selling data on someone is not cool. But what’s completely illegal, but in demand by everyone, becomes something completely unregulated in practice and still a huge market. While otherwise it could be at least partially constrained by some norms. Similarly sex work is very much not cool. But at least in some countries it gives smaller chance of being murdered to workers.

So - I live in Russia, I’m not sure I like the way it happens here more. Especially when combined with slow encroachment of mandatory centralized services for everything connected to government, municipal services, utilities, documents. They want control like in China, but can’t be bothered with security at least like in China.