ExLisper

Biggus. Now guess what would I change my last name to.

I didn't say it's not useful, I said people are not buying products because of them. People are not running to the stores to get the new 5G phone. I remember 4G roll-out and it was a big thing. You suddenly could use the internet the same way you did at home. With 5G there are no new usecases. You're not going to watch 4K movie on your phone. LLMs also don't sell devices. Siri and Alexa were kind of interesting when they came out and sold many smart speakers but LLMs are a tool, not a gadget.

I also didn't read the article but there is something to it. Are you exited about Threads the same way everyone was exited about gmail? Are you exited about Vision Pro the same way everyone went crazy for the iPhone? More and more often I'm searching for a product now and simply end up disappointed. There are no smart watches I would like to buy (the new features they have are all useless), new phones have less features (where's my headphones jack? where's my hardware keyboard?), the best new thing about laptops is flat RAM... Consumer products have stalled. It's all gimmicks now instead of actually interesting features. I think it's all good enough and we simply don't have the tech to offer actual breakthrough in usability.

You have to many usable laptops laying around. Put an ad on craiglist or something and give them out. I once put an ad like that and exchanged old laptop for a really good chocolate.

All I took out from this is the FOV is so bad it's really awkward to move around.

I'm never sure if Castro is dead or not. I was sure for very long time that he died already but it would turn out that he's still there. I also don't remember any events specifically related to his death. His brother (?) took over and he kind of fizzled out before he died. Or maybe he's still there? I'm never quite sure. I mean, it's 2024 now, he's definitely dead. Or is he?

They already won. They defended their independence and still form a buffer zone between Russia and NATO. You have to be delusional to believe that Russia is still able to take Kiev. Worst case (for Ukraine) Russia will take over the territories they held before the invasion started. It's still a disaster for Russia and a huge win for Ukraine.

No to mention it exposed them to the world as a paper tiger it is and weakened their international position immensely. Who is afraid now of an army not even able to hold the Black see? It will soon start collapsing internally.

Never. Because it's not. And we haven't been.

Of course new tech is used in industry but consumer products are a different story. And it's complex. People like spending money on stuff, it makes them feel better, so when the world gets depressing they buy things. Also, a side effect of not being able to afford a home is that people have more disposable income to spend on toys. Why save money if you will never save enough? So yes, people buy new products but do they really buy them because they are exited about new tech? I doubt it. You can easily run a 10 year old laptop and (if you're lucky and it's not broken) 5 year old phone today and you wouldn't be missing anything. No one really asked for AI, 5G and AR.

Żółć

(We're talking US only, right?) Isn't the inflation already at 3.5%? The goal is usually around 2%. If the government wants they can get it to 2% by taxing extra corporate profits but even if they don't do it and it will stay at 3% I don't know if it's an 'era of inflation'. It could still be back to ~2% in a year or two if there's no new war in the middle east. Now, looking at what's happening in the middle east my bet is that there will be another war, the inflation will go up again (~10%?) and we'll be stuck in this cycle until global economy splits and isn't affected so much by local conflicts. You can already see this happening post war in Ukraine but it will take a decade or two. So I would say 1-2 years if manage to avoid another war, 10-20 if the current trend continues.

In Spain you just go to an office, show your ID and they give you a personal certificate you import into your browser. You can use the same cert on multiple computers and have multiple certs in the same browser. When you visit government pages it asks you which cert you want to use and voilà, you're authenticated. You can also use the same cert to sign files and it's a legally valid signature. It uses common standards and works on Linux.