It’s set in 2077. Why the F does it need to feel American? There’s enough Americana in media already.

Are they? As the article OP shares suggests, these films quietly make us compare our lives to what is portrayed on screen. This is advertisement 101: display people in enviable positions to portray a sense of longing for a lifestyle that one would not normally seek. A food commercial isn’t selling you a product, it’s trying to make you hungry.

If all you wanted out of these rom coms is the portrayal of a carefree life, you could just watch pharmaceutical, banking, or insurance ads.

The average human considers the Pythagorean theorem “sophistication”. Let’s not take our education for granted.

The benefit of AI is overblown for a majority of product tiers. Remember how everything was supposed to be block chain? And metaverse? And web 3.0? And dot.com? This is just the next tech trend for dumb VCs to throw money at.

Other than making sure to be wearing your glasses if you are near sighted enough that your local licence requires it, glasses are an irrelevant factor. It’s not like you are going into active combat duty…

Just wait till the advertisers find out the eyeballs they are paying for are also just AI sock puppets. Enshitification strikes again.

Reject the temptations of short term convenience and adopt sustainable consumption.

Demand ownership of goods. Demand offline-first.

The wording of the article implies an apples to apples comparison. So 1 Google search == 1 question successfully answered by an LLM. Remember a Google Search in layspeak is not the act of clicking on the search button, rather it’s the act of going to Google to find a website that has information you want. The equivalent with ChatGPT would be to start a “conversation” and getting information you want on a particular topic.

How many search engine queries, or LLM prompts that involves, or how broad the topic, is a level of technical detail that one assumes the source for the number x25 has already controlled for (Feel free to ask the author for the source and share with us though!)

Anyone who’s remotely used any kind of deep learning will know right away that deep learning uses an order of magnitude or two more power (and an order of magnitude or two more performance!) compared to algorithmic and rules based software, and a number like x25 for a similar effective outcome would not at all be surprising, if the approach used is unnecessarily complex.

For example, I could write a neural network to compute 2+2, or I could use an arithmetic calculator. One requires a 500$ GPU consuming 300 watts, the other a 2$ pocket calculator running on 5 watts, returning the answer before the neural network is even done booting.

Sue for what? No self-respecting CEO would accept a position that creates personal tort liability if the stock price doesn’t go up.

Article summary: Japan’s system is not interchangable with systems outside Japan, which is a friction point for export.

The Design of Everyday Things

I’m pretty sure Windows is a key part of their “cloud stuff” strategy. You are right that consumers are not the direct focus of Windows, since they are not the direct paying audience, and that shows in the direction Windows is going, but getting consumers to use Windows is a big part of creating corporate buy in for Microsoft cloud services. Corporate environments will shun Microsoft cloud services if employees can’t use Windows, or Windows features run afoul of corporate policies (like blanket LLM bans).

Are we still pretending like the SCOTUS has any legitimacy?

Lemmy lacks niche interest communities, beyond stuff like Linux.

Back in my day, the government wasn’t in a constant state of nearly shutting down. Thanks Republicans.

Biden should just take these rulings and do his own Jan 6. Suck on it Trump and MAGA sycophants, time for you to reap what you sow.

These freedoms are a strength indeed, but they are also a vulnerability that can be exploited by foreign powers. Freedoms remain free so long as the people exercising those freedoms do so responsibly. I think a lot of people in the US do not exercise this freedom responsibly. I think a lot of Americans are being manipulated into voting in autocracy. Ironically.

Complete and total freedom is just anarchy, and anarchy collapses on itself and turns into autocracy.

The SCOTUS and other institutions will not save democracy.

This bears repeating. The SCOTUS and other institutions will not save democracy.

Institutions are corruptible. SCOTUS has been corrupted. That is where the US is.

Only citizen action can safeguard democracy.

The second part of this comment doesn’t make a lot of sense.

My understanding is that the tax system allows for the declaration of depreciation in assets as a business expense. This is fine for assets with transparent market valuations.

The part where this system could be abused is in willfully withholding the release of a movie, overvaluing the expected revenue, and then subsequently declaring the lack of revenue as a depreciation in assets which is then declared as a business expense to reduce the tax burden.

A clearer example of this, with very obvious fraud, might be:

• I paint a picture, spending about an hour of my time and 30$ of paint and canvas.
• I then organize a silent/shady auction for my painting, and secretly bid $1,000,000 for my own painting
• Then I decide to not pay for it and at the same time I decide to retract the sale instead of opening it up.
• On paper I have a $1,000,000 asset that has been depreciated by $1,000,000 which allows me to deduct $1,000,000 from my other taxes.

So obviously this example was fraudulous. It’s possible that the expected revenue on the cases involving movies was estimated transparently and was fair, because of market forces.

Maybe something more scummy was at play?

Who knows.

when they were a scrappy bunch of nerds working out of a house

Much of the recent criticism relates specifically to toxic/bro culture and a work culture that encouraged cutting corners, mistakes, and burnout. I’m not sure what was going on in the house behind the scenes was a model of a professional workplace.