sturger
@sturger@sh.itjust.works
- Comment on Belkin is ending support for nearly all its Wemo smart home devices 2 weeks ago:
“Hey, thanks for buying all of our products. We just found out that running servers costs US money, so screw that. We’re turning them off. Good luck guys!”
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
I’m not sure which is worse:
- greedy, irresponsible tech bros trying to convince everyone that their pinball machine can fly an airplane.
- people desperate to let the same pinball machine tell them what to do with their lives.
- Comment on Tesla Robotaxi Freaks Out and Drives into Oncoming Traffic on First Day 4 weeks ago:
Oh, stop your complaining. It’s not perfect, but we’ve all seen how easy this is to fix. Just barge into Tesla tomorrow and randomly fire 20% of the employees. That’s how real leaders get things done.
/s
- Comment on Elon Musk has done more damage to the Tesla name than Thomas Edison could have ever hoped to do. 4 weeks ago:
I read a quote somewhere to the effect, “The successful politician knows the exact time to step in front of the parade and pretend they’re leading it.
- Comment on is there is any Lemmy server that care about privacy(does not require email), Does not impose limits on community posts like my current instance and does not have high amount of restrictions? 5 weeks ago:
They’re saying “free” email services. What they mean are disposable e-mail services. You go to a website, they provide you with a random e-mail address. You enter that address into the form, check for the verification code on the disposable e-mail site and you’re done with the disposable e-mail. You never visit the disposable site again. Do a search for “disposable email”.
- Comment on I Convinced HP's Board to Buy Palm for $1.2B. Then I Watched Them Kill It in 49 Days 5 weeks ago:
I will never forgive Carley Fiorino for killing HP.
- Comment on YouTube might slow down your videos if you block ads 5 weeks ago:
Eventually they’ll start demanding you run their crypto-miners in order to watch a video.
- Comment on Half of companies planning to replace customer service with AI are reversing course 5 weeks ago:
“AI” is a blanket term that has recently been used to cover everything from LLMs to machine learning to RPA (robotic process automation).
Yup. That was very intentionally done by marketing wanks in order to muddy the water. Look! This
computer program, er we mean “AI” can convert speech to text. Now, let us install it into your bank account." - Comment on Half of companies planning to replace customer service with AI are reversing course 5 weeks ago:
Sure. And AI that identifies objects in pictures and converts pictures of text into text. There’s lots of good and amazing applications about AI. But that’s not what we’re complaining about.
We’re complaining about all the people who are asking, “Is AI ready to tell me what to do so I don’t have to think?” and “Can I replace everyone that works for me with AI so I don’t have to think?” and “Can I replace my interaction with my employees with AI so I can still get paid for not doing the one thing I was hired to do?”
- Comment on Half of companies planning to replace customer service with AI are reversing course 5 weeks ago:
Agreed. Unfortunately, one half of our population thinks that anyone in power is a genius, is always right and shouldn’t have to pay taxes or follow laws.
- Comment on Half of companies planning to replace customer service with AI are reversing course 5 weeks ago:
Man, if only someone could have predicted that this AI craze was just another load of marketing BS.
/s
This experience has taught me more about CEO competence than anything else.
- Comment on CEOs Are Creating AI Copies of Themselves That Are Spouting Braindead Hallucinations to Their Confused Underlings 5 weeks ago:
Modify the chatbot to post to Truth Social and that’s an immediate upgrade from CEO to President!
- Comment on Apple announces iOS 26 with Liquid Glass redesign 1 month ago:
Guess this means Apple has run out of ideas on how to make iPhone better.
What can we do to distract attention away from the fact that we don’t have any decent new features?
- “Rename the business unit so we can print new letterheads and business cards?” Our customer don’t work here, sir. “Dammit!”
- “Release a new color that nobody wants? How about a light blue that is so close to the regular silver no one can tell?” We did that last year, sir. “Dammit!”
- “Oh, I know: Repeat the year 2000 mistake by naming our OS versions after the current year using only 2 digits. That will never bite us in the ass in the future.” Brilliant, sir.
- Comment on Companies are using Ribbon AI, an AI interviewer to screen candidates. 1 month ago:
Wait. I thought we were going to be replaced with robots. What do they need AI for? To interview the robots?
- Comment on Duolingo CEO tries to walk back AI-first comments, fails 1 month ago:
People keep forgetting that these companies’s product is stock price, not whatever they’re advertising at any given moment.
The “CEOs” have gotten sloppy because the grift has gotten so easy they assume everyone is in on it. They assume there’s no need to hide the grift. - Comment on VCs are starting to partner with private equity to buy up call centers, accounting firms and other "mature companies" to replace their operations with AI 1 month ago:
Looks like the Oligarchs are serious about crashing the economy.
- Comment on X (formerly Twitter) has been experiencing international outages for a second time in a week. 1 month ago:
That sounds like a good plan, except for the cautionary tale of the Golgafrinchams from Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy:
Golgafrincham was a planet, once home to the Great Circling Poets of Arium. The descendants of these poets made up tales of impending doom about the planet. The tales varied; some said it was going to crash into the sun, or the moon was going to crash into the planet. Others said the planet was to be invaded by twelve-foot piranha bees and still others said it was in danger of being eaten by an enormous mutant star-goat.
These tales of impending doom allowed the Golgafrinchans to rid themselves of an entire useless third of their population. The story was that they would build three Ark ships. Into the A ship would go all the leaders, scientists and other high achievers. The C ship would contain all the people who made things and did things, and the B Ark would hold everyone else, such as hairdressers and telephone sanitisers. They sent the B ship off first, but of course, the other two-thirds of the population stayed on the planet and lived full, rich and happy lives until they were all wiped out by a virulent disease contracted from a dirty telephone.
/s
- Comment on The Copilot Delusion 1 month ago:
Tell your coworker to review it with his AI and then ship it.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
Conservatism is the attempt to rationalize greed.
- Comment on Why is it so hard to buy the same toothbrush twice? 2 months ago:
Thanks for the tip on Guhl.
I’m not familiar with Guhl. When I did a search, the first result was for Guhl Motors. My thought was, “Thank goodness my motor oil won’t change formula.” 😀
- Comment on Why is it so hard to buy the same toothbrush twice? 2 months ago:
Nice strategy, but I’m not going to buy 10 bottles of shampoo, not that I would have anywhere to store them if I did.
- Submitted 2 months ago to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world | 30 comments
- Comment on Stack Overflow seeks rebrand as traffic continues to plummet – which is bad news for developers 2 months ago:
In the earlier days of StackOverflow, the founders try to fight the toxicity. I don’t know whether they got overwhelmed or just gave up, but the trolls wound up taking over. Maybe good moderators aren’t willing to put up with both overwhelming toxicity AND no pay.
I still love what StackOverflow once was. I tried coming back and giving a chance a few times. My last question got “answered” by people who clearly had not taken time to read the question. After updating the question with, “Note: I’m am NOT talking about ‘X’, its subtle, please read the question fully.” I was told that I didn’t know what I was talking about.
I eventually figured it out and didn’t bother posting the answer to the issue. Fly-by answers by people just looking to improve their stats made continuing to interact with SO frustrating and pointless.
- Comment on Revolutionary cooling technology emerges from Slovenia 2 months ago:
You know what’s even cheaper to run than this “new technology”? Breathy promotion pieces that give no evidence whatsoever to support it’s claims. Way to go, PR folks.
- Comment on Is it weird to sometimes wonder wether everything you know is wrong? 2 months ago:
If you feel crazy because you don’t fit in, it’s entirely possible you’re not the crazy one. It’s entirely possible a large portion of society is on another bender.
I found the book, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds” by Charles Mackay helpful.
It was first published in 1841, so it’s in the public domain and available online. I found my copy in a used bookstore for a $1.
Mackay documents many of the public manias that overtook society up to that point. He describes dozens of them and remember, his list stops in the mid-1800’s.
Being aware of this pattern helps me to realize that a large number of humans are highly illogical. It helps me to understand that yes, a large number of people can all go off the deep end. It’s not me, it’s them. Notably, I can’t do anything about it. All I can do is lie low and ride it out.