30 year IT professional here, whose company is starting to utilize AI. So far for my workflow it does not provide any benefit. With that said, I am working with my team to find somewhere in our business and technical processes to make things better. It just hasn’t happened yet.

I am against it, but not dead set. What I am against are the insane things that are happening due to the over zealous investment into LLMs. The Three Mile Island #1 reactor is in the process of being brought back into operation by Microsoft, just to power an AI data center.

That is absolutely insane. TMI #1 is a 60 year old reactor design that was built over 50 years ago and that is at least two generations behind modern reactors. TMI #2 experienced a meltdown back in 1979, hence why it is not an option to bring back into operation. There are several documented issues with that reactor design (remember that #2 melted down? It was due to one of these issues.) that will require monitoring and processes in place to make sure the reactor stays safe. Monitoring that is not needed on more modern reactor designs.

Western Digital has announced that their entire production run of hard drives is completely sold out. Micron exited the consumer market in order to supply AI. So hard drive and memory prices are going to get even higher than what they are now. That means computers, phones, and any consumer device that uses memory or HDD storage will see massive price increases.

That’s the issue I have with LLMs. If the role out was anywhere near sane, then my attitude would be different. Right now it just looks like massive amounts of resources and money are being thrown into a pit with a dim hope that there would be some kind of return. Instead of a deliberate and planned role out that is sustainable in the long term.

Sometimes the complication is a smoke screen too.

Case in point… I picked up a contract to be the corporate Change Manager for a manufacturing company just before COVID. It’s the type of company that makes appliances and other things that are destined for the garbage pile. Not really anything of note.

The guy I was taking over for had put in his notice and was moving on and had 2 days to train me. Fortunately, the ITIL system they used was ServiceNow, which I already had a lot of experience with. He got to the monthly report and in his own words he called the method of generating it “byzantine” and it was a horrible process that took almost an entire day to finish. Fortunately, he gave me step by step instructions that were accurate.

Side note, the process for generating came from my boss. She was one of these people that had just enough intelligence to be dangerous. Yeah, this contract was a fun one.

So I used my decades of reporting experience and broke down how all the reports were generated. It turned out that the Director had never really learned how to use Pivot tables and that was why there were dozens of steps in generating about 7 different reports. I took about two days to write an Excel spreadsheet (because SNOW Reporting was not capable of generating some of these reports) and automated the entire thing. I ran the original process concurrently with my new spreadsheet for another month and they both generated the exact same numbers, I canned the old process.

But I did NOT tell a soul about it. Everyone, including my boss, thought I was still taking a full day to generate those stupid reports, when I was actually doing it in 5 minutes. 4 of which were waiting for ServiceNow to run its report and download it into a CSV file.

Oh I had tried to let my boss know that I had made myself a lot more efficient, she just got angry and actually yelled at me for a couple of minutes, then she promptly forgot about it. So I just kept it to myself after that. My plan was to just pass on the old process to the next poor schmuck to get this contract, but instead the reporting part of it was handed over to someone I actually liked. She told me flat out when she found out she was taking the Change Reporting piece that she was terrified of that process. So I had her sit with me at my desk and showed her the new spreadsheet. You would have thought I bought her a puppy.

So sometimes the complications in the business world are defense mechanisms for people’s time.

When I took a class to get my Concealed Carry Permit, on the very first day the instructor made a very interesting statement.

“If you are somewhere where you feel you need a gun to feel safe… Why are you there in the first place?”

While I did go on to get my permit I never once carried. I never went anywhere where I felt I needed it. If I became uncomfortable at a location, I left.

Dacor Stove

In 2006 my wife and I moved into a new house and bought a Dacor RSD30S stove.

Dacor made parts for the thing for TWO YEARS and that’s it. I owned it for 12 years and it went through three igniters and the door handle broke. The first igniter broke within 18 months and I was able to replace it with a new one. The second one went out at around 5 years and the part was already discontinued. Fortunately, the parts guy I was ordering from was very familiar with Dacor and said that the igniter from the new model would work, the bracket would just need to be drilled to mount it. It took me all of 5 minutes. The third one went out and I was screwed. So I spent about 2 years manually igniting my “modern” duel fuel range. Even when it did work, Dacor used one igniter coil for all four igniters. If they were not all perfectly clean the current would only go to one with the least impedance and the rest wouldn’t work.

I was never able to fix the broken handle.

Dacor… Never again.

Contrast that with the stove I replaced the Dacor with, a Wolf DF304. Granted, we’re talking about a very high end range vs a middle of the road POS. However, Wolf has not changed the design of the DF304 in 25 years. I actually bought my Wolf 2nd hand, hence why I could afford it. It was 8 years old when I bought it. Wolf not only still has all the parts for it in stock, the stove is still in production. It currently is 14 years old and works like new, compared to the Dacor being 12 years old and completely clapped out. Also Wolf uses independent coils for each igniter, so the current doesn’t flow to the igniter with the least impedance like the Dacor.

I know this sounds like a case of “you get what you paid for”, but that Dacor new was $2500, so not exactly cheap.

And don’t even get me started on General Electric appliances…

Back in 2000 I had a close skydiving buddy. He was an excellent competitive pool player and taught me how to play and I even went on to win a few tournaments.

Our friendship came to an end when my girlfriend broke up with me and he was in bed with her the very next day.

Out of curiosity I tried looking up his name about a year ago. Turns out he was living with a woman down in Tampa, Fl. She had lost a child previously and was dealing with major psychological issues… He came home to find she had committed suicide… And he killed himself because of it. This all happened way back in 2013. So he’s been dead a long time.

The technology is way too resource intensive for the benefit it gives. By resource, I mean environmental and technological. Have you seen the prices of DDR5 RAM? Microsoft is actually working to bring TMI 1 back online. TMI = Three Mile Island as in a full sized nuclear reactor that has been retired from service since 2019. The only reason why they are not bringing TMI2 back online is because IF F$%KING MELTED DOWN IN 1979.

Add to that Micron exited the consumer market to provide memory to the AI market only… What the actual F#$k?

Now the bubble has formed and the people that shoved tens of billions into it are trying to fill that bubble by any means necessary. Which means the entire population of this country are constantly bombarded by it for purposes it is ill suited to.

When, not if, this bubble pops it’s going to be a wild ride.

There is also a Mustard Museum.

Sorry, I’m late to the party.

For audio equipment, buying used is relatively safe as long as it is something that isn’t too old.

What is too old? Old enough that the electrolytic capacitors haven’t reached their age limits. For cheap electronics this life expectancy is about 15 years. Cheap electronics as defined by pretty much everything you can buy at a box store. For higher end electronics with good build quality then you can move that number up to 30 years. In my collection, I have two McIntosh (high end) amplifiers that were built in 1992. Both work like new, but that’s McIntosh who is the very definition of you get what you pay for. I picked up a Marantz SR2002 for free a few years ago where its main channels were both out. The surround channels all worked and the main channels DID work when directly plugged into. What I found were dry solder joints on the input board. I spent about 3 hours resoldering the entire input daughter board and the motherboard to get it working again. Relatively easy fix for someone like me that has experience in electronics… But not something you’d ever want to pay the labor rate to have someone fix for you. The build quality on the Marantz is actually pretty decent. The capacitors in that SR2002, and there are a metric f’k ton of them, all seem really good.

Also, before you buy do an online search for the model number to make sure there are no systemic issues with the unit. I have a relatively new Onkyo receiver sitting in my electronics pile that I picked up specifically to repair it. I was thinking it would be something simple and I would have a receiver to use. Unfortunately, what went wrong with it was a proprietary microprocessor that is a known issue with that specific receiver. I picked it up for free, but it’s a paper weight. My plan is to part it out for other projects, so it’s not a total loss.

The only way I would purchase a television used, is if I could plug it in and let it play for a minimum of 2 hours. A lot of issues with electronic devices only show up with the device is fully warmed up.

As to how to asses the quality of a manufacturer… If you can buy it at Target, Walmart, or Best Buy (with a few exceptions from BB) then it’s mass produced junk. Designed to have a 10 to 15 year life span and then be thrown in the garbage. The exception with Best Buy is I’ve actually seen high end gear there… I was stunned when I walked past a rack at BB that was full of McIntosh gear powering Martin Logan speakers. Who the hell walks into Best Buy to drop $7k on an amplifier?

Anyway, I hope something in my ramblings helps you out.

But but Bezos has to pay for another rocket and yacht and he just got married!!! Think about his quarterly statement! My god are you heartless!!!

/s

(just in case it’s not obvious)

Because it is a LOT more complicated than that.

Not all rheumatological diseases are due to the immune system’s memory. As a case in point, Ankylosing Spondylitis is theorized as being caused by a mis-folded HLA-B27 protein response. The mis-folded protein response is caused by cellular stress, at least that is the theory. The lead singer of Imagine Dragon Dan Reynolds suffers from this disease. So there are people out there suffering from it, it’s not just some disease out in left field no one has heard of before.

Are there diseases that could be treated by clearing the immune system’s memory? Possibly, but there would also be consequences for that as well. Mainly, because the actual method by which the memory works is not completely understood.

Disclaimer: My wife is a Rheumatologist that does both basic research and clinical work. What I wrote above is based on what I have gleaned from her over the years. Any mistakes or misconceptions are strictly mine. I’m just an old IT guy and have never studied medicine.

Yes.

Let me tell you when, why, and how I learned that you need to pay attention to taxes.

I was in third grade and my class had a field trip. This was 47 years ago, so the exact details of the trip are lost to time and rusty memory. The lesson remained.

There was something that the class could purchase at the end of the day on the trip and the place only took cash and the school was not doing anything to help, except tell the kids about it and the price. Which was something like $5. I told my Mom and she handed me a $5 bill, plus a quarter, which confused my 3rd grade brain. She said to due to some strange words "sales tax, which was 5% in my state at the time. Got to school that morning and all my classmates were proud that they had their $5 bill, but none seemed to have a quarter. So I kept the presence of my quarter a secret and was a little embarrassed about it. Yes, I was young and stupid. Now I am old and stupid.

When it came time to purchase the whatsit at the end of the day, me and one other of my classmates produced a quarter to buy it. The teachers and chaperones had to cover the sales tax for the other 20 kids and they were pissed.

I went to school and learned a lesson that has stuck with me for nearly 50 years.

Mensa membership is directly correlated to taking online IQ tests.

Truly intelligent people don’t.

I’m a cook as a hobby, so typically the cost of making vs buying does not figure into my decision, except when things at the store get absurdly expensive.

A case in point: Toasted Sliced Salted Salad Almonds from Fresh Gourmet

My wife and I love these on our dinner salads so we go through a lot of them. The cost of a package of these salad almonds has risen to $7 for a 3.5oz (99g)package.

I can buy a 16oz (454g) package of raw almonds for almost the same amount of money, as the 3.5oz (99g) Fresh Gourmet package. I have an electric oven that consumes around 5kwh that runs for roughly 30 minutes during preparation and my daytime electric rate is around $0.13/kwh (I think).

Out of that I get a full pound (16oz, 454g) of salted almonds for ~$7.07 and 30 minutes of my time. I also use about $0.02 worth of salt, bringing the total cost to ~$7.09 for 4.5 times more almonds.

I also can adjust the amount of salt on them as well, as typically my wife and I like less salt that most people.

It’s also fun to do.

Learning how to type.

You either had to take typing, or some other class that I can’t remember during my junior year. The other class didn’t appeal to me at all, obviously as I cannot even remember it now, so I took typing. By happenstance my best friend was in the same class.

The class taught me a skill that I use till this day, some 38 years later.

I am, for the most part, self taught. I worked for Radio Shack in the late 80’s to mid 90’s and read through every book on electronics they had. That is how I got my start on low power circuits. I had several breadboards and components and would build circuit after circuit. I was in college at the time, so I took a couple of electronics classes. Also had a friend who was an electronics repairman and he helped me to learn high power circuits, such as power supplies for high powered amplifiers. That is how I learned to work with capacitors the size of Coke cans.

Low powered circuits you can learn on your own. Read to learn the theory, there are a lot of Youtube channels to watch now as well, which I didn’t have when I was starting up. When you get to high powered electronics I would highly recommend either taking classes, or learning directly from someone. The risk is just not worth it.

The blue capacitor below is one of 2 in my wife’s amplifier, which is a 240w/channel Soundcraftsman from the late 80’s. That cap, charged, will kill you many times over.

[

](https://example.com/)

Transistors.

The first working transistor was created in 1947. Before then it was just vacuum tubes. Less than 80 years later the modern world relies completely on its existence.

You use billions of them in your everyday life.

I’m still here.

I keep reading it, so added for comedic effect…

I’m a Gen X’er… Not sure if the Lemmy’s word limit on posts would allow me to list it all.

So here are a few:

Drank from the garden hose? Check

Rode in a car without seat belts? As a toddler? As a baby? Check

Rode my bike all over town with no helmet? Had an accident that put me in a coma for 48hrs because of not wearing a helmet? Check

Harvested tobacco on my grandparents farm? Check (Anyone who has done this by hand, working with those stakes knows the risks.)

I started skydiving in the early 90’s. My mother was absolutely appalled and constantly berated me about how “dangerous” it is to jump out of an airplane.

The truth of the matter was I was far safer in free fall than I was during most of my adolescence.

1985 Pontiac Sunbird and my parents had a 1986 Buick Skyhawk. Both were exactly the same car, just different front fascia. Same crappy 1.8L SOHC engine and terrible build quality.

Both cars blew head gaskets at 50,000 miles and my Sunbird blew it again at 65,000miles. Neither car were ever overheated. The A/C on both cars died at 60K. Various parts of the exterior and interior were just plain falling apart. The cars’ performance was absolutely abysmal.

The cars were so bad that I haven’t purchased another GM product since, nor will I ever buy another product from GM. My Dad had bought a mid-90’s Oldmobile 88 and it was actually OK for the most part. It just ate alternators, until I convinced him to put an upgraded aftermarket unit on and that problem was solved. Later he bought a Chevy Traverse and that thing was an absolute piece of trash. He had to put timing chains on it at 70k and that was a $2500 bill. The power steering also went out on it multiple times. He had the steering rack and power steering pump replaced multiple times.

I traded my old Sunbird in on a 1985 Toyota Corolla GT-S and THAT was my absolute favorite car of all time. I autocrossed it for several years and it never broke. I’d love to find one to restore. I have owned multiple Toyotas in my 39 years of driving. My current car is a Camry Hybrid.

Used to work for a company that started out as a US startup for IT Services, later it was purchased by a large German company.

During its startup days, you did not dare drink alcohol at lunch time.

After being bought by the German company, you did not dare NOT to drink alcohol at lunch time. Especially if someone from Germany was visiting. They viewed it odd that we had an aversion to drinking beer at lunch.