It makes sense when you know the semi industry has always been cyclical and this insane level of spending can't be fueled on debt and VC cash forever. Masayoshison is out and now your 401ks are holding the bag, he'll get one last cashout when Open"AI" IPOs too with his winnings.
this is not practical or desirable in my view: de-google, de-apple, de-meta, de-aws etc etc etc
What next, become stone masons? nah, that's too corporate, pick berries instead ;)
Come on, what happened to moderation, discipline and planning? How about use what you need, hedge your risks (mix providers, products), be more proactive than reactive to demands for consumption?
Make intentional, rational, specific decisions about which people and companies to support with your hard earned cash based on alignment of values and interests.
Who says the thing is done? there is a massive danger now, with the sheer amount of complexity & speed brought by ai, in that it's increasingly harder to verify / do proof-of-work.
>> AI allows me to realize my ideas
sure for a personal/pet project. however, when working for a customer/client, they've ideas, needs, wants and usually have their own users and shareholders to satisfy - need proof.
>> lighting up the gas-powered street lights
ok, no this metaphor may well be loved by ai companies, but doesn't actual work in so many levels. For one, ai (as actually provided) is not electricity or a physical system, a brain, or a mind, it's software (I use it v-selectively). Second, the job being done (lighting, or coding) is ultimately to produce / output the desired outcome for whoever ordered it - a solution to a problem - failing that it's just work and wages for the worker but no effective solution (lighting the dark side of the moon, kinda).
I agree with the OP, as system complexity went up, so does the ability to keep up.
In high-tech warfare we're seeing these days your metaphor is reversed. These artisans (potters etc) are tech engineers, mathematicians, chemists. They are quick to mobilize and become effective (operate drones, robots, cyber, complex machines).
I cannot comment on your opinion of Canada, it's too vague in my opinion.
Generally, western Armed Forces (CAF included) reduced their personnel and spending when the Cold War ended (90s). Rightly so. Since then, war is fought very differently and AF are now very quickly adapting.
Recent conflicts in near/along Levant and near/along the Black Sea, show how effective certain types of warfare are in the current climate.
It is relative, depends on the "type of warfare" being fought, and the countries/economies involved.
In a high-tech modern warfare, the countries with a fighting force that has higher academic education, higher tech literacy are relatively quick to mobilize and become effective militarily.
> Uses the fast and bloat-free FLTK GUI library [1]
Bloat as a moat, is sadly the strategy of much of the web or apps in recent years. High Performance has shifted into how fast we can serve bloat. Efficiency has become about pushing the most bloat with least time.
Pages are bloated, sites are bloated, browsers are bloated, browser-market is bloated (two-a-dime! or three for free). The whole damn web is a big bloat. wtf happened.
"High performance has shifted into how fast we can serve bloat."
If remove ads and behavioural tracking, speed is faster
But goal of Big Tech, who make the popular browsers, is to make speed faster (fast enough) _with_ ads and tracking
User wants fast speed. User does not want ads and tracking. Big Tech wants users in order to target with ads and tracking. Big Tech tries top deliver fast speed to keep users interested
User can achieve fast speed _without_ ads and tracking
I do it every day. I do not use a large propular browser to make HTTP requests nor to read HTML
Removing html and css would also make the browser more secure - but I would argue also very counter productive for users.
Most of read-only content and lite editing can be achieved with raw data + xslt.
The web has become a sledgehammer for clacking a nut.
For example, with xslt you could easily render a read only content without complex and expensive office apps. That is enough for Academia, Gov, and small businesses.
Replaced them with App stores, why one code base when you can have N code bases: web sites, ios, android , tv …
cheaper, privacy-oriented and more secure lol obviously not, doesn’t help the consumer or the developer.
Xslt is brilliant at transforming raw data, a tree or table for example, without having to install Office apps or paying a number of providers to simply view it without massive disruption loops.
It’s not a Hello World equivalent.
So much around generative ai seems to be around “look how unrealistic you can be for not-cheap! Ai - cocaine for your machine!!”
No wonder there’s very little uptake by businesses (MIT state of ai 2025, etc)
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