Yes dealing with friends is nicer than strangers - but also when you're selling stuff, sometimes it's better to do strangers. Expectations of long term service and support are clearer and have more defined boundaries.

It is a massive massive massive privilege of us here to even ponder keeping a record we bought for 2 which could be sold for 1300. For a lot of other population this would be not even an argument.

Again, I don't actually care, but I do believe that mathematically, if one starts with assumption / claim that buying a 1300 record is insane, not selling it is equally insane (or not;). Crux of my argument is that two sides of that equation are equal, not whether we should consider that equation or not. I find it dishonest to make one side of the claim, but go all "modern culture is all about hussle!" When pointing the equivalence of the other side of the claim.

1. I have 10,000 in my bank account. 2. I see a 1,300 record I like 3. I buy it 4. My bank account now has 8700 5. There's 1,300 difference if I choose to buy it or not

1. I have 10,000 in my bank account 2. I have a 1,300 record 3. If I sell it my bank account will have 11,300 4. 1,300 difference if I choose to sell it or not

No "end of the world, this is what's wrong with everybody" gross hyperboles please, I don't care one iota about whether anybody buys or sells expensive records, I don't make any moral judgement whatsoever and would appreciate people in turn not making extreme assumptions about what I think about expensive records. But economically, buying an expensive item or selling expensive item is the same - Prove it wrong with numbers not appeals to emotion please.

Emotionally, it feels different. It's fascinating to see downright angry gut reactions!

A few years ago my friend was selling his expensive camera on Kijiji. I asked him to sell it to me for slightly less as a friendly discount. He told me that's the same as just randomly one day giving me a wad of cash, so why would he do that?? I thought he's crazy and was a little bit offended. Actually maybe a fair bit offended!

It took me YEARS to realize that 1. He's absolutely completely Inarguably correct, and 2. People would find me no less crazy if I adopted same perspective.

Buy for $x, have and not sell for $x, same mathematically. But oh boy will people get instantly riled up emotionally :).

I'm not sure that's universally true. Good software engineers who are arrogant about easily acquired domain knowledge have been the downfall of many an ERP system.

There's SO much IT that's literally all about putting business rules into the system.

Edit : probably this thing: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=1111&utm_... Officially "internet phone" but I'm fairly certain app / people called it IPhone (first two letters capital).

Let us understand each other that mowing the lawn relaxes some people, and to others it elevates anxiety and brings the sense of existential dread and time rapidly slipping through our fingers in meaningless repetitive kafkian never-ending tasks required by society for arbitrary unjustified reasons instead :-).

That's the key insight and difference, and not one we can necessarily persuade each other :). My time is worth a LOT to me. I can use the time to play with my kids, be with my wife, play a video game or a musical instrument, read a book, or even doomscroll, if that's what my brain needs at the time. These are things that bring me joy, and mowing the lawn doesn't. I spend a lot of my time doing things out of necessity that don't bring me joy. I have precious little time for things that do bring me joy. I'm not looking to optimize for things I hate.

Don't get me wrong, as I said, I DO laundry and dishes and cleaning and stupid lawn mowing (grr!) and some repairs etc (I don't even have a rumba :). I used to do more car maintenance myself. But when I do bring somebody in to do the work, I do not feel guilty about it - I work my ass off doing things I'm good at and being paid for it, and in turn I sometimes pay others who are way better and more efficient at something than I am :).

Milleage may vary :).

Thing is, today, as an adult, I'm painfully aware that I'm mortal and life is limited and time is the most precious resource available to me. I'm not religious so I don't believe in after-life reward for being a good boy either. So I'm a little bit more mindful / little less self-flagellating, than I used to be, about these things.

For myself in particular:

* Yes, I shower and wipe my own bottom :)

* I am the dishes and laundry queen in my family, though I definitely use laundry machine (curious where that would fit in your matrix btw? :)

* I don't mind the act of lawn mowing but I absolutely resent the randomness of it - at some point north american society decided that we/they will 1. Adopt a very specific fast growing grass for ALL the lawns and 2. Having it more than ~5cm long is an affront to man and god and neighbourhood alike. Why they haven't just culturally picked cloverleaf or something is beyond me

* I like organizing my living space but I get zero sense of satisfaction out of vacuuming, dusting, and general maintenance. Many other people love it! In turn though, they probably get zero need to constantly rearchitect their home network like I do :->

In sum - I personally put laundry machine and auto-vacuum in very different category than showers and wiping bottoms, but if you lump them together, much power to you, though I don't think it's a tax bracket thing necessarily :)

* if it's serious, what in the world do you eat, to compare farming, with AI datacentres, on equal / comparable footing in terms of necessity and efficiencies -- or call farming a "heritage business"? :->

I found books on architecture, systems, or patterns, were more available. E.g. On relational database optimization principles, or Unix system administration, or graphics algorithms and rendering math, etc :)

I love the tutoring of LLM, but to this day as a complement to a guided book. I don't find such guided books in computer science much anymore sadly, but for now I still do it in other venues - French, Biology Astrophysics and such. I grab a book, and then use LLM to supplement my reading as my mind always has a myriad questions :).

Not entirely sure why computer science is so radically different - maybe because things change and get obsolete too fast? At any rate, cuddling with a book is still my favourite way to learn a new topic, much as I spend 12 hrs a day eagerly typing and staring at the screen as well :).

I am keeping a piece of paper that came with my Tex Murphy game which stated that one could get 32MB of RAM for as little as $700 (1990s dollars) which would drastically improve the game!

I for one found it a worthwhile thing to learn and chuckle at... it's half injection attack, half the early internet breast-cancer filters :).

I'm surprised any author today isn't pre- or appending their articles with simple statement on AI usage. Transparency goes a long way.

The download is a Linux VM, gotcha.

Are other OS-s nested virtual machines inside that Linux VM, or emulators (in which case, holly mackerel, that is even more impressive :O... and also why??).

Readme seems to imply it's emulators, but it also uses the words "virtual/virtualization" or "VM images" liberally sprinkled.

He's fundamentally a very smart socially inept largely sociopathic emotionally immature obsessively driven boy who read a lot of Heinlein as a kid. Everything about him indicates he sees himself as a saviour of humanity and the only person who has their priorities right and everybody should appreciate and adore him and it's so darn frustrating when they don't, oh wait this other party will adore me, now they don't anymore either oh HUMbug.

Do I believe any of his promises? No absolutely not. But I do think Mars is his massive obsession and that he fervently (If completely Implausibly) believes it'll work and help humanity.