Kudos to the author.

Needs some institution with many geek supporters and or large tools, like Wikipedia or EFF to wage a campaign of scanning the web for materials used without permission and then loading the courts with cases of probable non-consensual usage. May not change billionaire behaviour but perhaps will change consumer behaviour.

As other commenters have noted folk in some places don't have anything but work. That is a global social issue that needs addressing first.

The article is timely as it suggests yet another unconsidered risk factor of this war - USA could destroy its own stock market. Or Iran could accelerate that with one missile. I like to think the US military know this hence obsession with missile destruction but it is reasonable based on recent behaviour to assume that the MAGA overlords can't even spell bromine nevermind understand the risk.

Lots of skills from those old days that have been lost/ignored in the pretence of productivity.

I also have non English speaking family members so I get to improve everyday. And yes I make mistakes every day but 99% avoidable and the rest I just accept and move on. Multicultural and multilingual teams are a joy not a test so enjoy them when you have the chance. Might surprise yourself how much you will learn about people and communications and build a new level of self awareness in the process.

My 2c.

If the authors client had been using an RPG accounting system for 40 years then it might be BPCS and there were tools out there to convert RPG to other less traumatic languages.

But fascinating article nonetheless and brought back memories of being an apps programmer. I also remember those dongles. Really fun when you had multiple apps with their own dongles and only one port.

What I like about this is that ides of a catalog which is what most business systems have in the form of their records and objects. Giving an AI accessible structure to this gets AI into the realm of the various 4GLs back in late 90s which made user created forms so much easier. Anybody remember that Informix 4GL for building simple apps from the db schema?

Other responders have also talked about Google inbox which I never used but even those of use locked away in enterprise fiefdoms with Outlook can make use of pinned messages (same as starting in Google Inbox) and recently also can be reminded about emails. I use both combined with the approach of trying to clear my inbox as close to zero unread each day as possible. I do same to slack messages as well. For all "messages" I ruthlessly delete or archive anything not needing action and with no legal or revenue impact.

THats how I manage the torrent of comms. Need to improve my work on larger items to start earlier and produce in smaller chunks.

For keeping track of all my work I used Obsidian with tasks and tags and put due dates on all. Helps me see what is due for each "project".

My 2c.