The difference, of course, is that people don't care if their spreadsheet is written by an artisanal human programmer or just some stupid, swarthy Idea Guy banging on a keyboard. It seems that a lot of people do however care if the music they listen to or the art on their living room wall is made by a human or by a machine. Maybe it's about "positioning" but I don't think so. Most people want to pretend they are creatures of finer taste than everyone else around them. In this regard, I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop on AI in (for example) music, and there being kind of lip-syncing scandals with popular musicians.
Many moons ago, I was involved in the technical side of volunteer work for domestic violence victims escaping abusive relationships with e.g. law enforcement (cops), who even fifteen years ago had sweeping powers to track and stalk their victims. Things like actual anonymous burner phones and the ability to e.g. create new email accounts without government identification were critical to the process of getting these people out safely, or alive, without fear of retaliation.
I can't even imagine how difficult this job must be nowadays, with bullshit like Flock spanning hundreds of police departments participating in their nationally-linked database. I have zero sources for what I'm about to say, but my instinct is that the political machines (expanding powers hidden behind "think of the children") behind how technology is evolving today has gotten people killed.
The worst thing about AI is that it's camouflage for stupid people. And it often gets combined with utter confidence in some position because they're too stupid to know the machine is confidently wrong.
No, I actually like this reply, because it's true in its essentials. You can find someone to tell you what you want to hear, but it's not going to pay the rent. And actual help needs to come from within, and no one has a magic wand or a one-weird-trick to actually help you. In the meantime, you have to pay the rent. Work sucks to varying degrees, and we all need coping mechanisms. Waving a flag with some acronym is not, at the end of the day, going to pay the rent. Find coping mechanisms.
Boring old programmer. Honestly I gave up rules-lawyering in D&D some time ago, because it just makes things a slog. Which, while fun for me sometimes (I play Dwarf Fortress), isn't as fun for anyone else.
I have worked in tech in many different cities and when I worked for a startup in San Diego, we were surrounded by health tech companies of all sizes. I've never worked in Boston, but I would say San Diego is definitely a health tech hub.
No, it is not feasible to run modem signals over VOIP, as the various codecs all compress signals and cut frequencies and all manner of things to reduce bandwidth consumption, which are incompatible with modem signaling. You could get away with it in a homelab for fun, but you have absolutely no control over what VOIP codecs e.g. Comcast is running, so it is effectively impossible. Even if the phone company says they can offer you a copper line, your copper line will eventually get converted to VOIP at the end of the street or wherever, and then it's up to whatever commercial provider you're paying to choose the codecs for VOIP, which are never modem-friendly. I worked on this stuff about ten years ago. There are fax codecs but they are very hard to get working reliably.
I have no horse in that race but just to see people talking about XML like this a quarter of a century after the first time I saw similar comments is just funny, I don't care who you are.
I think this is normal for most people, but I've found that one-on-one's are a way more effective tool for revealing these sorts of situations. A good manager, though, is very rare. Maybe there's some surface area here for AI, to identify landmines workers are stepping on. Who knows, maybe AI should just be the ones attending meetings.
I interviewed at DoorDash way back when, could've been about employee #12 or something. But when I sat down to interview with a couple of the cofounders, it seemed to me they were some kind of sociopaths. I have no regrets whatsoever not calling them back. All of my friends that work in the service industry (at the actual restaurants, not delivery drivers) absolutely despise DoorDash. I refuse to use it.
It's interesting to note that stoicism -- in my experience perhaps the most difficult thing I've ever done and still fight hard every day to follow -- could be said at its core to work against these baser motivations.
That's what I've been using for some years and it's never been a problem for me. You are right that you have to have at least a basic understanding of how a mail server works, and there is some configuration to know about. But I think of all the things I host myself, docker-mailserver is the least cumbersome and among the most reliable.
But that is exactly what happens: Human civilization is a generational loop of genocide and treachery. All of these wonderful things we enjoy exist in spite of everything we are.