Unfortunately, India today is not exactly a beacon of righteousness. The current government in India is taking the country on exactly the same path as Pakistan except that India has an oligarchy which is being setup by people in government which would make it more like Russia. I'll give the country 10 years to implode if it doesn't course correct to become more inclusive, social justice oriented, and less violent.
Raspberry PIs are mythical beasts where Iam at. They are being resold at atrocious prices by scalpers very likely in connivance with the official channels.
All of them were sorted during WFH. I moved out to remote places and paid far less. I saved quite a bit on all of the above remote other than Internet of course. The economy is setup to extract your money from you once you've earned it.
I've heard that landlords in Bangalore, India demand the equivalent of 1 year's rent as deposit, your grad school scores, a write up about yourself, linkedin profile, caste, marriage status, scores of hidden charges, living rules that dictate food and dress rules and even specify curfew timings. There are also instances where some landlords have even demanded to see the mobile history of renters.
Add time travel, UAPs etc to the mix and you have the grey alien stereotype making sense. I've always thought China would be the one to make the leaps that humanity doesn't want.
Reminds me that fire is dangerous and making it would have been patent-able today. There is no guarantee that once taken away from the masses, AI research wont continue in walled gardens with only the rich, connected, and powerful having access. Had people been egalitarian or safety oriented, a lot of other things wouldn't have been developed, like nukes, robotics& automation, or self driving cars for example. There wouldn't have been billionaires setting up rules for everyone else.
The only reason this is an issue for "them" is that this tech isn't under their complete control and it seems to threaten the rent extraction model in a bunch of other industries.
And bottle everything up in a company that will then want to charge massive rents for it. This is a transformative tool in a lot of industries. Given half a chance, Musk and his types would have patented fire.
With AI enabled programming coming in etc, I expect many apps will start getting faster as code gets refactored to not use bloated thirdparty frameworks etc. Older devices, and electronic waste should reduce with the possible optimizations of apps. I maintain my devices well and have pristine devices I still use from 2010, but the apps make it run like molasses.
Normal web search is doomed. The people creating SEO out of ChatGPT dont realize that I am not going to be searching for answers by reading page upon page of SEO optimized pages anymore. I will ask an AI directly, and of late it has been a god send in terms of code and systems administration. First time right in most simple cases and queries.
Large corps love subscriptions. The platforms they create impose this upon developers too. I get very exhausted with the never ending stream of payments and T&C updates. Moving to the desktop has been a way out, the other has been clubbing subscriptions and outright cancelling even those that seem useful but have lower functionality alternatives in favor of having better control over my finances.
The real question Ive heard being asked is "Veg or Non veg?" This in many places is used to ask the caste question without explicitly asking for caste.
The other question I've heard being asked of Indians is "what is your full name?" as most upper caste Indians indicate their caste in their surname/family name. If your surname isn't upper caste, you are likely to be silently dropped in many social situations.
So someone who eats meat and doesn't have an uppercaste name is a lower caste. However since some upper castes do eat meat the surname question gets them through.
The color of your skin is the third SELECT. At some point all of it seems like a DB query.
In many localities and apartment complexes across India you will find it difficult to get houses because of these simple questions. A brief stint in Bangalore was eye opening with real estate agents being super frank about caste specificity.
Trying really hard on the narrative to get people back to filling expensive real commercial real estate. A lot of firms are invested or locked into expensive real estate.
As someone who realized the additional life benefits of working alone and away from the stupidity of mindless commutes, I am not buying this kool aid.
I currently have subscription payment fatigue. I'd really like a list of "One Time Payment" software. Are there app bundlers who resell subscriptions? Like if I just want to use an app only a couple of times?
A lot of companies seem deeply invested in corporate offices and office complexes. It helps them with expense write-offs, depreciation etc. If you suddenly stop using those facilities, it's a dead asset.
In some countries, running employee services like the cafeteria, transport, taxis, facilities management, security etc are usually hived off to family members of the promoter, allowing for invoicing at inflated rates to reduce tax outflow of the main business. If the offices didn't run many found it difficult to hide actual incomes.
As part of rule making, MPs should be forced to make their own info available twelve months prior to this rule being applicable to the public. A lot of useless laws would stop being proposed almost immediately. Increasingly, rule makers are a cabal.
Any way to actually monitor traffic at the PC or network level for an individual user? I see a lot of odd behavior by TVs, IOT devices, connected bulbs and such. None of them seem necessary to me. I feel windows could do a lot better with reporting or allowing users to clearly see what is communicating across the network currently.
Cloud has made irritating monthly payments possible even for small and tiny bits of rarely used software. As with electronics without removable batteries that will die soon, this trend is not something I will support by buying anymore. This year, I am cutting back on subscriptions in favor or whatever alternative that allows me a "reasonable" one time payment option. I hate having external dependencies and have developed subscription fatigue.
So many HODLers in this thread. For the normal person on the street, Bitcoin or Crypto never mattered. The endlessly breathless PR was irritating. Whatever happens, this wont be missed.