He never paid?! 😄

No prob! It’s a real game changer. It rarely fails to produce the paywall-free article.

Lol thanks for the tip, champ. I’ll at least go about my day with a little spring in my step knowing I’m not as miserable as you

That’s a good tip! I would hate to be in a position where i needed to use it but what else are you supposed to do? It’s absolutely bonkers how much they charge for this shit

Well perhaps it would help your demeanor, at least. Ta-ta for now 🥂

Omg i need to stop drinking champagne in the morning lol.

Either way, you sound like an exceptionally pleasant person to be around. I imagine your holidays probably were stuck in a lonely basement somewhere because you have driven away anyone that might once have cared for you. I’ll brush up on my detective skills if you’ll work on your misanthropism.

Come and get it. I can’t explain why it works on mine but doesn’t on yours. In the future, you can go to archive.ph and paste the address from the paywalled link. Most of the time they will serve you the page with the paywall removed.

Lol, get fucked troll.

OMG so i just did a little very mild detective work and discovered this bozo is salty because i responded to another shitty stupid comment they made elsewhere (and subsequently deleted) yesterday!!! Can’t make this shit up, LOL

Well, as long as you’re here @tehsills why don’t you tell us how your holidays were? 😆

There has to be a point where we stop giving a fuck about graphic capabilities. It feels like we’ve already peaked, and any further progress in the past several years has been marginal. I mean yes, if you need ultra 4K or 8K or 16K or whatever the fuck they’re up to then you’re gonna have to drop however much coin they demand. Truth is nobody ever needed graphics on that level especially for video games. Really good games have existed despite having potato graphics, and some of the most visually-stunning games don’t have the level of popularity or fandom of some of those potato-quality-graphics games.

When i come across articles like this, i like to think of the early video gaming days when real ingenuity was often what moved the bar. Finding ways to use chips in ways they weren’t intended to operate to make them do what the creators wanted. Without those extra layers of friction, it seems more of the attention has shifted to the graphics over the content of the game itself. There’s still plenty of good stuff out there no doubt, and graphics do matter but i feel most of the responsibility is on the developers at this point. You don’t need the most graphically capable card, and even if you bought it–aren’t there still other high-priced items you’ll also need to fully unlock it’s capabilities? Then you need games that fully take advantage of all those capabilities. This all reminds me of audiophiles in their ever-persistent hunt not only for the perfect combination of equipment, but also the music that’s been produced on such a high level as to need such sophisticated equipment to hear the differences in the first place.

We are getting priced out of high-end home computing, in any case.

Tesla sales dive 75%, Tesla stock rises.

Tesla sales dive less rapidly, Tesla stock also rises.

Elon says the most inane shit he’s uttered in 48 hours? Believe it or not: Tesla stock rises.

None of this shit makes sense anymore

That’s the wild thing to me: we are taxed nearly as much but we don’t get jack shit in return. I’d gladly pay even more taxes if it guaranteed things like health care and education.

For Ms Bannister’s family, the increased cost of healthcare means putting off other spending: “We were saving for a home, and saving money for that is going to take way longer if we have to spend $11,000 a year on healthcare that we barely use.”

That’s bananas, and that’s still not as much as some other people are gonna be on the hook for. Someone else in the article said they’re being charged $30,000 for insurance for the year. How the fuck are the upcoming generations supposed to afford to pay for housing, food, and essentials when half of their paycheck (or more?!) is going directly to health insurance?

It appears that the choice many are going to opt for is to simply forgo insurance. Which is really extra fun because that means even if they’re injured in an accident they didn’t cause, they can still be on the hook for thousands of dollars if they are taken to a hospital. Not to mention, it’s totally normal for a person to need to see doctors for various reasons, elective or otherwise. It might actually make sense to start figuring out what the non-insured charges are for my usual annual visits and see if we can try saving a few grand next year by opting out of insurance as well. What other recourse does one have except to try to secure a job that pays their medical benefits fully…

…and don’t forget, having insurance coverage doesn’t mean you won’t be paying anyway! I’m getting charged over $1000 for taking an ambulance to the hospital after being struck sitting in my truck at a red light. (Due to all kinds of other ridiculous rules regarding insurance, nobody’s insurance is covering it, leaving me to hope my health insurance will… They kicked in what they thought is appropriate and sent me a bill for over $1000)…I supposedly have pretty decent insurance and we’ve been paying about $700/mo for 2 people through my wife’s plan. Can’t wait to see whether that’s gonna double or triple! Perhaps that’ll just make our choice for us and we’ll start rolling the dice as well.

They really just revealed how they feel about either Americans or humans in general. Either way, it’s a weird statement to go out of their way to make. Guess they want to get in a fight or piss off some strangers? Perhaps they were disappointed with their Xmas? We may never know, lol

Worked fine for me.

Fair enough, though they also show very little of the content I’m subscribed to there as well. Sure it’s nice to discover things occasionally but it’s mostly ads and trash with relevant stuff peppered about.

A true centrist!

This is a perfect example of why AI will succeed no matter how mind-numbingly stupid it is: it will give people the warm and fuzzies without having to do jack shit. Yes, they “prompted” the LLM. Yes, they “edited” the output, and yes it was published on the biggest fucking commercial website to exist in the history of man. All of those “achievements” pale in comparison to writing an actual book with your own creativity and words and finesse. But since most people can’t expect themselves or their offspring to pull off such a difficult feat, this ‘second-place’ surrogate will do just fine and so we will all pay with what few resources we haven’t already annihilated in order to keep the gears grinding a little longer. 🙏

I mean, look at what a difference it makes:

user: “hey chatgpt, i was looking to talk to someone about my homework”

Chatgpt: “NEW TIDE WITH MICRO-ENZYME PEPTIDES WILL CLEAN YOUR CLOTHES ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL–BUY NEW TIDE TODAY”

Chatgpt: “Welcome, I’d be happy to help”

Versus

“hey chatgpt, i was looking to talk to someone about my homework”

Chatgpt: “Welcome, I’d be happy to help”

User: “Thanks! So i have an assignment about the quadratic equation. Can you explain it to me in simple terms?”

Chatgpt: Chatgpt: “NEW TIDE WITH MICRO-ENZYME PEPTIDES WILL CLEAN YOUR CLOTHES ON A MOLECULAR LEVEL–BUY NEW TIDE TODAY”

User: “This is so much better”

Chatgpt: “SINGLE WOMEN ARE LOOKING FOR ROMANCE IN YOUR AREA RIGHT NOW”

Chatgpt: “COME GET A FREE $50 CREDIT AT DRAFTKINGS. IF YOU HAVE A GAMBLING PROBLEM CALL 1-800-GAMBLER”

This is absolutely where i believe this is all headed. No more “personal” computers anymore–eventually all tech will be under lock and key and we’ll pay for the privilege to use it. Fucking horse shit

Damn, that’s a really good point. Plus as a repair guy I’ve been going to strangers houses for over 2 decades and while I’ve met some “interesting” people, it really does seem unwarranted to be suspicious of everyone you don’t know. I appreciate your comment, I’ve been thinking about it for a while. It’s amazing how much bullshit we were taught as children (and how much of it sticks with us)