redditmademedoit

Are you sure about that? I’ve been reading mixed information on how expensive it is to operate these chat bots, e.g. the cost of “inference”, when you don’t develop and maintain the actual models. Some claim inference is actually quite cheap. Not sure how that applies to Proton though, but as far as I understand Lumo is mostly a front end for some generally available models?

I think privacy is the biggest concern for users (as opposed the plethora of horrible problems AI brings to the world at large) with ChatGPT and similar services. I can see the market space for a privacy centered service.

I think it’s better to focus on the tail end of their arguments, as opposed to whether it’s technically possible.

European banks and investors are stuffed with Treasuries. If they tumble in value because of a threat of a European boycott, then it would probably end up harming Europe just as much as the US, if not more so. Moreover, a large-scale repatriation of capital would send the dollar tumbling and the euro rocketing, which would alone possibly be enough to send many European countries into a recession.

For example, forcing your bank sector to sell off a bunch of assets that are considered “risk free”, comes with consequences.

Also consider that a majority of European leaders seem to be banking on the whole Trump era to blow over at some point soon. They hope to be able to rely on the US again and don’t really want to do any lasting harm (probably).

But to be clear, that’s still just your “normal” bad day that hits the markets with some regularity (e.g. Jensen Huang has a bad hair day).

Consider that Russia has been failing to take over a neighboring country for several years now, for incomprehensible reasons, displaying immense incompetence on every level along the way. It is inherently very unlikely that Russia simultaneously has masterminded the entire fabric of the US and effectively taken over the country through sheer genius.

No doubt that Trump is playing right into Putin’s hands, but Putin is also an idiot: not omnipotent.

I think it’s more worth considering that the MAGA doomsday cult has a lot of interests that align with Russia, e.g. shifting U.S focus to the Western Hemisphere for resource dominance, as suggested by Aslı Bâli in the latest episode of The Dig (https://thedigradio.com/podcast/maga-empire-w-asli-bali-and-greg-grandin/).

Megabonk has some “fun” challenges that probably counts towards both. I did the “AFK gaming” one, where your character isn’t allowed to be moved by the player ( a huge handicap). It was kind of fun figuring out which character would be best, what pickups to prioritize etc.

As far as I’m aware peak oil production has not been recognized to have happened yet.

Over the last century, many predictions of peak oil timing have been made, often later proven incorrect due to increased extraction rates.[9] M. King Hubbert introduced comprehensive modeling of peak oil in a 1956 paper, predicting U.S. production would peak between 1965 and 1971; his global peak oil predictions were predictive through the 1990s and 2000s but eventually were deemed premature due to improved drilling technology.[10] Current forecasts for the year of peak oil range from 2028 to 2050.[11] These estimates depend on future economic trends, technological advances, and efforts to mitigate climate change.[8][12][13] Peak oil, Wikipedia

It is still assumed that global oil consumption scales with economic growth and under 2025 consumption increased.

Global liquid fuels consumption increased by an estimated 1.2 million b/d in 2025 and is forecast to increase by 1.1 million b/d in 2026 and 1.3 million b/d in 2027. Consumption growth rises next year as global economic activity picks up pace. Based on forecasts from Oxford Economics, our forecast assumes global GDP will grow by 3.1% this year and 3.3% in 2027. Short-Term Energy Outlook, EIA (U.S. government)

Thanks, corrected!

When you have plug-in hybrid tanks or nuclear powered strategic bombers oil will see a diminish in it’s strategic relevance as a resource.

Fusion is nowhere near being in industrial use or being profitable. In the future, maybe, pending more breakthroughs.

Whether nuclear is a good idea to cling to going forward or not, it takes time to deploy. Those small reactors don’t just come off a shelf, ready to be turned on. Oil, however, can generate power TODAY, anywhere you can ship it.

The question isn’t whether it’s a good idea to keep burning oil – it definitely isn’t – the question is whether oil is still a hugely important energy commodity and the answer is a resounding yes. Notably, the article mentions that China’s oil use hasn’t even peaked yet. China does not use a small amount of oil.

If you’re like me, a long time Mac user with a lot of time spent in Windows for work, I think it’s really pain free to switch.

I chose Debian – the distro for boring people. Supposedly, it’s the best for stability and compatibility, not the best for cutting edge applications and perhaps slow to get some drivers and what not. Often people suggest alternatives like Mint as user friendly. However, I haven’t had a single problem with Debian in terms of compatibility or usability.

For the “Desktop Environment” (DE) – that which impacts the most whether the system feels more or less like MacOS – I use the bundled KDE Plasma without modifications. Like on Windows, the most used keyboard shortcuts, by default use Ctrl instead of CMD. If you’re at all used to Windows it will take you no time to adjust – otherwise it may take some rewiring of the brain or rebinding keys. The stock file manager in KDE is nowhere as nice as Finder, but also trivial to adapt to. Overall, KDE Plasma does not really mimic the feel of MacOS at all, but I consider that a pro – it means that I don’t end up frustrated assuming something will working the same way when it doesn’t.

I have never been big on using the official App Store on MacOS, but if you are, that’s going to be an adjustment. Each system comes with something similar to the App Store, but they generally don’t come with the same range of apps (e.g. Debian/KDE has an app called Discover which has a really narrow range of apps). However, as you’re stated goal is to break free from big tech, getting to know the different ways of installing apps will be a rewarding experience (and rather straight forward, most of the time).

Speaking about apps, I think one of the pains you should prepare yourself for if you decide to stick mostly with apps that are “Free Open-Source Software” (FOSS), the degree of polish – particularly in terms of investment in GUI/UX – will generally be considerably lower than many paid apps you might be used to, particularly premium Apple apps (e.g. Final Cut).

As for hardware, I don’t really have any valuable pointers. I think losing out on the great synergies between Apple’s excellently built hardware and very optimized software is a big trade off. But depending on what you’re gunning for, you will have a lot more options and potentially at a better price/performance point.

Oil is still king. It’s not by a long shot about to lose it’s value as a strategic resource.