If you bought it before it went freemium, you’re grandfathered in.

BuzzKill for Android.

PocketCasts used to be, before they went subscription.

Agreed, good catch.

For me it’s the text (too regular and perfectly-ruled to be hand lettered, but too much variance between the letterforms to be a font) and the little AI artifact on the random doohickey directly under the bottom left corner of the AI computer monitor:

Aside from that, it’s just the weight of unmotivated choices. Why is the “good” side of the image grayscale while the “bad” side is in color (a human probably would’ve done it the other way)? Why are the desks drawn slightly differently while the person, chair, and computer are drawn the same (a human would’ve probably made everything identical to better illustrate their point)? Why all the random clutter on one but not the other (if the point was to make the AI computing experience look scattered and cluttered, surely they would’ve made it more overwhelmingly cluttered, but if it was for verisimilitude they’d have put clutter on both desks)? Also, subjectively, the “AI” logo on the screen suggests a pleasant experience, not an oppressive one.

An unmotivated choice on its own isn’t necessarily an AI calling card, but enough of them together alongside one or two smoking guns can definitely make the case pretty strongly.

It’s just not as useful as the rear-facing camera on a phone or tablet. You can’t aim it easily, so it’s stuck pointing slightly downward at the surface it’s sitting on, unless you’re interested in making your screen harder to see.

Plus it’s more expensive for a feature that few people would find useful.

It’s called Live Plus.

If you’ve never heard of Live Plus before, it’s a feature on LG smart TVs that uses ACR (automatic content recognition) to analyze what’s displayed on your screen (via The Markup). LG then uses that data to offer “personalized services,” including content recommendations and advertisements.

[…]

On Samsung smart TVs, for example, you can disable targeted ads by going to Privacy Choices, selecting Terms and Conditions, and toggling off Viewing Information Services and Internet-Based Advertisement Services. On Roku TVs, ACR can be turned off by disabling Use info from TV inputs, which is tucked away in the settings menu under Smart TV Experience.

Saved you a click.

Or with water, frankly. Is the only option for the switch inside the bathroom literally in the sink basin? There shouldn’t be that much splashing in a work bathroom.

Yeah, for sure. I mean, it depends a little bit on the model of the e-reader (color takes more out of it, etc), but I only charge my Boox every other week, and I take notes on it, read on it, the works.

E-paper is easier to use outside or in bright light, and the battery tends to last longer. Anecdotally, it also doesn’t hurt my eyes as much.

How good could you do on a slave’s salary?

The kid did build a podracer in a cave with a box of scraps.

Love the star lights!

I’ve only ever had it work for me once or twice, and it was always near the very beginning of a project when I was only losing a few days or a week of working code at most. When I discover that I fundamentally misunderstood or misjudged a core assumption and everything needs to be reoriented. Never when I already had code in production.

That’s fair, but even with that, it’s got to be easier to shove it into existing code. Especially if you’re trying to do it in a way that people don’t notice!

And actually, the Windows 10 start menu infamously had ads, too. So it can’t be that.

But this was four years ago! Actually it was released four years ago. This decision was almost certainly made before there were widespread code assistance AIs.

Tali Roth, the then product manager working on the core Windows user experience, including the Start menu, taskbar, and notifications, took up the question and talked about how building the taskbar from scratch meant that they had to cherry-pick things to put into the feature list first, and the ability to move the taskbar didn’t make the cut, for several reasons that Microsoft values.

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT?!

If you have working code, why would you rewrite it from scratch? Refactor, sure. Overhaul, maybe. But why rewrite the whole thing?! You’re gaining nothing but unnecessary bugs.

I know all the joke answers. To justify a product manager’s salary, because Microsoft gonna Microsoft, whatever. I want to know the real reason. Why would you ever rewrite working code from scratch if you don’t have to?

Four years ago, Recall wasn’t a thing. Microsoft was caught as off-guard by the AI hype machine as the rest of us. So I doubt this was originally the reason.

Might be now, though.

Someone did a study on various means of welfare support, and figured out that doing away with all other forms of poverty easement and replacing it with an equivalent amount of UBI would actually save taxpayers a significant amount of money. And further, it actually costs way more to try to identify and prosecute fraud than the system actually loses to said fraud.

I think the easiest way to accomplish UBI, without dealing with a lot of rigamarole and nonsense, would be to figure out what amount “basic” should mean—you suggested $2000/mo, but for some cities that would barely cover rent, so maybe let’s say $3000/mo—and then have anyone who wants any form of government financial assistance register with the UBI office, indicating the compensation they receive at their highest-earning job. The UBI office would then simply pay them the difference between $3000 and their monthly paycheck. UBI office automatically cross-references with the IRS every year, so you can’t hide income without getting audited.

I generally agree, but rather than making it a specific number, I think we should tie it to some multiple of the poverty line or the average income of the lowest 10% or something like that. That way, if the rich want to earn more, they have to make things materially better for the poorest people in society; and if they don’t do enough, the government takes that money to do it for them.

It definitely said 181 before. I’m almost positive.