cakes wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:48 am

Gramsci wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:40 am That said, remember how conservatives used be obsessed with national debt? Totally cool now evidently.

They only care when it's a democrat in office. Cheney famously said that deficits don't matter. But that didn't mean that the Republicans considered that when Obama was president, and conveniently forgot what Cheney said and how much the Bush administration spent. Then, it was Obama's fault for exploding the deficit.

Considering the absolutely insane amount the US spends on its military and that that spending is protected from audits it’s hardly surprising at your national debt.

Gramsci wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 11:40 am

That said, remember how conservatives used be obsessed with national debt? Totally cool now evidently.

I'm not worried, I was getting at the point you made.

My wife was driving around today and saw gas prices over $4, but then she watched a gas station change prices in real time, up to $5. I've never seen $5 gas before in Chicago.

I just saw a headline about how Crypto.com is laying of 12% of its workforce because they’re embracing AI.

Can you imagine a headline more revolting? One that manages to trigger every irritation-node in your brain?

“Area TikTok Personality Doxxed by Angry Frank Zappa Cover Band”

“Flash Mob Descends on Eagles Concert at the Sphere”

“Noted Think-fluencer Uses Terms ‘Iconic,’ ‘Curated,’ and ‘Fire’ to Describe Drake Spotify Playlist”

Wood Goblin wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 2:25 pm I just saw a headline about how Crypto.com is laying of 12% of its workforce because they’re embracing AI.

Can you imagine a headline more revolting? One that manages to trigger every irritation-node in your brain?

“Area TikTok Personality Doxxed by Angry Frank Zappa Cover Band”

“Flash Mob Descends on Eagles Concert at the Sphere”

“Noted Think-fluencer Uses Terms ‘Iconic,’ ‘Curated,’ and ‘Fire’ to Describe Drake Spotify Playlist”

I left crypto for ed tech, but while I was looking, there was hard recruiting for web 3.0 (which is crypto/blockchain). It felt like something was going to pop there.

But on the other hand, even my work is embracing AI and we just finished a 2 week hackathon where we used AI to build all kinds of cool shit. One thing we learned from this is that AI can code, sure, but it can't replace a software engineer. First, who's going to build the software? You have to tell AI what to build and how to build it. And then there's time. But more importantly, having the skill for undersetanding software development is still very relevant. Vibe coded production software is just a bomb waiting to explode. However, I can see AI helping engineer teams in a sense, in that it's really great for small teams, like the one I'm on, but for large engineering companies, who have the profits and the funds to hire more engineers than they need, is the area is where the shave off is going to occur. It's a little alarming, because those are places where they foster engineers and with that, improvements in engineering, that help engineers as a whole and improve engineering in general. So we may lose out on this, because AI doesn't come up with new ideas, it's only as good as the most current ideas. I'm curious as to where this goes...

But crypto is also getting it's ass handed to it. Bitcoin is down $40k in the last year.

Pretty interesting, cakes, and I’m guessing that the layoffs have more to do with the implosion of crypto that the CEO’s forward-thinking tech strategy.

I’m sure AI has some amazing uses, but in my field, we (thus far) haven’t found any.

Wood Goblin wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 2:38 pm Pretty interesting, cakes, and I’m guessing that the layoffs have more to do with the implosion of crypto that the CEO’s forward-thinking tech strategy.

I’m sure AI has some amazing uses, but in my field, we (thus far) haven’t found any.

I'm pretty convinced that AI is just an excuse to layoff workers, not the actual reason. And that's across industries. SalesForce fired a ton of engineers, and then six months later regretted the decision and had to start hiring again. They drank the Kool Aid, but didn't read the ingredients.

Soooooo, about that socialized healthcare, right!?

Lu Zwei wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 3:32 pm Soooooo, about that socialized healthcare, right!?

For Israel?

Wood Goblin wrote: Thu Mar 19, 2026 2:38 pm
I’m sure AI has some amazing uses, but in my field, we (thus far) haven’t found any.

It just occurred to me that sommeliers could be largely out of work in the next 10 years if things keep going this way. I imagine right now one can take a photo of a page from a wine list and ask a chat bot to find a wine based on XYZ parameters.