“Software-defined vehicles” is an industry trend. Not specific to AI (the term has been around for a decade or so). It means vehicles that are defined more by their software than by the hardware (which is how people have historically seen vehicles).

As an example, consider your phone. They have hardware specs, but it’s often the software that defines the product more than the specs.

And it looks as shitty as it drives

I’m guessing some areas/industries are better or worse. Mine seems pretty bad, at least in my area. Being involved in hiring co-ops and new grads has given me a good taste for what the expectations are like, and it’s not great. So my view is probably a bit dismal.

You did an intesive for fluid mechanics?! Are you insane, or a masochist?

The problem is that many “legit” colleges are already degree mills, albeit at a slower pace. In the US at least, colleges are run like businesses. More students means more money. As long as they can maintain an okay reputation, they’ll churn as many students through as they can. The places that let you fast-track like this are just taking the next logical step, and letting the mask slip a little further. The whole system is broken; this is just another symptom.

Not every institution is this way. In my area, there are one or two schools that consistently produce people who actually know something. But it’s a pretty small percentage, all things considered, and I expect the overton window will gradually lessen expectations at those places over time as well.

The most absurd part of this is their inability to dox someone for a month. Give a handful of bored nerds any motivation and they’d have it figured out in a day or two.

2006: “Install our browser toolbar! It offers a marginally useful feature, and it definitely doesn’t slow down your browser or send all your personal data to an evil corporate overlord! Promise!”

2026: “Install our browser AI addon! It offers a completely useless feature, and it absolutely slows down your browser and sends all your personal data to an evil corporate overlord! Promise!”

You made the right choice. I was treated with more respect when I was flipping burgers in college.

A dumpster fire economy is actually quite hot.

Orca slicer works okay, but I have the newer Kobra 3 Max and it doesn’t come with the printer profile as of yet. And I still have to use the AnycubicSlicer Next suite to do any remote control. And trying to run it under CachyOS had a lot of visual problems (the Workbench tab shows nothing at all). The command line output is line after line of GTK errors.

By the license, I think they should be obligated to release the source, so if they do that maybe I can help make it less terrible (or at least reverse engineer the remote control protocol).

It depends on your distro. I have an AnyCubic printer and have to use their derivative of Orca. It only supports Ubuntu 24.04, so I run it in a VM when I need it. There are some weird GTK things with it too. But still functional.

The main use for AI that I’ve seen in my circles is a search engine replacement. Not because AI is a good search engine, but because search engines have largely become useless.

If Mozilla wants to cement their place, create a better search engine. It’s how Google came to control a huge portion of the internet, and there’s now a huge vacuum waiting for someone to replace what we lost.

laughs in Jellyfin

So… just the P?

found in Australia

Sounds about right

He named his company after his forehead

I run CachyOS, it works great for me. It’s not the easiest one, but I like the rolling release style and it’s by far the fastest distro I’ve used (cold boots to gnome desktop in maybe 10 seconds).

Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway.
– Andrew S. Tanenbaum

I have private email for two reasons: using my own domain, and to promote it in general. Sure, everyone else is on Google/MS right now, but as they continue to enshittify things, maybe more people will want to move away from that. And the more people do that now, the faster/easier it will be for others.

I think I’d be willing to let go of the handful of things that are exclusive, given that I could probably do more with a proper Linux system. It’s the basic phone functionality (as others have mentioned) that keeps me from switching.