Bimbos. Like proper, over the top plastic ones.

Only when I can’t be arsed to deal with the backslash.

AI is not the money maker people claimed it was going to be.

When people make claims about what “AI” is going to do in the future they’re talking about Artificial General Intelligence - not Large Language Models.

It cost me like 100€ to start mine.

Or more likely it was a shitty job that shouldn’t have been done by a human in the first place.

I used to think my dream job would be building custom furniture in my own workshop at home, but now that a small part of my work actually involves making custom pieces, I’ve learned it’s not my dream job after all. I’m far more productive when I have a set time and place to show up - otherwise I’ll procrastinate until noon and end up working through the whole evening.

In my experience you don’t even need camo to blend in. I’m a self-proclaimed military autist and my entire wardrobe is earth tones. That alone is enough to startle people on the trails when they’re not looking ahead and I suddenly appear in front of them on my bike. Camo obviously helps, but it’s not about perfectly blending in - it’s about not standing out. When I spot people in the woods it’s always because of a pale face or hands, or some brightly colored or white piece of clothing. Black stands out a lot too, but anything gray, brown, or green usually disappears into the background unless you’re staring right at it.

Because of climate change? That’s not even on the ballpark when it comes to the worst case scenario estimates of the excess deaths because of it. No wonder young people are so stressed out…

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/debt

Is it not debt when you owe money to the bank?

You can invest in index funds online. I passively earn over a month’s salary that way every year.

As a self-employed general contractor-handyman-plumber, I feel pretty secure about the future of my work prospects. If anything, an AI that could reliably deliver correct information would be immensely useful in my line of work, given how I run into technical questions on a daily basis.

The article states that it was caught on surveillance camera.

That’s actually kind of clever. I wouldn’t immediately know how to counter this map on a debate.

Edit:

ChatGPT: On this map, distance from Australia to South America is absolutely enormous — thousands of kilometers longer than it is on a globe. Yet in reality, there are direct flights from Santiago to Sydney that take about 12–14 hours. On this map, those flights would be absurdly long or impossible. Airlines can’t be faking that because passengers time them, track them on GPS, and even bring their own fuel calculations.

Seems justified to me. There’s no way of telling a fake gun from a real one at a distance and if you point it at the police when they’re telling you to drop it, that’s just asking to get shot.

The value of my portfolio dips too, but I don’t actually lose anything unless I sell. I just hold and wait for prices to recover - as they always have so far. In fact, when the market drops I buy even more, because the same money gets me more shares. People don’t lose their savings because of a crash; they lose them because they panic and sell for less than they paid.

No. Loss of vision alone would be enough.

My savings are invested in the stock market, and the returns I get from that are higher than the interest on my mortgage. If I liquidated my investments to pay off the house, the savings from not paying mortgage interest would still be less than what I’d make from the market over the same period. I’d rather use the profits from my investments to cover the mortgage interest - that way I still have money left over. If I did the opposite, I’d lose that extra money.

I’m not sure what you’re asking about exactly. If it’s the key to happiness you’re after, I’ll let you know once I find it. But when it comes to meaning - and feeling like I’m valued by society - that shift happened for me when I went from being an employee to being self-employed.

In my old job, building mostly apartment blocks and schools, I never interacted with the end users. Nobody appreciated a job well done, and nobody ever said thank you. The only thing that mattered was how fast you got it done. It wasn’t much different from working on an assembly line.

These days, people call me when they’ve got a problem with their house and I show up to solve it. They’re usually relieved I’m there, and many are just as glad to have someone to talk to - especially the elderly, who make up about half my customer base. I’ve done everything from recovering lost TV channels to full kitchen remodels, with very few limits on what I can help with. People are almost always incredibly kind and hospitable - nearly everyone offers coffee and snacks, and a few even cook for me.

On top of that, I get a ton of repeat customers, which tells me they were satisfied with my previous work. Honestly, I can’t imagine a more fulfilling feeling than getting genuine gratitude for what I do.

Being in debt isn’t synonymous with being broke.

I could pay off my house tomorrow if I wanted, but financially it doesn’t make sense - so I keep the debt. That doesn’t mean my net worth is negative or that I don’t have disposable income.