I'm pretty sure you can still open that fridge by hand. The design is the same as many existing Samsung fridges - there are no visible handles, but you open and close the doors with handles under the bottom or over the top of the doors.
Still not a winner for me, but not as ludicrously dumb as only being able to open the doors with your voice would be.
> The end does justify the means. This is obvious with even a few seconds' thought, and the fact that the phrase has become a byword for evil is a historical oddity rather than a philosophical truth.
> Hollywood has decided that this should be the phrase Persian-cat-stroking villains announce just before they activate their superlaser or something. But the means that these villains usually employ is killing millions of people, and the end is subjugating Earth beneath an iron-fisted dictatorship. Those are terrible means to a terrible end, so of course it doesn't end up justified.
> Next time you hear that phrase, instead of thinking of a villain activating a superlaser, think of a doctor giving a vaccination to a baby. Yes, you're causing pain to a baby and making her cry, which is kinda sad. But you're also preventing that baby from one day getting a terrible disease, so the end justifies the means. If it didn't, you could never give any vaccinations.
> If you have a really important end and only mildly unpleasant means, then the end justifies the means. If you have horrible means that don't even lead to any sort of good end but just make some Bond villain supreme dictator of Earth, then you're in trouble - but that's hardly the fault of the end never justifying the means.
Hang on you’re asking me to consider a philosophy that is explicitly aligned with the concept as a counterpoint?
Admittedly I was raised Catholic and it was pretty much the opposite of that. I’m not holding to any one point I guess. I just feel like I “know” regardless of outcome, the current administration did what they did for all the wrong reasons.
Can't decide what to think. On the one hand I shared a quote from this with some friends, thinking it was cool there was an original version, and not realizing this post was some kind of creative fiction. Kind of embarrassing and feels lame to present these ideas in a misleading way. But on the other I admire the creativity and the storytelling format. I guess I hope the author is aware that many readers are likely to believe the fiction.
Sure, but that requires work on the part of Amazon to set things up so they can be tricked. That work costs time and money. Amazon may not want to do that work at all. Or they may want to ban agents until after they've done that work.
But for a broader definition of "personal computer", the number of computers we have has only continued to skyrocket - phones, watches, cars, TVs, smart speakers, toaster ovens, kids' toys...
I'm with GP - I imagine a future when capable AI models become small and cheap enough to run locally in all kinds of contexts.
Depending on how you are defining AI models, they already do. Think of the $15 security camera that can detect people and objects. That is AI model driven. LLM's are another story, but smaller, less effective ones can and do already run at the edge.
What a fascinating thread. I bought Affinity Photo and Designer V1 as one-time purchases a few years ago. I didn't upgrade to V2 when those came out. I have continued to occasionally use the V1 apps - I was just in Photo the other day.
To me this is exactly why you would want to buy software licenses as one-time purchases - the company can't rug pull you for what you already bought. If I want, I can keep using the Affinity apps on this machine indefinitely.
It seems a lot of people are really frustrated that they purchased software and now the company is doing something else. Isn't the whole point of purchasing a license for standalone software that you are protected in case the company goes under, or gets bought, or decides to do something else?
Do people think the apps they bought are going away? Or did they expect to get free updates forever for their one-time purchase? Or am I missing something in this announcement?
The future roadmap we thought we had seems to have gone away. I won’t be using the “free” version, as there are unknown strings attached I’m sure. If not now, down the road.
Yes, I can keep using v2, but how much do I want to invest in an app that I know has an expiration date for me? I need to start planning my exit, so I’m not left in a bad spot down the road.
I’m curious what Apple plans to do with Pixelmator. They bought it a while back. I was a Pixelmator user, but switched to Affinity. Now I’m not sure what to do.
I’m lucky though, as I’m just a hobbyist, so it’s not as serious as it is for some who have professional workflows who need to look at finding something that will still allow them to do their job.
You answered your own question. Buying a perpetual license ensures the company can’t rug pull you. Not having the option for a perpetual license gives no guarantees of the sort. One of Serif’s top selling points was the perpetual license, and people were rightfully nervous about the Canva acquisition. They even made it a huge point in their announcement to reassure people who were nervous about the perpetual license model going away.
A perpetual license does not entitle me to anything beyond the scope of the license, of course. It’s great that I can use V2 for as long as it serves my needs. But now, when someone new is looking for graphic design software, or if I find am missing some good features in V1 or V2 that get added to the new software, of course I will be upset that I no longer have the option to upgrade to or recommend the non-rug-pullable option.
I feel like it’s not unreasonable to have a negative opinion towards the decisions companies make that further the enshittification of the professional software world.
It's absolutely reasonable to criticize the decision and feel like you're losing an option in the future. I guess I would expect this to scan more as disappointment, rather than anger or the sense of being 'ripped off' which some people were expressing.
But these days I use (the free version of) Figma for a lot of what I would have used Affinity for, so I am surely not as sensitive to this change as people who use their tools every day.
I also wonder if the paradigm shift to SaaS has caused us to have more forward-looking perspectives about software in general (rather than focusing on what exists today).
And some of us did upgrade and would like to see the software improve further and buy further upgrades making it even better in the future, but now I expect it'll be turned into a subscription or shut down in the next few years, because its a minor side thing for Canva, and that's sad.
I see this same discussion in the audio world sometimes re Waves plugins, and one big factor there is Windows vs. Mac.
Windows users tend to be able to use old, even ancient versions forever with no trouble. Mac users on the other hand, often seem to be faced with having to either pay for a new software version that works with a newer version of Mac OS, or stay on an old version of the operating system - sometimes on old hardware as well.
> For every $1 spent on model development, firms should expect to have to spend $3 on change management, which means user training and performance monitoring
I think the general point here is true, but it's also brilliant framing from a company selling consulting services.
> Price levels: How should vendors set price levels when the cost of inferencing is dropping rapidly? How should they balance value capture with scaling adoption?
This is written for B2B target clients as if it's pulling back the veil on pricing strategy and negotiating. Hire McKinsey to get you the BEST™ deal in town.
Still not a winner for me, but not as ludicrously dumb as only being able to open the doors with your voice would be.
reply