Any Plus members here?

General Discussion
101

I’m a Lifetime member - I paid because I didn’t feel it was right of me to peruse your site while blocking all ads. I used Brave, now Brave Origin for the same reason. I like what they are doing, and I had no use for the fluff; even though I’m on Linux, I chose to pay the $60 to support them).

I’ll be 59 on July 1, only spent a small amount of time “officially” in IT, but have played around with machines since I took apart our family’s Atari 2600 and reassembled it with no issues. My dad looked at me and said, “chip off the old block”. :smiley:

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102

I’ve just become a Lifetime plus member, basically because I love this site and everything Linux. This site has helped me over the many years of using Linux. I also love the community that has been built here, plus the many laughs I’ve had helping people, or suggesting solutions to their Linux problems, just want to keep this site going, as AI is killing everything now.

Even YouTube is feeling the strain of AI searches, that people go to, to get their answers. Views of videos have gone down.

I’d rather chat and search this site using real support from real people, rather than a Bot, that is all AI is, is a Bot that’s been programmed to do what we humans have been doing for years, apart from it’s slightly quicker, does not necessarily mean you will get the right results. The whole idea of sites like these is to help people, but Humans are becoming lazy and impatient, wanting the answers they seek like yesterday. Where is the enjoyment in that?

I like to find things out myself, get to chat with people with experience, rather than here you go, here is the command you need to do this with, from out of the blue from a Bot, that has no clue of what it is like to be Human. We will always need the Human touch to things and I will help all I can to keep sites like this one alive. AI will eventually lose the battle, because the money for it will dry up eventually. All these bots do is copy and paste answers from sites.

The Internet is becoming automated spyware. Don’t even mention the AI web pages that just spill out the same content in the same font and use the same punctuation, repeating the same story over and over again.

Now call me a Bar-steward if you want, but I’ve been thinking about all these AI shenanigans and cannot help wondering if AI is meant for people with AD-HD? (Attention-Deficit-Hyperactivity-Disorder.) Autism which has been steadily increasing for years now and I know it stems from drug abuse and diet during pregnancy, plus the chromosomes from the father and mother, but is AI there to quicken searches answers for the likes of people with learning difficulties?

Then it could go further, laziness, like the TV remote. Nothing wrong getting up and switching the channel over yourself.

Now of course TV’s are on the wall, so you need the remote, as your hand won’t get round the back of the TV, unless it is on a TV wall arm. The AI bubble will burst, because money will run out to fund it and no way can they just go and print more money. We will have to wait and see.

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103

The really scary thing is that use of AI could provide a selective advantage to people with learning difficulties , so that we breed more people with intellectual difficulties , and the general level of human intelligence declines over generations, to the point where we become totally dependent on AI to be able to exist. It would take centuries for the genetic decline to become noticeable, but by then it would be too late to take corrective action. Like the novel 1984, but an intellectual trap rather than a ‘baby farm’ experiment.

I know Eugenics is an off-topic, but we do need to be careful that the human species does not fall into a genetic sink-hole, which can happen if we provide the wrong environment.

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104

VMS was okay wasn’t it? It was a tad UNIX like and you could run X on it and I think a shell like SH or CSH…

VAX and PDP weren’t the only minis - IBM had AS400… i.e. not quite a mainframe…

One IT deparment I worked in - the teams were organised thus :

  • microcomputers (intel desktops with DOS and/or Windows and server O/S like Novell Netware)
  • minicomputers - UNIX (the only UNIX we had was DG-UX on a Data General AViiON)
  • mainframes - IBM 4381 running MVS - plus dedicated modems and 3170 controllers so it could talk to the big mainframe in Canberra 3000 km away… There was no multi-discipline, other than the IT manager…

That was in a hospital… The next hospital I worked at didn’t have a mainframe onsite - just a bunch of 3170 controllers to talk to the Health Dept mainframe hosted in UWA (University of WA)… And everyone in IT was a jack of all trades - we had DG-UX and SunOS, and Novell Netware, and VMS on VAX - and some other stuff like Microsoft Mail (predecessor of Exchange) and Microsoft Netbeui 3170/SNA emulators (with a Windows client to emulate a mainframe terminal), and we also had one Netware server running Novell’s SNA mainframe emulator. i.e. I might get a help desk ticket to investigate anything from desktop software or Windows issues, Netware server, UNIX or a dodgy mainframe terminal…

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105

Yeah, not bad. Lousy editors, no concept like forking, expensive compilers. But it was a a big step up from previous dec efforts. It kept version numbers of files.

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106

I agree with Dan. As a ‘user,’ rather than an expert, I frequently abandon threads that delve farther under the hood than I can go. But I never feel left out, and that’s a stellar result in the world of forums. I’m happy to pay for membership and acknowledge the benefits you provide to all member, especially the very new folks who must be handled gently. I feel like I’m helping to provide a service.

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107

I sat on the fence in the end chose not to pay resting just a member normal.

Why, not the cost but actually the charges imposed by my bank to make a payment was higher than the recipient also Yes I am a moderator but out of invitation not because I have paid for the job.

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108

Speaking for myself, Paul, we’re glad to have you in the circle.

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109

Bad sign talking to yourself… But at least you get great answers.

Thanks, appreciate your comment

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110

I seem to be a plus member.

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111

You paid your money …

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