Jeff Bezos is saying the quiet part out loud.

[simplicator@federate.social]

@terminaltilt So… terminals

[hairylarry@gamerplus.org]

@terminaltilt

The cloud is like a ministorage. You fill it up. You don't have time to take care of the stuff. You pay forever.

Any given month you might lose everything because of the vagaries of corporate assholes.

[lukefromdc@kolektiva.social]

@terminaltilt I'd sooner pay over $1,000 for RAM than rely on cloud and AI crap for my work. Ad supported corporations are NOT WELCOME to scan my raw video files that have to be redacted before publication for one thing.

I rely on a zero-rental/zero subscription model in all things electronic and would sooner edit on film and tape than use rental software. You still have to have some RAM to use that shit anyway, and a big swapfile on a fast NVME drive (which can also be your boot drive) really helps get by with small RAM.

One of my machines is a laptop with 8G RAM soldered to the board and no expansion of it but a decent AMD proc. With a swapfile it runs Kdenlive just fine for video editing. It did all my video editing on both of my last protest/direct action deployments to my old home town of Washington DC and worked fine.

Note that it would not even be POSSIBLE for me to use rental space on a server farm for video editing anyway: I don't have a landline because it is too easy to prove who owns one. Therefore I could not export that 2-10 GB of senstive raw files to Amazon or Google for editing anyway, even if I trusted those motherfuckers with files that have to be kept from cops and ICE.

They can stick "software as a service" and "cloud computing" up their ass dry with no lube! It's local or nothing for me.

I already own two good machines that are NOT overclocked to extend their lives plus a circa 2011 AMD Phenom II X4 that is entirely capable of editing 1080p video. I can outlast this AI crap on hardware I already have.

Then there's all that still-good Intel Core2 stuff probably still in offices, and THAT is more than enough computer for most people's needs and can edit video though rendering will be slow. Does Bezos have a plan to round up all of these too?

[dariozanette@mastodon.uno]

@grumble209 @terminaltilt

Yep!

https://youtu.be/rqR7z2eHOBE?si=wwZJX6SP3b5UH6rT

[subm3rge@infosec.exchange]

@terminaltilt There was an RPG game, Paranoia, that sadly is eminently quotable here:

“The Computer is your friend.”
“Trust the Computer.”
”The Computer wants you to be happy.”
”If you’re not happy, you might be used as reactor shielding.”

And some good advice, as well:
“Stay alert. Trust no one. Keep your laser handy.”

[peteriskrisjanis@toot.lv]

@terminaltilt to be frank, this is nothing new. Microsoft tried to make remote software subbing for years till landing for zombie that is Office 365.

[powerfromspace1@mstdn.social]

@terminaltilt well good luck no one trusts any of the vendors

[sloanlance@mastodon.social]

@terminaltilt
Reminds me of the old time-share computing models of the 1960s.

[oblomov@sociale.network]

@terminaltilt this has been my thought for some time. The jacking up of prices being not just a market effect byproduct, but an intentional strategy to kill personal computing.

[filobus@sociale.network]

@terminaltilt and if you really have to go cloud, don't go to them, don't surrender and become their captive

[licho@kolektiva.social]

@terminaltilt the difficult part starts when they jack up the prices of components the way we see it happen with ram. It's artificial, there were analyses that it was bought for money that are not there to be put in graphics cards that don't exist in data centers that aren't built yet in response to demand that is yet to come.

So they can push us out from the local computation with price. Or at least make it an upper middle class thing.

[aanee@mastodon.online]

@terminaltilt Good luck with that. There haven't been a real reason to upgrade hardware the last 10 years, and I don't see a need for the coming years either. Unless you want to tinker with ML models and burn the earth. Sure business buys new, people buy new, cause compile time/fps "go brrrr". But if you skew the "go brrr"/cost metric... well, let's say I hope for their sake the AI bubble doesn't do as all of us want and burst like a money eating black hole at a piñata party.

[frchazzz@mastodon.social]

@grumble209 @terminaltilt If it hasn't been made yet, I really want a t-shirt (and stickers) with the "Seize the Means of Computation" slogan!

[geraintllanfrancheta@hachyderm.io]

@terminaltilt over my dead cold hands, jeff #fuckhyperscalers

[xs4me2@mastodon.social]

@terminaltilt

I wont do it!

[i_give_u_worms@beige.party]

@terminaltilt
this dude will take business losses long enough to keep competitors heads underwater

[i_give_u_worms@beige.party]

@licho @terminaltilt
shitty wages have meant people choose, have a phone (the latest phone, because that's what they can figure out, which costs as much as a computer, spread over months or years) and maybe get a tablet/notebook/computer

IPads turn to a brick over a couple years, they just stop playing videos and slow to a frustrating crawl.

Android has disabled the data capability of the USB cable for the most part, in order to keep people closer to monthly storage charges.

[andre_ourednik@mastodon.social]

@terminaltilt As much as I abhore anything that Jeff does and represents, I see an environmental point in a rental model. In the sense that ownership of hardware in a programmed obsolescence industry model is ecologically worse. Most people run their daily apps on massively overpowered individual machines, produced at huge environmental cost. And I see potential in sharing hardware here. But definitely not on AWS. Rather local hubs, something like a decentralized network of remote processors

[kuniti_shino@pounced-on.me]

@terminaltilt there's a reason why I prefer my steamdeck and valve hardware over this bullshit

[a_minion@mastodon.social]

@andre_ourednik @terminaltilt So what you see is basically the same as solar and wind power being produced locally. Personally I like that model far better than the rental idea as it takes power away from the few making it far more democratic for "We The People".