The Microsoft Challenge

Has anyone wondered why new computers are always so slow?

It used to be expected of older, physically slower PCs, but these days it's true even of brand new computers.

 

I mean, back in the day - when I first started working as a PC technician back in 1999, I had a 486DX 100mhz with 48mb of RAM using Windows 98 2nd edition, and that was faster than most of the newer PC's I've used since. Such was my expertise back then that I rigged up a live toggle switch to the jumper settings on the board so that - while the PC was running - I could overclock it to 120mhz - play my first-person shooters - and then set it back down to 100mhz again. I even managed to play Heretic and Hexen on it smoothly, and without any trouble. I even built a cooling duct over the CPU and heat sink that ran to a fan at the front of the case to improve cooling and stability, and occasionally augmented that by placing a saucer filled with ice cubes in front of the case so that chilled air would be sucked in!

But then we got newer, faster PCs - with more RAM, bigger multi-core CPUs - and much, much bigger Windows.

Shut Up And Sit Down, Puny Human. Nobody Can Hear Your Cries

Got to love the perfect, repetitive stupidity of Facebook's AI. It will keep on making the same fuck-ups perfectly, the same way, over and over again - and if it runs an interaction service such as the "review" or "appeal" desk, there's no way to get past it to appeal to the much more reasonable intelligence of an actual person with the power to actually THINK instead of just follow an algorithm.

Google - The AI Indifference Engine!

I've had some ill dealings with Google in the past few years, and on the whole they're okay... but what really grates my carrot about them is their penchant for hysteria and control-freakiness. 

What am I talking about? Is it their monopoly of our information? Their near-total control over what we see in internet searches? Well, yes, but that's not the focus of today's rant. Again - what am I talking about?

Let's take a look at two examples, shall we?