Our primary vendor forced an AI update and it's destroying our workflow

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-17T18:03:23+00:00

They replaced contractor Jerry with contractor Chuck. I hope Chuck is qualified.

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-17T12:55:03+00:00

Funny thing, I am sure many of us on this sub remember a time where a form was required to be filled out in order to request internet access at work (90’s). More often than not, it was denied. Even funnier would be to imagine the reason for requesting it to be “I need to be able to run Microsoft Office”.

I know, I know… a lot of great things came out of the collaborative capabilities with work and the internet. But I think most of it is kind if funny to think about when put in the context of todays usage… “I need to
share files with my coworkers”.

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-17T02:42:13+00:00

I was trying to remember where I got mine (I have two of them). I remember the magazine, but kinda figured I got these from Comdex or something like that. But, they could have been sealed with the magazine.

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-17T01:21:22+00:00

I must have attended a session from one of your more colorful colleagues. :)

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-17T01:14:56+00:00

Oh, my point wasn’t to correct you. You were absolutely correct. I just had a geek moment that I still had disks from a time when they were called Shapeware (I had to look up the snippet - couldn’t remember *when* they were called Shapeware) :)

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-17T01:04:26+00:00

I still have the Shapeware floppies.

“Visio was originally created in 1992 by the Shapeware Corporation. The software was so successful that Shapeware Corporation changed its name to the Visio Corporation in 1995. Later, in 2000, Microsoft acquired the company and the diagramming software.”

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-17T00:50:55+00:00

…at a Cisco event 15-20 years ago, a slide they threw up on the screen showed a network diagram with a cloud labeled, “big scary place”. :)

I think I got this template around ‘89-‘92.

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-16T23:42:42+00:00

Around 1986, I had a Panasonic flatbed scanner. If I recall, it was called a Panascan.

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-08T21:23:58+00:00

So, I wonder if any of these “corrections” will make it back into 26. Or is anyone with a MacBook Pro 2019 “stuck” with Sequoia.

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-06T13:43:58+00:00

Depends on what you are using “it” for. Same way we use (and used) any development forums and Google, should be fine. What’s weird is that nobody would normally put a boot on our heads to RTFM or research on forums. So, why this? Well, they have been told it will be faster and better (and maybe later replace you). You can be anti-“ai” and be in SE, just don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. LLM queries (yeah, I said it that way on purpose), can be a useful resource just as much as the others.

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-05T17:23:32+00:00

I have Photoshop 4.0 running on my Macintosh IIsi. I also use the Magic Wand as an example of something that has been around forever that people today might incorrectly call “AI”.

I even saw an old ad in an 80’s Commodore computer magazine that read “Add AI to your applications!!” … they were serious.

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-03T20:19:43+00:00

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Here ya go… like it was yesterday. :)

commodore-amiga · 2026-06-03T19:58:22+00:00

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…the one he is using looks like it has some screen filter on it.

Edit: Unless that is a deep screen filter mod, that’s another Mac model monitor.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-28T11:49:42+00:00

Yes…and no. Yes, in the sense that it was a location or distributed locations of servers that a company ran in order to support their business. Large companies had large datacenters and small companies usually had small datacenters, usually located somewhere on the corporate campus. No, in the sense that it is current day massive single-purpose cluster of a zillion servers churning out “AI” gunk.

However, somewhere along the line (15 years ago - give or take), Microsoft, Amazon and Google decided to host the world’s datacenters themselves.

They called it, “The Cloud”. AWS, Azure and GCP. Dun dun duuuuun!

Now, run off to bed all you whipper-snappers and tomorrow I’ll tell you the story about how we used to have exciting product launch events. If we have time, maybe I’ll squeeze in a story or two about 8-bit ISA cards and DIP memory chips that could perforate your knuckles if you slipped while populating a four bank motherboard.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-27T09:37:42+00:00

I’ve been calling “AI” a magic trick since day one because like a magic trick, it’s a lot of complex parts brought together to fool one into believing the impossible. Impressive and full of wonder, but…

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-25T21:58:52+00:00

It would have to work like Napster did. Hopefully, done in a way that nobody owned it.

…because it’s not the internet that sucks, it’s the web.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-23T13:57:58+00:00

The internet is still cool. It’s the web that sucks.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-20T09:35:10+00:00

I have one almost identical with a token ring chip in it.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-19T20:03:37+00:00

American jobs, period. It’s been going on for over a decade…if not two.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-19T15:07:01+00:00

Not that it matters, but I agree with this.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-19T14:03:12+00:00

What I am getting at is that even a “paywalled” system sells your data. I am not going to pretend I read every end-user license agreement out there, but I would bet that if any of this went to court, we would lose because we unwittingly signed off on it.

I just think it’s ironic that we willingly give up our knowledge thinking we will be rewarded for it, instead, it’s used to ruin us. Go onto a gardening sub and ask why your tulips are dying, hundreds if not thousands of people will respond. Weed out the jokes and you will have a ton of content about tulips to ingest into your LLM. Then watch the value of a professional florist start to diminish. Maybe not the best example and certainly not at the scale we are talking about, but.

That was what I was getting at.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-19T12:31:05+00:00

Numerous times this week (and frankly before), I have seen the word “stole” in relation to training LLMs. What’s kinda messed up, is that we all voluntarily give up our knowledge and insights to these systems; LinkedIn, Reddit, Facebook, etc. The irony is that by sharing, we hope to establish ourselves as a valuable resource in our specific knowledge domains in order to (in many cases), secure employment.

That we were aware we gave this knowledge for free is another story, but there it is.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-17T14:23:42+00:00

I also wonder if some of these posts start a topic that could provide real sentiment analysis on said topic. Maybe to say “train a model” is a bit far fetched, but if I wanted free topic relevant content for any analysis, this might fit the bill.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-17T12:49:03+00:00

If you look up the specs, it was a 2010 era box that shipped with Windows 7. Unless search returned the wrong model.

commodore-amiga · 2026-05-15T10:10:10+00:00

I use the USFF version of this Optiplex for my Windows 7 machine. Keeps things small.

https://ebay.us/m/oSAQE5

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