I asked Amazon for help with my account. They couldn't figure out the URL to get me where I needed to go. They said they needed to escalate. The question was definitely not complicated. They wanted to call me asking questions.

Meanwhile, Gemini gave me the url and explained what I needed to know in one reply. Problem solved. Same question to ChatGPT gave me the correct answer as well. I bet Claude or Grok would have also found the correct answer.

This is where things take a turn: Google.com/ddg/bing failed. amazon's own search failed. Its worth knowing that the good results from the chatbots pointed at Amazon's web.

Based on this one example, I could begin to think document style search engines are dead.

Presumably Amazon were trying to put me into their little Voice AI microcosm. They'd obviously (?) record my voice (yes) of me getting increasingly annoyed (likely) at some Voice Chat Bot (likely) and then they'd apologize (?) for not knowing (probably?).

Is that the goal? Waste 30 minutes of my time for what could have been answered by a chat bot but not a web search?

The underlying situation seems even weirder than simply trying to cut costs. I think Amazon has cut so many corners they have forgotten what shape they are trying to create.

I have only one answer so far: Their customer support has no idea how to navigate their own website and this is by design. This is NOT the customer support people at fault. Let that all sink in: Someone got a bonus for this service design. This is somehow optimal according to Amazon. Yet this style of service design will only get worse for paying customers. It will be much worse for non-customers.

Progress!

I don't think this is restricted to Amazon either. I think this is industry wide. The in-page chat bots are usually just as broken.

I routinely used to compile C programs on other compilers to find defects that one or another didn't find. Compiling on Windows vs Linux. You could summarize / minimize it down to compiling it with warning as errors etc but you'd be missing the point.

The point wasn't actual cross-platform portability even though that was a nice side effect. It was to flush out all the weird edge cases.

Edges like security flaws. Buffer overflows are usually platform specific. There are plenty of other ways to find these issues but simply recompiling for a different platform surfaces all sorts of issues.

You watched all that content. Did you take action on it? What did you make or do as a result?

Is that to be the end result of the pursuit of knowledge, creating something? There is the true dumbing down, insisting on a vague kind of productivity as the point of life.

Why would doing something or taking action be dumbing down?

You are bristling with something like anger but it has nothing to do with what I wrote.

I'm off to go hiking. There are thousands of stars out there.

What will you make or do as a result of going hiking and looking at stars?

Modern audiences are expected to be glued to twelve different things at once. Producers are being told to adjust to this reality. Watch any movie now and they are all compensating for the distracted audience.

Movies used to be watched in a place for that purpose. Now its the toilet. Now the phone itself is ringing. A message comes in. Time to upgrade. Ding! All while some key scene in the movie is taking place.

Well, even if it’s the living room, it’s not like being glued to a seat in a theater.

I used to be associated with content groups at a former company and in the almost 15 years I was there we saw clear trends in type of content and length of content viewers consumed.

I remember traveling 1000km for work. On the radio I heard of trips to where I lived. They were all prizes for some competition. I realized that my home was someone else's destination and my current place was where people from home's had chosen as a destination.

The grass is sometimes truly greener.

When I returned I looked at my home with the eyes of a tourist and went everywhere I could.

I have since traveled elsewhere. Some places are much better not to return to or even remain in.

I spent my childhood in a place that was a destination for others but later in life moved to a city. When the company i work at decided to have a trip there I was like eh whaterevr. its just some boring mountains and waterfalls but went anyway. Seeing my coworkers be really enjoying that was really an experience in itself.

Now explain this to all the people writing their own curl | bash installers.

Just use a package manager! Its really not THAT hard. Pick one. Use it. Automate it.

Blinkenlichtdenkmaschinenberufsverlustverzweiflung.

Pretty accurate

Why not both? Dilemmas aren't necessary. Not everything is binary.

If there's a schedule to your tiredness then can probably reschedule it. This is a lesson I've discovered to good effect. [Side note: 2-3pm is probably due to food/glucose/insulin levels - its worth investigating]

Don't be fooled by tiredness. You can be mentally tired but not physically tired. These are not opposites. You can be physically tired in one aspect but not another.

You can be mentally tired but because you like to paint, then painting will regenerate you. It will make you less tired after you paint or even better: have you now appropriately tired that you properly sleep due to that tiredness.

Tired is not tired. You be tired in one way and not in another. This blanket use of the word isn't helpful and leaves a lot of potential left behind as you sit on the couch "tired".

really? I mean there's this little book company called Amazon who will let you use their interweb computers for a few dollars per hour. They'll sell you coffee as well.