You can put out a candle with the right speaker and volume.

Smartphone as an answer would be cheating?

Water isn’t free any more?
(I was told it was in the past. No water bill, how?)

I have to cast my vote on Screech.
It is really a tough decision.

Simply put: luck, consistency and saying no to expenses.
Basically do not live outside of your means. Tho those means can be very very bad.
If your means are bad - think of how you can change it better.
Maybe looking for a job where you can learn a new trade? Pluming, Ac repair, bug exterminator, general handyman, mechanic - those people will always be needed.
Tally up all your expenses, and get rid of those you can live without. All those premium streaming bs adds up fast.
Start cooking your coffe and meals.
If you are struggling then you have to live like a person who don’t have money. Get cheap phone plan, do not get the newest gadgets.
There is free entertainment out there, do not spend money that you don’t have.
Look for government options: food stamps etc. Look for other charities: food bank and so on.
It sucks. Luck plays a big part but if you keep following the rules you set up things could improve over time.

If you need the paper, then you don’t have a choice. So it makes it never late to start.
If you want a CDL there are places that for a contract will train you. There are other places like that in other areas.

Schooling isn’t that important anymore. But you should never stop learning. When you stop you die - or slowly rot away.
You do not need fancy schools to learn new things. They only give you some random piece of paper.
There are countless ways to learn new things on the internet. Free udemy courses, youtube tutorials or even paid tutoring lessons and apps to learn new languages.
You could even buy paid college courses online and fo it at your leisure.
Or just visit couple courses for some small $.

“I have heartburn”
Maybe I should ease off greasy food - or reduce stress!
Nah! Pop some antacid!

You start to develop the ability to not give a fuck.

I’m coming from a phonetic language… Anything else don’t make sense. Tho I have not studied Chinese or Arabic so those should be interesting.

They just need to write what the heck they meant to say. :D

I have a reusable bag. I repaired the seams at least 6 times.
I really love the bag, I got it from CES about 7 years ago. And even it’s an evil entity now, it is hands down the best reusable shopping bag I own.

There are words I really hate struggle with…
Whirl, macabre, dairy, faux, chique.

I do know that I am the minority on Lemmy. I believe, there is a space for AI in our life. Of course it is not the way big corporations is trying to shove down in our throats.
The ethical and moral problems of AI is not part of your question.

If you decide to work for your company that forces you to use AI, then you either use AI or get a new job.
That’s how capitalism works.

You don’t have to like it. You just have to accept the “must use AI” as part of the things they are paying you for.
There is no metric aside of: they are Paying you to do this way.
If you don’t want to do that way - the ball is in your court.

Edit: Browsing Lemmy I just saw this post. Maybe it will help you:
https://lemmy.ml/post/40233766

The free plan of chatgtp is more than enough for most people. And when they decide to start charging for it, probably 30% of free users will switch to a different (mahbe even locally run) Ai.

Looking at other comments I will point out one thing nobody mentioned so far: keeping an old per alive is not always cheap.
You have to calculate the cruel numbers against the gain or loss also.
You could give an other neglected - abandoned pet a new life, instead of making your loved one to slowly expire.
Or I do not wish the situation on anyone, but pet meds vs human food can come into play too.

You may want to future proof your career path. Eventually they will figure out that you automated your workflow. What else can you do in the future for them to kep paying you? What orher skills would other employers demand from you in the future? With AI in the mix, what skills you can use that won’t be affected by the emerging technology?

If you have any tablets in the house, most of them can function as drawing tablets with the right digital pencil /stylus.
If you don’t have any, then you can make a decision on: stand-alone tablet, tablet with screen or no screen tablets. Those can influence the price a lot of ways.

What he is saying, that bags that were complimentary = calculated loss, now fetch an actual income for the companies.

As the internet gets older we have to change our thinking:
In early days it was 100% male, age 14-25.
Later in the mid 90’s 97% male. 14-28 age.
In 2000s it is still 80% male, 20-35
2010 - gets messy. Still mostly thirsty males. +Lot of perverted people
2020 anyone but you is a bot