Quote from: K-Dog on May 17, 2026, 07:01 PMAnd AI means you will no longer have a personal computer soon.  It will all be subscription to data-centers behind your keyboard and screen.

The only thing most people use a computer for nowadays is as a glorified TV and Phone anyhow.  That's why all they have is a Smart Phone and tablet and don't bother with a laptop.  Laptops are only used by people with White Collar jobs and students who are training for those jobs.  As long as they can view & send video, take & share pictures, chat & send emoticons and use it as a calculator to do basic math to total their spending while shopping, that is all they need.

Thing is of course, what good is having a laptop today in Cuba or Iran or Ukraine or most of Africa?  How often is the power on to charge it up and use it?  How many years away are we from most of Eastern Europe, SE Asia and S & C America being in the same condition?  Of course it's still pretty far away in the Belly of the Beast here in the FSoA, W. Europe, China and Russia, but the conflicts and collapse of trade will get to these places in due time also.  The sand is running down in the hourglass as we speak.

I also wonder how long they'll manage to keep the high tech war going?  Hell, a few weeks of just bombing parts of Iran and they were running short of Ammo.  How long would the munitions factories keep running in a war with China, even without Nukes?  How long would the Aircraft Carrier Groups stay floating?  How long would the electrical grid stay intact?  Where will the AI data centers get their juice from?

Personally, I have an Air Gapped Win 10 computer I keep around for when the net goes down and I just need a machine to write on and stay entertained doing 3D design or playing old games on CD-ROM.  However, I only am likely to live for another decade or so, and  the electricity up here hopefully will last that long.

RE