The cost might be the draw (if there is one). Big tech isn't afraid of throwing money at problems, but the AI folk and financiers are afraid of waiting and uncertainty. A satellite is crazy expensive but throwing more money at it gets you more satellites.

At the end of the day I don't really care either way. It ain't my money, and their money isn't going to get back into the economy by sitting in a brokerage portfolio. To get them to spend money this is as good a way as any other, I guess. At least it helps fund a little spaceflight and satellite R&D on the way.

It's just tax payer money, who cares right? :)

Right, nobody gains much of anything by memorizing logarithm tables. But letting the machine tell you what even you can do with a logarithm takes away from your set of abilities, without other learning to make up for it.

Stores regularly sell boxes of things labelled "not for individual resale". Here, windsurf would be the shopkeeper selling individual chewing gum strips out of the big package of 10x 5 strips.

This conversation is a total Racket

Enough with the smalltalk.

Let's see if I can cobol together another reply

It worked, but this reply is pretty Basic

This series of puns has really been a gem so far, but it's going off the rails at this point

That's some perl clutching. :)