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I don't actually believe in the Singularity, as such. But... I'm betting on Alphabet. ^_^

Note: Anyone with an answer that boils down to anything but "huh?" gets a free invite to The Other Other OTHER forum. Just PM me with an email address you feel comfortable sharing with a small-but-growing crowd.

Aaaand if the mods object to me trying to skim the cream, here, they are, as always, free to call me on it.

But I'm in a betting mood, and I'm betting they won't. ^_~

...I think I have a CTRL key that's sticking. Either that, or my computer is already self-aware and doesn't want me to talk about the Singularity. But, yes, if you're talking about what people now refer to as 'strong AI,' that's what I'm talking about. ^_^

I use Amazon products least frequently, so... not them?

Hm! Coming from a dragon, that seems like it should carry extra weight. I suppose it would be rude to inquire as to what you DO hoard, if not the bountiful supply of STUFF that Amazon will now ship to your door, near-instantaneously...

*eyes your profile* ...it appears to be INTERESTING STORY IDEAS, actually. Goodness, I may have to re-figure out how the sneak preview trick works... ;)

Ah, well, having interesting ideas has only taken me so far. You know what they say about genius being only 1% inspiration.

I am going to go with Amazon, they delivered my favorite game the day it came out, and I don't even have prime. Bless them.

Alphabet, most likely, if we're talking about investing.

Alphabet is growing and increasing its stock price much more quickly than Amazon, and Apple's valuation actually saw, what, a 4% decrease over 2015. That being said, Apple does pay out a really good dividend.

A very reasonable line of reasoning, although I'm not personally interested in investing actual money. Buuuut you're totally invited to the secret treehouse Slack, if I missed you in the first round. ^_~

I probably should have paid attention to your "singularity" comment. Oops.

If it's not a keyword you're interested in, it's easy to gloss over. Mathematical gobbledygook, of no interest to foxes. ;)

To be honest, while I am aware of what you were referring to, the word "singularity" always comes across to me as "black hole", and since, throughout my 20-year-long life, I have came across people with psychoses you wouldn't believe, I have learned to just ignore the parts of conversations that don't make sense to me, like how Morgan's disbelief in black holes has anything to do with three of the world's largest tech companies.

Heh. I do believe in THOSE singularities. I mean, I certainly don't claim to understand much about them, but I'll take Hawking's word for it, basically. XD

And one of the Kid's early special interests was black holes. Astronomy in general, but especially black holes, which apparently have that kind-of-scary-but-actually-safe appeal of roller coasters, to the Kid.

(For those not following my ongoing docudrama, the Kid belongs to the married couple to whom I am a platonic third. My chosen family. And yes, the Kid is on the autism spectrum, diagnosed at 2.5, got early intervention and all that jazz. She's our little social butterfly now, even as we're still working on preventing meltdowns, as a team... because she's too big for us to physically relocate, when they happen.)

Which is parenthetical, but... not entirely. Because I'm still trying to recruit you, James-who-isn't-actually-a-fox... in the same way I'm not an owl, and my partner-in-crime Alix isn't a magpie. But... well, if you don't want a new social venue, I don't blame you. At all. We're all a little bit Pavlovian, right? All us animals, human and otherwise.

Even my dear friend who made the first informal diagnosis of the Kid, the one that got her into Early Intervention, is now working with the ABA people... when before she held to Floortime as a more-or-less religious doctrine. But... she still sees her clients as people, not... programmable person-shaped units.

Which brings us back full circle, almost! :D

...

...hey, I made an effort. Aaaand I'm almost feeling a little tired, maybe? Sigh. It is VERY weird, to just be able to not-sleep, with the side effect of 'your brain works faster and seemingly better... but it's kind of like overclocking your CPU, insofar as you actually CAN glitch your way into a mental hospital.' >_<

I'm not refusing. I've just been a bit busy the last few days, trying to find a more permanent living situation and handle a certain familial problem I mentioned a few weeks ago. Though, I guess it doesn't take but five minutes to make a fake e-mail account, does it?

Either way, I will admit that I only understood about 45% of your post. I'm not sure if you were trying to be funny, or if I'm actually just that dull today.

Damn! Sorry, I've been sufficiently caught up in my own overly-complicated drama that I missed yours entirely. My PM box is always open if you need someone to vent to, of course, and absolutely don't worry about if/when you want to join the Slack. RL trumps VL, for sure.

They're all giants. It could be any of them. 

Of course! Wouldn't be as interesting if there was an obvious winner. ;)

Apple's got the money and the "fanbase", and Amazon's got the drones that don't really work efficiently, but I haven't heard of Alphabet. I'm guessing it's alphabet, because if we do have a singularity, I don't want to run on kindle books or have the goddamn rainbow ball of infinite Satan.

Our little Google evolved into an Alphabet while you weren't looking! (Not even kidding. Google it. xD)

What's a rainbow ball of infinite Satan? I don't think I've seen one of those... although I did have my purchase of chocolate come to $6.66 yesterday! ^_^

Y'know, the loading beach ball in apple PCs (or at least the few I've used, a very long time ago) that basically NEVER GOES AWAY! In a technological singularity, if any part of you gets a rainbow ball, you'll probably lose circulation and die piece by piece.

EDIT: As soon as I remember the password to ReallyBitterDave@, I'd totally like to join Slack, probably.

Haha! Okay, yeah, outed myself with that one... not that I ever tried to pass as a Mac user. I know just enough of the interface to be driven crazy by it... that and the too-slow default mouse speed. Still, from a Singularity standpoint, Windows BSOD (Blue Screens Of Death) seem worse, somehow.... but then, it doesn't seem like Microsoft is even in the running, right now.

No hurry, it's still pretty quiet over there... and I am, demonstrably, not going anywhere. At least not for long. ;)

A windows BSOD doesn't often happen if the computer's working well, and even then, it'd probably kill you very quickly. The rainbow deathball just shows up whenever you do tell the computer to do something that's too hard for it to comprehend and/or offends its precious sensibilities, and then it begins... You can do nothing but wait for the end of time, with your mac under the wishful illusion that it's still working properly. So basically, if you try to do literally anything fun in Photoshop, you run the risk of dying in a manner akin to encephalytis lethargica.

Heh. Wellll, I built my own system, because it was cheaper & I got a case with a handle, so I could carry it from work to home and back. Most computers don't take that kind of beating. So, yeah, from my perspective, BSODs happen when something mission-critical like your hard drive is maybe-probably dying... and they also lose you whatever work you haven't saved. >_<

That said, Macs always feel slow to me, even new ones, just because of the mouse-adjustment thing. Like swimming through molasses. Glad my workplace is pretty much a Windows shop, these days.