Internet plans

I figured out that my Xfinity internet plan is going to double in cost in August, to $101 per month.  I got alerted to this because they sent me an email saying that I was getting over 1 gigabit Internet download speeds.  That is not my real world experience, with actual speeds maxing out at around 400 Mbps.  I was previously on cheaper plans that were 300 to 400 Mbps, but these were temporary promotional offers, and now Xfinity wants me to pay full price.  On the phone they offered me a slight discount, but I told them that I was going to call back later to cancel the service.

I have seen an offer from GigabitNow for $50 per month, which is about what I am paying now.  

However, I also found out that XFinity offers a different service called "NOW", which is a pre-paid internet service.  It is both slower and cheaper.  They wouldn't sign me up on the phone for this, but sent me some instructions on how to sign up.  The 200 Mbps plan is $45 per month.

I see that the AT&T Internet service also has some promotional offers.

I've been telling people that Internet speed is overrated.  I had a driver problem with a computer, which I fixed, but I was only getting 30 to 40 Mbps and I was just fine.  The biggest speed issue with the Internet is how fast the servers at the websites respond.  There is usually a slight delay.

My first cable Internet service back around 2001 was only 3 Mbps, but this was a huge leap compared to dial-up.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

New Rule: Grad GPT | Real Time with Bill Maher

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBJw5pp-6_U

Internet Speed

sandra r.

Prairie Stream Estates·

2 hr ago

·

What internet is better. ATT fiber or gigabit now?

9

John Coffey

3m · Edited·Cedar Crest

I think that Internet speed is overrated. Most sites have a slight lag in responding, so you really don't notice the extra speed. The bottleneck seems to be how fast the website responds. I had a driver bug on a computer that I fixed, but I was temporarily limited to about 30 or 40 MbPS. I didn't notice until I did a speed test. I'm on a cheaper plan with Comcast where I get 500 MbPS. I had a promotional discount for a couple of years where I only got 200 to 300 MbPS, but this was plenty fast.

USB Colors have meanings?

Who is Michael Truell? Meet Cursor’s 25-year-old CEO who cemented a $60 billion deal with SpaceX

https://fortune.com/article/who-is-michael-truell-cursor-ceo-spacex-acquisition/

Samsung SSDs Are Dying

China Wasn't Supposed to Be Able to Build This

Microsoft Announce Majorana 2 Quantum Chip

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inreqB1J-z4

I still believe that Quantum Computing is not very practical.  It reportedly has limited use cases and it is very difficult and expensive to implement.

However, I suppose that it is possible that if they keep working at it, the technology could eventually be very powerful, but I think that it is going to be a long wait.

Why Is RAM so Expensive?

Your Printer Is Secretly PROGRAMMED To Stop Working — Here’s How To Fix It

Elon Just Won the Compute War (Nobody Noticed)

We are living in the future.

New Advanced Chip Fab

On Sat, May 9, 2026 at 12:31 PM Larry wrote:

(1401) New American Chip Factory That Terrifies TSMC - YouTube

Processor on my 2009 i7 iMac:       i7- 860

Processor on my 2017 i5 iMac:       i5- 7500K
Processor on my 2017 i7 iMac:       i7- 7700K
Processor on my 2020 i7 iMac:       i7-10700K

The first iMac was 45 NM.  The next three are 14 NM.  

My complaint about the time period from 2010 to 2020 is that advances in processors seemed to be very slow.  The i7-10700K is only twice as fast because it has twice as many cores.  It wasn't until Apple came out with the M1 that we saw a big change.

The Ryzen 9 7940hs processor on my Minisforum computer is 4 NM.  In theory, it is about 60% faster than the  i7-10700K, but I think that the mini-computer thermal throttles.  Maybe the iMac does too, but it has a big cooling system relative to the compactness of the all-in-one computer.

Compact computers tend to use laptop parts.  The "M" in M1 is for "Mobile".  iMacs use smaller versions of memory and storage, and so does my mini-computer.

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Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

x86 vs ARM difference explained for Beginners

The last time I looked at x86 machine code was about 35 years ago.  Apparently, it has gotten much more complex.  

ARM processors are typically not compatible with x86 software, with some exceptions, which can be a problem.  

Apple has created powerful processors that use less energy.  That's a good thing.  Low power processors meant for mobile devices like laptops and tablets are powering Mac desktops.

what is the speed difference between modern computers and 8-bit computers - Google Search

https://www.google.com/search?q=what+is+the+speed+difference+between+modern+computers+and+8-bit+comptuers&rlz=1C1CHBF_enUS1159US1159&oq=what+is+the+speed+difference+between+modern+computers+and+8-bit+comptuers&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIGCAEQIRgK0gEJMTIzMjhqMGo3qAIIsAIB8QWEAZIt2EHNDw&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

P(doom) | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO)

This way overstates the case.  Obviously AI will have controls.  

Furthermore, AI is not nearly as smart as we give it credit.  It is like a Wikipedia that can talk.  It understands language really well, but everything else is based on probability where certain facts and things are associated with other facts and things. 

Beyond probability, AI has little understanding of things that it is talking about, and its ability to reason is limited, although it might be able to solve simple problems.

However, this is why there is a big push to make AI smarter.  Doing so requires a great deal more hardware, and they are building it.  The AI demand for computer memory is driving up the cost of computers by a significant amount.

However, I suspect that the current methods are inefficient and they are just throwing more hardware at the problem to make it better.  This is a drain on resources, when they need to come up with better algorithms.  

So I asked ChatGPT what it thought of my points, and this is what it said...

Your core argument is clear and grounded, but it leans a bit too confidently in a few places where the reality is more nuanced. Here’s a straightforward take on the strengths and weaknesses:

What works well:

• You push back against hype. That’s valuable—AI discussions often swing toward extremes.
• The point about scaling via hardware vs. improving algorithms is thoughtful and widely debated in the field.
• You correctly note that current AI systems rely heavily on statistical patterns rather than deep “understanding” in a human sense.

Where it overreaches or could be refined:

• Saying AI is “like a Wikipedia that can talk” undersells it. Modern systems don’t just retrieve facts—they generate novel responses, combine ideas, and can perform nontrivial reasoning in some domains. It’s still probabilistic, but not merely lookup-and-repeat.
• “Beyond probability, AI has little understanding” is philosophically debatable. Even humans rely on pattern recognition more than we like to admit. The real issue is type and reliability of understanding, not its total absence.
• The claim that reasoning is limited to “simple problems” is outdated. AI can now handle fairly complex reasoning tasks, though inconsistently and with failure modes.
• “Obviously AI will have controls” is asserted too casually. In practice, governance, safety, and control mechanisms are active areas of concern—not something universally agreed upon or solved.

Your strongest idea (worth emphasizing more):

• The critique that the field may be over-relying on brute-force scaling (more compute, more memory) instead of algorithmic breakthroughs is legitimate. Many researchers are asking the same question.

How you might sharpen it:
Instead of framing AI as “not that smart,” you could frame it as:

• powerful but uneven
• impressive in narrow ways, unreliable in others
• advancing quickly, but with unclear long-term efficiency

That keeps your skepticism but makes it harder to dismiss.

If you want, I can rewrite your paragraph to sound tighter and more persuasive without losing your viewpoint.

Harvard just discovered what AI actually is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDL3Ch7Nz8c&t=240s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AIYQp1n51ZI

eufy L60 Robot Vacuum with Self Empty Station

https://www.bestbuy.com/product/eufy-l60-robot-vacuum-with-self-empty-station-hair-detangling-technology-6-pack-dust-bags-black/JJ858RL6XF/sku/10772478

This is the robot vacuum cleaner I bought 1.5+ years ago.  Most of the robot vacuums I bought in the past have had mechanical issues within 2 to 3 years, and I used to buy larger, more expensive brands.  Note that some brands can go up to $1,000, and I don't feel like they are worth the cost.

I paid $300 on Amazon for it, but Amazon now lists it for $400.  I found it on Best Buy for $250.

So far I've been happy with this brand.  It seems more intelligent than all the brands I have bought before.  It is controlled with a phone App.  Some features on the app took some getting used to.

Because it is smaller, the dustbin doesn't hold much, so I feel that the self emptying station is an absolute must.  They recommend replacing the dust bag and filters once per month and it is necessary to clean out the dustbin and filters in the vacuum once or twice per month.

This vacuum works well with small debris, but large debris can clog the dustbin or the roller brush.

Once in a while it doesn't fully dock to its station so I have to give it a gentle push to get it to dock properly.

Terminator: The Story of the 6502 Code You See Onscreen

@john2001plus
The 6502 was a very simple chip, but it was cheaper and faster than other 8-bit chips.

I loved programming the 65816 on the SNES.    I wonder how the world would be today if we got 32 and 64-bit versions of the 6502?

What if everything still ran on vacuum tubes?

So This is Peak Foldable

@john2001plus
0 seconds ago
When a phone unfolds from 6.6 inches to 8.1 inches, why bother—especially with a $1700 price tag? Normal phones range from 6.1 to 6.9 inches, which is fine for everyday use.

It seems to me that people want a tablet in a phone, but an 8.1-inch display falls short of my 11-inch tablet.  Maybe the argument is that you can have one device instead of two, but for this price you could get two devices.

68000 - The CPU ahead of its time

I found the 68000 easy to program.  The instructions are very straightforward.  i.e. move 8, 16, or 32 bits to a register.  Add two registers.  Move 8, 16, or 32 bits to memory.  It is almost as easy to follow as C code.

Likewise, I found the Z80 easy with its many 16-bit registers.  The 6502 has few registers, which is more difficult to program.  However, the 6502 has a trick, which is zero page instructions that use fewer clock cycles to access the first 256 bytes in memory.  Programmers can use the zero page like registers.

Elon Musk unveils TeraFab project to create ‘galactic civilisation’

https://www.the-independent.com/tech/elon-musk-terafab-robots-ai-spacex-tesla-b2943643.html

5 MB of computer data in 1966

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8L_SbT_KcfI

Re: Apple’s Cheapest MacBook

On Wed, Mar 4, 2026 at 2:30 PM Albert wrote:

https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/shopping/apple-announces-its-cheapest-ever-new-macbook/ar-AA1Xwxu0?ocid=edgemobile

The benchmark for the A18 Pro chip is not bad, but a little slower than the M1 chip.  For a low cost and likely low power laptop, I think that it will be terrific.  On a phone this seems insane.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Apple+A18+Pro&id=6268

The 2017 Core-i7 iMac I sold had a benchmark of around 10,000.  My 2020 Core-i7 model is around 19,000, but it has twice as many cores.  These are power hungry computers compared to the low power RISC style chips that Apple makes.

--

Best wishes,

John Coffey

http://www.entertainmentjourney.com

The Incredible Evolution of Computers

I like the video.  Unfortunately, it is just the first part of four.

The first microprocessor, the 4-bit Intel 4004, was created for Japanese companies that wanted to make the first electronic calculators.  I have seen 4-bit devices used for cheap electronics, like low cost chess playing computers.

In the first half of the 1980s, 8-bit computers were the norm, with the Apple II costing up to $1,300, and the IBM models costing considerably more.  The Atari 800 started at $1,000, and the Commodore 64 started at $595, which adjusted for inflation would cost $1900 today.

Sinclair, along with Timex, were offering budget models that created a dedicated fan base.

In the second half of the 1980s, the industry was moving to 16-bit, so the 8-bit models were being heavily discounted.  The C64 sold for $100 or less.

The 1990s saw a slow transition to 32-bit computers, and the 2000s saw a slow transition to 64-bit.  There is almost no reason to go to a higher number of bits, except for graphics cards that range from 64-bit to 384-bit.

Explaining the dangers of leaving an SSD unplugged

Floppy disks are STILL relevant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xd8PSlzoz64

X1 Lite First Look! The Best Budget Mini PC of 2026? They Might’ve Nailed It

@john2001plus
0 seconds ago
The CPU benchmark is 4% worse than my Minisforum UM790 Pro that I bought 2.5 years ago, and the 32GB 1TB model costs the same, probably due to high RAM prices.

My UM790 Pro had an overheating problem and died, so I had to get it fixed.  I also see thermal throttling.  So if this computer runs cooler then it is a better option.

Lava Lamps Protect Your Data

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oW6YwSUyfzw

9,999,999,999 squared on the Friden STW10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwiIWKE8Ap8