I wish this were true! The problem with Linux is that it is constantly changing. I have been using it for 30 years and have built my own embedded distros from scratch. Yet every time I turn around there moving this setup file to another directory or changing out that language for a slightly incompatible newer version. Trying to configure and maintain a box is a constant battle.

Windows is the polar opposite. The ui may have some annoying changes but under the hood it is frustratingly stable, often remaining unchanged for 20+ years (even the bugs live forever). Users crave simplicity and consistency. It is something Linux still needs to figure out.

By this definition a how to book is intelligent.

Classic programming is just a list of instructions (steps to take) that the computer follows exactly as written by the programmer. It can appear complex or magical, but we fully understand exactly what will happen in every instance. Nothing unexpected or new ever happens.

AI as it is today mixes things up just a bit. We allow the computer to program itself by training it on lots of data while it builds up a neural network (think of it as a fancy decision tree) that it can then use to try and guess if the next data matches the training data. This is great, amazing at times, but in a lot of ways it is automated programming (auto classification) and not really intelligent in any sense of the word.

The magic happens when computers can become intuitive and make a leap. Say we show it lots of apples and lots of tennis balls and tell it one is an apple and one is a tennis ball. Then we tell it an apple is a fruit and a tennis ball is a ball. Can we then show it a soccer ball or an orange and have it intuit that they are fruit or balls. This is the challenge, and we really don’t know how to get there yet, partly because we don’t know how we do it ourselves.

Intelligence is a collection of multiple things. Curiosity is a contributor, but far from an integral part.

Someone can be a brilliant mathematician, capable of computing complex equations that would stump most computers (metaphorically at least), but they may utterly lack creativity and curiosity. In any definition of intelligence we would consider them highly intelligent.

On the flip side someone may be completely filled with curiosity about the world, but lack the intelligence to read or write.

Technically that is a learned skill, this is why intelligence is really a fairly useless measure. What is intelligence? Memorizing lots of facts? Having loads of education? A built in understanding of the world that others lack (common sense)?

I think what really matters is that you find the thing in life where you fit, rather than worrying about how we measure up. I have known very intelligent people who were worthless human beings, and simple minded people who made the world more special every day. We focus too much on being smart, it is one of the least important attributes.

Yes and no. Newspapers could be read the next day, after the original purchaser was done with it. And it was easy for a restaurant or business to share newspapers among many clients. Plus of course radio still provided free news that was quality.

The big problem now is that the best news sources are the most locked down. And the worst news sources are the most open. So it is difficult for a quality piece to make the rounds. Even if a link to an article could be shared for free, even if the website was locked down, things would be a lot better.

Finally newspapers charged for the cost of printing but made money off of advertising and classifieds. There is very little cost (per view) to digital publishing. If newspapers had embraced the Web 20 years ago they could have been Facebook or eBay, rather than having all there core revenue fall away.