#AI budgeting software

[youmakely]

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[prestigebfs]

📱 The Best Personal Finance Apps and Tools to Master Your Money in 2025

Managing your money doesn’t have to be complicated. Thanks to today’s technology, personal finance apps and tools make budgeting, tracking spending, saving money, and even investing easier than ever before.

Whether you're trying to save more, pay off debt, or build wealth, the right app can transform your financial habits—right from your smartphone.

💡 Why Use Personal Finance Apps?

Personal finance tools help you:

Track spending automatically

Create and manage budgets

Monitor credit scores

Save money effortlessly

Set financial goals

Automate bills and savings

Google Keyword: money management tools

🔟 Top Personal Finance Apps and Tools for 2025

1. Mint by Intuit

Still a top contender, Mint connects all your financial accounts, categorizes transactions, and provides personalized budgeting tips.

Trending Search Term: track spending app

2. You Need a Budget (YNAB)

YNAB uses a zero-based budgeting approach to help users plan where every dollar goes. Ideal for goal-based savings and debt payoff strategies.

Keyword Used: best budget apps 2025

3. Empower (formerly Personal Capital)

Perfect for people focused on net worth tracking and investment monitoring. Empower blends budgeting tools with long-term wealth tracking.

Search Trigger: top personal finance software

4. PocketGuard

This app helps you control overspending by telling you exactly how much you have left to spend after bills, goals, and savings.

Keyword: save money apps

5. Rocket Money (formerly Truebill)

An AI-powered app that helps you cancel unwanted subscriptions, negotiate bills, and track spending in real time.

Search Intent: AI financial planner app

6. Goodbudget

Goodbudget uses the envelope system digitally, great for couples or families who want to sync budgets across devices.

Related Keyword: budget app for couples

7. Fyle

Designed for freelancers and small business owners, Fyle tracks expenses and offers business-oriented budgeting tools with automated receipt capture.

Trending Term: finance tools for entrepreneurs

8. Zeta Money Manager

Built for couples, Zeta offers shared expense tracking, joint goals, and even joint banking options—great for married or cohabiting partners.

🔐 Best Features to Look for in a Personal Finance App

Bank-level security encryption

Real-time transaction syncing

Goal-based savings automation

AI insights for spending trends

Custom categories and alerts

Search Term: how to automate finances in 2025

📊 How These Tools Help You Save Money

Using apps like Mint or PocketGuard, you can:

Identify unnecessary expenses

Set monthly spending limits

Get notified before overspending

Use round-up features to save spare change

Avoid late fees with reminders and auto-pay

🧠 Bonus Tools Worth Exploring

Digit: AI automates small savings from your bank account

Qapital: Lets you save toward goals using custom rules

Tiller Money: Connects Google Sheets or Excel to automate budgets

🧾 Real-World Example

Emma, a recent college graduate, used YNAB and Rocket Money to pay off $8,000 in credit card debt in under 12 months. With real-time expense tracking and automated savings, she regained control of her finances and increased her credit score by 85 points.

📱 Should You Pay for a Premium Finance App?

Many top tools offer free plans, but paid versions unlock advanced features like:

Real-time investment tracking

Subscription cancellation services

Family account syncing

AI-driven financial coaching

Choose based on your goals and budget.

Need Personal Or Business Funding? Prestige Business Financial Services LLC offer over 30 Personal and Business Funding options to include good and bad credit options. Get Personal Loans up to $100K or 0% Business Lines of Credit Up To $250K. Also credit repair and passive income programs.

Book A Free Consult And We Can Help - https://prestigebusinessfinancialservices.com

Email - anthony@prestigebfs.com

📌 Final Thoughts

Personal finance apps and tools have revolutionized how we manage money in 2025. From budgeting to saving to financial goal-setting, these apps put powerful, real-time insights at your fingertips.

Whether you're a budgeting beginner or a seasoned saver, now’s the time to upgrade your financial toolkit and build a smarter, stronger financial future.

Need Personal Or Business Funding? Prestige Business Financial Services LLC offer over 30 Personal and Business Funding options to include good and bad credit options. Get Personal Loans up to $100K or 0% Business Lines of Credit Up To $250K. Also credit repair and passive income programs.

Book A Free Consult And We Can Help - https://prestigebusinessfinancialservices.com

Email - anthony@prestigebfs.com

Learn More!!

Prestige Business Financial Services LLC

"Your One Stop Shop To All Your Personal And Business Funding Needs"

Website- https://prestigebusinessfinancialservices.com

Email - anthony@prestigebfs.com

Phone- 1-800-622-0453

[asestimationsconsultants]

How a Construction Cost Estimating Service Helps in Risk Management

Risk management is a fundamental aspect of any construction project, as unforeseen challenges can lead to cost overruns, delays, and financial losses. One of the most effective ways to mitigate these risks is through a reliable construction cost estimating service. Accurate cost estimation allows contractors, project managers, and stakeholders to anticipate potential risks, allocate resources wisely, and ensure the financial stability of a project. This article explores how construction cost estimating services contribute to effective risk management and enhance project success.

Understanding Risk in Construction Projects

Construction projects involve multiple uncertainties, from fluctuating material costs to unexpected site conditions. Some of the common risks include:

Financial Risks: Cost overruns due to inaccurate estimates, inflation, or unexpected expenses.

Project Delays: Scheduling issues arising from unforeseen circumstances such as labor shortages or material delivery delays.

Legal and Compliance Risks: Issues related to permits, regulations, and contractual obligations.

Design Changes: Modifications made during the project lifecycle that impact costs and timelines.

Safety and Environmental Risks: Accidents, weather conditions, and environmental regulations affecting project execution.

A well-structured construction cost estimating service helps in identifying, assessing, and mitigating these risks before they escalate into costly problems.

Key Ways Construction Cost Estimating Services Help in Risk Management

1. Enhancing Budget Accuracy

Accurate cost estimates form the foundation of financial planning in construction projects. A reliable estimating service considers material costs, labor expenses, equipment needs, and contingency funds, ensuring that the project budget is realistic. By reducing budget uncertainties, contractors can avoid unexpected financial strain and ensure smoother project execution.

2. Identifying Potential Cost Overruns

A detailed cost estimate highlights potential cost overruns before the project begins. By analyzing past project data and industry trends, an estimating service can pinpoint areas where costs are likely to exceed initial expectations. This proactive approach allows project managers to allocate contingency funds appropriately and prevent financial shortfalls.

3. Facilitating Better Resource Allocation

Efficient resource allocation is crucial for minimizing risks in construction projects. A comprehensive cost estimate helps contractors determine the right amount of materials, labor, and equipment required for each phase of construction. This prevents shortages, reduces waste, and ensures that resources are used optimally.

4. Minimizing Schedule Delays

Delays in construction projects often lead to increased costs and client dissatisfaction. A precise cost estimate incorporates realistic timelines and accounts for potential disruptions such as weather delays, labor shortages, or supply chain issues. This foresight allows project managers to implement contingency plans and minimize schedule disruptions.

5. Supporting Contract Negotiations

A construction cost estimating service provides valuable data that strengthens contract negotiations with suppliers, subcontractors, and clients. By having a well-documented cost breakdown, contractors can negotiate better pricing, prevent disputes, and establish clear financial expectations before the project starts.

6. Mitigating Market Fluctuation Risks

The construction industry is highly susceptible to market fluctuations, including changes in material costs and labor rates. Cost estimating services use predictive analytics and historical data to assess these fluctuations and incorporate them into the project budget. This helps contractors prepare for potential price hikes and avoid last-minute financial setbacks.

7. Ensuring Regulatory Compliance

Legal and regulatory compliance is a critical aspect of risk management in construction. An experienced estimating service considers permit costs, environmental impact fees, safety regulations, and other legal expenses to ensure full compliance with local and national laws. This reduces the risk of fines, project delays, and legal disputes.

8. Providing Contingency Planning

Unexpected expenses are inevitable in construction projects. A cost estimating service factors in contingency budgets to cover unforeseen costs such as design modifications, equipment failures, or sudden labor shortages. Having a contingency plan in place ensures that unexpected challenges do not derail the project’s financial stability.

9. Reducing the Risk of Design Errors

Inaccurate estimates can lead to design errors that require costly rework. Construction cost estimating services utilize advanced tools such as Building Information Modeling (BIM) to detect design inconsistencies before construction begins. Identifying potential errors early in the planning stage prevents costly modifications during execution.

10. Enhancing Decision-Making with Data Analytics

Modern cost estimating services leverage big data analytics and AI-driven tools to provide data-backed insights for better decision-making. By analyzing previous project costs, labor productivity rates, and material price trends, estimators can offer more precise forecasts, helping project managers make informed financial and operational decisions.

The Role of Technology in Risk Management Through Cost Estimating

Technological advancements have further improved the risk management capabilities of construction cost estimating services. Some key innovations include:

AI and Machine Learning: These technologies analyze vast amounts of historical data to identify potential risks and predict cost trends.

Cloud-Based Estimating Software: Enables real-time collaboration, ensuring that all stakeholders have access to up-to-date cost data.

BIM Integration: Enhances accuracy by providing detailed visual representations of the project, reducing design-related risks.

Drones and Remote Sensing: Provide accurate site data, reducing uncertainties related to site conditions and topography.

By integrating these technologies, construction firms can improve estimate accuracy, reduce human errors, and enhance overall risk management strategies.

Conclusion

A reliable construction cost estimating service is a critical tool for risk management in construction projects. By providing accurate cost assessments, identifying potential financial risks, and incorporating contingency planning, these services help contractors avoid costly overruns and delays. Additionally, leveraging modern technology enhances the precision and effectiveness of estimating, making it an indispensable asset for successful project execution. Investing in a professional cost estimating service not only improves financial stability but also ensures that construction projects are completed efficiently, safely, and within budget.

[golden42]

Lazy Loading Page Speed Optimization: Efficient Practices & Tips

Key Takeaways

Lazy loading can significantly improve page speed by loading only necessary content initially, reducing initial load times.

Implementing lazy loading can save bandwidth, which is crucial for users on limited data plans.

This technique enhances user experience by ensuring faster interactions and smoother scrolling.

SEO can benefit from lazy loading as search engines prefer faster websites, potentially improving rankings.

To effectively implement lazy loading, use browser-native features and ensure compatibility across different devices.

Enhancing Web Performance with Lazy Loading

In today's fast-paced digital world, web performance is more critical than ever. Slow websites can drive users away, impacting engagement and conversions. One powerful technique to boost performance is lazy loading. By understanding and implementing lazy loading, you can optimize your website's speed and efficiency, keeping your visitors engaged and satisfied.

Understanding the Need for Speed

Users expect websites to load quickly and efficiently.

Slow loading times can lead to higher bounce rates.

Improved speed enhances user satisfaction and retention.

Most importantly, speed is not just a luxury; it's a necessity. Users are increasingly impatient, and a delay of even a few seconds can cause them to abandon your site. Therefore, ensuring that your site loads swiftly is crucial for maintaining user interest and engagement.

Lazy loading offers a solution by optimizing the loading process. Instead of loading every element of a page at once, lazy loading prioritizes essential content and defers non-essential elements. This approach can make a dramatic difference in how quickly your site feels to users.

Lazy Loading: A Game Changer for Web Efficiency

Lazy loading is more than just a buzzword; it's a transformative technique for web optimization. By deferring the loading of non-essential elements, such as images and videos, until they are needed, lazy loading reduces the initial load time of a webpage.

Images and videos load only when they enter the viewport.

Reduces server requests, enhancing page speed.

Particularly beneficial for mobile users with limited bandwidth.

Besides that, lazy loading helps in conserving resources, which is particularly beneficial for mobile users who might be on limited data plans. By only loading what's necessary, users experience faster interactions and smoother scrolling, which can significantly improve their overall experience.

Eager Loading: When Immediate Isn't Ideal

Eager loading, the opposite of lazy loading, involves loading all page elements at once. While this approach might seem straightforward, it can lead to longer initial load times, especially on content-heavy pages. Therefore, eager loading is not always the best choice, particularly when dealing with large images or videos.

Lazy loading, on the other hand, ensures that your website delivers essential content swiftly, making it an ideal choice for optimizing page speed and improving user experience.

Benefits of Lazy Loading

Lazy loading isn't just about speed; it's about creating a seamless and efficient user experience. Let's delve into the various benefits it offers.

Faster Initial Load Times

By loading only the necessary elements initially, lazy loading significantly reduces the time it takes for a page to become interactive. Users can start engaging with the content almost immediately, without waiting for all elements to load.

This immediate engagement is crucial in retaining user interest. For instance, if your homepage loads quickly, users are more likely to explore further, increasing the chances of conversion.

Additionally, faster load times can have a positive impact on your website's bounce rate. Users are less likely to leave if they don't have to wait for content to load, which can improve your site's overall performance metrics.

Loading Images Efficiently

Images often account for the majority of a webpage's load time. By implementing lazy loading for images, you can significantly improve your page speed. This involves loading images only when they are about to enter the viewport. As a result, users won't have to wait for all images to load before they can interact with your content.

To do this effectively, you can use the loading="lazy" attribute in your image tags. This attribute tells the browser to defer loading the image until it is close to being visible. Additionally, consider using responsive image techniques to serve different image sizes based on the user's device, further optimizing load times.

Handling Videos and Media Content

Videos and other media content can be resource-intensive, causing significant delays in load times if not managed properly. Lazy loading can also be applied to these elements. By embedding videos with lazy loading techniques, you ensure they only load when a user scrolls to them.

For example, instead of directly embedding a video, use a thumbnail image with a play button overlay. When the user clicks the play button, the video loads and plays. This not only saves bandwidth but also improves the initial loading speed of the page.

JavaScript and CSS Deferred Loading

JavaScript and CSS files are essential for modern web applications, but they can also be a bottleneck if not handled correctly. Lazy loading these resources involves deferring their loading until they are needed. This can be achieved using the defer and async attributes for JavaScript files.

The defer attribute ensures that the script is executed after the HTML document has been parsed, while the async attribute allows the script to be executed as soon as it's available. For CSS, consider using media queries to load stylesheets conditionally based on the user's device or viewport size.

Tips for Optimizing Lazy Loading

Implementing lazy loading is just the beginning. To truly optimize your website's performance, follow these additional tips and best practices.

Use Browser Native Features

Modern browsers offer native support for lazy loading, making it easier than ever to implement this technique. By using native features, you can ensure compatibility and reduce the need for third-party libraries, which can add unnecessary overhead.

To take advantage of these features, simply add the loading="lazy" attribute to your image and iframe tags. This simple addition can have a significant impact on your page speed, especially for image-heavy sites.

Besides, using native features ensures that your site remains future-proof, as browsers continue to enhance their support for lazy loading and other performance optimizations.

Minimize Default Image Size

Before applying lazy loading, it's crucial to optimize your images for size. Large images can still slow down load times, even with lazy loading. Use image compression tools to reduce file sizes without sacrificing quality.

Optimize Animations

Animations can enhance user experience, but they can also impact performance if not optimized. Use CSS animations instead of JavaScript whenever possible, as they are more efficient and can be hardware-accelerated by the browser.

Ensure that animations are smooth and don't cause layout shifts, which can negatively affect user experience. Test your animations on different devices to ensure they perform well across the board.

Remember, the goal is to create a seamless experience for your users. By optimizing animations, you can enhance the visual appeal of your site without compromising performance.

Test Across Multiple Devices

It's essential to test your website on a variety of devices and screen sizes. What works well on a desktop might not perform the same on a mobile device. Use tools like Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze your site's performance and identify areas for improvement.

Regular testing ensures that your lazy loading implementation works as intended across different platforms, providing a consistent experience for all users.

Overcoming Common Lazy Loading Challenges

While lazy loading offers numerous benefits, it's not without its challenges. Addressing these issues ensures that your implementation is successful and doesn't negatively impact your site.

Dealing with SEO Concerns

Lazy loading can sometimes interfere with search engine indexing if not implemented correctly. To ensure your content is indexed, use server-side rendering or provide fallbacks for search engines that may not execute JavaScript. For more insights, check out how lazy loading decreases load time and increases engagement.

Ensure all critical content is available without JavaScript.

Use structured data to help search engines understand your content.

Regularly monitor your site's indexing status in Google Search Console.

These strategies help maintain your site's visibility in search engine results, ensuring that lazy loading doesn't negatively impact your SEO efforts.

Addressing Browser Compatibility Issues

While most modern browsers support lazy loading, some older versions may not. To ensure compatibility, consider using a polyfill or fallback solutions for browsers that don't support lazy loading natively.

By addressing these compatibility issues, you can provide a consistent experience for all users, regardless of their browser choice. Regularly updating your site and testing on different browsers can help you identify and resolve any issues that arise.

Troubleshooting Loading Delays

Even with lazy loading implemented, you might encounter loading delays. This often happens when elements are not optimized or when there are too many third-party scripts running on your site. To troubleshoot these issues, start by identifying the elements that are causing delays. Use tools like Google Chrome's Developer Tools to pinpoint these elements and analyze their loading times.

Once you've identified the culprits, consider compressing images, deferring non-essential scripts, and minimizing the use of third-party plugins. By doing so, you can significantly reduce loading times and improve the overall performance of your website.

The Future of Lazy Loading in Web Development

Lazy loading is set to become an integral part of web development as websites continue to grow in complexity and size. With the increasing demand for faster and more efficient websites, lazy loading offers a practical solution to enhance user experience without compromising on content richness.

"Lazy loading is not just a trend; it's a necessity for modern web development. As websites evolve, so do the techniques we use to optimize them."

As more developers recognize the benefits of lazy loading, we can expect to see advancements in browser support and new tools that make implementation even easier. This evolution will ensure that lazy loading remains a vital component of web optimization strategies.

Emerging Technologies that Support Lazy Loading

Several emerging technologies are poised to enhance lazy loading capabilities. For instance, progressive web apps (PWAs) and server-side rendering (SSR) can work alongside lazy loading to deliver content more efficiently. PWAs offer offline capabilities and faster load times, while SSR ensures that content is rendered on the server, reducing the load on the client's device.

Additionally, advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning could further optimize lazy loading by predicting user behavior and preloading content accordingly. These technologies have the potential to revolutionize how we approach web performance optimization.

The Growing Importance of Mobile Optimization

As mobile usage continues to rise, optimizing websites for mobile devices has become more critical than ever. Lazy loading plays a crucial role in this optimization by reducing data usage and improving load times on mobile networks.

By implementing lazy loading, you can ensure that your mobile users have a seamless experience, regardless of their network conditions. This is particularly important for users in regions with slower internet speeds, where every byte counts.

Frequently Asked Questions

Lazy loading is a powerful tool, but it can also raise questions for those unfamiliar with its implementation. Here are some common questions and answers to help you better understand lazy loading and its impact on your website.

These insights will help you make informed decisions about implementing lazy loading on your site and address any concerns you may have.

"Lazy loading can seem daunting at first, but with the right guidance, it becomes an invaluable asset for web optimization."

What is lazy loading and how does it work?

Lazy loading is a technique that defers the loading of non-essential elements, such as images and videos, until they are needed. This reduces the initial load time of a webpage, allowing users to interact with the content more quickly. By only loading elements when they enter the viewport, lazy loading conserves resources and improves performance.

How does lazy loading affect page speed and SEO?

Lazy loading can significantly enhance page speed by reducing the number of elements that need to be loaded initially. This not only improves user experience but also positively impacts SEO. Search engines favor faster websites, which can lead to improved rankings.

However, it's essential to ensure that lazy loading is implemented correctly to avoid any negative impact on SEO. This includes providing fallbacks for search engines that may not execute JavaScript and ensuring that all critical content is accessible without JavaScript. For more insights, check out this beginner's guide to lazy loading.

By addressing these considerations, you can harness the benefits of lazy loading without compromising your site's visibility in search engine results.

"Faster websites are favored by both users and search engines, making lazy loading a win-win for performance and SEO."

Therefore, lazy loading is an effective strategy for enhancing both user experience and search engine rankings.

What types of content should be lazy loaded?

Lazy loading is particularly beneficial for large images, videos, and other media content that can slow down a webpage. By deferring these elements, you can ensure that users only load what they need, when they need it.

Additionally, lazy loading can be applied to JavaScript and CSS files, further optimizing load times. By prioritizing essential content and deferring non-essential elements, you can create a more efficient and user-friendly website.

Are there any drawbacks to implementing lazy loading?

While lazy loading offers numerous benefits, it does have some potential drawbacks. If not implemented correctly, it can interfere with search engine indexing and result in missing or delayed content. To mitigate these risks, ensure that your lazy loading implementation is compatible with search engines and provides fallbacks for non-JavaScript environments. For more insights, check out Boost Your Website Speed With Lazy Loading.

How do I verify if lazy loading is working on my site?

To verify that lazy loading is working, use browser developer tools to inspect the network activity. Check if images and other media elements are loading only when they enter the viewport. Additionally, tools like Google PageSpeed Insights can help you analyze your site's performance and confirm that lazy loading is functioning as intended.

By regularly monitoring your site's performance and addressing any issues that arise, you can ensure that lazy loading continues to enhance your website's speed and user experience.

[cyber-soul-smartz]

21st Century Project Planning: Blueprint for Unparalleled Success

Discover the secrets to mastering project planning and achieving unparalleled success! Dive into our latest article for expert insights and practical tips. Don't miss out—subscribe now to stay updated on the best strategies for professional development!

Mastering Project Planning: Crafting the Blueprint for Unparalleled Success in the 21st Century Imagine venturing on a journey without a map, a compass, or even a clear destination in mind. The chance of reaching your goal would be slim to none. This scenario mirrors the challenges faced by project managers who dive into execution without a solid plan in place. The planning phase of project…

[govindhtech]

Tech Breakdown: What Is a SuperNIC? Get the Inside Scoop!

The most recent development in the rapidly evolving digital realm is generative AI. A relatively new phrase, SuperNIC, is one of the revolutionary inventions that makes it feasible.

Describe a SuperNIC

On order to accelerate hyperscale AI workloads on Ethernet-based clouds, a new family of network accelerators called SuperNIC was created. With remote direct memory access (RDMA) over converged Ethernet (RoCE) technology, it offers extremely rapid network connectivity for GPU-to-GPU communication, with throughputs of up to 400Gb/s.

SuperNICs incorporate the following special qualities:

Ensuring that data packets are received and processed in the same sequence as they were originally delivered through high-speed packet reordering. This keeps the data flow’s sequential integrity intact.

In order to regulate and prevent congestion in AI networks, advanced congestion management uses network-aware algorithms and real-time telemetry data.

In AI cloud data centers, programmable computation on the input/output (I/O) channel facilitates network architecture adaptation and extension.

Low-profile, power-efficient architecture that effectively handles AI workloads under power-constrained budgets.

Optimization for full-stack AI, encompassing system software, communication libraries, application frameworks, networking, computing, and storage.

Recently, NVIDIA revealed the first SuperNIC in the world designed specifically for AI computing, built on the BlueField-3 networking architecture. It is a component of the NVIDIA Spectrum-X platform, which allows for smooth integration with the Ethernet switch system Spectrum-4.

The NVIDIA Spectrum-4 switch system and BlueField-3 SuperNIC work together to provide an accelerated computing fabric that is optimized for AI applications. Spectrum-X outperforms conventional Ethernet settings by continuously delivering high levels of network efficiency.

Yael Shenhav, vice president of DPU and NIC products at NVIDIA, stated, “In a world where AI is driving the next wave of technological innovation, the BlueField-3 SuperNIC is a vital cog in the machinery.” “SuperNICs are essential components for enabling the future of AI computing because they guarantee that your AI workloads are executed with efficiency and speed.”

The Changing Environment of Networking and AI

Large language models and generative AI are causing a seismic change in the area of artificial intelligence. These potent technologies have opened up new avenues and made it possible for computers to perform new functions.

GPU-accelerated computing plays a critical role in the development of AI by processing massive amounts of data, training huge AI models, and enabling real-time inference. While this increased computing capacity has created opportunities, Ethernet cloud networks have also been put to the test.

The internet’s foundational technology, traditional Ethernet, was designed to link loosely connected applications and provide wide compatibility. The complex computational requirements of contemporary AI workloads, which include quickly transferring large amounts of data, closely linked parallel processing, and unusual communication patterns all of which call for optimal network connectivity were not intended for it.

Basic network interface cards (NICs) were created with interoperability, universal data transfer, and general-purpose computing in mind. They were never intended to handle the special difficulties brought on by the high processing demands of AI applications.

The necessary characteristics and capabilities for effective data transmission, low latency, and the predictable performance required for AI activities are absent from standard NICs. In contrast, SuperNICs are designed specifically for contemporary AI workloads.

Benefits of SuperNICs in AI Computing Environments

Data processing units (DPUs) are capable of high throughput, low latency network connectivity, and many other sophisticated characteristics. DPUs have become more and more common in the field of cloud computing since its launch in 2020, mostly because of their ability to separate, speed up, and offload computation from data center hardware.

SuperNICs and DPUs both have many characteristics and functions in common, however SuperNICs are specially designed to speed up networks for artificial intelligence.

The performance of distributed AI training and inference communication flows is highly dependent on the availability of network capacity. Known for their elegant designs, SuperNICs scale better than DPUs and may provide an astounding 400Gb/s of network bandwidth per GPU.

When GPUs and SuperNICs are matched 1:1 in a system, AI workload efficiency may be greatly increased, resulting in higher productivity and better business outcomes.

SuperNICs are only intended to speed up networking for cloud computing with artificial intelligence. As a result, it uses less processing power than a DPU, which needs a lot of processing power to offload programs from a host CPU.

Less power usage results from the decreased computation needs, which is especially important in systems with up to eight SuperNICs.

One of the SuperNIC’s other unique selling points is its specialized AI networking capabilities. It provides optimal congestion control, adaptive routing, and out-of-order packet handling when tightly connected with an AI-optimized NVIDIA Spectrum-4 switch. Ethernet AI cloud settings are accelerated by these cutting-edge technologies.

Transforming cloud computing with AI

The NVIDIA BlueField-3 SuperNIC is essential for AI-ready infrastructure because of its many advantages.

Maximum efficiency for AI workloads: The BlueField-3 SuperNIC is perfect for AI workloads since it was designed specifically for network-intensive, massively parallel computing. It guarantees bottleneck-free, efficient operation of AI activities.

Performance that is consistent and predictable: The BlueField-3 SuperNIC makes sure that each job and tenant in multi-tenant data centers, where many jobs are executed concurrently, is isolated, predictable, and unaffected by other network operations.

Secure multi-tenant cloud infrastructure: Data centers that handle sensitive data place a high premium on security. High security levels are maintained by the BlueField-3 SuperNIC, allowing different tenants to cohabit with separate data and processing.

Broad network infrastructure: The BlueField-3 SuperNIC is very versatile and can be easily adjusted to meet a wide range of different network infrastructure requirements.

Wide compatibility with server manufacturers: The BlueField-3 SuperNIC integrates easily with the majority of enterprise-class servers without using an excessive amount of power in data centers.

[insanelyclevermarketing]

Top 5 Essential Technologies To Boost Your Business

Technology is a vital tool to transform a small business. Enterprises must adopt new technologies to boost their operations in this evolving landscape. According to Forbes, digital transformation is a must in this age as it is instrumental in staying competitive, minimizing costs, and having a firm grip on the market. The media buzzes with AI and tech, but which technologies are most crucial…

[literaticat]

Is it ethical to use Chat GPT or Grammarly for line editing purposes? I have a finished book, 100% written by me and line edited by me already--and I do hope to get it traditionally published. But I think it could benefit from a line edit from someone who isn't me, obviously, before querying. But line editing services run $3-4k for a 75k book, which is beyond my budget.

I was chatting with someone recently who self-publishes. They said they use Chat GPT Plus to actually train a model for their projects to line edit using instructions like (do not rewrite or rephrase for content /edit only for rhythm, clarity, tone, and pacing /preserve my voice, sentence structure, and story intent with precision). Those are a few inputs she used and she said it actually worked really well.

So in that case, is AI viewed in the same way you'd collaborate with a human editor? Or does that cross ethical boundaries in traditional publishing? Like say for instance AI rewords your sentence and maybe switches out for a stronger verb or adjective or a stronger metaphor--is using that crossing a line? And if I were to use it for that purpose, would I need to disclose that? I know AI is practically a swear word among authors and publishers right now, so I think even having to say "I used AI tools" might raise eyebrows and make an agent hesitant during the querying process. But obviously, I wouldn't lie if it needs to be disclosed... just not sure I even want to go there and risk having to worry about that. Thoughts? Am I fine? Overthinking it?

Thanks!

I gotta be honest, this question made me flinch so hard I'm surprised my face didn't turn inside out.

Feeding your original work into ChatGPT or a similar generative AI large language model -- which are WELL KNOWN FOR STEALING EVERYTHING THAT GETS PUT INTO THEM AND SPITTING OUT STOLEN MATERIAL-- feels like, idk, just a terrible idea. Letting that AI have ANY kind of control over your words and steal them feels like a terrible idea. Using any words that a literal plagiarism-bot might come up with for you feels like a terrible idea.

And ethical questions aside: AI is simply not good at writing fiction. It doesn't KNOW anything. You want to take its "advice" on your book? Come on. Get it together.

Better idea: Get a good critique group that can tell you if there are major plot holes, characters whose motivations are unclear, anything like that -- those are things that AI can't help you with, anyway. Then read Self-Editing for Fiction Writers -- that info combined with a bit of patience should stand you in good stead.

Finally, I do think that using spell-check/grammarly, either as you work or to check your work, is fine. It's not rewriting your work for you, it's just pointing out typos/mistakes/potential issues, and YOU, PERSONALLY, are going through each and every one to make the decision of how to fix any actual errors that might have snuck in there, and you, personally, are making the decision about when to use a "stronger" word or phrase or recast a sentence that it thinks might be unclear or when to stet for voice, etc. Yes, get rid of typos and real mistakes, by all means!

(And no, I don't think use of that kind of "spell-check/grammar-check" tool is a problem or anything that you need to "disclose" or feel weird about -- spell-check is like, integrated into most word processing software as a rule, it's ubiquitous and helpful, and it's different from feeding your work into some third-party AI thing!)

[jadeharleyinc]

the scale of AI's ecological footprint

standalone version of my response to the following:

"you need soulless art? [...] why should you get to use all that computing power and electricity to produce some shitty AI art? i don’t actually think you’re entitled to consume those resources." "i think we all deserve nice things. [...] AI art is not a nice thing. it doesn’t meaningfully contribute to us thriving and the cost in terms of energy use [...] is too fucking much. none of us can afford to foot the bill." "go watch some tv show or consume some art that already exists. […] you know what’s more environmentally and economically sustainable […]? museums. galleries. being in nature."

you can run free and open source AI art programs on your personal computer, with no internet connection. this doesn't require much more electricity than running a resource-intensive video game on that same computer. i think it's important to consume less. but if you make these arguments about AI, do you apply them to video games too? do you tell Fortnite players to play board games and go to museums instead?

speaking of museums: if you drive 3 miles total to a museum and back home, you have consumed more energy and created more pollution than generating AI images for 24 hours straight (this comes out to roughly 1400 AI images). "being in nature" also involves at least this much driving, usually. i don't think these are more environmentally-conscious alternatives.

obviously, an AI image model costs energy to train in the first place, but take Stable Diffusion v2 as an example: it took 40,000 to 60,000 kWh to train. let's go with the upper bound. if you assume ~125g of CO2 per kWh, that's ~7.5 tons of CO2. to put this into perspective, a single person driving a single car for 12 months emits 4.6 tons of CO2. meanwhile, for example, the creation of a high-budget movie emits 2840 tons of CO2.

is the carbon cost of a single car being driven for 20 months, or 1/378th of a Marvel movie, worth letting anyone with a mid-end computer, anywhere, run free offline software that consumes a gaming session's worth of electricity to produce hundreds of images? i would say yes. in a heartbeat.

even if you see creating AI images as "less soulful" than consuming Marvel/Fortnite content, it's undeniably "more useful" to humanity as a tool. not to mention this usefulness includes reducing the footprint of creating media. AI is more environment-friendly than human labor on digital creative tasks, since it can get a task done with much less computer usage, doesn't commute to work, and doesn't eat.

and speaking of eating, another comparison: if you made an AI image program generate images non-stop for every second of every day for an entire year, you could offset your carbon footprint by… eating 30% less beef and lamb. not pork. not even meat in general. just beef and lamb.

the tech industry is guilty of plenty of horrendous stuff. but when it comes to the individual impact of AI, saying "i don’t actually think you’re entitled to consume those resources. do you need this? is this making you thrive?" to an individual running an AI program for 45 minutes a day per month is equivalent to questioning whether that person is entitled to a single 3 mile car drive once per month or a single meatball's worth of beef once per month. because all of these have the same CO2 footprint.

so yeah. i agree, i think we should drive less, eat less beef, stream less video, consume less. but i don't think we should tell people "stop using AI programs, just watch a TV show, go to a museum, go hiking, etc", for the same reason i wouldn't tell someone "stop playing video games and play board games instead". i don't think this is a productive angle.

(sources and number-crunching under the cut.)

good general resource: GiovanH's article "Is AI eating all the energy?", which highlights the negligible costs of running an AI program, the moderate costs of creating an AI model, and the actual indefensible energy waste coming from specific companies deploying AI irresponsibly.

CO2 emissions from running AI art programs: a) one AI image takes 3 Wh of electricity. b) one AI image takes 1mn in, for example, Midjourney. c) so if you create 1 AI image per minute for 24 hours straight, or for 45 minutes per day for a month, you've consumed 4.3 kWh. d) using the UK electric grid through 2024 as an example, the production of 1 kWh releases 124g of CO2. therefore the production of 4.3 kWh releases 533g (~0.5 kg) of CO2.

CO2 emissions from driving your car: cars in the EU emit 106.4g of CO2 per km. that's 171.19g for 1 mile, or 513g (~0.5 kg) for 3 miles.

costs of training the Stable Diffusion v2 model: quoting GiovanH's article linked in 1. "Generative models go through the same process of training. The Stable Diffusion v2 model was trained on A100 PCIe 40 GB cards running for a combined 200,000 hours, which is a specialized AI GPU that can pull a maximum of 300 W. 300 W for 200,000 hours gives a total energy consumption of 60,000 kWh. This is a high bound that assumes full usage of every chip for the entire period; SD2’s own carbon emission report indicates it likely used significantly less power than this, and other research has shown it can be done for less." at 124g of CO2 per kWh, this comes out to 7440 kg.

CO2 emissions from red meat: a) carbon footprint of eating plenty of red meat, some red meat, only white meat, no meat, and no animal products the difference between a beef/lamb diet and a no-beef-or-lamb diet comes down to 600 kg of CO2 per year. b) Americans consume 42g of beef per day. this doesn't really account for lamb (egads! my math is ruined!) but that's about 1.2 kg per month or 15 kg per year. that single piece of 42g has a 1.65kg CO2 footprint. so our 3 mile drive/4.3 kWh of AI usage have the same carbon footprint as a 12g piece of beef. roughly the size of a meatball [citation needed].

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 4, 2025

Heather Cox Richardson

Feb 05, 2025

Shortly after 1:00 this morning, Vittoria Elliott, Dhruv Mehrotra, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman of Wired reported that, according to three of their sources, “[a] 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies [SpaceX and X], has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government.”

According to the reporters, Elez apparently has the privileges to write code on the programs at the Bureau of Fiscal Service that control more than 20% of the U.S. economy, including government payments of veterans’ benefits, Social Security benefits, and veterans’ pay. The admin privileges he has typically permit a user “to log in to servers through secure shell access, navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files. That could allow someone to bypass the security measures of, and potentially cause irreversible changes to, the very systems they have access to.”

“If you would have asked me a week ago” if an outsider could’ve been given access to a government server, one federal IT worker told the Wired reporters, “I'd have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the f*ck knows."

The reporters note that control of the Bureau of Fiscal Service computers could enable someone to cut off monies to specific agencies or even individuals. “Will DOGE cut funding to programs approved by Congress that Donald Trump decides he doesn’t like?” asked Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday. “What about cancer research? Food banks? School lunches? Veterans aid? Literacy programs? Small business loans?”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reported that his sources said that Elez and possibly others got full admin access to the Treasury computers on Friday, January 31, and that he—or they—have “already made extensive changes to the code base for the payment system.” They are leaning on existing staff in the agency for help, which those workers have provided reluctantly in hopes of keeping the entire system from crashing. Marshall reports those staffers are “freaking out.” The system is due to undergo a migration to another system this weekend; how the changes will interact with that long-planned migration is unclear.

The changes, Marshall’s sources tell him, “all seem to relate to creating new paths to block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked.”

Both Wired and the New York Times reported yesterday that Musk’s team intends to cut government workers and to use artificial intelligence, or AI, to make budget cuts and to find waste and abuse in the federal government.

Today Jason Koebler, Joseph Cox, and Emanuel Maiberg of 404 Media reported that they had obtained the audio of a meeting held Monday by Thomas Shedd for government technology workers. Shedd is a former Musk employee at Tesla who is now leading the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), the team that is recoding the government programs.

At the meeting, Shedd told government workers that “things are going to get intense” as his team creates “AI coding agents” to write software that would, for example, change the way logging into the government systems works. Currently, that software cannot access any information about individuals; as the reporters note, login.gov currently assures users that it “does not affect or have any information related to the specific agency you are trying to access.”

But Shedd said they were working through how to change that login “to further identify individuals and detect and prevent fraud.”

When a government employee pointed out that the Privacy Act makes it illegal for agencies to share personal information without consent, Shedd appeared unfazed by the idea they were trying something illegal. “The idea would be that folks would give consent to help with the login flow, but again, that's an example of something that we have a vision, that needs [to be] worked on, and needs clarified. And if we hit a roadblock, then we hit a roadblock. But we still should push forward and see what we can do.”

A government employee told Koebler, Cox, and Maiberg that using AI coding agents is a major security risk. “Government software is concerned with things like foreign adversaries attempting to insert backdoors into government code. With code generated by AI, it seems possible that security vulnerabilities could be introduced unintentionally. Or could be introduced intentionally via an AI-related exploit that creates obfuscated code that includes vulnerabilities that might expose the data of American citizens or of national security importance.”

A blizzard of lawsuits has greeted Musk’s campaign and other Trump administration efforts to undermine Congress. Today, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leaders in their respective chambers, announced they were introducing legislation to stop Musk’s unlawful actions in the Treasury’s payment systems and to protect Americans, calling it “Stop the Steal,” a play on Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

This evening, Democratic lawmakers and hundreds of protesters rallied at the Treasury Department to take a stand against Musk’s hostile takeover of the U.S. Treasury payment system. “Nobody Elected Elon,” their signs read. “He has access to all our information, our Social Security numbers, the federal payment system,” Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said. “What’s going to stop him from stealing taxpayer money?”

Tonight, the Washington Post noted that Musk’s actions “appear to violate federal law.” David Super of Georgetown Law School told journalists Jeff Stein, Dan Diamond, Faiz Siddiqui, Cat Zakrzewski, Hannah Natanson, and Jacqueline Alemany: “So many of these things are so wildly illegal that I think they’re playing a quantity game and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once.”

Musk’s takeover of the U.S. government to override Congress and dictate what programs he considers worthwhile is a logical outcome of forty years of Republican rhetoric. After World War II, members of both political parties agreed that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. The idea was to use tax dollars to create national wealth. The government would hold the economic playing field level by protecting every American’s access to education, healthcare, transportation and communication, employment, and resources so that anyone could work hard and rise to prosperity.

Businessmen who opposed regulation and taxes tried to convince voters to abandon this system but had no luck. The liberal consensus—“liberal” because it used the government to protect individual freedom, and “consensus” because it enjoyed wide support—won the votes of members of both major political parties.

But those opposed to the liberal consensus gained traction after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. Three years later, in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, sent troops to help desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Those trying to tear apart the liberal consensus used the crisis to warn voters that the programs in place to help all Americans build the nation as they rose to prosperity were really an attempt to redistribute cash from white taxpayers to undeserving racial minorities, especially Black Americans. Such programs were, opponents insisted, a form of socialism, or even communism.

That argument worked to undermine white support for the liberal consensus. Over the years, Republican voters increasingly abandoned the idea of using tax money to help Americans build wealth.

When majorities continued to support the liberal consensus, Republicans responded by suppressing the vote, rigging the system through gerrymandering, and flooding our political system with dark money and using right-wing media to push propaganda. Republicans came to believe that they were the only legitimate lawmakers in the nation; when Democrats won, the election must have been rigged. Even so, they were unable to destroy the post–World War II government completely because policies like the destruction of Social Security and Medicaid, or the elimination of the Department of Education, remained unpopular.

Now, MAGA Republicans in charge of the government have made it clear they intend to get rid of that government once and for all. Trump’s nominee to direct the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was a key architect of Project 2025, which called for dramatically reducing the power of Congress and the United States civil service. Vought has referred to career civil servants as “villains” and called for ending funding for most government programs. “The stark reality in America is that we are in the late stages of a complete Marxist takeover of the country,” he said recently.

In the name of combatting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the Trump administration is taking down websites of information paid for with tax dollars, slashing programs that advance health and science, ending investments in infrastructure, trying to end foreign aid, working to eliminate the Department of Education, and so on. Today the administration offered buyouts to all the people who work at the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that anyone who opposes Trump’s policies should leave. Today, Musk’s people entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides daily weather and wind predictions; cutting NOAA and privatizing its services is listed as a priority in Project 2025.

Stunningly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced today that the U.S. has made a deal with El Salvador to send deportees of any nationality—including U.S. citizens, which would be wildly unconstitutional—for imprisonment in that nation’s 40,000-person Terrorism Confinement Center, for a fee that would pay for El Salvador’s prison system.

Tonight the Senate confirmed Trump loyalist Pam Bondi as attorney general. Bondi is an election denier who refuses to say that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. As Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket noted, a coalition of more than 300 civil rights groups urged senators to vote against her confirmation because of her opposition to LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and reproductive rights, and her record of anti-voting activities. The vote was along party lines except for Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), who crossed over to vote in favor.

Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is the logical outcome of the mentality that the government should not enable Americans to create wealth but rather should put cash in the pockets of a few elites. Far from representing a majority, Musk is unelected, and he is slashing through the government programs he opposes. With full control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans could cut those parts themselves, but such cuts would be too unpopular ever to pass. So, instead, Musk is single-handedly slashing through the government Americans have built over the past 90 years.

Now, MAGA voters are about to discover that the wide-ranging cuts he claims to be making to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs skewer them as well as their neighbors. Attracting white voters with racism was always a tool to end the liberal consensus that worked for everyone, and if Musk’s cuts stand, the U.S. is about to learn that lesson the hard way.

In yet another bombshell, after meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump told reporters tonight that the U.S. “will take over the Gaza Strip,” and suggested sending troops to make that happen. “We’ll own it,” he said. “We’re going to take over that piece, develop it and create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something the entire Middle East can be proud of.” It could become “the Riviera of the Middle East,” he said.

Reaction has been swift and incredulous. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, called the plan “deranged” and “nuts.” Another Foreign Relations Committee member, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), said he was “speechless,” adding: “That’s insane.” While MAGA representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) posted in support, “Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) told NBC News reporters Frank Thorp V and Raquel Coronell Uribe that there were “a few kinks in that slinky,” a reference to a spring toy that fails if it gets bent.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) suggested that Trump was trying to distract people from “the real story—the billionaires seizing government to steal from regular people.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[misfitwashere]

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

FEB 5

Shortly after 1:00 this morning, Vittoria Elliott, Dhruv Mehrotra, Leah Feiger, and Tim Marchman of Wired reported that, according to three of their sources, “[a] 25-year-old engineer named Marko Elez, who previously worked for two Elon Musk companies [SpaceX and X], has direct access to Treasury Department systems responsible for nearly all payments made by the US government.”

According to the reporters, Elez apparently has the privileges to write code on the programs at the Bureau of Fiscal Service that control more than 20% of the U.S. economy, including government payments of veterans’ benefits, Social Security benefits, and veterans’ pay. The admin privileges he has typically permit a user “to log in to servers through secure shell access, navigate the entire file system, change user permissions, and delete or modify critical files. That could allow someone to bypass the security measures of, and potentially cause irreversible changes to, the very systems they have access to.”

“If you would have asked me a week ago” if an outsider could’ve been given access to a government server, one federal IT worker told the Wiredreporters, “I'd have told you that this kind of thing would never in a million years happen. But now, who the f*ck knows."

The reporters note that control of the Bureau of Fiscal Service computers could enable someone to cut off monies to specific agencies or even individuals. “Will DOGE cut funding to programs approved by Congress that Donald Trump decides he doesn’t like?” asked Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) yesterday. “What about cancer research? Food banks? School lunches? Veterans aid? Literacy programs? Small business loans?”

Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo reported that his sources said that Elez and possibly others got full admin access to the Treasury computers on Friday, January 31, and that he—or they—have “already made extensive changes to the code base for the payment system.” They are leaning on existing staff in the agency for help, which those workers have provided reluctantly in hopes of keeping the entire system from crashing. Marshall reports those staffers are “freaking out.” The system is due to undergo a migration to another system this weekend; how the changes will interact with that long-planned migration is unclear.

The changes, Marshall’s sources tell him, “all seem to relate to creating new paths to block payments and possibly leave less visibility into what has been blocked.”

Both Wired and the New York Times reported yesterday that Musk’s team intends to cut government workers and to use artificial intelligence, or AI, to make budget cuts and to find waste and abuse in the federal government.

Today Jason Koebler, Joseph Cox, and Emanuel Maiberg of 404 Mediareported that they had obtained the audio of a meeting held Monday by Thomas Shedd for government technology workers. Shedd is a former Musk employee at Tesla who is now leading the General Services Administration’s Technology Transformation Services (TTS), the team that is recoding the government programs.

At the meeting, Shedd told government workers that “things are going to get intense” as his team creates “AI coding agents” to write software that would, for example, change the way logging into the government systems works. Currently, that software cannot access any information about individuals; as the reporters note, login.gov currently assures users that it “does not affect or have any information related to the specific agency you are trying to access.”

But Shedd said they were working through how to change that login “to further identify individuals and detect and prevent fraud.”

When a government employee pointed out that the Privacy Act makes it illegal for agencies to share personal information without consent, Shedd appeared unfazed by the idea they were trying something illegal. “The idea would be that folks would give consent to help with the login flow, but again, that's an example of something that we have a vision, that needs [to be] worked on, and needs clarified. And if we hit a roadblock, then we hit a roadblock. But we still should push forward and see what we can do.”

A government employee told Koebler, Cox, and Maiberg that using AI coding agents is a major security risk. “Government software is concerned with things like foreign adversaries attempting to insert backdoors into government code. With code generated by AI, it seems possible that security vulnerabilities could be introduced unintentionally. Or could be introduced intentionally via an AI-related exploit that creates obfuscated code that includes vulnerabilities that might expose the data of American citizens or of national security importance.”

A blizzard of lawsuits has greeted Musk’s campaign and other Trump administration efforts to undermine Congress. Today, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Representative Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), the minority leaders in their respective chambers, announced they were introducing legislation to stop Musk’s unlawful actions in the Treasury’s payment systems and to protect Americans, calling it “Stop the Steal,” a play on Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.

This evening, Democratic lawmakers and hundreds of protesters rallied at the Treasury Department to take a stand against Musk’s hostile takeover of the U.S. Treasury payment system. “Nobody Elected Elon,” their signs read. “He has access to all our information, our Social Security numbers, the federal payment system,” Representative Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said. “What’s going to stop him from stealing taxpayer money?”

Tonight, the Washington Post noted that Musk’s actions “appear to violate federal law.” David Super of Georgetown Law School told journalists Jeff Stein, Dan Diamond, Faiz Siddiqui, Cat Zakrzewski, Hannah Natanson, and Jacqueline Alemany: “So many of these things are so wildly illegal that I think they’re playing a quantity game and assuming the system can’t react to all this illegality at once.”

Musk’s takeover of the U.S. government to override Congress and dictate what programs he considers worthwhile is a logical outcome of forty years of Republican rhetoric. After World War II, members of both political parties agreed that the government should regulate business, provide a basic social safety net, promote infrastructure, and protect civil rights. The idea was to use tax dollars to create national wealth. The government would hold the economic playing field level by protecting every American’s access to education, healthcare, transportation and communication, employment, and resources so that anyone could work hard and rise to prosperity.

Businessmen who opposed regulation and taxes tried to convince voters to abandon this system but had no luck. The liberal consensus—“liberal” because it used the government to protect individual freedom, and “consensus” because it enjoyed wide support—won the votes of members of both major political parties.

But those opposed to the liberal consensus gained traction after the Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, decision declared segregation in the public schools unconstitutional. Three years later, in 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a Republican, sent troops to help desegregate Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Those trying to tear apart the liberal consensus used the crisis to warn voters that the programs in place to help all Americans build the nation as they rose to prosperity were really an attempt to redistribute cash from white taxpayers to undeserving racial minorities, especially Black Americans. Such programs were, opponents insisted, a form of socialism, or even communism.

That argument worked to undermine white support for the liberal consensus. Over the years, Republican voters increasingly abandoned the idea of using tax money to help Americans build wealth.

When majorities continued to support the liberal consensus, Republicans responded by suppressing the vote, rigging the system through gerrymandering, and flooding our political system with dark money and using right-wing media to push propaganda. Republicans came to believe that they were the only legitimate lawmakers in the nation; when Democrats won, the election must have been rigged. Even so, they were unable to destroy the post–World War II government completely because policies like the destruction of Social Security and Medicaid, or the elimination of the Department of Education, remained unpopular.

Now, MAGA Republicans in charge of the government have made it clear they intend to get rid of that government once and for all. Trump’s nominee to direct the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, was a key architect of Project 2025, which called for dramatically reducing the power of Congress and the United States civil service. Vought has referred to career civil servants as “villains” and called for ending funding for most government programs. “The stark reality in America is that we are in the late stages of a complete Marxist takeover of the country,” he said recently.

In the name of combatting diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the Trump administration is taking down websites of information paid for with tax dollars, slashing programs that advance health and science, ending investments in infrastructure, trying to end foreign aid, working to eliminate the Department of Education, and so on. Today the administration offered buyouts to all the people who work at the Central Intelligence Agency, saying that anyone who opposes Trump’s policies should leave. Today, Musk’s people entered the headquarters of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which provides daily weather and wind predictions; cutting NOAA and privatizing its services is listed as a priority in Project 2025.

Stunningly, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced today that the U.S. has made a deal with El Salvador to send deportees of any nationality—including U.S. citizens, which would be wildly unconstitutional—for imprisonment in that nation’s 40,000-person Terrorism Confinement Center, for a fee that would pay for El Salvador’s prison system.

Tonight the Senate confirmed Trump loyalist Pam Bondi as attorney general. Bondi is an election denier who refuses to say that Trump lost the 2020 presidential election. As Matt Cohen of Democracy Docket noted, a coalition of more than 300 civil rights groups urged senators to vote against her confirmation because of her opposition to LGBTQ rights, immigrants’ rights, and reproductive rights, and her record of anti-voting activities. The vote was along party lines except for Senator John Fetterman (D-PA), who crossed over to vote in favor.

Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency is the logical outcome of the mentality that the government should not enable Americans to create wealth but rather should put cash in the pockets of a few elites. Far from representing a majority, Musk is unelected, and he is slashing through the government programs he opposes. With full control of both chambers of Congress, Republicans could cut those parts themselves, but such cuts would be too unpopular ever to pass. So, instead, Musk is single-handedly slashing through the government Americans have built over the past 90 years.

Now, MAGA voters are about to discover that the wide-ranging cuts he claims to be making to end diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs skewer them as well as their neighbors. Attracting white voters with racism was always a tool to end the liberal consensus that worked for everyone, and if Musk’s cuts stand, the U.S. is about to learn that lesson the hard way.

In yet another bombshell, after meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump told reporters tonight that the U.S. “will take over the Gaza Strip,” and suggested sending troops to make that happen. “We’ll own it,” he said. “We’re going to take over that piece, develop it and create thousands and thousands of jobs, and it will be something the entire Middle East can be proud of.” It could become “the Riviera of the Middle East,” he said.

Reaction has been swift and incredulous. Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA), who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee, called the plan “deranged” and “nuts.” Another Foreign Relations Committee member, Senator Chris Coons (D-DE), said he was “speechless,” adding: “That’s insane.” While MAGA representative Nancy Mace (R-SC) posted in support, “Let’s turn Gaza into Mar-a-Lago,” Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) told NBC News reporters Frank Thorp V and Raquel Coronell Uribe that there were “a few kinks in that slinky,” a reference to a spring toy that fails if it gets bent.

Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) suggested that Trump was trying to distract people from “the real story—the billionaires seizing government to steal from regular people.”

—

[jcmarchi]

Sustainable Growth Starts With Building the Foundation for Gen AI

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/sustainable-growth-starts-with-building-the-foundation-for-gen-ai/

Sustainable Growth Starts With Building the Foundation for Gen AI

How many times have you talked about generative AI recently? It seems to come up in every single business meeting, irrespective of the agenda or topic of conversation. Given this trend, it’s no surprise that business spend on generative AI technology is following one of the steepest ascents ever. Large global enterprises spent $15 billion on gen AI solutions in 2023, representing about 2% of the global enterprise software market in the technology’s first full year. While that percentage may seem small on the surface, consider the fact that it took four years for SaaS to reach that level. And by 2027, spending on gen AI is expected to soar even higher – as high as $250 billion.

What does this all mean? That enterprises’ attention will be focused heavily – and in some cases maybe even exclusively – on ramping up gen AI in their technology stacks. Is that a good thing? The answer, of course, is complicated.

Yes, experts such as McKinsey & Co. expect gen AI’s impact on overall productivity to add trillions of dollars in value to the global economy. But overinvestment in gen AI, at the expense of building a basic foundation for success, could actually be counterproductive for enterprises that haven’t already built a strong foundation for their technology stacks and business processes.

This happened, to an extent, during the early days of cloud. When the cloud revolution hit hard, back in the late 2000s, business and technology leaders doubled down on transformation. And because of limited budgets, they diverted spending from everyday operations. The result: Companies deployed new and innovative business models on top of underfunded technology tools and underdeveloped processes.

It could happen again with gen AI. While the technology promises to help enterprises write code, create content, research technical solutions, sell more products and train employees, attention needs to be paid to the underlying facets of the business, so their gen AI investments can generate the most bang for their buck.

The most important goal? Enterprises need to prioritize modernization and fix existing technology and process issues to make space for new and exciting innovations like gen AI.

There are six stages enterprises should tackle before – and during – their ramp-up into the world of AI.

First, optimize what you have. The clean-up operation starts here. Assess the strength of the technology stack, examine the organizational structure, and review the basic policies. Identify red flags and try to tweak what you have by applying industry best practices. Pay close attention to your data stack for both structured and unstructured data.  This is foundational for AI, including gen AI.

Second, accelerate the optimization. Once enterprises clean up the initial issues, they can identify opportunities for improvement. Try to standardize and improve processes without ripping them out by the roots. Even high-level review can sharpen processes and improve your competitive advantage.

Third, modernize your resources, but make sure to keep humans in the loop. This is perhaps the most important step. Human creativity, after all, is the principal driver of organizational success. So, look at ways to replatform, improve workflow design and add automation, but keep human beings central to the process. Free up employees to focus on higher-level work, and maintain the irreplaceable value of human intellect in the final product.

Fourth, reimagine the areas where AI can support business strategy. Are there new markets to target? New products to introduce? Better ways to serve customers? Leaders should encourage employees at every level of the business – across operations, finance, marketing, sales, software development – to think about how they can get more done with AI. The possibilities are endless now that you’ve reduced your technology debt and leaned into the power of AI.

Fifth, look at ways to continuously innovate. All transformation needs to be continuous and foolproof. Establishing a baseline and a foundation is important. But projecting success into the future, as AI becomes a bigger part of the everyday business toolset, is critical.

Last, put a premium on skill development. Relying more on gen AI will force organizations to revise and elevate certain job roles. To do this, they need to invest in upskilling and reskilling programs, giving individuals the chance to learn new skills and transition into those emerging roles. This creates a compounding impact on entrepreneurship. While AI enables individuals to innovate, institute new practices and improve on the status quo, the individuals themselves need to develop new skills and take active roles managing the technology itself.

Building an AI-enabled modernization approach is based on the belief that business innovation should be sustainable.

Here’s an example of how a leading technology business prepped for its foray into gen AI. The company had been dominating its market and was content with its position. But it was being challenged by agile, brave, adventurous startups that were ready to embrace gen AI without the burdens of legacy infrastructure.

We worked with the firm to guide the business through the six stages of AI-enabled modernization. We even confronted the company’s fear of new technologies like gen AI by showing how employees could use it to decipher thousands of lines of code from its legacy systems. The more readable code empowered business leaders to identify opportunities for the modernize, reimagine and innovate phases. Today, the company is embarking on its gen AI project, leaving the limitations of the past behind.

Conclusion

Gen AI is here, and it’s promising to revolutionize business strategies going forward. Enterprises should invest, but also learn from some of the mistakes made with cloud strategies in the past. They need to start their clean-up operations – following an AI-enabled modernization mindset – to embed gen AI into the heart of the enterprise and lead sustainable growth for the future.

[asestimationsconsultants]

Why Every Contractor Needs a Professional Construction Estimating Service

Introduction

In the competitive construction industry, accurate cost estimation is critical for project success. Contractors who rely on guesswork or outdated methods often face budget overruns, delays, and lost profits. A construction estimating service provides precise cost calculations, helping contractors streamline bidding, manage expenses, and increase profitability.

With market fluctuations, labor shortages, and rising material costs, contractors need professional estimating solutions to stay ahead. This article explores why every contractor should invest in a professional construction estimating service and how it improves efficiency, cost control, and business growth.

The Importance of a Construction Estimating Service for Contractors

A professional construction estimating service provides accurate and detailed cost breakdowns for labor, materials, equipment, and overhead. Key benefits include:

Precision in Costing – Reduces errors and miscalculations in project estimates.

Competitive Bidding – Helps contractors submit accurate, profitable bids.

Time Savings – Speeds up the estimating process with automation and data integration.

Risk Reduction – Identifies potential financial risks before they impact the project.

Profit Maximization – Ensures projects are financially viable from start to finish.

Key Reasons Why Contractors Need a Construction Estimating Service

1. Accurate Cost Estimation Reduces Budget Overruns

Incorrect estimates can lead to unexpected costs, forcing contractors to absorb financial losses or delay project completion. A construction estimating service ensures every cost component is accurately accounted for, including:

Material costs based on current market prices.

Labor wages, including overtime and specialized work.

Equipment rental and operational expenses.

Permits, insurance, and other indirect costs.

With precise estimates, contractors can maintain financial control and avoid budget shortfalls.

2. Streamlining the Bidding Process

Winning bids while maintaining profitability is a challenge for contractors. A professional estimating service helps create competitive yet realistic bid proposals.

Provides detailed breakdowns to justify bid amounts.

Enhances credibility with clients by showing accurate cost projections.

Reduces the risk of underbidding or overpricing, improving win rates.

3. Saves Time and Increases Efficiency

Manual cost estimation is time-consuming and prone to errors. Modern estimating services use automation and AI-driven tools to speed up the process.

Cuts down estimating time from days to hours.

Automates repetitive calculations and takeoffs.

Allows contractors to focus on project execution rather than number-crunching.

4. Enhances Cash Flow and Financial Planning

Uncontrolled costs can lead to cash flow problems, delaying supplier payments and payroll. A construction estimating service helps contractors:

Plan expenses in advance to avoid financial bottlenecks.

Allocate funds efficiently across different project phases.

Ensure steady cash flow by predicting costs accurately.

5. Minimizes Material Wastage and Resource Mismanagement

Ordering too much or too little material can impact a project's budget and timeline. A professional estimating service provides precise quantity takeoffs to optimize material usage.

Prevents material shortages that can halt work.

Reduces waste and unnecessary expenditures.

Improves procurement planning for bulk discounts.

6. Improves Profit Margins and Business Growth

Every dollar saved in estimation translates to higher profits. A reliable construction estimating service allows contractors to:

Identify cost-saving opportunities in procurement and labor.

Reduce rework costs by providing more accurate project estimates.

Maintain a competitive edge by offering precise and transparent pricing.

7. Real-Time Market Data for Better Decision-Making

Material and labor prices fluctuate based on market demand. Professional estimating services integrate real-time data, ensuring:

Estimates reflect current market conditions.

Contractors can adjust budgets based on material price trends.

Clients receive up-to-date and realistic project cost projections.

8. Integration with Project Management and Accounting Software

Modern estimating services work seamlessly with construction management tools, allowing contractors to:

Sync cost estimates with project schedules.

Track expenses in real time to prevent overspending.

Generate automated reports for financial planning.

9. Better Risk Management and Contingency Planning

Every construction project has uncertainties, from weather delays to design changes. A professional estimating service helps contractors:

Identify risks before they impact project costs.

Allocate contingency funds to cover unexpected expenses.

Reduce financial strain caused by unforeseen events.

10. Compliance with Industry Standards and Regulations

Legal and safety compliance costs must be factored into estimates. Professional estimating services ensure:

Accurate calculations of permit fees and regulatory costs.

Inclusion of safety and environmental compliance expenses.

Avoidance of financial penalties due to non-compliance.

How to Choose the Right Construction Estimating Service

Contractors should look for estimating services that offer:

Accuracy and Reliability – Proven track record in delivering precise estimates.

Integration Capabilities – Compatibility with project management and accounting tools.

Cloud-Based Access – Remote access to estimates for better collaboration.

Real-Time Cost Updates – Automatic adjustments for changing market prices.

User-Friendly Interface – Easy-to-use platform that simplifies estimation.

Conclusion

A construction estimating service is no longer an option but a necessity for contractors who want to remain competitive, profitable, and efficient. It streamlines cost estimation, enhances bidding accuracy, and ensures projects stay within budget.

By investing in a professional estimating service, contractors can save time, reduce financial risks, and maximize profits. Whether handling small renovations or large-scale commercial builds, an accurate and reliable estimating solution is the key to sustainable business growth.

[dostoyevsky-official]

Palantir Surges Over 23% on Outlook Fueled by ‘Untamed’ AI Demand

Palantir Technologies Inc. shares jumped after giving a full-year revenue forecast that exceeded analysts’ estimates, thanks to what Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp described as “untamed organic growth” in demand for its artificial intelligence software. Best known for its national security work, and more recently its AI platform, Palantir’s stock surged 340% in 2024. The company rode a wave of investor excitement for AI, and more commercial and government customers started using Palantir’s data analysis software. [...] On a conference call after the results, Palantir Chief Technology Officer Shyam Sankar was asked about the potential effects of US President Donald Trump’s efforts to cut the federal government’s budget led by the Elon Musk-run Department of Government Efficiency. “Palantir’s real competition is a lack of accountability in government,” Sankar said. “DOGE is going to bring meritocracy and transparency to government” and prompt it to function more like the commercial market. [...] “We love disruption,” [CEO] Karp said on the call. “Disruption at the end-of-the day exposes things that aren’t working, there’ll be ups and down. There’s a revolution. Some people get their heads cut off.” [...] Citing the late political scientist Samuel Huntington, Karp wrote that “the rise of the West was not made possible ‘by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence.’”

[allinonetechs]

allinonetechs

I am lanzoe working for allinonetechs as PR consultant. With more than 6 year’s experience in PR and Digital Industry, helping teams to achieve goals by streamlining the process