Don’t be a pendant, you know what they fucking meant.

Edit: actually, it’s not even pedantic, it’s just wrong. Before the internet existed, there was never an internet shutdown.

Software decoding has clearly been sufficient.

I’m using a 15 year old i5 and a GTX 970, having no issues with AV1 video. Curious what hardware you’re running.

Not from THEMSELVES, never from themselves.

I set up service in a new state last year with Comcast and was shocked that there was NOT a rental fee for the router/modem any longer. But idk if that’s them being forced to compete more than they had to in my previous area, or if they cut the fee across the board.

Love this. If the dev needs a license to play it, Steam needs a license to sell it, is it really much different for them to then sue owners for not purchasing a license to listen?

This whole thing is utter bullshit. It sounds like the game studios DO have a license, and they’re claiming that Steam does not but should. Because you can’t tell me that Microslop, EA, and Rockstar, three ENORMOUS giants in the gaming industry, have willingly opened themselves up to litigation by not licensing music in their games, something they’ve been making for decades. Why are they entitled to a license from the developer AND a license from the shop selling it? Of course, they’re not, but let’s hope this doesn’t set precedent that says they are.

Yeah, Verbatim still remains… For now.

Oh that’s right - I forgot that the drives were slowly going disco too. Bleak indeed.

I have bad news for you - Panasonic, Sony, and Samsung have all stopped production on BR-R discs.

It’s hard to believe, I know. 😅

You’re definitely right about them prohibiting devs from pointing to a web browser to subscribe. They can’t link, can’t even use language that explains WHY you can’t subscribe in the app (if the dev decides to forego using Apples payment system entirely). I think that THIS was what Apple recently was forced by a judge to relax, after the Apple v Epic case.

I must have been conflating the policy that they ABSOLUTELY did have (but only til 2011) and the outside links issue. Hughes Hubbard

Under the February rules, if developers wanted to use content purchased outside of the app, they also had to offer the content for in-app purchase and it had to be offered at the same price or less than it was offered elsewhere, despite the fact that Apple takes a 30% cut.

Macrumors

Apple has quietly changed its guidelines on the pricing of In-App Subscriptions on the App Store. There are no longer any requirements that a subscription be the “same price or less than it is offered outside the app”.

Apple doesn’t allow this - they expect your price to be the same everywhere or they’ll remove the app from their store or decline version updates. There have historically been a few high profile exceptions privately negotiated, and I think they were forced to relax this in the last year or two, but here they are again trying to claw away money they did literally nothing to earn.

Yeah, I guess that’s true - I was thinking about keeping the contents of the messages secure when I asked. But so long as you don’t give enough context to dox yourself, you’re right that at least individuals are not directly identifyable.

Right, so how do the other solutions solve this problem then? Kinda undercutting your own security argument with ways that NOTHING is actually secure.

I’m surprised screenshots are allowed in the app at all, that’s indeed pretty shit.

But doesn’t Signal support disappearing messages? And end to end encryption? Meaning they’d need a recipient’s phone in order to see them at all. Although, now that I’m thinking it through in this context of a big group chat full of people you don’t/barely know, I can see the higher risk profile. So it’s bad in this circumstance, assuming messages are persistent.

At this point, I don’t even know why Signal shouldn’t be used here. But I’m so sick of the stream of good apps that enshitify and get replaced by apps that also enshitify. I assume something like that has happened here. Is nobody left on this fucking planet that will stand up for the things they believe in?

Boy I sure hope that’s not true, what an ENORMOUS amount of resources that would go to waste if so.

Stadia was Google and Bezos runs Amazon, who does have their own game streaming service, Luna, which is still operational.

I haven’t used either of those, but I’ve been using GeForce Now recently while waiting for a replacement PSU and I have to say, it works really well. The on-device apps (Samsung monitor, LG TV) leave a lot to be desired but once you’re in a game, the latency is negligible for me and they’re running games high enough that it looks as good as when I was running it on my own 3090.

None of that to say I disagree with you, but I do like that the option exists; it’s not black and white, good and bad. But it SHOULD be just that - AN OPTION. Not the only choice left after AI has demolished the market.

Take solace in the fact the AI bubble will pop and all these “sold” wafers will suddenly flood the market as they turn to consumer brands to try and offload them. I don’t think we’re headed for this “all compute in the cloud” future he wants. Not yet.

Oh well certainly it’s not universal. It would be pretty silly to paint 330M people with that wide of a brush. You can see why I wouldn’t have gotten that from your post. But OP mentioned Europe, with its tighter walkable cities, slower winding roads, particularly narrow roads, etc. where compact cars like these do VERY well historically. Just based on the historical sales numbers of comparable cars in the US, it’s still absolutely safe to say that it is unlikely to do well in the US. For instance, Hyundai isn’t shipping the 2026 IONIQ 6 in the US because sedans don’t do well in this market; they’re not shipping the new IONIQ 3 because compact SUVs/crossovers don’t do well in this market.

So to your point, at least a big part of the reason is definitely cultural. Cars are a status symbol in the US, which is ridiculous to me but here we are. But the other part is the wildly different geography and common travel distances between the two, which was definitely a contributing factor that created the divergent car culture in the US vs EU.

I was not suggesting someone go BUY a backup ICE car, but a family in the US often has more than one car and is unlikely to replace both/all simultaneously with EVs. The backup ICE car is something you already have, while using the EV as primary. You only buy your first car once, so I imagine MOST vehicles are sold to someone who previously owned one.