A large part of this is also app development. App developers want as many peo0le as possible to use their apps, so they’re designed to work on phones that cost a hundred bucks new when they were sold on 2018.

PCs run into this with lots of things too, but one huge difference is the multitasking experience. I have a big-ass folding phone, but the multitasking experience still sucks, most because the phone is just a bad format for the kind of workflows that necessitate multitasking.

If I’m working in multiple windows, I need a keyboard and mouse. Yeah, I can have firefox open on one half of the screen and Outlook in the other on my phone, but it’s still the mobile version of both apps, and any time I want to type something half the screen becomes a keyboard.

So I don’t really have a need for a powerful phone. It’s a content consumption and communication device, both of which don’t need much horsepower.

I have an expensive phone. It’s a Fold 6 - I got it after using a Fold 3 for 4 years, and replacing it when the outer screen of all things stopped working, and the trade-kn on my old phone was still worth like $1,200 towards the new one even with a broken screen.

I used to get a new-model mid-range phone every year or 2. Now when I buy I go for the previous year’s flagship and use it for a longer period. Financially it’s probably a wash, though I know I could absolutely be spending less and be just fine.

But it’s the piece of personal tech I interact with the most and for that I’m able to afford it, so I’m willing to spend the money.

0 is too much. It needs to be an active liability.

Some of his himes have been leaked and even made the news. But he and other billionaires have many properties all owned by LLCs, and knowing where they lay their heads any given night is difficult.

With people as high-profile as Musk, it’s even more difficult because his entourage of staff, security, etc is big enough that they need their own support. You’d think that makes it easier - just follow the line of black vehicles. But lots of the secondary support apparatus may actually be kept at a different site nearby, so the house with all the visible security may be where the support staff and mobile security/logistics team is, while Musk himself may onky have 2-3 vehicles going to his site.

I work in government and have the ability to fuck up people’s lives with 3 mouse clicks. But that doesn’t mean I have the authority to do it.

SpaceX is not actually supposed to even have direct control over Starshield. It uses Starlink infrastructure, but is a military application that is supposed to be under the control of the federal government.

SpaceX shouldn’t have the option to pitch different plans.

Gender reveal particle.

People should have been imprisoned over the Sony rootkit scandal.

For those who don’t know - their music CDs had malware built in that automatically installed itself on PCs without prompting or notification that gave unsecured root access to any PC through a hidden service that couldn’t be detected or disabled from within Windows. It was as bad as bad gets. There was no hidden EULA or anything. They just straight-up installed viruses on millions of PCs that opened the door for other malware to install itself at the root level where it couldn’t be detected.

Sony should have been shut down entirely over it.

You can still target ads based on location, but you do it through targeted content like they used to, which also g9ves us more diverse content.

When a local business wanted to put an ad out and didn’t want to go nationwide, they’d advertise in the local paper. Now they just pay Google to target people, which is why 90% of local news has died.

TV and radio managed just fine for years without targeted ads. They targeted the ads based on the content. Saturday morning cartoons advertised toys and ceral. Daytime TV advertises medicare advantage plans for retirees. Country radio advertises white hoods or whatever.

Meanwhile, subscription services without ads also made money.

Targeted ads were never necessary. Outlaw them and the internet and media companies won’t disappear.

I used to work in a municipality that had a fee of $2000/caliper inch for illegally removed trees and placed a conservation easement over the critical root zone, preventing the developers from being able to just cut down the tree and pay the fee.

A lot of their revenue is also investment from hardware and software vendors that are using the revenue from the AI companies for those investments.

It’s like the Enron scheme, but instead of one company inventing fake companies to move money around to increase revenue and drive up prices to hide the fact they’re hemorrhaging money while the C-suite tries to divest their own money from the company, it’s multiple companies working together to move money around to increase revenue and drive up prices to hide the fact they’re hemorrhaging money while the major investors try to find a way to cash out.

Anthropic is anxious to do their IPO because they know their business model is fucked, and their shareholders want out.

I like the wireless. I just want more premium ones that have a cord between them. My old Jaybird X3s were spectacular, but they became a budget brand making cheapo devices.

I also miss having buttons instead of touch controls. The touch controls get triggered by getting wet.

I want them to bring back more buds that are connected to each other, so it’s harder to lose them.

While true - this isn’t just about Brazil. It’s an Argentine MAGA broker who tried to kill a Bolivian lawyer while coordinating with an American company to boost Brazilian Nazis and damage the Mexican president’s administration.

It’s bad.

Unless you’re hunting waterfowl, it’s all most all lead. It’s often jacketed, but it’s still lead. Lead is cheaper, rides the rifling more effectively since it’s soft, expands better on impact, and is heavier.

For performance AND price it’s just better. But you have to be mindful of its environmental and health impacts.

I used to reload a lot of my shotgun ammo with reclaimed lead from the range. Every few years they’d scrape the soil in the trap and skeet area and you could buy bags of the shot. It would be a mix of like 7.5, 8, and 9 all mixed together, but it worked for skeet shooting.

22s are all kinds of nasty, and mag loaders for them tend to be awful, so I always end up with a black lead spot on my thumb from pushing the rounds into the mag after just a few minutes.

I don’t think they will this time either, but I also expect this to be a worse crash by a LOT.

Half the tech industry has basically turned into an Enron here (circular investments with each other to create the illusion of income), while the component crunch it’s caused is hurting everyone else.

This is poised to be the biggest financial crash in history. These assholes are fighting every day to push the crash further away so they can divest themselves quietly or make ot to an IPO, and in doing so are making the upcoming disaster much worse.

And so much investment has been dumped into this scheme I don’t know how our economic system.will survive. Unchecked capitalism needs to go away, but having it collapse all at once is gonna be really, really bad.

CAFE regulations are based on vehclicle footprint as of 2012. That’s why all the small trucks suddenly disappeared from the market that year. They had stricter fuel-economy standards than a sedan. The giant vehicles we’re gettimg today is the result of regulations that make it easier to just keep making vehicles bigger than to make them more efficient.

People will pay good money for a 15yo Ranger because you can’t get an equivalent vehicle new. The marketing to make oversized cars trendy is to prevent competition for the new vehicles coming from the used market.