Them being cheap means consumers no longer value them - which is what the wars are all about: value translated to sales and profits. Price is a function of what consumers will pay, which has little or nothing to do with what a thing costs to make.

If consumers went with HDDVD you would be saying the same thing about them.

Absolutely. BluRay was Captain of the Titanic, and is going down with the whole physical media ship. Vinyl LPs are the lifeboats.

I’ll agree that Apple is the big red nose on a much larger clownshow, but… between Microsoft and Mac, I’ll just say that I’ve got a request in with IT for a MacBookPro when funding becomes available. Some of that is because our IT has crippled Windows beyond its usual hobbled state, which is bad enough, and they haven’t hit the OS-X image as hard. But, even so, bone stock Windows 11 on a modern desktop i7 still has HORRIBLE performance issues that OS-X generally doesn’t suffer from. Intrusive virus scanning, intrusive file indexing, intrusive cloud backup… Apple does these things, but generally does them a bit better (though the clowns do mess up plenty along the way.)

I’ve used Ubuntu as my desktop for the past 15 years, it’s a different kind of clownshow - one that I prefer to the other two choices, but it has definite flaws of its own.

Blu-ray appears to have presided over the premium segment of the video-disc market just as it went down the tubes entirely. These days you can buy used DVDs 2 for $0.99, and Blu-Ray for $1.99 each - super 4x premium market they’ve cornered there.

And all the corporations are looking to put all the AI in all the places… because: magic free labor fairy dust, and all that.

turn down the randomness to get more consistent outputs for simple tasks.

This is a tricky one… if you can define good success/failure criteria, then the randomness coupled with an accurate measure of success, is how “AI” like Alpha Go learns to win games, really really well.

In using AI to build computer programs and systems, if you have good tests for what “success” looks like, you’d rather have a fair amount of randomness in the algorithms trying to make things work because when they don’t and they fail, they end up stuck, out of ideas.

Mechanical key based door lock cylinders are “Agentic AI” - they decide whether or not to allow the tumbler to turn based on the key (code) inserted. They’re out there, in their billions around the world, deciding whether or not to allow people access through doorways WITHOUT HUMAN SUPERVISION!!! They can be easily hacked, they are not to be trusted!!! Furthermore, most key-lock users have no idea how the thing really works, they just stick the key in and try to turn it.

There’s only one way to be sure: nuke it from orbit.

Had a friend who used to put his super-workstation laptop in his backpack. It would randomly turn itself back on and get HOT in there at times, like firestarter hot.

Battery lore has been cargo-cult woo since the NiMH days… most of it feels like manufacturers saying “oh, I’m sorry you didn’t get our advertised life, you must have done something wrong.”

I don’t know why private companies don’t fund their own shit rather than steal from taxpayerS through NASA.

It’s not that they can’t fund their own: it’s “why would they, when they can use their wealth and influence to get it funded by taxpayers?” https://youtu.be/kTlhIQeBWHI?t=20

There’s all kinds of power and influence of people through the press is a very traditional kind of indirect power for people to wield. When I talk about money as power it definitely includes the power to influence how people think and vote and act without putting an actual gun to their heads. Twitter is the new TV and TV was the new radio and the radio was the new newspaper… All kinds of wealthy and powerful people in the past sought control of the press, not only for their own desires, but also as a bargaining chip with other people with power: “do this for me and I’ll make you look good on my platform…”

for some reason people STILL treat him with credulity.

They WANT to believe.

just about enriching himself. Of course that’s a big part of it.

Can’t make the big changes without big $$$ to make things happen.

Unfortunately, he looks like a delusional moron with the life experience and grasp on reality of a suburban 14 year old. So, a couple of good ideas in there, but absolute disconnect from the realpolitik necessary to effect true change.

a system to eliminate, not support and elevate the poor here

If you look at human population growth and resource consumption over the past 500 years, the curve can’t continue - we’ll need thousands of Earths within the next 1000 years, and Warp drive just isn’t ready yet.

If “being poor” means living like the bottom 20% of the U.S., then, yes, the poor must be eliminated somehow. Pesky thing about the poor, they still have children, often at higher than replacement rates. It’s good for happiness from relative circumstances: lots of people “born poor” can work their way into a better condition for them and their children, but it’s an unsustainable model. Just like capitalism in general.

That’s not money, that’s power. Money quits being money somewhere around a million dollars a year-ish, call it 100M lump sum. Above that, more money isn’t an abstract thing you buy goods, services and real-estate with, it’s power: the power to command other people to do your bidding.

Hugo Drax had it all figured out in Moonraker. We just need a higher natural resources per capita ratio, then it all works out easily.

It’s also not hard for the IRS leadership to direct their agents to skip all that time consuming audit and verification stuff and just start slapping seizures on everybody who owes more than $1000 in presumed tax liability.

I can imagine the IRS could start seizing bank accounts and other assets like they already do for tax violators, but if it got to be a crisis they’d step up their pace.

In today’s climate I can also imagine ICE coming to your door to kidnap whoever they can get their hands on, if you’re a tax violator who posts the wrong kinds of messages on the internet (including brown skinned selfies.)

A really small house can hold 50 gallons of diesel and a generator, be towed to a filling station, and follow you thousands of miles…

If you want a 200 mile round-trip limited EV that you always charge at home, you can buy those today from all kinds of sellers.

He needs an excuse to rage quit.