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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 21st, 2023

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  • Why? I think there’s a decent chance they don’t survive this - at least their commercial airplanes. I won’t fly on a Boeing any time soon, if ever. It will take years to get back to a safety culture and there are tons of shit planes manufactured in the past several years that will be in service for decades.

    If I was a pilot, I wouldn’t want to fly one either. They just had another incident where a pilot says the gauges went blank and he lost control. If a pilot union starts pushing back, it’s game over.

    Would you fly on one of their planes?





  • To be honest, Bethesda’s best work is probably behind them. They will sell a few more games based on brand recognition and because we are suckers, but I don’t expect much. I’m old enough to have seen many of my favorite developers go through this. It’s difficult to have overwhelming success and keep knocking it out of the park with every release. Expectations for something better than the last thing are so high, the pressure to do something new, the culture change that comes with huge growth, and they eventually lose that magic that captured us in the first place.


  • People with private jets often charter them out when they’re not using them. The best place for an airplane is in the air. Only bad things happen when you let it sit around on the ground all the time. It’s not much different than commercial planes that spend most of their time in the air.

    Sure, a private jet will have more emissions than an Airbus, but it’s a marginal increase. It’s not like rich people with their planes are producing a million times more pollution that wouldn’t exist if they didn’t have a private jet. They’re still going to fly, at least for longer trips.

    It’s easy to go down a rabbit hole with this line of reasoning. Who else is using less efficient aircraft or taking unnecessary flights? Are all those police helicopter flights necessary? What about people flying to go party on an island somewhere versus some more noble purpose? Or airlines with a half empty flight? Meanwhile, it’s the oil companies producing the vast majority of carbon emissions while we squabble over travel itineraries and choice of aircraft.



  • I have been very happy with my X1 Extreme. I did have an issue with the keyboard and later the touchpad, but I paid for onsite support so it wasn’t a big deal. They came out a day later and fixed it right there at my dining table.

    I would say buying a ThinkPad is worth it for their paid support options alone. When I had a keyboard problem on my old MacBook, AppleCare took like 10 days to fix it. Lenovo’s premium support is reasonably priced and they don’t mess around. A person picks up the phone when you call and they treat you like you are important. If it’s a hardware problem, they are not fucking around. They don’t care how it happened or ask a bunch of questions. It’s covered and they are fixing it. Fast.

    The X1 is also super easy to work on. It’s easily disassembled with normal tools and upgradable parts like SSD and RAM are right there when you open it up. They don’t do dumb things like solder in the RAM or leave you without an open slot. This thing is designed to be repairable.

    Linux support is flawless.



  • You’re missing out on watching a lot of progress bars while you reinstall all the time. If you like what you have, keep using it. All you get from switching is a different package manager, a few slightly different package names, maybe faster updates and a new default desktop background. You’ll still be using all the same apps, probably similar versions, probably systemd. It’s a bigger difference logging into a new desktop environment than a new distro.



  • The headline makes it sound like a bad thing, but that’s more than plenty for launch if they are distinct apps that represent a variety of use cases. Frankly, it’s a lot more than I would expect for a new product like this. Sure, there’s VR and AR available now, but Apple has a track record of rolling together existing tech in a package that’s more accessible and often more useful. You can throw a few things out there to showcase what’s possible, but you also have to wait and see how consumers actually want to use it. They will find use cases the creators didn’t think of or were unsure about. Then the floodgates can really open up in terms of apps. I really wouldn’t be surprised to see people wearing these things out in public.


  • Nobody is buying this and I don’t think they are trying very hard to sell it either. Notice that this pricing is only in the U.S. This seems like a ploy to bolster their case for damages and/or royalties in a settlement. Or maybe just part of their patent defense strategy. This company is primarily in medical tech. Even if they aren’t so interested in the consumer market, they have to protect their patent or someone in a market they do care about will get away with it too. I would assume it strengthens their case if they can demonstrate material damages in a market they participate in. So quickly unveil a prototype, price it so there’s little to no demand, don’t bother manufacturing a product nobody wants, win the case, cancel the product.