I am now deeply curious about the deleted comments. All countries have their flaws and past mistakes, Canada’s no exception, at the end of the day. The thing is what we’re doing now to improve and reflect on these mistakes of the past going forward.
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Agreed, when I said “intentionally taking a loss” that was referring to the short term. In the long term, like you said they’re fairly likely to build this into a large lucrative platform. Great comment, you’ve made excellent points throughout, thanks for the good discourse :)
Yeah 100% I’m not for a moment knocking the hardware, it is genuinely impressive stuff and will pretty much be industry leading when it releases, most of my confusion comes from where it stands as a saleable product.
That would be a bigger market, IF non-gamers had interest in VR. You make fair points, but I really really don’t see the average person putting on a VR headset to consume content, even at a lower price. The “weirdness” alot of people who aren’t in the tech or gaming space about buying/using a VR headset I think is a huge hurdle for Apple with a product like this.
Apple is alot of things I don’t like, but stupid (from a profit/business standpoint) isn’t one. Apple sell alot of products that I think are hot garbage and would be embarrassed to own, but they’re not for me as a consumer, and they tend to sell a bazillion of whatever it is and make a ton of money.
Even trying to put my biases aside though, I cannot fathom what their gameplan with this is though. Even if it was a good deal and great product, a pretty huge proportion of VR headset purchasers are PC gamers, and that generally isn’t a demographic that is Apple leaning. So the buyer for this is a person who uses VR regularly (probably a PC gamer), but also someone who is Apple leaning enough to get this vs. an Index or Vive, who also is willing to pay an A.B.S.U.R.D price premium for it (it is pretty impressive hardware to be fair, but not 3-4 times the cost impressive).
My guess is that they’re intentionally taking a loss on this, putting it out as a halo product that gets talked about a ton (that’s already happening because of the price, like they did with the mac pro wheels), and generally get a ton of attention on this without selling many (but just enough to get user data and hardware information to iterate on) and THEN in a suitable amount of time they’ll release one that will genuinely be competitive, at a big price drop, and sell a ton.
I made the switch to daily driving Linux on my laptop for work and play a few months back with a dual boot setup with Windows, and changed over mine and my partner’s gaming desktops to do the same, and they recently got a Steam Deck OLED as well. Honestly I can’t say this is true. It depends on the distro, but I went with Pop OS, and it has been ridiculously pain free to game on. I play a large variety of weird, old, indie games, and I’ve encountered a single game that didn’t work on Pop OS that I needed to play on Windows (WRC 4) and that particular game BARELY worked on Windows as well and took lots of setting up and fixing. More often than not I’m finding things work better on Pop OS (GTA IV doesn’t crash when changing multiple graphics options like on Windows, and GTA IV and 2013’s Tomb Raider both get better frame rates) than Windows.
This is all particularly notable because I didn’t go in as some Linux expert touting the superiority of it (I chose Pop OS because I’m a noob, and it’s easy to use), and fully expected to have all sorts of issues. My biggest complaint is that I should have set my dual boot partition for Pop OS way bigger because I barely need to use Windows anymore! My absolute #1 annoying niche issue that I can’t figure out is that the VPN I need to use to remote into my work 1) will work on Windows, 2) DID work on Pop OS when connected to my phone’s data but not my home wifi (???), 3) no longer works on either my phones data or wifi. Gaming though, has been a cakewalk, you should give it a go. Install proton, maybe grab a glorious eggroll, and you’re set, they’re support for NVIDIA cards make it equally pain free (across the 3 systems I mentioned we’re gaming on Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA gpus, and all are equally pain free).
Even controllers are no problem, but I haven’t messed around much with my wheel, or VR headset though, so we’ll so how that goes.
Okay any engineers up for a hypothetical? As others have pointed out, things like wind, nuclear, and other things are sensible answers. BUT WHAT ABOUT AN INSANE ANSWER?
It obviously would be prohibitive to have a colossal “city battery” that stored excess from the day to be used at night, and environmentally would present issues making a city sized battery. But what about a non-traditional kinetic battery (think F1’s KERS). What if there was say a building in the middle of the city, and inside is a metal disk made of solid steel that’s a foot thick, and 500 feet across, on an electromagnetic cushion, housed in a room with negative pressure or a vacuum. During the day, the excess solar energy from the city powers this to gradually spin faster and faster, and during the night this process is reversed with the enormous amount of kinetic energy feeding a powerstation generator that would provide power at night. Okay, I told you it was an insane hypothetical, but as thought experiment humour me. It would by definition be a battery, but one that wouldn’t deteroriate in the same was as a chemical battery, without the same environmental impact of involving all the cobalt, lithium, etc., although it admittedly would be pretty wildly expensive just from a space, and material cost of the disk perspective. How big would this need to be? Is this remotely possible? I mean WAY less power is used at night after all. Thoughts?
People far too often argue “Communism/Socialism/Capitalism/etc. is the best economic system, because blah blah blah”. Anyone that has played Civilization and has half a brain cell can tell you that there is no single best economic system, as it’s so heavily dependent on the structure of a country, current levels of development, and many other factors.
I have always said, that capitalism is very probably the best economic system for rapidly developing countries in a state of industrialization (there was obvious horrific cons to this, but the complexity of discussing the use of slavery, child labour, land repossession, genocide, etc., is a conversation beyond the scope of this simple remark on economics. Consider the dominance of France, Britain, and Spain in 1800 and compare it to the juggernaut that the US became in the next 100 years by 1900, and the benefits of relatively unfettered capitalism during industrializing periods, should be readily apparent given that colossal level of growth from a sparsely populated and undeveloped country in it’s infancy in the late 1700s-early 1800s) and is probably the best economic system for this, BUUUUUUT commensurate with the level of automation, and computerized work roles within a society, a more and more heavily socialized economic system makes sense to stymie the accumulation and sole ownership of the automated systems by the wealthy few who profit off of it, while job opportunities dwindle for the rest.
The world needs to socialize more heavily, and fast, the US is in a particularly precarious spot. The number 1 job in nearly every state is truck driver, and there are already autonomous trucks on the road today. Between AI, and autonomous vehicles, we will see what happened to jobs in the automotive sector from 1950-2000, in industries like taxis, truck driving, coding, graphic design, journalism, and much much MUCH more in the next 50 years, and the US is not ready for it’s job market to do country wide, what happened in Detroit. The wealthy owners of these automated machines, and AI systems filling these job roles will become richer off of them, while the rest of the country struggles. Heavy socialization, alongside reduced work weeks and either subsequent massive increases in minimum wages, or guaranteed basic income will be a necessity for coming generations to not exist in poverty.
I follow tech pretty avidly, my wife has a steam deck on her christmas+birthday list (they’re close so it’s a combo). I’ve intentionally not told her about the refresh and all the goodness it brings, so that I can surprise her with a 1TB Steam Deck that surpasses everything she expected! I’ve got the whole family pitching in to get it, Valve’s timing couldn’t have been better!
America (and alot of countries to be fair) need ranked choice voting systems so damn badly for this exact reason (if you’re unfamiliar with it, a simple version is that basically you rank your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd pick, your first pick gets 3 points, 2nd pick 2 points, 3rd pick 1 point. At the end they tally up the points, and the party with the most wins).
Singular vote systems trend naturally towards 2 party systems often, whereas with a ranked choice system, far right people would vote for far-right-person that loads of people hate, far left people would vote for far-left-person that loads of people hate, but since almost everyone would put moderate-person as their 2nd choice that everyone kind of doesn’t like, they would be the one to get elected in this case. It’s like the old saying, a good compromise is when nobody is happy. That’s what’s needed to move away from extremist politics, but without a ranked choice system, it’s not going to happen any time soon.
*this is grossly simplified, and there are examples of multi-party systems that don’t use ranked choice, and there’s many many caveats besides when talking so simply about something as complex as electoral politics, but the fundamental point stands.
For what it’s worth, I’m 100% a nihilist, it’s absurd to me that there is some inherent meaning in life. Who tf am I to say I know the meaning to life??? BUT I also recognize that I’m alive, as is everyone able to think that thought, and we might as well do something with it despite this. I think everyone contrives meaning in their own lives, and THAT. IS. OK. That itch for meaning needs to be scratched, I live as a rule utilitarian primarily, even though I accept this worldview as one I’ve contrived for myself rather than something inherently right. If you’ve got a kitchen full of ingredients, and there’s not outright purpose to the “right” thing to cook, it still seems to make more sense to scramble an egg or two, than to demolish the kitchen over the notion of a lack of inherent meaning.
I achievement hunt in video games, sure as heck not because it’s the most enjoyable way to play a game (some are annoying and hard) but because I also struggle with feelings like yours, and when I get that little ding, it feels like I’ve done something (I know I haven’t!) but it feels like I did, and that’s nice to scratch that little “I did a thing” itch. It’s okay that it feels nice, even if deep down I know it means nothing. Crap, so what? Same thing when I finish a book, finish a puzzle, watch a new movie, etc. Everything else means nothing too! But it doesn’t do me much good to dwell on that, and so I plod along for my next little ding. Sometimes that ding is the thought that “damn, this subway sandwich, is fucking bangin”. Sometimes that ding is getting a chuckle out of how stupid life is (I recently won a costume contest at my work I joined over Zoom. I planned to just watch, and as a dry stupid joke I pulled the lampshade of my lamp, plunked it on my head, and said I was a lamp. I promptly won a vote, and a gift basket to the chagrin of everyone who actually tried on their costume. If that’s not some stupid good shit to live for I don’t know what is.)
Sometimes that ding (and get this) ISNT EVEN FUN. That’s also okay. I often say satisfaction, is more important to my mental health than actual happiness or fun. THIS IS NOT THE CASE FOR EVERYONE, GIANT DISCLAIMER but this is the case for my particular brain. When it’s hard to be happy, or smile, the feeling of “hey, well at least I beat that hard level today” sometimes is enough to feel satisfied that I did something today even if I was banging my head against a wall a bit to do it.
My hobbies aren’t important, there isn’t an inherent meaning in my life, and perhaps I’m not important (who tf decides anyways though?). But I’m here, and I’m going to at least scramble a god damn egg, because someone built the kitchen so I might as well get cooking and see what happens.
I hope you open that fridge and scramble some wicked fucking eggs man.
I feel like that’s a bit of a cop out to say “it was good except for the last season”. That statement is true, much of GOT of absolutely S-tier stuff, but the last season was also part of the show. That’s like saying “that meal I was the best I ever had”, and when your friend asks “what about the chef’s eccentric decision to put dog feces on the potatoes?”, you replying “oh don’t get hung up on that, it was the best meal I had, but you have ignore that part”, if it was on the plate, it was on the plate.
I adore the first few seasons of Community, but would never in a million years (like Game of Thrones) say it’s the best show I’ve ever seen because they both have garbage parts, that as unfortunate as it is, are legitimate parts of each of them.
As a Canadian, it is my sworn duty to engage in weather based one-upmanship, and thus:
Rain? I live in Edmonton, rain everyday is as liveable as the Bahamas compared the frigid wasteland, PLUS you don’t have live with Albertans and their lifted Cummins Turbo Rammins.
Also Ich Iel I guess, I don’t know what it means but don’t hate me Germans.
I held on to physical media for a long time, and the legal ownership implications are scary for digital media, BUT the argument of avoiding creating plastic waste at one point outweighed this for me, and I’ve been all digital ever since, but to each their own. Definitely pros and cons either way.
Wow I must have totally spaced there, thanks for catching that! As I note in an above reply Amazon probably makes my top 5 most hated companies, I absolutely 100% do not shop there or use it, I can’t believe I missed that on my list, my apologies.
I did not know that their only profit is on their subscriptions, and I’ll look into that as I’m doubtful of that (I could be wrong though!) Thanks for the info there, but I still fundamentally take issue with subscription based models, as well as other issues I note in replies above with them like business displacement, bad personal experiences, and the urban sprawl they create. Again I’ll reiterate that no company is outright good or bad, and Costco is definitely pretty low on my bad list (perhaps deserving of being viewed more neutrally by me), the general view definitely seems to vary from mine so perhaps it’s worth reassessing.
As to your notes on Amazon again, I 100%, utterly, could not agree more, I just apparently missed them on my list and have since edited them in! Definitely an awful awful company, it astounds me furthermore how virtually everyone is unanimous on this, but nonetheless virtually everyone seems to use them anyways. Some others in the comments swayed my views on Hyundai to change, but I believe my views on Costco stand, based on the replies of some others, it seems the policies of Costco vary somewhat where I live vs. other countries (e.g., using bouncers instead of machines at the door, disallowing people from using even the food court without a card, etc.) so that might factor into why my views on them are different. Thanks for your input, I’ll be looking into Costco more about their profit model!
Last minute addition: I did a bit of looking and it seems we’re both partially right, while Costco offers some items at cost or at a loss, they do indeed turn a profit off of actual sales in store(again, perhaps this is different by country, and might not be the case where you live?), as well as membership fees, and profit margins on eCommerce sales as well.
At all the Costcos where I live, there is staff rather than a machine at the very front door that prevents entry without a membership, even to the food court. I think it’s much more likely that their policies vary from country to country, rather than their being a rogue sect of policy breakers in my city. I don’t think my view of Costco based of the customer experience I’ve had there is any indication of lunacy, I’ve had a bad time there, and so it’s okay I don’t like it. Just like it’s okay that you do. I’m glad you’ve seemed to have had a more positive experience, and they definitely do treat their staff better than some. My issues with subscription based models, and land development with Costco remains though and I don’t think my opinions changed.
I hope you have a good day and that people’s differing opinions on Costco isn’t nearly so upsetting for you in the future!
This 100% is NOT an ordered list, maybe I’ll edit and make that clear. I just didn’t have the time or energy to order this properly, if you’re curious though my top 5 might look something like 1. Facebook/Meta, 2. Apple, 3. Google, 4. Nestle, 5. Amazon. There’s of course companies that are obvious that I didn’t included, virtually any gambling company, tobacco company, gun companies (although that’s less universal depending on your views on gun laws which is another can of worms we perhaps don’t need to open here), oil and gas company, etc. Thanks for pointing that out so I can clear that up!
I’ve definitely had some good discourse on Hyundai above and have learned alot, I still wouldn’t put them in my bad list, but they might not be in my good list anymore either?
I’m curious as to why you disagree on Plex and rPi? My knowledge of them to be fair is far from exhaustive, but to massively simplify they’re on my good list because of (plex) how open, flexible, and ownership of your own media focused it is vs. every company buying out shows from each other and subscription feeing users into oblivion, and (rPi) their education focus for kids, tinkering and repairing attitude, and making open useful little chips without being part of the hellish behemoths of other tech companies. Thanks for sharing!
Car fires from ICE’s are magnitudes more common and cause more damage every year because of this. If you spent half a second to search this you’d find that reports indicate that per 100,000 vehicles sold in their respective powertrains in their lifetime, 25 electric cars catch fire, and 1,530 gas vehicles catch fire. While searching this, something that caught me off guard and surprised me was that hybrids are even higher, 3,475! The more you know.