There are plenty of options for personal computers; you have to make the choice to go private and personal.

I built my own desktop, which remains very common and is relatively easy to do. I have Linux and Windows on it, and use Linux nearly 100% as I agree I don’t like ads etc. I use a Firefox with ad blockers and don’t get ads; I use lots of open source software even to access services like Youtube (Free tube).

There are also even linux laptops, and the Frame.Work laptop which is fully modular and bring your own OS.

There are open source OS for phones.

You’re right about the corporatisation of the internet and services, but it remains up to users to vote with their feet and chose to take back their privacy and person computing.

Linux is at 4% of desktop users in recent months - that is many millions of people actively choosing to exist in a space where they control their personal computers. People don’t need to remove computers, just chose to set them up to be what they want them to be.

As others have said, gaming is thriving - AAA and bloated incumbants are not doing well but the indie sector is thriving.

VR is not on the verge of collapse, but it is growing slowly as we still have not reached the right price point for a mobile high powered headset. Apple made a big play for the future of VR with its Apple Vision Pro but that was not a short term play; that was laying the ground works for trying to control or shape a market that is still probably at least 5 if not 10 years away from something that will provide high quality VR, untethefed from a. PC.

AI meanwhile is a bubble. We are not in an age of AI, we are in an age of algorithms - they will and are useful but will not meet the hype or hyperbole being banded about. Expect that market to pop and probably with spectacular damage to some companies.

Other computing hardware is not really stagnating - we are going through a generational transition period. AMD is pushing Zen 5 and Intel it’s 14th gen, and all the chip makers are desperately trying to get on the AI band wagon. People are not upgrading because they don’t see the need - there aren’t compelling software reasons to upgrade yet (AI is certainly not compelling consumers to buy new systems). They will emerge eventually.

The lack of any landmark PC AAA games is likely holding back demand for consumer graphics cards, and we’re seeing similar issues with consoles. The games industry has certainly been here many times before. There is no Cyberpunk 2077 coming up - instead we’ve had flops like Star Wars Outlaws, or underperformers like Starfield. But look at the biggest game of last year - Baldurs Gate 3 came from a small studio and was a megahit.

I don’t see doom and gloom, just the usual ups and downs of the tech industry. We happen to be in a transition period, and also being distracted by the AI bubble and people realising it is a crock of shit. But technology continues to progress.

After being forced to standardise to usb c and be responsible for some of the e-waste it produces, apple has finally relented.

They fought tooth and nail against the EU regulations to force charging standards. I don’t care if they up sell cables to some people; most people will reuse what they have and thats the whole point of the regulations.

Regulation works.

Maybe he broke terms of service with the streaming companies but they should be pursuing him in civil courts. This feels like abuse of the criminal justice system to retrieve money for companies that were negligent in how they were running their streaming businesses.

This guy produced music and he alsp streamed the music even if it was bots at industrial scale. He seemingly met the criteria needed to get money from the streamers. I’m not a lawyer at all but on cursory look at the definition and elements of wire fraud, I guessing this will hinge on whether this was a “material deception” - but he produced actual music and he streamed it, so is it?

Also i wonder whether it can be proven that the intent was to “defraud” rather than take advantage / game a system.

It feels like the tax payer is bearing the cost of prosecuting someone for a dispute between a person and the multi billion dollar music industry.

Also the music industry trying to paint this as theft of money from other artists is a bullshit - the streaming fees are supposedly divided out proportionately from overall streaming. He caused more streaming so the pot was bigger, and he took a proportionate share of that bigger pot. And any disproportionate sharing reflects the shitty practice’s of the streamers and the big music rights holders who are essentially monopolies squeezing out the smaller competitors from the system.

Might be even simpler - the elderly can decline very quickly mentally and also physically, and that may he what we’re seeing with here.

The article is a bit vague on the pros and cons of reflective LCD screens.

It seems to be pros that it has a good refresh rate, can be used without a backlight so is good outdoors and indoors in a bright room, and maybe better for your eyes due to the lack of the backlight/blue spectrum light. It also may offer better colour depth than e-ink currently.

The cons are not clearly addressed but presumably battery life is worse than e-ink but better than a backlit display such as OLED or AMOLED, that colours are still not as good as other LCDs even if better than e-ink, and it seems cost (although that may be due to the small market at present).

Also there is no obvious innovation noted in the article so its not clear what has changed about these displays? It sounds more like some small companies are just using the displays in a new way to try and mimick paper. But maybe thats wrong or will change?

Maybe this would compete with e-ink if cost comes down. The battery benefit of e-ink with a static image is one of its big benefits, to the point that its being used for shelf labels in supermarkets. E-ink isn’t going anywhere but good to have more choices in the tablet space.

Trump has cognitively declined since 2016 and is increasingly incoherent and nasty. I think the Dems are gambling that many voters aren’t watching his stump appearances so this is a good way to expose him to voters.

I think its too big a gamble and mute him. I think he will expose himself enough on his own turns to speak.

Isn’t it too late to change VP candidate? I saw speculation on this before and the issues were around the need to reconvene delegates for the RNC to approve the change and also to be on the ballot? Early voting starts in September so October is also too late?

This is badly written and ignorant article. Fat32 supports up to 16Tb partition size (depending on cluster size - 2Tb -16Tb).

Its microsoft’s windows tools that arbitrarily only allow users to create 32Gb partitions, and it is this that is being changed. This is not a change to Fat32, this is a change to windows. 3rd party tools on Windows and other systems like Linux have long offered more options for partition size.

That its taken to 2024 for Microsoft to fix the command line tool (and still not fix the GUI tools) is ridiculous.

Firefox will support Manifest v3. However Mozilla will be implementing Manifest 3 differently so the routes Ublock and other extensions use to maintain privacy and block ads will still be available. Firefox will support both the original route and the new limited option Google is forcing on Chromium.

Googles implementation deliberately locks out extensions by removing something called WebRequest, supposedly for security reasons but almost certainly actually for commercial reasons as they are not a neutral party. Google is a major ad and data broker.

Apple will apparently also be adopting the same approach for Safari as Mozilla is for Firefox.

The pollster is kind of right - on paper the economy should be an issue in Trumps favour. We’ve just come out of a period of high inflation and people are feeling the cost of living. Immigration is also supposedly an issue that should be favouring Trump.

That’s not to say that Trump has the answers - he does not - but in a conventional election cycle he would be in the stronger position as the “outsider” attacking the incumbents.

Yet instead the entire news cycle is dominated by Harris and Walz at the moment. Republicans are desperate for Trump to get back “on message” but instead he’s flailing around as his ego can’t take the Dems attack lines, biden dropping out and Harris apparent popularity.

So although the pollster is obviously biased as a Republican, I think he’s right in the sense this not playing out like a conventional election.

Also, I have to say as an outside observer from the UK, the excitement around Harris reminds me of Obama’s first election. Obama came from no where in the primaries and huge momentum built behind him as the hope candidate. Harris has emerged much later in the election cycle, and oddly she feels like the exciting unknown candidate even though she is Vice President. Yet it does feel like the momentum is with her and she drawing in people who have been otherwise alienated by the republican / democrat arguments over the last 4 years.

I have no idea if it’ll carry on to election day. But I must say on a personal note, the more I see of Harris, the more I warm to her. I suspect a lot of voters will feel the same. Her humour, and warmth are in stark contrast to Trumps meanness and petty nastiness. I’m beginning to think Trump is not capable of beating Harris.

Yes absolutely - looking at electoral college prediction sites based on the polls, if the Dems won Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania alongside the leaning and safe states, they would get 270 electoral college votes and win. Obviously they need to work tirelessly to go way beyond that and it’s a long way to November, but it shows how the switch to Harris has completely upended the election and reinvigorated the Dems electoral chances.

It’s crazy to think only a few weeks ago Trump was on a massive high - Biden on the ropes from a disastrous debate, Trump survived an assassination attempt, had a triumphant conference, and had multiple unexpected legal successes. And overnight by Biden stepping down and Harris stepping up unopposed the Dems have changed the entire narrative and are dominating the coverage.

Probably Obama’s endorsement which finally shut down the prospects of a contested primary.

The Dems got into the mess with Biden because they wouldn’t test him with an actual open primary process. Not having a contest for Harris may be pragmatic but it may dog the party in the future. If she loses then there will be recriminations. And if she wins they will have to think about what they do in 2028 - does she get a free pass again or does the party get a say? Do all those ambitious contenders step aside again?

Problems for another day. I think the dems are doing the right thing in coronating Harris now as they have been left with no choice. But they really need to think about what happens with sitting presidents and the primaries - waving Biden through was disasterous, and him dragging his feet on steeping down shut down all other options. I have very little respect left for Biden - he did the right thing but took far too long to do it, risking everything.

Nah I think this is just another example of Elon Musk being impulsive and not thinking through the consequences of his statements.

He can’t actually afford $45m a month. His wealth is in Tesla shares (which are difficult to draw done further both while he continues to try to fleece the company with an absurd pay package and also can’t risk destabilising the share price - its something of a house of cards with its value largely based on the future possibility of a flawed self drive tech) and Twitter (which took $20bn of his actual liquid assets and then debt and which he is running into the ground).

Also he may be realising the PR mistake of backing trump when he runs an electric car company that is losing market share and valued speculatively rather than actual financials.

His focus is really gettingnas much out of Tesla as hebcan before the markets turn on it.

Yeah totally agree. The central premise of Mozilla’s argument is wrong: that we need to care about what advertisers want.

No compromise is needed as advertisers problems are not users problems. Mozilla has massively dropped the ball on this.

Not going to happen though. While the left came first they still are not a majority. They hold 180 seats, which is less than 1/3 of the 577. No one really won the election.

Its really deadlock and all 3 groups will struggle to work together as none want the blame for the mess that will be split gjvernment, and all want to position themselves as the solution, win the presidency and/or next set of legislative elections.

So there is no way the centre or right will vote in a 90% tax on the rich. It’ll be a struggle to even get a basic budget passed.

Geuninely I am concerned the Biden campaign limited the time for the interview to hide any gaffes. Its already emerged he’s had multiple “episodes” over the last 6 months, and today its been revealed he’s seen a Parkinson’s expert neurologist 8 times in the past year. Yet the biden campaign have aggressively and condescendingly dismissed all concerns over Biden over the same period.

Also in my country, the UK, political interviews are often substantial - 1 hour is not uncommon (often edited down) and even during our election we had full full unedited 30 min live interviews for each of the main party leaders.

Maybe 22mins is just because American TV is so dysfunctional? But given how the biden campaign have been so dismissive of concerns and then the debate has revealed them in a cold hard light, then yes I’m suspicious. There is little trust left after what we saw in the debates. The white house has been telling bare faced lies when directly asked about Bidens health on multiple occasions.

Biden has been a good president, but he is not a good candidate for this election. This issue is so damaging that he’s behind Trump in the polls despite trump being a convicted felon. And worse, no one is holding Trump to account because biden is a distraction. Trump said a lot of crazy things in the debate but all people remember is Biden’s performance.

Some people are doubling down as the narrative that criticising biden was akin to supporting trump which was being spouted a lot before the debate.

It seems a lot of people seem unable to get away from the idea that “biden is too mentally infirm” is a republican talking point and therefore cannot be true. It is a republican talking point but it also is worryingly true.

22 minutes? Is he not capable of an hour long interview?

Then I’d definitely set up a test system in a VM on your own PC (I.e. not the actual server machines). Even if you don’t want to use Docker, you can set up a complete version of your new server and practice deploying Jellyfin and Plex, and then test accessing it “remotely” to manage it. You can then decide whether switching away from Win11 is worth it.

If you’re not familiar with the process of setting up a linux server then I’d actually suggest Debian instead of OpenSuSe. Looking at the Jellyfin guide for example it specifically covers the steps for installing directly onto a Debian host (while OpenSuSE set up means using the Fedora RPM guide). There are also straight forward guides for setting up a Debian server.

Personally I’m not a fan of Ubuntu (because of Canonical and Snap etc) but there may also be a good choice just because there are so many guides out there for setting up Ubuntu server.