You choose the least bad option. I agree the price for the hardware is too high. At the same time, Linux isn't really an option, and I'm willing to price in the fact that MacOS is way the fuck better than Windows.

Most people don't game or do virtual rendering or whatever. They need a computer, they don't need the most powerful. For instance my wife runs a successful small business off her computer. If I was a gamer or various other computation-heavy needs, yeah I guess I'd be forced into Windows.

I dunnow...test drove the EQS, and sure the interior is nicer than a Tesla, but honestly I was wildly underwhelmed for a $100k+ vehicle. I decided against the vehicle out of hand, and I wonder if it would be a complete bomb if it didn't have a Mercedes nameplate on the back of the car.

They actively throttle old batteries because that's the best solution. I once had a Samsung Galaxy (before throttling), after it got a few years old it used to have a thing where if it got to like 25%, it would suddenly turn off if you tried to use a power-hungry app.

It's not fair to blame Apple for a basic problem with aging batteries, and anyway replacing the battery is pretty painless.

Which recent product launches did you not like then? AirPods? The watch? They donâ(TM)t release that many products. Your post was a whole lot of rambling and personal anecdote just to say you didnâ(TM)t like the commercials for a single product.

I want to see Steam running on an XBox!

Eh...I guess I've gotten good at just paying attention to the screen and blocking out the world around me. The question of it looking like a 100 foot tall screen that's 200 feet away or a 13 " monitor that's two feet away is a non-issue, it takes the same FOV to your eyes. But sure, maybe at a much cheaper price point having the world outside the screen blocked is cool.

It's not VR, but I remember Sony used to sell movie glasses that projected a largescreen TV in front of your eyes. It wasn't VR - the monitor was always directly in front of you. They actually worked really well, and did exactly what you would have wanted for a movie or monitor on an airplane. They were relatively small (much smaller than VR goggles) and I seem to recall they cost like $800 in the early 2000s. Tech worked great but nobody bought it, AFAIK nobody currently sells anything like that.

I love VR. I think it's an amazing, cool gimmick, and I have some kind of blind faith that eventually some great use case will come up. Video phones were a useless sci fi idea for a long time, and now everybody facetimes or zooms.

But...using VR on planes? As a screen replacement? I honestly don't see the advantage over a laptop screen, plus there's the discomfort inherent to strapping it on your head and having screens two inches from your eyes.

If you need a real computer, you don't use a museum piece.

Sure, once upon a time, people needed a computer just for basic internet access. Anything was fine. But for basic internetting today, cell phones are fine or maybe even superior.

In a world where everybody has a cell phone, what's the use case for reviving shitty 15 year old laptops?

Right, also you buy Playboys to read the articles.

I drive a VW, but do they really want to remind people about the details of their history?

I only ever hear of plex being used to stream pirated stuff. Maybe they bought some streaming service that I have also never heard of. However I would have to guess it never gets used. So many companies do this, including Amazon- why would people choose to use their piracy-enabling app to buy content?

I knew Slashdot was old, but I didn't realize it was so old that people took troll Facebook memes at face value.

Yes. Grades are basically useless as a measure of a student. I'm a second-career teacher, and can tell you that teachers in the same grade, and the same department, of the same school, will have wildly different grade distributions. Now try to compare grades between students who come from different schools...or even states...or heck, even countries...and it's simply impossible.

When the revolution comes they'll have standard-based grading, but as it is now, at my low-income school I will basically give an "A" to every student who puts in a semi-decent amount of work (no homework, I just mean they pay attention in class) and has never had a traumatic brain injury. I've also taught at high-income schools, where cheating is rampant and giving an "F" on an assignment 1st period means an angry letter to the principal from the parent by 3rd period.

But of course how good you are at taking them has a direct relation to your abilities at English/math, not just your ability at answering multiple choice questions. If you added a theoretical physics section to the SAT, people would be getting in the 300s.