The problem being targeted here is that filing and paying taxes is an insanely complex task, necessitating the involvement of Very Smart People(TM) who know how to navigate the long laundry lists of rules and exceptions created not just by the IRS at the national level, but also by the various state agencies. But how do you know you've hired the right Very Smart People? Can we really assume that the IRS is going to outspend TurboTax to come up with a truly superior tax prep solution? After all, we are talking about a government agency... so by most reckonings, that's highly doubtful. Thus, ironically, allowing the IRS to create their own tax prep solution isn't actually going to solve the problem at all; it'll just be yet-another-option competing with the likes of TurboTax, H&R, etc., much akin to xkcd's commentary on standards.

So rather than have the IRS expend an incredible amount of financial and human resources on what is ultimately a doomed venture right from the start, maybe the IRS should instead expend those same resources simplifying the damned problem that they created in the first place. Make the tax code so simple that Very Smart People are not needed, and "tax prep" will finally be solved, for realsies.

I don't know if this is necessarily the right approach... after all, bio-neural gel packs seem to have a wide range of potential failure points, sometimes with devastating consequences.

That's the quote which baffles me the most, in all of this. Realistically, the wires on this device won't be any more "clunky" than the original iPod was when it first came out, nor the iPhone when used with wired headphones -- and both of those product lines were (and are, respectively) incredible success stories. Personally, I still vastly prefer wired headphones, and I don't think I'm the only one. This weird notion that some people seem to cling to, that wires must all go away at all cost is just unrealistic; until the day that we have free power flowing wirelessly through the atmosphere to juice up all of our various tech, wires are still actually more practical for a large number of uses. And having used the front-heavy Quest 2 headset, I wouldn't hesitate to argue that this could easily be one of them.

Make no mistake; unless Apple somehow manages to push through some incredibly broad patents, this will inevitably be added to the long list of features that other companies end up quickly copying from Apple.

(Now... that rumored $3,000 price tag, on the other hand... )

To possibly forestall some of the potential snark related to Epic... this is Epic Systems, not to be confused with Epic Games. The two are decidedly unrelated.

We're all geeks here, so naturally you will understand perfectly when I say that I can't just run a single platform at home. I have Macs, Windows boxes and a Linux box -- though in truth, that last one is actually just an old Mac Mini that just happens to be running Linux.

But the answer to "longest living" is decidedly Apple, no matter how I evaluate my menagerie of computers. Because if you evaluate it as the longest I've run any single computer in my house: at eleven years and counting, that would be a 2012 iMac that's still running in the basement. It may not be my primary workstation for any particular use anymore and it no longer runs off of its original spinning-rust drive, as that was replaced with an SSD a couple of years back... but it still runs just fine, and one of my kids uses it to play video games (ahem) bootcamped into Windows.

If you evaluate it as the oldest running computer in my house: at thirteen years, that's going to be either a 2010 Mac Mini Server (the one running Linux) or a 2010 Macbook that's sitting on my nightstand, both of which I obtained secondhand at some point. Both work just fine, though the MacBook doesn't have the battery life that it once had. And as with my iMac, both the Mini and the MacBook now run off of SSDs.

If you evaluate it as the longest I've run any given computer as my primary workstation: at a little over six years, it'll be that 2012 iMac again, as I shuffled it into the secondary position in 2019 when I bought yet another iMac. (2019 was actually a really good year for Intel-based iMacs, if you're looking for one on the secondary market... and it even bootcamps Windows 11 like a champ, with only a little bit of extra coaxing needed for that initial installation.)

Which brings us to that last question: I feel like maybe "current" is a bit ambiguous, given that I clearly routinely use more than just one computer. The 2019 iMac is still my primary workstation for a lot of things and probably will be for quite some time, because that magnificent 5K screen is just really hard to beat... but it's obviously not my primary PC for everything. Thus, I'm going to interpret "current" to more aptly refer to the last computer I purchased... which is an Acer Nitro 5 gaming laptop with a 3070 GPU. I purchased it the day before Thanksgiving just this past year and while I believe it will probably last a few years, I'm by no means expecting it to remain my primary gaming PC for its entire lifecycle; I suspect the ever increasing demands of the games my kids and I play will influence a desire to upgrade the 3060 video cards in their home-built gaming PCs and to likewise replace that Acer... because it's a wee bit more difficult to replace just the video card in a laptop.

Last week, I attempted to log into Teams, but from a personal account, rather than a corporate account. Teams promptly informed me that personal accounts are not supported, so I was forced to logout and join my meeting "anonymously" from the web client instead. It's a nonsensical distinction, though... why would you be able to use Teams without actually logging in, but not with a personal account?

So all I want to know about these new versions is this: Did they finally lift this nonsensical usage restriction?

I grew up as a voracious reader. I absolutely love books -- science fiction and fantasy in particular. So naturally, when my own children started reaching the age where they might be able to wrap their brains around some of my old favorites, I had plenty of recommendations to offer them. I believe that this enthusiasm -- alongside my ability to easily empathize with my kids, because of the tedious crap that my own teachers had foisted upon me when I was in school -- gave my kids a good sense that maybe I was steering them in a different direction than their test-driven curricula in the school system.

I mean... I don't claim to have all the answers. After all, clearly not every person is wired quite the same way. My wife decided to quite literally bribe one of our kids to get her to start the process of reading for enjoyment... however, now she reads as avidly as I ever did, and no longer has the need for any external incentives. Another of my kids has a processing disorder, so he was only able to start the process by way of audiobooks. We used that as the hook, and he was able to discover that he really enjoyed books. Then, I mentioned to him one of the series that I had enjoyed immensely as a kid, and that series (ahem) just wasn't available to him in audiobook format...... suddenly, he's pushing through his processing disorder all on his own just for the sheer joy of the story, and now he's four (maybe five?) books into the series and loving every word.

I guess what I'm really saying is, we can't rely upon the school system to instill passion into our kids. Certainly, there are teachers who are good at that, but it has been my experience that they are few and far between, even without the whole test-driven curricula actively stealing the joys of learning from our kids. What we need to do, as parents, is show our children our own passion, and do what we can to give them the tools they need to seek out that same passion within themselves.

Someone must have figured out the cobalt refiner trick and then figured out how to apply it to lithium as well.

Absolutely correct

Ah.... but see, there's the rub: China isn't actually the greatest hindrance to the US following suit; the US is. Or to be more precise: The US Constitution is that which hinders lawmakers the most from enacting overwhelming and draconian measures -- even when those measures are specifically intended to protect the US from foreign influencers. Since the Constitution (and the Bill of Rights) place such strong emphasis on an individual citizen's right to freedom of expression -- a value not even remotely shared by the regime in China -- and since somewhere along the lines, a private company was effectively granted personhood under US law and therefore also has that same freedom of expression, it becomes very difficult to prohibit a company from exercising those freedoms, even when that company is owned by foreign interests -- who, ostensibly, would not otherwise be able to claim those citizenship rights.

China is fully aware of this contradiction, and knows quite well how to exploit those laws and use them against the US in order to reestablish their influence, should the US take such measures; essentially, all they're really doing is warning the US of their intentions. So really, they don't have any problem at all with the US doing the same... because they know all too well that it simply won't work.

US law is... messy. High ideals getting in the way of higher ideals... and lawyers enjoying their never-ending payday.

Russia's previously announced plans to build their own orbiting platform went so far as to grant it a name: "ROSS". It is looking more and more like ROSS will never see the light of day, let alone a launchpad.

Color me not shocked.

I would assume that Dish is actively seeking prior art on this issue, as we all know that commercial skipping has been around in various forms for many years; DVR software has had a fixed-time skip since the very earliest units came out, and I used to use a script to automatically mark the beginnings and endings of the entire commercial break on my EyeTV recordings, enabling automatic skipping of (and removal of) those commercials, back when the original version of that DVR product still functioned.

The thing is, there are so many different methods for accomplishing the task, and it should be child's play for Dish to just pivot to another method... so the more important question to be answered here is: how much is the ClearPlay patent really worth? Personally, I have difficulty believing that the $469 million valuation is going to hold water through all of the upcoming appeals... and setting the valuation so high all but guarantees that Dish has no choice but to continue to fight this all the way to the end, making it that much more expensive for ClearPlay as well. Seems like a pretty big gamble to me.

To me, the primary reason that this might be true is that we're all so completely screwed up, anyway. These days, if you're not seeing a therapist, you're the exception.

Whoever these unidentified individuals at the top are (above director/VP) that are asking for lists, they themselves should obviously be at the top of those list. Firing even one of these top executives would save the jobs of dozens or possibly even hundreds of other workers who simply can't afford to lose their barely-making-ends-meet job. And given that all that "Mr. Meta" seems able to do is ask for lists... no real value would be lost.

Sorry... did I voice my unrealistic expectations again? /s

I'm going to take a shot in the dark here and suggest that maybe the fact that they raised the price of the Quest 2 by $100 about seven months ago contributes just a little bit to those lackluster sales figures. Now they're reducing that price by $70... which means it's still $30 more than it was a year ago.

I wonder if the new price still includes the $30 Beat Saber game?