I don't have an iPhone, but I do have a modern Android phone and I just don't really see how it's useful on a day to day basis. It's fun to play with for a bit, but I'm not sure I really see a killer application for it yet. Things like ChatGPT are neat and sound like they know what they're talking about until they start talking about something *you* know about, then the mask falls off. The AI writing is... fine, but how much real value is there in something finishing your sentences in a business-friendly way?

Speaking of which, their commercials always make their users look bad. Too stupid to properly request someone to stop eating your pudding? Too negligent to read your report before your big briefing? Don't worry, Apple has your back! By the way.... what's a computer?

AI image/video upscaling and smoothing are probably the biggest benefits for a regular user, and they're great, but I don't know how much that's actually worth and if it's that much better than a "non-AI" version. This seems like 3D TV or VR all over again, but with a serious push behind it because it means people willingly give up their data and get used to a growing lack of privacy in the name of making their lives easier.

Is that a Whutcha Want by Nine reference? Wow.

I've been using Windows since 1995 and Linux since 1996 and it's only been recently that Linux has really surpassed Windows for me. Windows 7 was the pinnacle of Windows in my opinion - it just kind of felt right and it never crashed. Windows 10 was decent, but Windows 11 is just a mess. There are so many UI changes for seemingly no reason, and I have to work harder and harder to beat it into doing what I want (and not doing what I don't want). Linux Mint with Cinnamon and decent Nvidia drivers hits just right for me now. It's a shame the games I want to play aren't likely to ever be Linux compatible, so I'll have to keep some form of Windows going forever. I guess Microsoft can have my gaming data as I do as little non-gaming on it as possible.

I've been messing with GhostBSD lately and I'm really enjoying it. It doesn't really properly support Samba and CUDA, which makes it a no-go for a Linux replacement, but it's pretty neat. It's basically a FreeBSD distro made to be user friendly, and it's doing a good job with that. I've got it on an older Thinkpad for when I travel, but it's been kicked off any actual desktops. I wish the open source workstation world focused more on FreeBSD, but I understand that people have to focus on what's going to make them money.

macOS though... The first time I used it was for work a couple of years ago and in order to get more used to it, I bought an M1 mac Mini. Hoooo boy. I do not understand the love for macOS. I loathe the "menu-bar-at-the-top" thing. Yeah, I know about the infinite mouse movement thing, but having several windows open and being able to click on them and then instantly open their menus in Windows and most Linux DEs is just so nice. macOS seems to want you to do one thing at a time in full screen mode. No matter what I do, it's constantly nagging me to log into my Apple account, it has weird issues keeping mounted Samba shares mounted when it goes to sleep, it has non-stop updates, and things seem to be either dead simple or strangely complicated to do. For just office use and browsing, I get it, but it's not for me. I also had a hard time finding apps I liked to replace things like Notepad++.

No shade thrown at anyone who disagrees, but for me it's Linux > GhostBSD > Windows > macOS.

I order from Amazon fairly often and they entice me to consolidate orders, usually by giving me a small credit for a digital order. I can still select to get 5 things on 5 different days, but the option is almost always there for one big delivery. Maybe it's a regional thing?

A bit of an emotional rant, but stuff like this is why I think companies shouldn't have big teams of UI designers waiting for something to do. If you have to set up a contract and pay an external company to do it for you, maybe you'll take pause and only do it when it's really necessary. Constant UI tweaks to software and websites is such a mess. In general, don't mess with what works and focus your resources on things that matter. It's okay to say something is good enough.

It's not an AI *yet*. Don't give them ideas.

This link for GDP per hour worked (https://data.oecd.org/lprdty/gdp-per-hour-worked.htm) has Norway at 103.38 and the US at 107.03 for 2022. Still not at the top, but not nearly as low as 73. I've seen some discussions that Ireland's economy looks way healthier on paper than it is in reality, but I'm not an economist.

Interesting how we have completely different experiences. I buy a lot of stuff online and Amazon is by far the least reliable. I'm surrounded by Amazon warehouses and they still almost never deliver things the day they say they will. I get the same "By 10pm" prediction as other folks, and they're very often one day late, sometimes two.

They seem to be getting better, and they've stopped just tossing electronics and books into my yard when it's raining, but Prime almost isn't worth it for me. If something says it will be here the next day, the chances of that actually happening are on the order of 10%. FedEx and UPS usually take a few days, but they're always on time.

The US Post Office? Well... they wave at me when I pass them on the street, so there's that.

I don't think that I've seen a lot of new 2023 movie or TV content, but the Mario movie was better than I expected. Peach is a little obnoxious and Bowser insulted the best enemies in the Mario universe, the spinys, but it was pretty good. I wonder if video game movies will be the next big genre that gets milked bone dry.

I love Bald and Bankrupt. I've always wanted to visit Russia and Central Asia, but all of his content is good. I also like Technology Connections (general deep dives into how things work), Nile Red (chemistry videos), Adam Neely (videos about music), Hoovie's Garage (car videos), Moore's Law is Dead (computer technology news leaks), Stand up Maths, and Project Farm (tool testing)

I have two of their SuperNT systems which are Super Nintendos and they're wonderful. The website is super hipsterish, I really don't like it, and it will be expensive, but the product itself should be good. I wish they'd make more of their NES systems, but apparently they're difficult to produce. If you're an N64 fan, definitely keep your eye on this.

I'm a big fan of making all UI/UX development contract work. That way you only tweak the experience when you really need it, not as work welfare for UI/UX people on your payroll. Also, it's okay to call something "done". You don't have to tweak it forever.

Here's a map of mean wind speeds at 80m - https://external-preview.redd....

Looks like Indonesia and most of India have poor wind speeds. The places in Africa which are inhabited and safe (ie not the Sahara or Somalia) aren't doing that great either. Neither is Brazil. Of course, as people have mentioned, these places tend to be pretty good for solar panel installation. Over all that map would seem to indicate that tropical locations aren't as windy at 80m as non-tropical locations, in general. Have you found something different? I tried adding line breaks, but it makes my comment look too much like ASCII art for Slashdot...

I'll take 20 million!

Edge needs more unexpected Mr. Robot plugins if they want me to use it.