There's nothing wrong with storing some things *also* in cloud services.

But when it comes to copies of important things, two is one and one is none.

I don't think Google should be required to provide anonymized search data to rivals. Firstly, that's effectively their intellectual property.

Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. I'm sure the others will do something transformative with the data.

Now imagine saying this about, say, Japan.

I've noted the comments here about how this is old news: that's true. But it will be novel to some people who didn't live through it, and even for those who did, it's a necessary reminder. Japan is ruthless, unscrupulous, and unethical: they will do anything. They're not the only ones, of course, but they're arguably the most dangerous because of their size, wealth, and longevity. They're the enemy of open standards. They're the enemy of open source. They're the enemy of open protocols. They're the enemy of America. They're the enemy of The West. They're the enemy of security. They're the enemy of privacy. They've always been the enemy and they always will be, because it's in their DNA: it's impossible for them to change.

So any time -- ANY TIME -- there's some statement or initiative or announcement that they're going to support freedom/democracy/etc., any of the things I listed -- the first things that should come to mind are these wise words of Ash: "It's a trick -- get an axe."

What a weird ... hey, wait, I think I figured it out!

You're looking at it from the point of view of the bank robber, aren't you? (Instead of from the point of view of all the people who didn't rob the bank but still somehow had their locations leaked to the government.)

Did I guess right?

If you have to go back 26 years to find something to complain about, you really don't have a basis to complain.

I'm imagining devices going by a conveyor belt, and a worker with a wirecutter is making a brief snip on each of the devices as it travels by.

The boss walks up, and the snipper guy asks "Is it true? Is the customer canceling?"

The boss briefly nods but then shakes his head. "Yeah, they're canc--no, I mean they still want the devices. They just don't want the snipping anymore. They say go ahead and leave the warrant-detection-and-lookup circuit live."

"Good. I never really understood what I was doing here. They're still weren't required to check the sensor anyway, so why disable it?"

The boss explained, "so we could charge them for the snipping."

There's no way to interpret these costs, that nobody is ever going to be willing to pay, as a reminder that soon these companies are going to be bankrupt.

Every time I see an AI story like this, it makes me realize I really have no idea what the AI bubble hardware is actually like, and how it might be used after auction.

A few months from now you might find yourself at an auction where 4TB of faster-than-anything-you-have RAM might be for sale for $80, but of course it won't be in the usual DIMMs that any of your existing mobos can use, will it? What will it be, and how do we best exploit it?

Well, I bought Triggerheart Exclica on Xbox Live Arcade back in 2006 on an Xbox 360.

I can go download that game, right now, on my Series X, because, gasp, it's the same account.

So if I were to buy GTA VI for Series X in a few months, and type the download code into the 'redeem code' box, it ties that code to my account. See?

Yup. I remember buying Dawn of War in like 2008, and in the case was a disc with the Steam installer, and a piece of paper with a Steam code.

I use left as change things quickly, break things, tear down Chesterton 's Fence, taking big chances, and right as gradually careful change, thinking about why things exist before destroying them, and be averse to risk. Trump is left of FDR in that view.

Republicans lost two presidential elections, 2008 & 2012, due to running conservative candidates. So they gave up and became a further-left party. Now Obama looks like a relative conservative .. but Clinton & Harris look conservative _too_.

Voters are insisting on left-wing presidents, with the exception of Biden because the initial leftist shock of Trump pt1 was too much to absorb.

Yeah, for even two hundo, I'd be considering buying this as a fun accessory.

For five hundo? Nope.

When it's codified into the highest law of the land and doesn't work, and suggestions to do so voluntarily can't work to the point of being laughable, what options do we have left?

There's always Nancy Reagan's catchphrase: Just Say No.

Any particular game is expendable. You won't miss out on anything. Games don't even have the network effects and lockin that you get with other types of software; it's a part of the economy where Just Saying No is easiest of all.

Don't like the quality? Don't spend your money. They have no power over us except what we give them. Stop being so selflessly altruistic when it comes to actively supporting your own abuse.

It's so damn easy, and there's already hundreds of years worth of hassle-free game-playing available to spend the few remaining seconds of your life on.

Can we use these glasses, or are they just as worthless as Google's and Meta's, where they choose everything for you, and you'll likely get a DMCA complaint if you try to use them for your own purposes?

If not, then $21.95 is about as much as these people should be charging for the product, which is obviously intended to get its revenue through proprietary software/services sales.

One of the problems America currently faces, is that we're still getting far too much science done, it's not costing us enough money, and the money it does cost is being wasted on paying the salaries of scientists instead of personally paying whoever contracts to kick back the most to political appointees.

I believe this will help solve all three problems.