When my current Pixel 9 reaches EOL, I likely won't be purchasing another Google device. I'll probably just throw in the towel and get an iPhone and call it a day.

The Pixel 9 and my previous Pixel 6 Pro have always been a bit quirky and haven't had the best signal reception with them when friends and colleagues were getting usable signal at the same location with other devices. I had been doing the Pixel thing because they're straightforward to root if you're into that sort of thing and you've got lineage OS as a back-up if Google ceases device support for OS upgrades/patches.

For home labs and smaller businesses, Proxmox seems to be just fine.

A lot of companies are certainly kicking them to the curb. There are other options. The mobility and remote access pieces wound up with KKR as Omnissa. I'm continuing to consume those as KKR understands they'll never get their return on investment if they chase away their customers.

Perhaps the flurry of litigation for shit like this will make it obvious how little value the big music labels add to the industry with the advent of the ability for literally anyone to self publish with a very low barrier to entry (other than litigation from rent seekers like Sony Music).

Eeny Meeny Miney Moe

Heaven forbid that we might have a year or two where these folks actually pick up a book rather than staring at a screen playing games.

Nah, that's just crazy talk.

You can have flush handles on the outside AND a mechanical method of opening the door from the inside. The Tesla model 3 and model Y have the flush outside handles that actuate an electronic solenoid that unlatches the door. On the inside, one normally just presses a button to do the same from the inside. However, on the arm rest in front of the power window buttons there is a physical latch that you can pull up that mechanically unlatches the door. It's only on the front doors though. Room for improvement.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts...

The 20 mile range makes this mostly an expensive toy. Would it be amusing to fly? Probably....though I can think of a lot better uses for $200k burning a hole in my pocket.

Of course, if you depend on your bot for anything of consequence for home automation, perhaps the concept of being dependent on internet access for it to function wouldn't be ideal. A number of folks have a local version of home assistant for home automation that functions just fine without the internet. It would be a shame to hamstring its "minder" if you lose internet connectivity or AWS has a bad hair day.

Best,

It used to be a place to quickly get content on things from home improvement, to news, documentaries, music, etc. Now it's inundated with inane AI-generated clickbait. When you spend more time filtering the junk than consuming the content you were searching for, it's a loss.

Yuck.

The carrier generally isn't even worried that you'll abscond with the financed phone. The manufacturer often gives them a fat rebate to offset that cost. They are almost entirely focused on retaining the ongoing service fees and subscriber count. THAT is a critical metric for their leadership and "the street".

Don't "finance" your phone with your carrier. Buy whatever UNLOCKED phone you want/need and dispense with vendor lock from the beginning.

All the wireless carriers are slavishly trying to retain subscribers and avoid customer churn so the outcome was inevitable once the rules were relaxed.

Best,

100%. A highly transactional company that's just looking to make their annual uplift in service fees from their customers has found a way to keep their name in the news. Surely this AI integration is worth another 10-20% to you, right megacorp?

zzzzzzzzzz....

Sure, given the current land grab, brute force is being used to "win" and demanding unsustainable demands on power generation. The real winner is going to be the country/company that figures out how to get an "AI" solution that works reasonably well while finding a significantly more power efficient solution to the problem.

What's the over/under bet on when there's an efficiency inflection point and there are suddenly thousands (tens of thousands?) of expensive datacenters that are no longer needed?

Is there a reason why you can't find another provider? Maybe there isn't one you can switch to in a month and a half, but big bang price increases with little notice doesn't bode well for your future with Rackspace.

Best,