We have this in South America for a looong time. I would estimate some 80% of households use these boxes.

It became so widespread that the major streaming platforms started to pressure the governments. Most of the devices were outlawed and recently there were huge cross-border crackdowns that took the pirat... ahem, alternative platforms down.

One very funny thing is that because it was a paid service, most people didn't even realized it was illegal. When the boxes started to get bricked, consumer protection organizations got flooded with millions of complaints. There are reports of people that even reported it to the police.

My guesses:

1) Unix-based, non-Windows OS
Yeah, of course you could also set up a Linux machine, but just buying a Mac is much easier.

2) Small form factor and nice product design
It occupies very little space on your desk and doesn't look ugly.

3) Established ecosystem
Many of these users already use Apple devices, so the Mini nicely integrates with them.

4) Relatively low price
It's not cheap, but not prohibitive.

5) Trendy
They're following the trend.

The link provided is from a camera that doesn't work. You can watch it from Iceland here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Having spent most of my life in B2B e-commerce, this topic really resonates with me.

I've always wanted modular and composable ERPs. It's the kind of flexibility that's essential, since each product has different characteristics.

But the biggest problem I've faced almost my entire life is dealing with CEOs, CFOs, and other C-level executives who swear up and down that their companies are unique and special, different from all the others.

How many hours of meetings I spent trying to convince them that, no, their company isn't that special. If you're going to hire an ERP, accept and adopt its damn methodology! Not the other way around. Don't try to bend it to fit your idiosyncratic, convoluted processes.

Even so, I've lost count of how much time and money I've seen wasted on projects that ended up poorly implemented, if not completely failed.

Thankfully, I'm retired and will never have to worry about this again.

I think it's reasonable to estimate it by peak load. You simply can't count on higher figures knowing you'll eventually and certainly fall short.

Otherwise, if you say you could provide energy to millions of homes, what would you do when it's peak season and more than half of them suddenly lose power?

P.S.:

1) Maybe the statement of 660,000 homes is already considering and deducting commercial and industrial use.
2) One solution would be of course to say "at least 660,000 homes" or "from 660,000 up to 1.7 million homes".

Before you dismiss this study, pay attention that it is very basic science trying to access specifically the effect of screen time on kids.

No, it didn't say that social media is harmless or it doesn't affect children. It only inferred that screen time alone doesn't. As with any basic science study, more research is needed to try and understand the subject in full.

Actually, no, they haven't. The study was only about screen time. By the words of the researcher himself:

"(...) our results do not support the idea that simply spending time on social media or gaming leads to mental health problems -- the story is far more complex than that."

TBH, the majority of Math problems are solved this way, even from humans. We're always building on top of other's work.

Bad, bad China!

Anyway... I guess I'll have lasagna for dinner tonight.

I still would argue that, yes, I would. Only this time I'd do it using the sensors and special bricks provided. I think it's also worth noting that these add-ons Lego is creating are expensive and will come only with certain kits, mostly created for adult audiences.

Well, here goes my personal, completely anedoctal experience:

The kits were created during my childhood (so I have some pre-kits ones). With the kits, I would usually open the box, build it according to instructions, play a bit and then completely dismantle it and store with all the other ones. Then I spent most of my days building new stuff with it. No hinder in creativity in there.

Nowadays, I still have all my Legos, and two small godchildren (4 and 6 yo). They love it and eagerly ask to come visit and play with it every weekend. Last Christmas, I bought a new kit to each one of them. And what did they do as soon as we opened it? They completely dismissed the kits, mixed all the bricks and started to build every type of crazy stuff.

This makes me think the experts may be somehow underestimating kids imagination.

The "play experts" fear it will "curtail imagination".

I call it bullshit! That only goes to show their own lack of imagination.

Introducing lights and sounds to the bricks is positively a very nice way to expand imagination. Actually, when I was a child, I did frequently add batteries, tiny lamps and slot cars engines to my Lego creations.

I feel like the real problem is not the "rebranding" per se, but the complete mess they made on the new name structure by trying to copy other companies with all the "pro, plus, premium..."

I worked for decades with sales and marketing teams in several distinct industries and in most cases it boggled me how incredibly twisted their minds are and how they tend to overcomplicate things.

I usually found their heads so tucked into the supply-chain/distribution holes that they seem to completely forget their main reason of existence: the consumer.

Maduro by far was never as respected by the Venezuelan military and people as Chavez. It's kind of baffling how he managed to stay in power for so long.

Given the little information we have up to this moment, I would bet that Maduro's capture was the result of some agreement between US and Venezuelan militaries. The US gets the oil, most of the Venezuelans commanders keep the profits and carry on with their lives like nothing happened.

One thing to note is that the US action is absolutely illegal and firmly puts Trump now on the position of an international criminal. If I'm correct, even internally in the US, Trump's actions are illegal. I wonder - and doubt it very much - that anyone is going to do anything about it.

I'll go a step further. American billionaires who tout day in day out to replace workers with AI fearing they're the ones to be replaced next by the Chinese.

Just a note: unemployment rate and recession are not the same thing, even if they are many many times related.