Very true. I still have one, and still using it for a WAP which works perfectly for older devices that don't like newer APs.

I just wish Apple made them again because they do what they do extremely well.

The Neo, inexpensive as it is, still feels professional. You can tell it is a budget model when comparing it with a MacBook Air or MacBook Pro, but it definitely has a solid fit and finish, arguably on par with most PC laptops.

What I'd consider doing is maybe looking at budget models as loss leaders, and getting some upsell models. For example, I'd say a next step up would be an i5, 16 gigs of RAM, a TB SSD, with a fingerprint scanner. This way, as mentioned by another, there is some profit to be made from one group of the "K" shaped economy, while the other group, one can ship models with 64 GB of RAM, eGPU ports, etc.

There is another thing which is a money maker -- accessories, like a good docking station.

What might sell, may be a NAS. Mainly because people need backups, don't trust the cloud, so having a base station like a Time Capsule that does the job of a router, wireless AP, NAS, backup destination, and so on, would be important. People are waking up to the fact that a local server is a nice thing to have, combined with something like TailScale which means the NAS can be accessed anywhere securely, no need to open a firewall. Plus, one can sell a NAS backup/sync service so 3-2-1 protection is as simple as tossing the appliance on the network, changing the password, logging in with one's user, and then accessing shares.

This is where I find things ironic. The true activist apps were not branded as such. They were made to allow people privacy. Look how PGP was at first released. It wasn't for "activism", but keeping one's stuff private and not easily scrutinized. Back then, people were worried about governments, but the threat landscape has changed... governments don't really care, but private companies do, because they can find someone to sell that info to, or toss it in some vat to correlate with something and sell that to someone, especially in the days of being able to gamble when someone disappears or not.

What we need are apps not designed for "activism". That makes me suspicious. Instead, we need apps designed for security and personal privacy. Open source, all source code auditable, if not audited, a blessing of someone who knows what they are doing, maybe even direct government certification.

Designing for "activism" rolls the bowling ball into the gutter from the get-go. It needs to be designed to protect company data and business items just as well as the plans for a march, or time for a meet-up. It needs to be designed to have legitimate uses, otherwise, it just becomes a point where just the app's presence can be used in court to convict someone of wrongdoing.

Ultimately, with enshittification, going back to private, offline enclaves is something we may be forced to do. For example, having a PC which is offline, but is where one reads and writes messages on, and then encrypts and signs replies with GnuPG, some OpenPGP product or a simpler tool like `age` which just does public key work without the PKI/web of trust.

This will require OS vendors to be okay with offline updates... but there are items like `apt-offline` and offline ways to move patches, this may not be as bad is it could be. For example, have a patch/OS repo that is on a USB SSD, and every so often, unmount it, plug into the offline machine, have it fetch updates and reboot, then plug it back into the online PC.

I really hope GnuPG stays with us. It is one of the few encryption programs that separates the encryption of content from the transport layer. This way, the GPG message can be sent via email, a messaging app, stuffed in a file share, or similar. Its security isn't relying on TLS or anything else. Done right, it provides true E2EE, but it can take more steps to explicitly decrypt it.

I think we will see worse. There was a video of North Korea's smartphones autocorrecting any slurs on the Supreme Leader and uploading the incident. I wouldn't be surprised to see that on devices, as well as a "virus scanner" which tries to detect IP violations. Having something offline where one can decrypt messages may become a standard process for people again, if this continues.

Having been around a while, the dream of having a computer do everyone's job has been around since the 60s and 70s. Even MAD Magazine had articles and back fold in covers on this.

Companies have been wanting to get rid of workers for a while. Car makers have factories which are pretty much automated with a few guys sitting, looking down to hit the red button in case one robot gets out of sync or whatnot. In fact, a lot of production in the US (Yes, the US does make stuff) is done by robotics.

The development of LLMs just brought all that ugliness to the surface. Almost every business out there dreams of being able to shed all workers and just keep the C-levels, where if it isn't machines, it is some contractors. Even businesses that have good management are going to invest in AI and automation to keep up with the competition. Even though it may not reach promises, LLMs have been a help, provided you know how to use them, and are able to deal with hallucinations.

There are still ways to keep Moore's Law going. SMIC is getting near 2nm process nodes without EUV, for example. We also may find another process, or other materials better than doped silicon for getting near the ideal of one transistor being one atom.

We still have not expanded in the third dimension much. If we can figure out how to cool silicon and stack floorplans, this would give us a revolution. There are always some ways to do this, perhaps ionic air transfer (even though it does accumulate dust), or vapor channels.

Then, there are CPU designs and ISAs. Had Intel maintained their X86S program, this would have shaved off a significant amount of transistors needed to do everyday tasks. The age old thing of RISC over CISC may not matter now, but eventually, it may be what determines performance in the future when we can't go any smaller with nanometers, floorplans are as optimized as one can get and so on.

After that, not just CPU, but computer designs. If we went to passive backplane systems where some apps literally run on one computer and just display, while others run on another, that may be a way to do things. Pretty much a smaller version of a rack and blade system, with video wizardry to allow each blade to display apps on a screen. Add some interconnects so each backplane blade can access each other's drives via DMA and not the CPU, and this can add a few years of scaling.

I'd say, if the economy really tanks, the market will be cheap PCs, like the mini-PCs you find on Amazon that are pretty much a laptop motherboard in a small case. Those are surprisingly decent, and some can handle an eGPU.

If I were betting on a recession, I'd develop for low tier Windows and built in GPUs, and distribute the game via Steam, GOG, and the Windows Store. This way, it is accessible to virtually everyone, GOG's DRM is good enough (i.e. none), and as a game dev, I can focus on relevant content. AFAIK companies like Mob Entertainment make money hand over fist by their game chapters coming out each year.

Ideally, I'd see if I could make the game run on macOS and Linux as well, because the actual users wouldn't be as many, but the PR would be well worth it.

That is good to know... and actually interesting for an old fart like me how extraction shooters seem to be the rage these days compared to the ol' MOBAs. At least it may teach players to cooperate with each other.

Let the "AAA" games stay on the consoles. My biggest fear is that PC gaming turns into mobile gaming. Yes, mobile gaming is the #1 biggest market, but you will be micro-transacted to death, because people don't just want to pay up front $60 for a mobile game and have it be decent. I'm happy with what the indies come up with on Steam and GOG.

It is fairly obvious. Everyone got ran out of the tech field who wasn't a senior tier, had close ties with management, or both. Not many people want to go into STEM in the US, because they know that they go and do the work, do the hard math courses, only to be muscled out of any chance at a job come graduation by cheap foreign labor. Not just our usual dear H1Bs, but B1s and numerous visas.

College, in every other nation, is something the government pays for. The classmate I had from Chile? Government paid his way. Germany? Free courtesy of the Fatherland. China? Paid for. It is only Americans who have to mortgage their entire future to even have a chance at competing... and the US is the only country in the world that has student loans non-dischargable, and stay for life.

Then there are job guarantees. The guy from China I went to class with is a chief engineer now. The German guy? Doing interesting stuff in physics. The French guy? He does film effects because France values their local culture. The Chile guy? Chemical engineer. For me, when I graduated, were it not for word of mouth and previous people I worked with, I'd have a choice between no job, or maybe enlist in the armed services, as the degree would give 1-2 ranks.

Because there isn't anything else out there at an enterprise level. You can try to run your home email server, but almost always, the IP range you would be on is blackholed, and even if it wasn't, it doesn't take much for it to be. Mail has been lost as a DYO service. If you want to run it, host your receiving end, use a commercial SMTP provider to send, but one will find going with an offsite solution is much less of a pain.

Businesses, it is worse. One lost email can mean a lost sale, or a customer unable to contact you and then resorting to legal means [1].

The trick is to give the devil his due. Cede email to a provider. For personal use, iCloud Plus, Hushmail, Proton, or similar. For corporate use, I would have to say M365 sucks the least. Google Workspace is "meh"... but good luck getting support on it. Zoho, I give an "A" for effort, but they have issues. This is where the EU needs to throw money where their mouth is, and create easily hostable cloud office workspace software, if they desire to be free of Microsoft.

[1]: Many companies either channel people to chatbots to annoy the customer, then point to an email address . Phone numbers are often a thing of the past. When the email address doesn't work, the customer has a good chance beginning litigating proceedings because the ability to have contact in good faith is lost, depending on contract.

I wouldn't mind a Hilux. Getting 22 MPG from a V6 without the need for turbos or any other voodoo was a nice thing.

I still think it is a miracle when I see one of the old Hilux based class Cs that gets 20+ MPG. It barely can get out of its own way, but those units were self-contained and pleasant to camp inside... and with 4x4 capability, they could go to some decent places. Digressing, the RV industry is like the vehicle industry. You can't find a small class "C" motorhome, or one on a pickup truck. Smallest you will get is a 24 footer that needs two parking spots, and is exactly 108 inches wide, making it not fun to park, while the older ones were not as space-filling, allowing for a much easier time parking.

The BYD Shark is getting tons of sales in Mexico.

It would be nice to see it here in the US, but the US likely will continue to have the shittiest and most overpriced vehicle selection in the developed/developing world.

Sadly the Ramcharger was killed... renamed to the REV, pretty much. I am interested in this truck too, but it has one disadvantage... it is heavy. I think around 8000 pounds total. The fact that one can fill up at Buc-Ees, then park it at the Superchargers while one goes shop can allow one an impressive range. It also had a pretty notable payload capacity (2625 pounds).

What I'd like to see is them make a 2500/3500, but a serial hybrid. Maybe a smaller battery, even if it means the range extender will be on more often. It would, provided the maker provides a decent inverter, mean that I have jobsite power for a welder and other tools without needing to bring a portable generator. Or just use the battery to power a truck camper's air conditioning unit when camping in the southwest US during the summer without having to run a generator or an engine.

Had Ford put in the toolbox range extender that they patented a year or two before introducing the Lightning, I wonder if it would have had a different fate. I like everything about the Lightning... except the fact that the eMPG towing is definitely less than normal, and the roads I'm using to tow stuff are rural Texas... where it can be 30-40 miles before hitting a main highway and charging stations.

RAM is going in with the REV, and I'm reading others are going to try serial EV hybrids, so it will be interesting how that turns out. Overall, other than weight, you sort of have the best of both worlds.

I am going to assert this isn't your garden variety hoplophobia, but more of wanting to remove 3D printing from the hands of the average person, because (to those regulators) only larger companies should be inventing and selling products... and the products should only be coming from China or whomever lines their pockets.

There are other ways to deal with ghost guns. None of them are addressed. This is about removal of a technology from the hands of the average person.

Someone with any sense wouldn't be wanting to destroy one of the main core mechanisms for decentralized manufacture unless they had a dog in the hunt somewhere.