I just spend all my extra money on stickers. Laptop stickers are what's important... Priorities, am I right?

.. in the cloud (aka someone else's computer)

Not everyone needs this year's latest thing. Consumerism has brainwashed the masses into thinking they do, or else they'll be missing out. The only ones who'll miss out are the shareholders.

My latest acquisition? A 10 year-old quad core burner laptop, for free (to me - folks have a funny concept what e-waste is, these days), and for $50 for Crucial hardware it's been updated with RAM and SSD storage good enough to do anything that I need to do with it (I can even open up multiple tabs in Chrome if I bothered to install it...). It ain't going to play the latest AAA game, but I don't need that on the daily (I have other 5 yo computers that can still do that?), what's to complain about. OS is current and patched (and is nothing Redmond or most of Silicon Valley is going to make much bank on). It works - full stop, off the treadmill. AI and LLMs, et al - If I need it I can pay less than what the latest iPhone ** Max goes for and get stuff done, or do it in

I don't suspect I'm in the majority here, but here it is.

A pet rock with an audio recording of Tom Cruise screaming "show me the money!" in the background could replace most if not all CEOs.

I'll check in a year to see if its around. Looks great.

That's it. That's the post

Speaking of 2024 - Slashdot needs spelchek... :-)

Vinyl: trendy and hip boutiques with knowledgeable small business owners ready to debate the finer points of an era of music and their favorite artists collections and the limited releases topping $50+ per record, or

CDs: Whatever Walmert's electronics dept still decides to stock in their dwindling racks, or second-hand collections from some mid-sized resale stores that make more money on consignment goods and t-shirts than their music sales, aside perhaps from their vinyls.

Of course Vinyl's doing better now in 2024. If one's doesn't care either way about digital vs analog et al, they just stream it...

Winner-winner, chicken dinner! One undercover detective with an BT enabled iphone could well have ruled out the house and its occupants in less than 20 minutes, before seeking a warrant based on 'probable cause'. The lawyers gonna win this one, me thinks.

100% same here. It is also why Apple is so dead set on milking their mobile platform(s). I have two trashcan macpros in front of me. They're no longer eligible for MacOS upgrades (only security updates, so far). One run's a GNU/Linux distro like it was built to run it, the other (for now) runs its last supported MacOS release. I'm blessed to work in an environment and a role where I can do my job in either software/OS scenario. If work wants to pay for me to use an Apple Silicon Mac, sure, great. I'll save these little tubular space heaters for *nix dev systems until they go kaputt, then I'll place one next to the SiliconGraphics cube IRIX system in our ongoing 'museum collection,' and move on with life :-)

Those things basically cost what a low-end mini-PC costs, on the renewed market, not that I'd buy one today, when I can get better hardware in a mid-to-higher end mini-PC, FWIW, that uses a fraction of the juice to run.

If I had to venture a guess I'd say because Apple makes enough money marking up their hardware (and making DIY repairs hella difficult and annoying). That, and Mobile apps are the jam spread on their biscuits for revenue now? Maybe, I don't know.

But even MSFT seems to treat the consumer OS market as less than a primary income source (to say the least.. Whose actually paid any significant amount for a Windows 11, or 10 for that matter, upgrade lately?), and Apple doesn't 'do' Server anymore (sadly..). Apple breaks upgrades based on hardware models, so they know one's got to buy new hardware eventually.

So then, Apple's own little proposed EU Prima Nocta doctrine? That's nice. If not already a juggernaut app developer you better use the Apple store, and once your users get used to finding it there, good luck moving away from it, I guess. Malicious compliance plus Prima Nocta terms for the peasantry in the fiefdoms devoid of land holdings.

I seems like only yesterday Apple LOVED them some Europe (particularly Ireland) for their amicable taxation. I guess that ship has sailed (pun intended).

That there's no such thing as a corporate good Samaritan. Next time, take that money and run. Do it well enough, and one just may prove to be executive role material and get promoted, or elected to Congress.

back again without exploding before they make these kinds of plans?

I certainly understand why so many folks don't like the idea of a near endless list of new TLDs, particularly folks in infosec support desks and those to manage email servers (going back to make those old regex's work with them etc), but I for one like the new options. Although I'm not a fan of TLDs that are also file extensions. That's where I guess I draw the line - they just asking for trouble..