Totally agree with you ...

But it is not only libraries, there are other factors at play, me thinks ...

Developers don't have a culture of being economical with resources.
It is not taught, nor do first jobs they get care about those aspects.
For example, don't get me started on the infinity scroll which eats up RAM like crazy, rather than a pager of Next/Previous page.

There are also the layers involved, specially with web development.
It used to be HTML only, then CSS was added, then Javascript was added for certain smarts.
Then whole frameworks were invented and used for JS.

Anyway, there is no easy way out of this.
Maybe RAM shortage will compel developers to use RAM sparingly?
Nah, that is a pipe dream ... unfortunately.

But how much of that is paying for the case and power supply?

Didn't get what you meant there.

NUCs usually come with a case and a power supply.

I bought one a couple of months and it came with those, as well as RAM.
It didn't have any storage though, because it was from a corporation, and didn't want to risk selling SSDs with data on them.

Raspberry Pi's are the right fit in specific cases.
For example, you need to interface the GPIO pins to some devices.

But there are issues with it in other cases.
For example, the cost rises as you include accessories, such as a case, fan, various hats, and so on.

If you just need a low(er) power x86 platform to run a stock Linux distro, then plain mini PCs or older models of Intel/ASUS NUCs will fit the bill nicely.

You can get a 2018 NUC for ~ $100 or so.

They already come with M.2 slots, and some have SATA connectors.
They have SODIMM slots so you can upgrade RAM later if you want.

Running Xubuntu or Ubuntu Server is a breeze.

I didn't say they don't need calibration.

I said they don't need calibration all the time.

Failure to connect to the cloud should not result in immediate device failure. Manual calibration steps should be possible. Or at least a message "cloud service unavailable, device will stop working in 48h" or similar.

I don't understand why people are willing to bootlick the company in this case. Cloud connected everything is cancer.

I mean, the data is easily googleable.

Me: Prison is not the answer to everything.
You: It is because (insert specific scenario).

Let me introduce you to the word "everything" and what it means.

This whole article is about how to STOP people from driving while drunk. I'm not hand wringing, I just don't think that prison is the only solution here.

Because prison is not the answer to everything for fuck's sake.

Sure, in this case we can say "fuck you" to drunk drivers and the don't deserve sympathy, but this everything must be cloud connected trend is going to fuck us all eventually.

The problem is that the above sentence requires a person to be able to hold two thoughts in their head at the same time, which appears to be above almost everyone commenting in this thread.

Drinking and driving is not cool.

Making a device that could and should operate locally rely on a cloud service is also not cool. Breathalyzers have been around for decades, and do not need calibration all the time.

Sure, in this case we can say "fuck you" to drunk drivers, but this everything must be cloud connected trend is going to fuck us all eventually.

That's some optimism you have, asking people to think before posting.

Some background from personal use of Astral's products ...

Astral makes a tool called uv, for Python.

It offers one solution to an important problem in the Python ecosystem.
Certain projects require certain versions of Python.
You may end up with two projects that you need on the same machine, but with different Python versions.

For example, you want to run Home Assistant and AppDaemon.
Using uv, you can have two separate virtual environments (venv) each with its own version of Python.

It is also lightning speed for pip.

So it replaces venv and pip in one go.

Home Assistant recently dropped regular user support for it being run from PIP or uv, so I moved to Home Assistant under docker.
But for developers, doing a git clone, then using uv is still very helpful.

That's a cheap low IQ tactic. I don't need to have a fully formed alternative politico-economic system, ready to deploy tomorrow, in order to critique this one aspect of the existing system.

Alternatively (and I understand that this is unintelligible to Americans), I have a social conscience, and socioeconomic structures that exacerbate the already destructive and divisive civilisational landscape that we are currently suffering with bother me. I want my fellow humans to live in a world characterised by justice, fairness, compassion, and kindness.

For whatever it's worth, I have an MBA and I own two successful businesses. But if it makes you feel better telling yourself that I'm just a barefoot hippy railing against the establishment, go right ahead.

No, it's not. Some shit in society is so unredeemably depraved that excising the cancer is the only meaningful solution.