I cancelled Netflix long ago, they started cancelling their best shows (like 1899, etc) and producing absolute garbage. I mean just look at the quality of early/peak Netflix to now. Stranger Things is a great example, the decline is visible not just in the story but in the visuals. The documentaries are also bad now, I watched the "Manosphere" at someone's house, and while you can agree with the premise that these people are deranged, it was clearly a cash grab and didn't really move the needle. Then the catalogue has been gutted, and it's just mostly garbage now. Just awful stuff.
The last truly remarkable series they had was Dark. Everything since has slid into being for low attention span people on their phones, and for that reason I no longer give it my attention, or money. I guess it's working out for them, since they keep printing money...but I think it won't last forever. Look at Disney, the decline can come quick once the cracks turn into fault lines.
While I haven't watched it, the fate of _1899_ is why I've pretty much given up on TV --- I'm _not_ going to watch anything until I know that:
- the story has been completed (_Dark Matter_ is the poster child for this)
- the ending makes sense as part of a coherent whole (the _Battlestar Galactica_ reboot still enrages me)
then, maybe I'll find time to devote to something --- until then, I've got books to read, code to write, projects to build, home improvements to make, and a yard to weed/maintain and trees which need to be harvested for lumber....
Isn't Toyota betting big on the Hybrid EV? To me, at least in the US, this seems like the best medium-term bet. The EV infrastructure just isn't there yet, despite there being a lot of Tesla chargers. Even with that, the charge time, etc are too long to get going again. Hybrid EV seems to resolve this, and eases the customer into an EV future. Current EVs are great for being around town, but a lot of people in the US live 45min to an hour each way just to work, have to get their kids to school or practice in the meantime. It's just added stress thinking about finding a charging station or having time constraints.
The biggest issue I think every auto maker needs to solve is cost. The average car payment is insane, with dealership markups it's even worst than it would be otherwise. I'm not sure how we got here on that, to me car interiors are no nicer than they were from 2005ish on. I don't even know what the cost is going into.
Russia has been mass producing its own copies or the drones - the Russian version is called Geran 2 - for several years now. They use a lot of western and sanctioned components and they assemble them in big factories eg Kupol plant in the Russian city of Izhevsk
It is 2026. Germany - as a densely populated country - still does not have a safe location to store all the radioactive waste that came from those nuclear power plants.
Why is it, some always repeat the same argument without giving a single thought to the follow-up challenges and costs?
It's 2026 and Germany's rich neighbor is so good at nuclear power, and logistics and storage of said waste, that it sells Germany power from their nuclear power plants.
Why is it, some always repeat the same argument without giving a single thought to the follow-up challenges and costs?
I've lived in Germany, it's always so funny seeing Germans always complaining but never taking action, or a lot of "too late for that" nonsense. Always tons of excuses for bad policy.
Considering the German economy has been faltering, energy prices have soared, they buy nuclear power from a neighbor, and their shortsightedness emboldened a regional enemy (Russia)... probably until I'm dead.
Maybe it will help stop other countries from making the same mistake if people don't let everyone forget.
BlueSky is vastly worse than Twitter/X now or ever was. It was a good idea, but it ruins the "community square" aspect when BlueSky has just become a total echo chamber. Twitter is still diverse, even if voices that were once banned now have bigger platforms. Now I'd rank BlueSky has a net negative for society. It's basically a DailyKos leaning miniblog with a small userbase. Things you would just used to find in comment sections of left leaning sites.
The difference is diversity of opinions. There is none on Bluesky. Anybody can voice their opinion on Twitter/X. On Bluesky you'll be quickly shun by the entire community or straight out banned for not agreeing with specific partisan talking points, no need to list them, it's similar to reddit editorial policies. If you deem Twitter an extremist social media, then Bluesky is even worse,as it just only allows one sort of extremism, one kind of ideology.
I agree with GP. Twitter does have diverse viewpoints across progressive, centrist, and right wing voices. I abhor the alt-right stuff, and it is more widespread now under new ownership. However BlueSky is exclusively urban lefties. It's not diverse
I really don't think advertisers will ever embrace bsky. No one wants their brand under communist scrutiny all the time, one step away from another "cancellation." They will definitely return to X.
If anyone thinks Anthropic or OpenAI are the "good guys," they've already lost the plot. If you look at additional reporting on the topic, not just the Anthropic PR spin, the disagreements were much more nuanced than it was portrayed by Anthropic. They aren't exactly a reliable narrator on the topic either. In fact it actually just seems like Amodei fumbled the deal and crashed out a bit. He's already walked back his internal memo, and is reportedly still seeking a deal with the Pentagon. I don't trust either CEO, I use their products, but if you're even leaning 51-49 on who is "less evil," I think you're giving too much slack.
I've done the same, and I tested the same prompts with Claude and Google, and they both started hallucinating my blood results and supplement stack ingredients. Hopefully this new model doesn't fall on this. Claude and Google are dangerously unusable on the subject of health, from my experience.
Just from a pure investment standpoint, while people seem to think this will take on Microsoft PCs and Google's Chromebook, to me the bigger risk is that it is going to cannibalize Air sales. Just read the comments here and elsewhere online. Sure, some people say they need more RAM, etc...but the average consumer just uses their device as a browser.
Anyhow, I do hope this wakes Microsoft up. They seem to have abandoned their consumer base, which is quite annoying. I do enjoy Windows 11, despite the hate here, but Windows PCs have a lot of catching up to do.
I don't know how to break this to you, but Europe itself has been the burning building for 20 years. I don't see that changing any time soon. The anti-US stuff is largely flailing, the US is better positioned than Europe for the next 20 years also. They struggle with investment, have almost no large companies left of any merit in tech, have political problems that are similar to the US's, and regulate themselves to death. It would take a political revolution in Europe to fix that, and frankly they don't have it in them.
That's extremely condescending and naive. I'd say Europe citizen are in much better situation than the usa citizens, don't care about tech sector or shareholder revenue.
Usa still don't even have universal social security and medications are overpriced 10 time more. Just to name a few.
Then there is the American debt. Good luck with that when countries are switching from dollar to yen and euro. No really, I think that there are enough challenge to overcome in the states that you don't need to be condescending.
I don't see how it's condescending or naive (at least anymore than the relative anti-US stuff you I was responding to,) name a large company or big innovation Europe has produced in the past 20 years? The whole continent is basically flat on growth for the past decade. It's literally in the numbers. Europe has been in denial, not the US. It has been very much left behind by China and the US. The US controls its own monetary system, European countries do not, that makes the debt issues a bit exaggerated. Not to mention China's has tremendous debt itself.
Also we do have universal social security, and while many medications are expensive at least they are available. Try getting a weeks worth of ibuprofen in Germany, it requires a doctor's appointment. I love Europe and have lived there, but talk to virtually any business person in Europe and they both envy the US and China, not themselves. If you can't see that painfully obvious reality, I don't know what to say, honestly.
> Usa still don't even have universal social security
It does though. There are several programs, some administered by the federal government, and some by the states. We don't have "single payer" but we absolutely have "universal social security."
> and medications are overpriced 10 time more.
If you use the sticker price. Sure. It looks that way. If you use the actual pharmacy receipts the story is far different.
Same, I have never interacted with their Facebook reels/videos but all the video thumbnails are practically just videos of porn stars/OnlyFans style content. Instagram isn't as bad on the Reels side, you'll get good content there...but the feed itself is dreadful, I never see anything from friends. It's all just slop from bigger brands/publishers. At this point, there are just chat services to me and my friends.
> Same, I have never interacted with their Facebook reels/videos but all the video thumbnails are practically just videos of porn stars/OnlyFans style content
For me it fluctuates between animals and thirst traps. It's a really odd recommender system.
> Instagram isn't as bad on the Reels side, you'll get good content there...
Seems to depend how far you scroll, the first dozen will usually be good, clean recommendations. After that it goes downhill.
The last truly remarkable series they had was Dark. Everything since has slid into being for low attention span people on their phones, and for that reason I no longer give it my attention, or money. I guess it's working out for them, since they keep printing money...but I think it won't last forever. Look at Disney, the decline can come quick once the cracks turn into fault lines.
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