Cheaper for the industry to manufacture, certainly. Cheaper for the consumer to purchase, I have my suspicions.

I would love to see a return to smaller cars - sedans even - but the shareholders might not like lower profits per unit, so I’m not sure we’re going to see prices plateau let alone decline.

Just a guess but, I wouldn’t consider anything that was an order of magnitude more expensive than what I was looking to spend.

Having experience in waste handling, I’m not sure how that estimate at the end came to be, indicating a year long effort to collect and transport the material. It is a remarkable amount of material to be disposed of like this, but it certainly wouldn’t take a year to tidy up.

Statistically, that is true.

In my albeit anecdotal experience, these ‘very basic’ appliances suffer their own variant of faults. They take no modern design cues; they are more prone to reliability issues from bargain bin components; or they somehow cost only slightly less than their fancy feature rich counterparts.

Just because I don’t want off-white equipment in my kitchen, I shouldn’t have to buy an ‘AI’ oven. But the companies want to know when and what I’m cooking so when I go to the grocery in the middle of dinner prep, the AI price labels can adjust a bit higher because they know I need an ingredient right now for a meal I’ve already started making.

The variant of fault these normal appliances have aren’t truly a fault. It’s intentionally made to be less appealing, less reliable, and more expensive than it should be, so when we’re looking at a white oven in the store for $800, we’ll opt instead for the $1,000 Alexa powered stainless steel double range that’s sitting right next to it.

Oh and if you’re in a spot and need to finance your new appliance, sorry but our financing isn’t available for the budget tier.

This comment kind of went off the rails, didn’t it.

Kill death ratio - or rather, kill save ratio - would be rather difficult to obtain and more difficult still to appreciate and be able to say if it is good or bad based solely on the ratio.

Fritz Haber is one example of this that comes to mind. Awarded a Nobel Prize a century ago for chemistry developments in fertilizer, used today in a quarter of food growth. A decade or so later he weaponized chlorine gas, and his work was later used in the creation of Zyklon B.

By ratio, Haber is surely a hero, but when considering the sheer numbers of the dead left in his wake, it is a more complex question.

This is one of those things that makes me almost hope for an afterlife where all information is available from which truth may be derived. Who shot JFK? How did the pyramids get built? If life’s biggest answer is forty-two, what is the question?

I’m not sure cost can be set aside from a price discussion when they’ve explicitly stated it won’t be a Costco rotisserie chicken.

With the number of consoles sold this generation, I’m not sure where the limit is for what people will spend to play the games they want. With console pricing has trailing budget gaming PC’s, I could see a number of people getting a Steam Machine in lieu of the next Playstation or Xbox.

What would be interesting to see in the future is the split between units sold to lifelong console players making a change, and pre existing Steam users with stuffed libraries buying one for the couch. If the latter make up the majority of sales, but they priced it like a chicken, that’ll be a problem pretty quick.

Hopefully it shakes out well and indie game developers reap some well deserved rewards.

What you describe strikes me as reaping enjoyment from technical accuracy. I think of it like mastering Moonlight Sonata as opposed to riffing something jazzy with friends. Both enjoyable, but quite different.

I’m adding this to the list of things that I would have used if not for learning about it from a shutdown announcement.

I disagree they are bozos. I’m actually coming around on the idea. Not the mirror thing of course, but the VC grift using a flashy idea. Millions of dollars and the only thing you make is a slideshow? Brilliant.

This reminds me of the venetian shade idea. ‘Trillions of dollars’ hahaha okay let’s see who wants to pitch in.

Fruit Ninja comes to mind.

The problem is that he knows better and chooses inaction.

What a line to summarize the present state of humanity.

Could you elaborate on this comment?

It might have been the sixth closure of the day that person was involved in.

Fortunately, I wasn’t.

Farmers are also dependant on soil quality, temperature, sunshine, equipment that largely relies on fuel, and distribution for the crops they grow.

Not being an oracle myself, I’ll take an educated guess that when the temperature keeps climbing, the conditions that allow for outdoor food production will also change. Likely, the hardiness zones will shift to places with no farmland, and the current hardiness zones will be subject to flooding or drought or both.

Might be tricky business if the best farmland is suddenly on the side of K2.

Tell that to Captain America.

urban people

Funny how I don’t remember the last hospital I saw in the middle of a corn field.

Sorry, all life? Even the mosquitoes? Damn.