I enjoy React and I’d take it over all of those other things. I wouldn’t take React over htmx/data-star and server rendering if that’s all I needed, and even if I had a couple of pages that needed a little bit more.

Console hardware is subsidized by games sales- it’s much cheaper than a similarly capable PC.

I'd also point out that the latest versions of consoles are simply glorified x86 machines. When viewed in that light, you can evaluate if you want a PC with a pretty decent graphics card for the price point.

These are literally x86 AMD machines with AMD graphics cards.

The original XBox was the same way. It made a great media server which is the origin of the likes of plex and kodi.

Well they use to be, this last generation seemed break even in hardware cost around release. But with hardware supply issues now that may not be true at this moment still.

There were hardware supply issues around launch time that made consoles a much better deal than the equivalent PC

But are PC software and games compatible and tuned for console hardware even if you hotwire Linux onto it?

Similar sort of idea https://github.com/juxt/allium

Cool project, but not really. From what I can see Allium is preventive, it gives the AI a spec to code against so intent doesn’t get lost. VibeDrift is diagnostic, it analyzes code that already exists and measures where patterns diverged. They’re actually complementary.

Important content and information I want is on YouTube. I pay a YouTube subscription.

I have ADHD. YouTube shorts are poison. I don’t want them. I keep clicking “not interested”. They go away for a bit, they come back, I waste hours of my life scrolling through them before I notice. I click “not interested” 20 more times to get a few days relief…

Even when you’re the customer, you’re not the customer.

I haven't tried it, but I was able to search and find a greasemonkey script:

https://github.com/conifer215/hide-youtube-shorts

> Even when you’re the customer, you’re not the customer.

I think a better way to phrase "if you're not the customer, you're the product" is "we don't want your money, we want you".

VAT can be considered a regressive tax because the poorer I am, the more of my money I spend on goods and services, and the less on savings and investments. As a proportion of income, poor people spend more on VAT than rich people. I think it’s about double, in the UK. So you’re right that cutting VAT helps richer people more in absolute terms. But in terms of of quality of life it helps poorer people more.

[edit] assuming we’re talking about VAT on things that everyone buys. Which is why tax codes often exempt essential items from VAT.

You can do both, in that you can have a system where if you make less than X, you don’t pay VAT on certain things, or less.

California is now doing this for electric car rebates. Only works for items pinned to a person.

This can easily be compensated for by simply giving the poor more rebate on income tax.

Give people as a whole more money and they can spend it on housing. Given the decades long supply problem with housing it simply means rents increase to fill the void.

One infuriating thing about PACE is that even the fraudulent results only showed a 22% recovery rate.

For a disease as serious as ME/CFS, a treatment with a 22% recovery rate is far from good enough. Even if PACE stood up to scrutiny it wouldn’t have made sense to give up on finding better treatments.

I mean, 22% sounds pretty damn good if there are no long lasting negative side effects of being part of the remaining 78%.

Like, sure, shoot for 200% cure rate, but even a success rate of 1% cured of a previously unrecoverable situation is insanely informative.

(self reply) (obviously if the 22% number itself is bogus then you can't trust anything)

Another example of “entertainment” with scope for unconstrained spending: digital goods in the less scrupulous kinds of video games

Which coincidentally often contains gambling mechanics such as loot boxes.

I find LLMs are often better for X vs Y questions where search results were already choked by content farm chaff. Or at least LLMs present more concise answers, surrounded by fewer ads and less padding. Still have to double check the claims of course.

I think I'm discovering that I just don't tend to think in terms of questions rather than content

You should be able to choose to switch off security as you wish. You should also be able to choose to leave it on.

“About the same” is not “the same”, and there are tipping points. The gini coefficient has still seen a decent bump.

But anyway, gini is a coarse measure. Look at the chart below that, showing income percentages going steadily upwards for the top 10 and 1%.

Most worryingly, look at the decline of the middle 40%. A healthy middle class keeps countries stable. You need a good chunk of society who feel like the system works for them.

And it’s not just perceptions, it’s fundamental stuff. A teacher could afford a house in the 90s; they can’t now. For all the boomers bang on about mobile phones and flat screen TVs, in the end those are luxuries compared to clean, secure accommodation. The days of getting a mortgage on one income, or having access to nice council housing are gone.