On the subject of those two anyway, I think Slimbook is just a Clevo reseller?

Not sure about Tuxedo

I was pointing out that it’s not only Apple users who pay out the ass for their phones. It transcends brand loyalty. Everyone is spending too much on phones and will continue to do so even if prices rise.

The Galaxy S series and the Pixel devices cost about the same tbh, with some of the foldable models being particularly expensive. Buying way too much phone isn’t exclusive to Apple users. Apple is just clever by not really providing an entry-level priced phone. It’s both a scumbag move to make more money, but also a way to make sure that inferior devices providing an inferior experience don’t ruin their rep.

Oh he’s a nerd for sure, just one whose ego outsizes his nerdyness by far.

He’s considered an average self-taught programmer by skill, but started fairly early because of his interest in computers. There’s also no way he started SpaceX purely for profit, he had to actually be very interested in space because it was a money pit for a looong time.

I think he went from wanting to make the world a better, more efficient place via tech in the 90s and early 00s, to having a savior complex where he thinks he’s the smartest man to ever have existed, and only he can save the entire world. His goals required him to make a lot of money, and the very same money completely changed him.

That’s not to say he wasn’t always an asshole with a superiority complex, it’s just that there quite likely was more to him than just the pursuit of money and power… But having plenty of both silenced any actual human part of his personality.

IIRC the profit margins are no longer even close to what they used to be. They’re now estimated to cost between 400 and 700 dollars to make depending on the specs. Used to be what, 75 dollars?

The fact is, the hardware side is economically pretty comparable to high end Android devices. Those are going to go up in price and so are iPhones.

Google and Apple of course have the app store fees as a sweet source of income, so they have an advantage compared to Samsung.

And if you are American, get the fuck away from Google asap

The sad part is there’s almost certainly demand for an app that would let you remote start your car and use other built-in features without the associated tracking, but unfortunately the only way a 3rd party app can do it without installing an expensive 2 way alarm system or similar device, is by using the manufacturer’s APIs, which means the car has to be connected to the manufacturer :/

Owned by Google. Unfortunately it was never going to be without data collection.

The true end game is for us poors to all die off and then there’s a lot less need for production, and fewer mouths to feed.

It’s all moving towards that.

Automation, once the population is too small to cover the jobs.

Proton’s CEO is a fan of Trump and BlueSky is as American as apple pie. So is SubStack, it got series A funded by a16z, which nowadays is best known for its founder Marc Andreessen being an absolute shitbag.

Signal I’ll give a pass. It’s American, but a nonprofit. Mastodon is at least FOSS.

Maybe that IS the end goal. Get old people working so wages get fucked for everyone and the corporate overlords can increase their profit margins from a measly 99% to 99.9% or whatever

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Steam, because they started with non-horrible DRM (compared to other options)

Au contraire, Steam was LOATHED back in the day, they were the first to force you to install a store just to play a single game.

For other games, you needed to enter a CD key on install (which keygens helped with) and then you needed the CD itself in the drive (which cracks helped with). Steam started the trend of online DRM in games, which was then adopted by others who made even more draconian offerings (I think for Spore you could only get 3 hardware IDs registered?)

Yes, because a third party vote is going to do so much in a FPTP system.

I believe you mean Johnson & Johnson, which is a different company.

No idea about the morals of SC Johnson, I hadn’t heard of them till now, but have used a product or 2.

Do you make videos like “look I have a cool new stim” or record repeatedly hitting people only to claim it’s a stim when they react?

If not, you’re probably not the target of my statement re: stims

Idk if it’s still going on but at least at some point, in some corner of the Tok, mental disorders were like little honor badges you could collect. People always showing off their stimming and whatever.

The worst one was always multiple personality disorder though. People referring to themselves as systems, having 100s of alters and getting new ones every now and then.

It sucks because it diminishes the realness of different disorders in people’s heads.

Rules set by god are just as flaky as any other. Moreso once you realize god doesn’t exist.

Money IS the ideology.