Also I’m not sure Pixel actually counts as a premium phone.

As far as msrp price goes i’d say they are in the premium segment price wise, but at least here in Germany they pretty much immediately are available at great discounts at least in combination with mobile plans.

You are right that hardware wise they aren’t necessarily at the top, especially when compared to some of the chinese brands. But in return you get clean software and very long support. And even though the camera might not have the greatest specs the immediate results (which is what matters to most consumers) are consistenly ranked among the best.

I think all kinds of release schedules have their purpose, but it has to fit the show. The nice thing about streaming is that in theory now you could choose the best model, whereas before one had to adhere to timeslots.

To give some examples:

• Andor season 2 released in 4 3-episode blocks, each having a time jump in-between, and it was perfect. Made each one feel somewhat like a movie and have them enough room to breath on their own.

• Murderbot released weekly (except the first two episodes together) and that didn’t work for me at all, since each episode was so short. Wait a full week to get sometimes less than 30min? No thanks.

• On the other hand a show like Severance that is all about the mystery and little details hugely benefits from the weekly release schedule that also allows better discussions.

• Just dropping the full season imo works best for shows that are just (to some degree) mindless entertainment. For example I think Amazon could have just dropped the full season of Jack Reacher all at once. In those cases just let people themselves decide how much time at once they want to watch. It hardly matters for the shows quality.

Mein Highlight:

Bisher parkten in beiden Straßen Fahrzeuge auf einer Seite vollständig auf der Fahrbahn und auf der anderen Seite halb auf dem Gehweg, halb auf der Fahrbahn.

In Verbindung mit dem ersten Bild auf dem das geparkte Auto zu 90% auf dem Gehweg steht.

Generally I think there are two questions: why does Spotify want messages and why would a user want them. The first one seems easy enough to answer: anything that binds a customer more closely to their product and creates switching costs in an otherwise relatively interchangeable product is good from a business perspective.

I could imagine some other use cases as well: Maybe it could be used to allow artists to engage their fans, inserting the platform deeper inbetween those two. I don’t really know how merch and ticket sales are currently handled exactly, but a messaging system might also be useful to fully keep users within the app while using those features.

No need for special equipment, when it is possible using wifi see this article for example.

750.000 Jugendliche waren laut Statistischem Bundesamt beim Start des Projekts berechtigt, sich ihr KulturPass-Guthaben abzuholen. Allerdings meldete sich davon nur rund ein Drittel an, da vielen die Registrierung zu kompliziert war

Wir reden hier also von ca. 50mio €/Jahr, angenommen die, die sich angemeldet hatten, haben tatsächlich das volle Budget von 200€ ausgeschöpft? Selbst wenn es alle voll nutzen würden (was nie passieren wird) sprechen wir von 150mio. Das sind doch im Verhältnis extrem geringe Beträge. Vor allem nachdem es eine konsumgebundene Subvention ist, wodurch ein Teil direkt wieder an den Staat zurückgeht und es vermutlich noch zusätzlichen Konsum anregt (im Kino wird noch eine Tüte Popcorn und ne Cola gekauft, beim Konzert ein Bier etc).

Um es mal ins Verhältnis zu setzen laut diesem Spiegel Artikel wird jeder Opernbesuch mit can 210€ subventioniert (also mehr als einem gesammten Kulturpass) und der Staat gibt rund 10mrd€ jährlich an Subvetionen für Theather und Oper aus. Und die Sanierung der Suttgarter Oper könnte 1,5-2mrd € kosten. Da sind wir kostenmäßig in ganz andern Liegen.

Ich will damit garnicht sagen, dass die Förderung von Theater und Oper nicht wichtig ist. Die haben auf jedenfall kulturellen Wert, auch über ihre Grenzen hinaus, und würden ohne Subventionen wahrscheinlich nicht tragfähig sein. Aber ein gewissen Grad an Verhältnismäßigkeit muss man halt schon einhalten. Vor allem wenn man bedenkt wer diese Angebote denn vor allem nutzt (Theater und Oper vermutlich eher reiche/ältere).

Klar der Kinobesuch um den x-ten Marvel Film in einer großen Kinokette anzuschauen müsste jetzt nicht unbedingt gefördert werden. Aber vielleicht schaut man ihn auch in einem kleineren Kino oder als Gruppe mit anderen. Und selbst wenn hätte das ganze ja auch ein limit mehr als 2-3 solcher Filme wird man sich wohl nicht innerhalb eines Jahres anschauen wollen. Das wäre nur ein Bruchteil des Budgets.

Bücher sind soweit ich weiß ja auch förderfähig, glaube dafür hat ein Verwandter ein großteil seines Kulturpassbudgets ausgegeben. Unsere dänischen Nachbarn wollen grade die Mehrwertsteuer auf Bücher abschaffen um leute zum kaufen zu motivieren. Da scheint mir so ein Kulturpass fast sogar noch eine bessere Option. Der ein oder andere wird vielleicht dazu verwenden und durch genau soetwas eine Leidenschaft zum Lesen entwickeln.

was aber ausschließlich daran lag, dass ich mir halt seltenst Dinge leiste die davon abgedeckt worden wären

Wäre nicht genau das ein Grund gewesen den Pass zu nutzen? Oder meinst du damit, dass du an den abgedeckten Leistungen einfach kein Interesse hattest?

Nachdem soweit ich weiß auch Bücher eine Option waren sollte es eigentlich finde ich für die meisten einen sinnvollen Verwendungszweck geben, selbst wenn man keine Lust auf Kino oder ähnliches hat. Irgendein Buch kann man doch eigentlich immer für Ausbildung/Studium oder so gebrauchen, selbst wenn man kein großer Leser ist.

Das ist mit fast an Sicherheit grenzender Wahrscheinlichkeit so. Und umgekehrt wird es auch bestimmt Leute geben die das System ausnutzen und nicht als solche erfasst werden.

Das ist finde ich Mal wieder ein Fall wo man vom deutschen Zwang der Einzelfall(un-)gerechtigkeit abkommen müsste. Ein gewissen Grad am Schwund wird es immer geben, so wie praktisch überall. Die Frage ist letztlich einfach ob hier eine unverhältnismäßig hohe Fehlallokation von Geld stattfindet. Und das ist, auch wenn es gerne anders dargestellt wird, vermutlich nicht der Fall.

I’ve always followed this guide on the xda forums to patch my own revanced YouTube APK, rather than downloading a prepatched one from somewhere else. Worked well enough for me so far, but I am sure there are plenty of other options to achieve the same thing.

I’d imagine the big issue to solve here would be latency. You are very right to ask how well it would work in practice, considering companies patent plenty of things that never end up seeing the real world.

Also didn’t the cancelled royal core have something like the reverse with rentable units?

Und selbst innerhalb des Bürgergeldes wären tatsächliche Leistungskürzungen mir ziemlicher Sicherheit nicht der beste Ansatzpunkt zum Sparen. Soviele Totalverweigerer gibt es dann auch wieder nicht und die Summe um die man kürzen könnte (solange wir uns an das Grundgesetz halten wollen) steht in keinem Verhältnis zu den Aufwandskosten.

Wenn man hier ansetzen will, dann in der Verwaltungseffizienz. Z.b. in dem man, wie in einer Lager der Nation Podcastepisode beschrieben, einen einheitlichen Vermögensbegriff festlegt und dessen Prüfung “vor die Klammer” zieht. Das heißt, dass nicht jedes Mal neu und mit unterschiedlichen Definitionen bedarf geprüft wird, sondern einmal zentral. Bonus wenn man die Frequenz der Prüfungsintervalle dann noch den Umständen anpasst. Wenn klar ist, dass sich die Umstände nicht kurzfristig ändern, dann muss man vielleicht nicht dauernd nachprüfen, sondern die Leute Erklärungen unterschrieben lassen, dass es weiterhin so stimmt und dann Stichprobenartig kontrollieren.

That’s the thing, it’s not centralized

But who is able to mint/create those cards? Anyone or just the company? That is what I was primarily getting at.

if the company hosting it closes it’s doors, you still have something in your ownership that corresponds to your cards,

Yes, proof that you owned cards in a now defunct game. The question is how much value is left at that point.

opening up the possibility of others re-implementing everything.

Barring copyright/IP law allowing it, or are we disregarding that? If someone wanted to take over they might just buy out the old company and take over.

And even when starting from scratch they’d have to evaluate if honoring/adopting the existing tokens would be worth it (would give an existing player base, but in return you don’t get any money from them and probably less than from a customer that starts from scratch).

A third option would be some form of foss project reviving the game. But the game seems independent of the blockchain aspect, which only tracks card ownership. Why would any such effort want to adopt a system build on artificial scarcity and profit?

Could you elaborate a bit how blockchain enables something unique here? I see that it enables trade between users, but if a single company controls the game and I assume supply of new cards, does the blockchain aspect for trading really matter?

Trading itself is basic and doesn’t need a blockchain. I guess with it you have it implemented in a public and tamper proof way, but that second part doesn’t seem to matter to me if the source is centralized.

So what exactly is gained from this approach over just your average ingame auction house?

Yeah, even when considering them briefly that was an absolute deal breaker to me. 4/6 is still far less than the 7 years you get from Google/Samsung (at least their higher end models) or however long iPhones get updates, but similar to some competitors already mentioned in this thread from Xiaomi or vivo.

And I guess many will upgrade within 6 years anyways, whereas with 2 years it was basically guaranteed that the devices will spend a good part (maybe even a majority) of their lifetime without any software and security updates.

Another aspect imo is software update policy. I guess now with new EU legislation it should improve, but in the past you got like 2 years OS, 3 security updates? Even on their flagship models.

That’s just terrible, even more so when you weren’t buying them at release.

Flora incognita might be worth a look?

Doesn’t seem to be open source, but otherwise it should be reasonably privacy respecting.

It’s a free publicly funded academic project developed by a German university and the max-planck institute, so that already means the incentives are aligned much differently than with commercial products.

I assume most if not all data collection can be opted out of (german law is relatively strict in that regard and I assume a public project will follow them quite closely) and whatever gets collected at least goes to helping scientific projects. It apparently works offline

As always with debates on the internet nuances get lost and things get painted more black and white.

And they still deserve credit for having invented the concept and designed the bulk of the bricks.

No idea if the other comment that they stole it is true, but looking at the wealth of the owner family I’d say they got more than enough credit. They are set for many generations to come. At some point ideas have to become common good for others to also build upon.

Thanks.

It sounds like the entire industry is fragile at this point.

Things are definitely shifting and it’s not clear how they will play out. And considering leading edge semiconductor manufacturing is one of the most complex processes invented by humanity, while being crucial to our economy, calling it fragile might be accurate.

I’m not sure why Intel can’t just keep making shitty laptop processors though.

Interestingly enough laptop processors might be the one area where Intel is still decently competitive. Their Luna Lake processors (Core Ultra 200V series) are quite competitive and some of the best offerings on the market. Solid performance, good efficiency and strong battery life, and great integrated graphics. However they are using TSMC to manufacture them rather than their own fabs and similar to apples M series chips they utilize integrated memory, which does reduce margins and laptop manufacturers don’t like it as it reduces their ability to differentiate their models.

Intel in it’s current form can’t, because as explained above it is so much more than just the designer of laptop processors. Split up into parts a small fabless design firm for x86 client processors would probably survive, but that wouldn’t be Intel anymore, adress a much smaller market, and also not completely “make”, but only design them.

the client market for desktops and laptops is just way to small to sustain leading edge semiconductor manufacturing on its own. On that note one of the recent comments of Intels current CEO Lip-Bu Tan was that they will only pursue 14A (the process node after the upcoming 18A), if they can at least win one major external client as customer, since otherwise it wouldn’t be economical to scale up. Which basically puts them on a timer of like a year considering the leadup times required.

You only need to be so fast to use the Internet and write papers.

If that were the benchmark we’d have passed it a long time ago. Although it should be noted that progress not only means better performance, but also better efficiency.

Lego as a brand does imo substantially benefit from positive associations such as heritage, sentimentality, and other positive attributes. Otherwise how would they be able to demand such premium prices.

So I would see it less as them being “dinged” for this action, but more as them losing some of those privileges. Something they are not inherently entitled to.

Imo the title falsely implies that Lego not being a US company means they are completely independent and unaffected by US actions.

Lego presumably does substantial business in the US and thus is beholden to US jurisdiction and the whims of Trump to some degree. Them dropping diversity and inclusion from their reports just shows their priorities. However on that note Lego still being family owned lets us pin this decision more squarely on some particular individuals, rather than the usual vague mass of shareholders.