ilinamorato

@ilinamorato@lemmy.world

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⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Phones may come without bundled USB cables in the future, if OEMs have their way⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Not true. There are a dozen different types of knockoff USB-C. If you buy one that meets spec (basically just not the no-name bottom-of-the-barrel e-waste on Amazon) you’re going to get essentially full functionality (meaning high speed data transfer, power delivery, HDMI over USB, etc); and if you need something more, you’re probably going to know what to look for.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Costco Confirms It's Removed Xbox Consoles, Calling It A "Business Decision"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Very much not true. Accounts from the development team call the dev process “fork and run;” meaning, they made a fork of the operating system. Yes, it diverged over time, but part of the reason that a Windows port of an Xbox game is so much easier is that they’re fundamentally the same OS.

And Android is Linux under the hood. They’ve committed code back to the Linux branch and maintained alignment with the LTS kernel since the start, and even the Linux Foundation calls Android a distro.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Costco Confirms It's Removed Xbox Consoles, Calling It A "Business Decision"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Not visually, but under the hood it is Windows. Windows 2000 in the case of the Xbox and Xbox 360, Windows 8 (and later Windows 10) in the case of the Xbox One, One X & S, and Series X & S. Kernels, drivers, APIs, etc. are all shared with the Windows codebase.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Costco Confirms It's Removed Xbox Consoles, Calling It A "Business Decision"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

I think it’s smart of them to keep all gaming products under the XBOX brand.

I don’t have any issues with that, I just think that fragmenting your brand across so many different SKUs makes it tough if you’re a retailer.

I suspect the next XBOX (if there is one at all) will be just like the Steam Deck, just a PC in a suit, booting into the XBOX PC app, with an optional Windows desktop.

That’s more or less what the Xbox already is, just without the Windows desktop. In fact, that’s pretty much what the original pitch for the first Xbox was. Obviously they don’t bother with the desktop environment or the print spooler or whatever, but “PC in a suit” is basically the way they do everything. And the Switch is Nintendo’s “Android tablet in a suit.” I think PlayStation is still on a bespoke kernel, but I’m not sure.

The game subscription is XBOX GamePass and the cloud service is Xbox Cloud. Simple enough.

Is it simple, though? You boot up your Xbox (app) to connect to Xbox (Cloud) and play a game on Xbox (GamePass) with your friends on Xbox (Live)? That’s simple?

If they were all bundled, that would be one thing. But you have to buy all of those elements individually, and there are probably different tiers of each, and it might be doable, but I guarantee you that I’d prefer not to think through it all.

I know it may be confusing but it’s a transition that’s long overdue. The console market as a whole is losing market share to PCs, so why not just make a PC that works like a console?

That would be pretty nice, and since Valve has already done the market research on that, it seems like an easy win for Microsoft. But then again, that is what they’ve nominally been doing this whole time, so who knows if it’s ever going to happen.

And anyone can optionally buy their own hardware and use that as an XBOX.

I doubt they’ll ever truly give users that freedom. OEMs (like ROG) sure, but I kinda doubt they’re going to let people just put the Xbox app on whatever hardware they bought.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Costco Confirms It's Removed Xbox Consoles, Calling It A "Business Decision"⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
This makes sense. Xbox is a very fragmented brand. What is “Xbox?” They just made this big deal about how it’s a tablet, or it’s a PC, or it’s a Steam Deck competitor, or it’s a game store with a subscription library, or it’s a game streaming platform. And that’s before you even get to the fact that there are currently two separate consoles with two different feature sets. If you want to carry “Xbox” as a brick and mortar retailer, you’re either going to have to devote a lot of floor space to it, or you’re going to have to be okay with the fact that a lot of people are going to come to your store wanting the ROG Ally but you only have the Series S.

Contrast that with the Switch 2. Aside from clearing out backstock, Nintendo has one active platform. Every game currently in print runs on it. If you want to carry Nintendo stuff, you can fit a pretty substantial display (especially in Costco’s terms) on a single pallet.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Xbox Is Investing In AI For Their Next Gen Console⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Theoretically, I think AI used to generate content within parameters would be pretty interesting; like procedural generation, but more so. NPCs could have more realistic, fully-voiced conversations with you and with one another that reflect the state of the world and actions you performed; landscapes and creatures could be more realistic and fantastical; side quests could be generated within some parameters to fit your play style or your character’s build; faraway locations that aren’t a part of the main storyline could be generated as you explore them rather than built by the developer. It could be used to make a world feel more expansive, but also more personalized, while simultaneously freeing up developers from the pain of crunch.

In reality, I don’t think that modern LLMs or diffusion models are well-suited to such a thing, and AAA companies are more likely to use it for more efficient microtransaction monetization and cutting development jobs anyway.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Substack’s “Nazi problem” won’t go away after push notification apology⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Substack is an email newsletter platform that supports paid subscriptions. They were exposed a few years ago as allowing Nazis to host their newsletters and make money on their platform; when this became public, the people in charge at Substack said they would not stop allowing Nazis to use the platform, including to be paid for making Nazi content.

This week, they sent out push notifications that actively recommended Nazi content to users.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Minecraft Creator Says That If Buying a Game Is Not a Purchase, Then Pirating It Is Not Theft⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Well, what do you know, even a racist clock is white twice a day.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The BBC deepfaked Agatha Christie to teach a writing course⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
Deepfakes predate the current AI craze, if I recall the timelines correctly.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The BBC deepfaked Agatha Christie to teach a writing course⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
The editor of The Verge tends to be fairly neutral-to-negative about AI, at least on his podcast.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google searches for deleting Facebook, Instagram explode after Meta ends fact-checking⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:
That was when the spell broke for me, too. Both times, actually. I got off of it in 2018 or so, and it took about 30 days. Then I had a relapse, and just cut it off on election day. I stopped trying to return to it in early December.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unity cancels the stupid Runtime Fee⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:
John Riccitello should find it very hard to get a job as an executive after a blunder that massive, but alas he’s doing just fine.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unity cancels the stupid Runtime Fee⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

it’ll take many, many years for them to even be on the radar for most developers now.

Probably longer than the company has, to be honest. The engine’s best bet is to get purchased by another company that partially open-sources it or something.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Minecraft's multiplayer Realms servers have been down since its last patch over three days ago⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:
I think it might be even more mundane than that—I think their bus factor is too low, and somebody important is on vacation. Which explains why they couldn’t tell that it wasn’t actually fixed after day 2 of this (they said it was all back to normal but then it went down only a few hours later) and why their more recent communications have been “70% of users should be able to connect again” (with no indication that anyone is able to connect again). Which just leaves “DK” to try and manage the PR—but they can’t just be like, “sorry y’all, Jeff will be back on Monday,” so they just have to keep stringing us along with PRatitudes and hoping it all starts working again on its own.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Minecraft's multiplayer Realms servers have been down since its last patch over three days ago⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:
It’s absolutely wild. I think any competent devops engineer could’ve rebuilt the entire environment from scratch by this point, or at least given a halfway decent ETA.

And actually, the servers were up briefly (for some people) three days ago, but before that they were down for another two days. Realms has been down, all told, for over five days now, and there’s been no communication about remuneration or even the slightest hint of an apology.

I haven’t seen devops incompetence this legendary since the Sim City 5 launch, eleven years ago.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do guys that tip cam models hundreds of dollars week after week think that model actually likes them?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

yeah I see your point and the fact that the research supports your conclusion but I don’t like it so I’m going to ignore reality

Ok buddy. If you’re not willing to have this discussion in good faith then neither am I.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do guys that tip cam models hundreds of dollars week after week think that model actually likes them?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:
So you think the parents of younger employees should subsidize Walmart’s business?

Even if you say that’s fine, there’s a deeper problem.

Let’s look at the most recent census: as of 2022, there are about 20 million people in the US between the ages of 15 and 19. Now that particular range is a little young, but that’s the breakdown the census gives us; and the cohorts on either side are about the same, so we can probably assume pretty safely that there are also about 20 million people in the US between the ages of 16 and 20 as well.

Since the end of the pandemic, about 20 million people in the US are getting paid below the almost-living wage of $15/hr. Cool, problem solved then, right?

Except no. The demographics are all over the place. First of all, not everyone between the ages of 16 and 20 are employed full time; in fact, almost 60% of them are not. Which means that, of those 20 million people making below $15/hr, only about 8 million are kids under the age of 20 who could reasonably expect to be able to live with their parents. Which means that 12 million of the people who are getting paid less than poverty wages for full time work are fully adults. That’s five percent of the US population.

“Ok so get roommates” you say. But the housing stock isn’t set up for that; in order to pay appreciably less in rent, you have to cram more than one person into a space originally only meant for one; often this is not allowed by the property. Plus, when you’re talking about people over the age of 20 (particularly once you approach 25), you’re increasingly talking about people with children; particularly in the demographic that works at a low-wage hourly job. In most cases, including roommates in that scenario would be inconvenient at best; and prohibited or even unsafe at worst.

“No one could work at a convenience store and support a family alone” you say—but again your assertion doesn’t line up with reality. According to a BLS report from 1975, “basic rates for grocery store employees averaged $5.19 on July 1, 1975”—that’s $29.46 in today’s dollars, and about 75% of the median household income across the country. Couple that with the fact that housing prices adjusted for inflation have more than doubled since the 1980s while wages have stagnated (median household income in 1970 was a little over half of the median home price; today it’s less than a fifth), and you see that, yes, a head-of-household could indeed have supported a family on a grocery store worker’s income. It wouldn’t have been easy, they wouldn’t have lived in luxury, but they would’ve been safely lower-middle class.

It’s also important to realize that when it was originally proposed, the minimum wage was intended to be a living wage. Roosevelt said, “It seems to me to be equally plain that no business which depends for existence on paying less than living wages to its workers has any right to continue in this country. By ‘business’ I mean the whole of commerce as well as the whole of industry; by workers I mean all workers, the white-collar class as well as the men in overalls; and by living wages, I mean more than a bare subsistence level—I mean the wages of decent living.”

(Sources are CPI, BLS, and the Census Bureau.)
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Do guys that tip cam models hundreds of dollars week after week think that model actually likes them?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:
You’re not at all part of the problem. The problem is entirely concentrated in the employers’ unwillingness to pay workers a living wage. It’s not like they’d start if you stopped tipping; they’d be legally required to backfill some of the shortfall, but not enough that the person could actually survive.

Rest assured. You are not a part of the problem.