IDK Iwas using NewPipexSponsorBlock, now Tubular since before Grayjay existed.

Strangely, that generally is how my Linux boxes have been - way less IT guy than when we had WinXP or Win7. You have to use a stable distro however - which TBH is the problem with Win10 and 11 for a lot of people - finding the “stable” version isn’t available to home users or is complicated - so you have new OS deployments every 6 months. Windows Updates are now forced and still often have problems or bugs.

That all said, I think we’ve just got to get used to unstable / rolling release OSs cause “everyone” is doing it. Even Alma is not as stable as previous enterprise linux rebuilds due to Red Hat not releasing point release security updates anymore.

First I don’t see an issue with a “store brand” if it does what you need.

Secondly - who is the name brand for say a power strip or a USB hub or USB C charger or cables? Or do you buy monster audio cables? SD card reader? Microfiber cloth? What about regular bath towels?

Somewhat more controversial - what about things that are inherently disposable like latex gloves or laundry detergent?

I went from all free and clear from Sam’s club which took up space and got me like 120 packets for 20 dollars to these detergent sheets which are much smaller and got 300 for 7 dollars. You use the same number of sheets as you would packets. The clothes come out the same.

But yes, try searching for something like an electric lighter for candles on both sites and tell me the “quality non knock off” on Amazon. 90 percent are on temu also for less.

I mean, most people don’t think ease of changing a light bulb (that they never have to do) is a deal breaker for a car. I haven’t had to change a headlight since they went to LEDs. My last car that was 7 years of owning it.

I think we should insist on making things repairable, but should focus on the things that come up frequently.

Because everything is a tradeoff, things like how often it is likely to need repair, how much the car costs, functionality of the car day to day, looks, gas mileage, heck a lot of stuff will come before a once a decade thing that you’re either going to pay a shop to do or trade before it’s an issue.

The other thing is, disk space and internet speeds just keep getting cheaper so… Why change just for disk space?

When the alternative was to pay more for the exact same things on Amazon, it’s logical to pay less. Every app tracks you so idk…

If you buy your phone unlocked, you can get Red Pocket which is extremely cheap for service compared to most post paid plans. You can get ~5gb data and unlimited everything else for 20 a month on AT&T. And then if you go to Europe you can just buy a cheap Sim while there and pop it in.

If you’re not picky about the phone, I have gotten sub 300 USD phones for the last 2, first lasted 4 years and I’m about 6 months into the second. Honestly there’s not much I feel like I’m missing, except spending way more money.

The apps are super slow though. Like I don’t need a 5 second animation of bouncing fries every time I do anything. Dunkin is another offender.

I have always felt that kids will get out of education what they put in/their interest in actually learning. I also think there is some benefits to learning how to manage technology de jure as it’s likely to come up when they’re out of high school too.

I kind of disagree with some of the points about learning more just talking to an AI, both because I tend to get wrong answers or important missed context in my AI testing, but also because I think I needed to learn some stuff I wasn’t interested in personally.

Today I don’t really have much opportunity to interact with classes beyond the great courses and linked in learning, and unfortunately much of the newer content is more like a YouTube curated Playlist than a traditional course. They are mostly superficial overviews more intended for entertainment than learning details.

YouTube on the other hand is all over the map and you have to know what to search for.

I think some value of the experiment is the part where it got the kids to review their notification settings to suppress things they weren’t interested in. Personally I think having phones in airplane mode / off during class is probably the best plan. Do the notifications during study hall, lunch, bus ride, and other free time.

My sister did that but only netted 30k more not 3x. Still well worth it imo. Of course it’s kinda amazing that more companies aren’t taking this “cheat code” to get cream of the crop “minor league” non major center talent for the discount of amazing wages out in the hinterlands that are 40k or more less than big city prices.

I think I’ve mostly moved to Kagi, because someone needs to be incentiviced to actually focus on search, not ads. That said it’s also good bang for buck in annual ultimate because you get access to multiple AI models.

That said, I so far continue to be mostly underwhelmed by AI except for basic starting points on scripts or for games like D&D.

I think I’ve mostly moved to Kagi, because someone needs to be incentiviced to actually focus on search, not ads. That said it’s also good bang for buck in annual ultimate because you get access to multiple AI models.

That said, I so far continue to be mostly underwhelmed by AI except for basic starting points on scripts or for games like D&D.

Yea, I just wish more niche communities would come to Lemmy, but most of the interesting ones are actively not tech savvy en mass, and so are lucky to figure out reddit I guess. Or Discord maybe, which sucks as a reddit replacement.

There are some people who really love their teslas. They don’t have any models that fit what I want so I ignore them.

I mean, as a normal person, I can’t earn Yuan in China and then convert to USD when I leave(at least this was the case for a long time), but the reverse isn’t true. If you can’t convert into and back out of a currency, I question how much it has to do with the global economy. A government currency swap is like swapping commodities, it isn’t doing anything for other countries.

I’m just not as convinced that China is as essential going forward as they were for the last 40 years or so. There’s a bunch of reasons for that. But as to other countries wanting to do business with them there’s a lot political going on too.

• China isn’t cheap labor comparatively anymore. A lot of low skill has moved to India, Vietnam, etc.
• We saw several movements of manufacturing, I see no reason it can’t move out of China just like it did elsewhere chasing either cheaper labor or better supply chains or more amenable political systems.
• China is having all sorts of economic woes in their property and bank crisis.
• China is going to go through a demographic contraction like Japan did starting in the 90s. It’s going to be on a larger scale.
• China isn’t a better partner than the west for developing nations. It’s proven it also just exploits for raw materials and the like.
• The US and Europe after COVID see manufacturing as the strategic issue it always was again, so they want to move stuff closer or back into their countries.

That said, I think a lot of people overestimate how much the US needs China. There are plenty of countries that would step up and be happy to get any set of consumer spending from western countries IMO. I think a lot of multinationals could make it the next “offshoring” cycle to move production from China to Mexico, India, etc etc. The other thing people forget is the west can and does play dirty too.

Like I said - all that would make it seem like just assuming China has a long term plan that is going to obviously beat the US is buying their propaganda IMO. The bigger issues though are the wildcards - will LLM AI actually provide a huge productivity boost again and let China manage their shrinking population in terms of economic output? Will it do it in a way that doesn’t also advantage using the enhanced automation within Western countries vs China’s previous inherent cheaper labor due to lots and lots of people?

Will Climate Change make it more and more difficult to have a global shipping network, making it even more expensive to have a world manufacturing hub in the future? Will the US Navy keep patrolling the seas to prevent piracy?

But back to being an essential part of the global economy. China doesn’t have a lot of settlement networks outside China that third parties are using. China doesn’t even let you take Yuan out of the country in most cases, even if someone wanted to take it in payment. So China isn’t a big Finance player outside their borders. COVID already showed that we can survive if China stops shipping stuff for a while, and I think that will get more robust and diversified as time goes on.

I kinda think that’s the plan. The US beat the Soviets that way, they probably think they can repeat that success. Population trends imply this might well work out for the US, but then again AI and Climate Change are real economic wild cards.

I am honestly not sure how much the US would care if China did less business with them, I think lots of people would actually be happy about that after the supply chain issues seen with COVID19.