Hard to know how to respond to that. This could be applied to virtually all technology changes that benefit users but also make money for someone else.
I assume you use a refrigerator and not a hole in the ground with ice. Have you been manipulated into giving money to Big Appliance?
To an absolute hardliner for appropriate technology, probably -- but simplicity isn't necessarily all-or-nothing, and (IMO) helping people pull off cool things with simpler tools isn't so bad.
Sure, but we're not talking about how to irrigate a field here, we're talking about being limited to 600x800 resolution when playing a game.
Some people were teenagers when that was the best you could get, so I'm guessing they see it as a "good old days" baseline that they can be principled about while indulging their nostalgia.
I can see that, but I think calling it just nostalgia-driven is judging a book by its cover.
First off, I want to say you can totally have a design ethos that covers game engines as much as irrigation systems -- Lee Felsenstein explicitly cited Ivan Illich's notion of 'convivial technology' as an influence on his modems. And Illich mostly talked about bicycles.
What I see in this project is a specific kind of appropriate technology -- 'toaster compatibility' -- mixed with conscious adoption of old methods and aesthetics to serve and signal that end. Which is cool, IMO.
HTMX uses similar techniques in trying to 'bring back' hypermedia and reduce dependencies, although I think they're after a different kind of simplicity. And of course, their Hypermedia Systems book makes similar nods to 90s-software aesthetics: https://hypermedia.systems/
I remember that was the best I can get and I was thrilled for it at the time. But then I was even more thrilled when Far Cry came out. Then Crysis ... why would I go back? Now you surely can argue, that nowdays the creativity got lower in favour of just more textures, but I like to have both.
Still, for a simple game limiting to 800x600 for performance and dev reasons - why not? But for me it means I see no use case for myself.
Somebody in rural Africa once told me, "one advantage you have living in a colder area is that you don't have to run your fridge for half the year!" I honestly didn't have any good answer for him as to why I do anyway.
That's actually kind of a "cool" idea. Likely reduce bills significantly with some kind of external HVAC connection, like your dryer, that pulls in cold air from a shaded overhang on the side away from solar input (or maybe underground).
This paper [1] has some discussion of testing differences between 16 C, 25 C, and 31 C ambient exhaust conditions. It's actually a fairly significant difference under testing. ~(0.35, 0.70, 1.05) kWh / 24h for (16 degC, 25 degC, 31 degC). Refrigerators in experiments were kept at ~ 5 degC (approx 600 tests).
That sounds either really difficult to make and maintain or an absolutely fridge industry destroying innovation. Given weather and stuff I fear the first. Sick idea tho. I know nothing of fridge engineering besides basics so could be way off.
Depending on what "colder" means, some days it'll still be too warm outside, or some days it will be freezing, or both. Neither is good for many foods or drinks you keep in your fridge.
Of course this might still be micro-optimization from a rural Africa point of view. And a part of the reason for running the fridge is still just convention and convenience.
in rural plqces often they will also use alternate ways to keep things good besides keeping things cold, because its cheaper or more easily available than using a fridge. drying things, salting (pickle? not sure of the term sry) etc. so they have less usecases for a fridge than us (lazy?) ppl whi just throw a fridge at any such problem of food preservation
I think I’ve gained more utility from being able to look at 3 spreadsheets at once than I’ve gained from my refrigerator(not if we’re counting the refrigeration of the supply chain for food and medicine then that wins out by a landslide)
Most people don't need 3 monitors. Pretty much everyone needs or has a fridge except for the least fortunate in society. He said most people, so u just fall in the much, much smaller minority with a bit of a questionable claim. Like, If u had to give up one, it'd be your fridge over monitors? Utility of the monitors runs out when u have to spend time getting fresh ingredients every other day.
A higher rendering resolution doesn't require higher resolution textures, and a higher source resolution for textures is what would require more storage and more RAM. (I think a higher rendering resolution does require more video RAM though.)
Of course after some point a higher rendering resolution starts giving diminishing returns if the resolution for the source material isn't also increased.
"This is like the conspiracy that women's pants don't have pockets to sell more purses."
Oh my god, this explains everything!
(btw. I recently learned, that the 9/11 inside job conspiracy evolved. Nowdays the standard theory is, that there were not even planes in the first place, just bombs and smoke)
I cant tell if you're on the side of conspiracy or not but you are correct that no plane crashed into building 7. Debris fell from 1 and 2 and set the building on fire, and since there was no fire suppression, it all went up pretty badly
Still less weird than what actually happened, that Bush Jr and Cheney went to the 'international community' and made obvious lies and then invaded two countries and killed and displaced millions upon millions of people and got away with it.
This debate about regulations is alway interesting. There are regulations which help protect the environment, like not being allowed to dump dangerous chemicals into your local stream or river.
Then there are regulations like these which are aimed at protecting the investment companies have made into infrastructure, effectively granting them a monopoly.
When people debate this, they often are thinking of the first class of protective regulations that are too onerous on companies, but I think most people like clean drinking water and rivers that no longer catch fire.
Whereas the second class of protection is really harmful to the consumer, and the powers-that-be have effectively been given a monopoly, and with that the money and power to protect their place in the market through continued influence on elections and other things to maintain these rent seeking businesses. We all hate the latter, but these companies have a lot of sway over politicians.
And from the article, the telecom industry receives billions in corporate welfare. A common argument against cutting it off is that telecom is capital intensive infrastructure, and if you cut their govbux you're blocking poor people from being able to communicate, we all deserve the right to communicate. But if that's your take, how can you also hate the protectionist laws? Telecom are given a monopoly because it doesn't make sense to, say, have N sets of telephone poles or power lines from each provider.
In some countries there is sometimes a cable & data connection owner and then a separate service provider. Laws regulate that the cable provider must let other companies provide connections to customers over their cables. The service provider pays the cable owner for a bulk of data that its customers use. The cable owner can't charge more than it charges itself when it acts as a service provider.
Not sure if that made sense! I pay company B but my fibre connection is provided by Company A. If I want to change to Company C I start a contract with C and the only thing I change is the cable modem.
Yes, the FCC has authority over fiber and cable. Skim the amended Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S. Code § 151 - Purposes of chapter; Federal Communications Commission created [1]):
> For the purpose of regulating interstate and foreign commerce in communication by wire and radio so as to make available, so far as possible, to all the people of the United States, without discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, or sex, a rapid, efficient, Nation-wide, and world-wide wire and radio communication service with adequate facilities at reasonable charges...
The FCC and FTC have a huge say on this. See the scandal with bulk-loaded, astroturfed public comments on broadband under the former Trump-appointed FCC chair.
The FCC determines what broadband is, and which companies get federal government subsidies for it. Federal subsidies > state subsidies.
I remember waiting the The Pitts renegade server to start at 5 PM. Great memories from that game, it's a shame Westwood was acquired right when it was released.
If the employer goes insolvent your 401k still has money. The whole point of 401k match is to prevent the "fuck you, got mine" when a company goes belly up
You require the company to fund a pension held at a custodian. If the company goes bust, your pension benefits are not impacted. Importantly, the retirement contributions are on top of your wages, versus being expected to find the cash for retirement exposure out of your own wages such that a 401k requires.
The pension funds are protected, but that does not mean anything close to your promised benefit is available for you to receive. It also creates a recurring liability that the company is on the hook for. This has historically worked out to cases where employees must either get a partial payout from available funds and tank the loss, or have the company fold and everyone gets laid off.
Pensions are a better deal until they catastrophically fail.
Employers match employee contributions to a 401(k), so it's not purely out of one's own wages. In this case, Boeing is matching up to 12% of the employee's income, which is very high.
Based on a preponderance of the evidence, how successful has that token match been in achieving successful outcomes? It is a match, if you don't contribute, there is no match. That is not how pension contributions and benefits work.
I guess it depends on what you define as a successful outcome. Recent changes to the law mean that employees are automatically enrolled at the matching rate and then their contribution automatically escalates by 1 percentage point per year up to a max of 15%. I suspect that that's pretty effective at getting people to contribute and get the match.
I'm skeptical. A quick search suggests that 41% of eligible employees don't contribute anything to a 401-K.
The main argument for defined benefit pensions is that while they never covered most employees, they did represent money that people got in retirement without doing anything and which "society" would otherwise have been on the hook for to some degree.
A younger me was not so bright. At the time I needed the few extra bucks and retirement seemed a lifetime away; I had all the time in the world to make up for it.
Years later I got a mortgage and learned what compound interest is.
I'd been underfunding for most of my career. You overestimate collective intelligence.
Well if it is an equal amount of money contributes, yes a 401k match would be strictly better than a pension because it gives control over to the employee of the money.
> It is a match, if you don't contribute, there is no match.
That choice should be left to the employee.
Why are you upset with how the employee is choosing to do with their retirement?
This is no silver bullet. If the pension custodian assumed retirees would live to 75 on average and they start living until 90 then it's going to have a problem.
Superannuation is very very similar to the 401k honestly. I remember when Australia brought in superannuation system and the biggest pushback was that it was blatantly a move to the us system (we had government pensions in the 90s). The tax treatment isn’t that different since 401k contributions aren’t taxed like income either. I work for an employer that pays 15% 401k contributions on top of salary. The main difference is that employers aren’t required to pay 401k contributions and I think that would be the better point to make.
