With our level of technology I don't see why we couldn't have that kind of decision directly put into the hands of individuals rather than leave it to "representatives" or worse yet corporations that aren't even required to ask. Maybe I'm not thinking through the difficulties well enough, be what we have with elected representatives campaigning on one set of ideals and then voting the complete opposite way is unacceptable. At least, that should be grounds for imprisonment. Maybe that would be sufficient to get the representative voting system working well enough.

> With our level of technology I don't see why we couldn't have that kind of decision directly put into the hands of individuals rather than leave it to "representatives" or worse yet corporations that aren't even required to ask.

Reading the contents of proposed bills is a herculean task, to the extent that even our elected representatives dedicated to the task don't do so a significant fraction of the time. There's perhaps a good argument that's mostly because representatives (particularly in the House) spend too much time fundraising, but imagine the outcome when the burden is placed on people who have (sometimes several) completely independent, full-time jobs.

I would also argue that there's value in debating bills before passing them, but this opportunity for debate would all but disappear in a direct democracy, both because it's an additional burden on top of the time needed to read the bills and because it's a logistical nightmare to set up a proper debate venue that can properly accommodate everyone.

On top of that, you have to deal with the fact that the majority of US adults' literacy levels are below 6th grade, making them less likely to understand legislation they read or be able to engage in meaningful debate about it.

I think I'd want to fix our electoral system to make it more representative of the public (i.e. use something better than winner-take-all, first-past-the-post) before I'd even want to try tackling the monumental problems that we'd face in trying to enable a direct democracy for anything beyond the local city/municipality level.

> Maybe I'm not thinking through the difficulties well enough, be what we have with elected representatives campaigning on one set of ideals and then voting the complete opposite way is unacceptable. At least, that should be grounds for imprisonment.

I'm with you somewhat in spirit, but I think the devil's in the details.

A particular concern I'd have with doing this is that it's fairly common for representatives to attach riders to bills that have little to nothing to do with the original text. As such, there may be times when my representative may be forced to vote against a bill, the core of which is something they campaigned on, because one or more riders are completely unacceptable.

I do think there's probably value in providing a mechanism to recall representatives and senators, not the least of which is because we've seen in recent history several such politicians do full 180s and even change political parties upon election.

I don't think we want to open the pandora's box of incarcerating representatives based upon their voting history, though.

Don't forget Russia and USA!

The alternative could be to self host.

https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/wiki/Production-St...

Or maybe consider not following the herd, and use a much simpler but sufficient system that can be self hosted, if available.

Wonder if you could indicate why you're waiting for a Switch 2 vs say a Steam Deck? Or do you also have a deck? I ask because I'm planning to gift one or the other. The recipient already has a Switch 1, so I thought it would be pretty lame to give a Switch 2 rather than "upgrading" to a deck. In my mind, being able to play any steam game, on a device with highly praised controls, is the better upgrade, not the Switch 2.

I bought a switch 2 over a steam deck. I have over a thousand steam games. A few reasons:

Nintendo makes fun games that I want to play. I want to play the new Metroid, the new Pokémon games, Kirby DLC, etc. Maybe it's nostalgia, but I grew up with the original Metroid, and that series sticks with me.

The switch 1 gets a ton of use in my house. Switch 1 games perform so much better on the 2.

The pro controller for the switch 2 is incredible.

Switch 2 is cheaper, significantly cheaper if you play docked. Our family uses it to play docked a lot.

The switch 2 library is large enough that you can play a lot of the same titles you can on the deck. Or at least enough games you'll never run out of fun options. You don't need to have the biggest library to be fun.

I have a powerful PC in my house for when I want to play shooters and 4x games. The switch 2 library gets way more exercise.

All good points, thanks for the input.

If someone has a switch, gifting a steam deck isn't an upgrade necessarily. You're giving them a platform that can't play most of the games they probably love. Not because of specs of course. A switch 2 is actually an upgrade. Almost all of their current games will run better and they'll be able to play more demanding switch 2 only games as they continue to trickle out.

I should have mentioned current game play is skewed more toward steam on pc than switch. I'm definitely not getting the impression that the switch games are loved.

I have a Switch 1 and would love to get a Steam Deck in the near future. If there is ever a new mainline Mario 3D game I might consider getting the Switch 2 but for now there is no reason for me to get it. I rather want to play my Indie games Steam collection but on the couch.

I have both, and if they already have a good steam library I’d definitely go with the steam deck for them. They’ll immediately have a bunch of games to play on it (and synced game progress).

Switch is my favorite cuz we like to play party games with friends like Mario kart. We have thought a lot about the Steam Deck though cuz we have steam games. I would prefer a steam deck over switch 2 if I had to pick one right now cuz the switch is great still.

Nintendo games are only on the switch. If that's what you want to play, then the Steam deck is a non-starter.

(But if you like the games on Steam, then the Steam deck makes a lot of sense.)

It's hard to imagine quickly centering onto a headshot pixel (or group of maybe 12 pixels) with a trackpad. Especially if the target is moving.

I'd like to see a video of someone demonstrating real in-game use of these trackpads on different types of games. None of the reviews I've seen so far go into any detail on it.

EDIT: I found the trackpad usage detail I was looking for. But it's not using the new controller, just a steam deck. Looks a lot more accurate than I imagined. https://youtu.be/0BQEg3puMsc

> It's hard to imagine quickly centering onto a headshot pixel (or group of maybe 12 pixels) with a trackpad

These days it's hard to imagine me doing it with a mouse even :) The gyro takes some getting used to but it can indeed be really precise

I can play FPS games decently on controller using the Original Steam Controller's pads.

That'd be great for the corporations. Take the AI to court, not us. The AI the gets punished (whatever that means...let's say banned) and the corporation continues without accountability. They could then create another AI and do the same thing all over again.

Or maybe the accountability flows upward from the AI to the corp that created it? Sounds nice, but we know that accountability doesn't work that way in practice.

I think I'd rather have the corporation primarily accountable in the first place rather than have the AI take the bulk of the blame and then hope the consequences fall into place appropriately.

Independence is great, but I'm curious about features. Will Ladybird have any built-in ad blocking like Brave? Useful tab management? Dark mode?

I think plugins is the better solution, then you can't pay the browser to get your ads through.

They block all ads in current builds. Probably mostly more performance and to create more consistency when testing a website (not having to worry about errors from lots of low quality JavaScript in the ads).

I think they have dark mode already.

Oh I think there's a big difference. One is clever, manipulative, meant to control or coerce, possibly to facilitate long term strategic goals. The other could be a simple immediate denial of fact to avoid blame. I think the personality and capabilities of the person in the former case is more concerning.

There's nothing clever about being asked "are you going to do X?" and replying "I would only do X under extreme circumstances" when you know it's not true. It's just lying. You know if you tell the truth it will sway the other person's opinion of you right now, whereas if you tell a lie it will only eventually sway that person's opinion, if at all. Telling such a lie requires the exact same reasoning as denying responsibility for something you know you did. Both cases just require the motivation to delay an undesirable outcome.

Emitting more greenhouse gas is only a win if your goal is to hasten and worsen the climate catastrophe.

Carbon intensity is not the relevant metric.

And there's no evidence or historic precedent backing your idea that it would go down anyway.