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180550557
comment
bybmajik
2026 @05:18PM
(#65911375)
Attached to: The Gap Between Premium and Budget TV Brands is Quickly Closing
I think the only Premium TVs left are the business TVs that give you meaningful mechanisms to not have intrusive "Smart" features.
Is there a meaningful difference between a Sony TV that harvests data and won't let you opt-out of "smart" features, and a Wal-mart TV that harvests data and won't let you opt-out of "smart" features?
I guess I am blessed to not be an audiophile and not have flawless supervision :)
FWIW, I have:
- a 20 yo 720p dumb 42" plasma
- a 20 yo 1080P dumb 50" plasma
- a 1yo 4k Samsung 65" TheFrame TV
That last one was a splurge I wanted because the "Art Mode" is just too beautiful, and at the time, Samsung really had the only coherent offering. (I guess there are now "off brand" ArtTV attempts from HiSense and others.. i have no experience with them.)
On the ArtTV, we watch youtube or DVDs or XBox on it a little of the time, and all that stuff looks fine to me on the 65" Samsung. But the TV is otherwise displaying pretty artwork almost all of the time, and whatever Samsung has done with the screen, dimming control, bezel, etc, really does work and really is lovely. And you don't need a service or an app to get the experience - just stick a USB full of public domain masterpieces into the TV.
Even so, the Samsung ecosystem is pretty annoying. I can have it show my images in ArtMode, but i cannot have the "real" experience you'd get with a subscription - with Art XML metadata and stuff (artist, date, etc). We don't always remember what a piece is or who painted it when it comes up..
Anyway, AFAIK, the only way to get TVs that aren't enshittified spyware is a business SKU, right?
180550039
comment
bybmajik
2026 @03:50PM
(#65911193)
Attached to: SteamOS Continues Its Slow Spread Across the PC Gaming Landscape
In my house, we use Steam to play "windows-only" games on:
- Devuan with XFCE
- Devuan with Cinnamon
- Arch with hyprland
- bone stock Ubuntu 24
- ubuntu 25 laptop w/ second GPU
From my POV, there's not much need to port games to Linux. With the heroic efforts of Valve, most Windows games now just work. Win32, DX, D3D, and whatever else windows game devs have been using seems to have become the defacto reference gaming API on Linux.
Steam makes it work on every linux distro we've tried.
In writing this, it occurs to me: The F/OSS ecosystem does a very good job of re-implementing someone else's API/products (WINE, Proton, LibreOffice, etc)
The F/OSS ecosystem does a comparatively poor job at independently developing its own technology and then standardizing/universalizing those choices. E.g. the transition from X11 to Wayland; the systemd "situation(s)", desktop environments... gui greeters, audio muxers...
I think Valve has done the right thing. They made existing games work on Steam; they made Steam work on most linux distros.
Making everyone use a reference linux platform seems to be a total non-starter.
We already have a reference gaming platform: Windows 7 thru 10. And what we learned in 2025 is that Steam on nearly _any_ Linux often implements that windows reference gaming platform better than Windows 11 does.
172969352
comment
bycblood
2024 @04:39PM
(#64211368)
Attached to: Biden To Offer $1.5 Billion Loan To Restart Michigan Nuclear Power Plant
Both these things can be true. The investors are off the hook if a major crisis ensues, but they pay for insurance to cover up to the cap established by price-anderson
My objection to nuclear is that I don't want to bear the liability as a taxpayer. That and it is expensive and a terrorist target. I don't see the upside,
172966078
comment
bycblood
2024 @10:20AM
(#64210550)
Attached to: Biden To Offer $1.5 Billion Loan To Restart Michigan Nuclear Power Plant
not exactly numbers but it speaks to the issue. I for one, as a taxpayer, do not want to be on the hook for anymore foolish nuclear adventures.
https://thebulletin.org/2023/0...
172965892
comment
bycblood
2024 @09:49AM
(#64210496)
Attached to: Biden To Offer $1.5 Billion Loan To Restart Michigan Nuclear Power Plant
There is nothing illogical about opposing nuclear power. Quite the contrary. It is not logical to pay more for something that involves the possibility of catastrophic failure. Plenty of people are happy to put others at risk in the service of their pursuit of profits. That is called corruption. The insurance industry does not make ideological decisions. They base their calculations on data. The possibility of a multi BILLION dollar accident is enough of a reason to seek the many practical alternatives. It is not surprising that most republicans and some Democrats support it. They all supported slavery at one point too. That does not mean these things are correct.
So why would you want to pay more for your energy and put your whole community at risk? That is the question. It does not seem like a very good deal to me. Nuclear power is low carbon, but it is not renewable. The total cost of ownership clearly favors renewables. Every building can be a net energy producer. The power company becomes a power broker where they buy and sell power depending on local conditions. We already have a program where the grid can rent a portion of your home battery so they can use them to shave peaks instead of firing up the gas plants. Alphabet has a plant that can ramp its geothermal power up and down to complement solar, eliminating the need for peaker plants.
It is hard to put a dollar value on resilience, but the distributed model of solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal along with home batteries is much more resilient. During a storm or natural disaster, there is no single point of failure. A typical electric car could power the average home for days, Since cars spend 90% of the time parked on average, the vast pool of storage available through bidirectional charging will provide us with plenty of storage to eliminate the peaks in power demand. A study showed that only 5 to 10% of electric car owners would need to participate to eliminate all peaker plants. Given the financial incentives, it is not hard to imagine much higher participation. 50% participation could run the grid for days.
Another myth that needs to dispelled is the idea that renewable power is weak and fragile, that we would need to curtail our energy rich lifestyle. We already have periods of time in many places where the power regularly rates go negative in the middle of the day because of excess power. We are adding renewable power at a tremendous rate. Power in the future will be cheap and plentiful. My house already powers itself for most of the year. (power, hot water, central air) It was a big investment, but in another couple of years, it will have paid for itself in full, so after that it is just maintenance. We have looked at a couple battery proposals, but still holding off as prices fall. With the batteries and a few more panels, we will be self sustaining.
Advocating for nuclear power will not age well. The difference in cost will only increase. So they want to take a nuclear plant that has already been built and stand it up? I oppose it, but the people who already paid taxes to fund its construction might feel differently. I get that. But it is not a trend, or a wholesale change of policy.
Have a nice day
172961298
comment
bycblood
024 @08:39PM
(#64209852)
Attached to: Biden To Offer $1.5 Billion Loan To Restart Michigan Nuclear Power Plant
"If solar power solved all of our problems then no elected Democrat would agree to fund a nuclear power plant."
You put a lot of faith in government and you make it seem like it is some monolithic entity that acts in logical ways. Truth is the government of the people, by the people is a hot mess. Nothing shocking there. When it comes to energy, the MAJORITY of non petroleum investments have been in wind and solar. The fact that a couple of nuclear projects have been revived is interesting, but still the MAJORITY of the funding is going toward solar wind and storage. We still spend too much on fossil fuels, but the change is coming.
There is more than enough solar wind and geothermal to power our future of abundance. There are some very persuasive propagandist that convince people this is not true, but anyone who actually looks at the numbers will see the truth. I live in a fairly northern latitude and yet the 38 panels that don't even cover the whole roof provide everything we need for most of the year. In this country All we need to cover is the parking lot and warehouses and we would be good. It is less than 1% of the area. Solar power is the cheapest form of power and the price is still dropping. You don't need any security. no one is going to make dirty bombs from the solar panels. Yes the sources are intermittent, but that is a much easier problem to solve than dealing with toxic radioactive time bombs that need to be secured and fussed over a lot.
Nuclear is good to study. It might make sense for spacecraft or above the arctic circle, but it make zero sense anywhere near population centers.
172958974
comment
bycblood
024 @03:30PM
(#64209126)
Attached to: Biden To Offer $1.5 Billion Loan To Restart Michigan Nuclear Power Plant
You are going cite what a political party does as proof of some sort of scientific consensus? That's rich. The democrats under Biden also transformed the country into the worlds biggest oil producer.
Dams don't have specific waiver of liability like nuclear plants do. Nuclear power is a product of war and is only around to justify massive military spending.
Nuclear power is VERY EXPENSIVE. It alway will be. the fuel is expensive to produce and transport and store. It demands that a government entity stand up a massive security operation because of the danger of terrorism. It need to be centrally produced and distributed. It presents a danger in the form of radioactive waste long after it has been useful.
Solar and wind will rule the day and sooner than everyone imagines. We already have excess power at peak times and people are already figuring out business models of what to do with it. Soon enough we will have more renewable power than we know what to do with in spite of the luddites.
172955404
comment
bycblood
024 @10:32AM
(#64208342)
Attached to: Biden To Offer $1.5 Billion Loan To Restart Michigan Nuclear Power Plant
I will be in total support of the first nuclear plant that has an insurance policy. Unfortunately it has NEVER HAPPENED. We the taxpayers are alway on the hook. So it is classic crony corruption. Private profits - public risk. Great for the shareholders / sucks for the rest of us.
We already have a great fusion plant at a safe distance, it is called "the sun".
94250759
comment
byfnj
7 @09:20AM
(#55314621)
Attached to: Rice University Adds Asphalt To Speed Lithium Metal Battery Charging By 20 Times
Wake up, chump. Rapid charging is highly dangerous. Batteries which take a long time to charge are much safer. Any time you speed up charging, you get more heating and pressure buildup. Sorry, but TANSTAAFL.
94238805
comment
byfnj
17 @10:55PM
(#55312983)
Attached to: Rice University Adds Asphalt To Speed Lithium Metal Battery Charging By 20 Times
Oh boy! An even better BOMB!
94150477
comment
byfnj
017 @11:36AM
(#55283869)
Attached to: Hawaii Approves Telescope On Volcano Sacred To Indigenous People
âoe...so you islanders can kick rocks.â
Sheesh. The line noise is really bad on your 1970 110 baud acoustic modem!
94150435
comment
byfnj
017 @11:32AM
(#55283853)
Attached to: Hawaii Approves Telescope On Volcano Sacred To Indigenous People
Chili has the other premier astronomy site in the world.
LOL. That's CHILE, chump.
93701787
comment
byfnj
017 @05:18AM
(#55193897)
Attached to: Samsung Unveils New Electric Car Batteries For Up To 430 Miles of Range
A gas or diesel car's efficiency (and thus range) will have generally dropped well more than that by year 5.
Utter idiotic bullshit. My Golf TDI has now been on the road for 17 years, and gets exactly the same fuel mileage that it got brand new: about 45 mpg real-world. You're living in the 1930s or 1940s if you think annual tune-ups are a thing.
93685929
comment
byfnj
2017 @01:56PM
(#55190011)
Attached to: Java EE Is Moving To the Eclipse Foundation
Oh for Christ sake. It's Java. Period. The same goddam language syntax as any other "edition" of Java. Why do you have to try to make it sound grand? Linux is written in C, not "Super OS Developer's Edition C". So it includes a whole lot of functions. So what.
93685873
comment
byfnj
2017 @01:52PM
(#55189975)
Attached to: Java EE Is Moving To the Eclipse Foundation
You didn't answer the question. The question is, why can't the "platform" mumo jumbo just be furnished as add-on libraries?
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