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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: September 27th, 2023

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  • There’s too much money in renewables for rich people. The tariffs may or may not happen, but the renewable switch is a runaway train, and almost entirely in the country.

    On the electricity futures market, wind producers regularly sell their power for negative prices (paying transmission companies to take their power) because it’s so cheap for them to make, with such negligible overhead; since the government subsidies are based on the mWh they produce, they can sell it at a loss and still make money. But even if those subsidies go away, renewables can still easily undercut every other producer on the grid.

    That’s just one example. The same tipping point is approaching fast all over just about every industry. Obama and Biden got the renewable energy industry over the hump of research and infrastructure outlay, so now Tr*mp gets to take the credit for their work while it all falls into place; and because the rich people are benefiting from it financially, they’re going to protect the industry.





  • frankly I think that focusing on helping the bottom end of the economic ladder is more productive than just talking about how it should be illegal to have more than a given amount of wealth.

    Agreed. Generally easier to sell to the public, too.

    That said, there’s also a bunch of stuff that wealth hoarding and extreme capitalism will still cause problems with, which isn’t directly tied to people living in extreme poverty. Climate change is just one example. Infrastructure is another. There are collective challenges that we can’t meet because of wealth disparity.

    Maybe we just need to assign billionaires goals to achieve. “Hey, Elno, reduce world hunger sustainably over the next four years by 15% or we take all your money. Jeffy boy, you’re on housing; get us to zero homelessness before 2030, or we’re nationalizing Amazon. Oil execs, you get to tackle greenhouse gas emissions (I mean, you made the problem, you get to solve it). We’re replacing half of the gas stations in the US with fast charging stations, and we’ll sell off 1,000 a year to private owners; get us to net zero emissions and you get to have whichever of them the Federal Government still owns by that point. Whichever one of you chuckleheads gets done first gets all the other guys’ beach houses. And go!”




  • When Windows 7 reached EOL in 2012, ChromeOS wasn’t even a year old, MacOS was too expensive, SteamOS wasn’t close on the horizon, tablets weren’t really usable, smartphones were severely underpowered, and most applications didn’t have web-based versions or replacements.

    This time around, none of those things are true, and Windows 11 lost market share last month (which is frankly unprecedented).

    Plus, even with that dearth of options, people griped and complained and refused for so long that Microsoft made a big marketing deal out of Windows 8.1. And even after that, they offered Windows 7 users free Windows 10 licenses to get them to upgrade.

    Linux probably won’t get the crown (though I’d say a bump as high as 1-2% isn’t out of the question). It’ll probably be ChromeOS, if anything, simply because of the commanding lead Google has held for the past decade or so in K12. But in any case, if Microsoft doesn’t shift their strategy, they’re unlikely to win this one; there are a lot of options.


  • That’s not completely accurate. Remember, a lot of people want a full keyboard for typing; and an iPad with a keyboard is way more expensive than a mid-range Chromebook. Plus, a whole generation of students are growing up and entering the workforce having used nothing but ChromeOS for their entire middle school and high school careers; for them, a Chromebook feels very familiar.

    Microsoft is VERY close to losing every install advantage they have. Gaming, corporate, devops, and government are the only use cases their leads are still in any way commanding in; and they’re fiddling while Valve puts the finishing touches on Steam OS, they’re about to lose their tenth consecutive K12 graduating class who will go into the workforce more familiar with ChromeOS than Windows, devops is increasingly moving toward web portals, and government…well, let’s face it, that’s not a particularly lucrative single game to win.

    Google has already eaten Microsoft’s lunch and dinner. And now they’re about to split Windows’ breakfast with Valve. Unless they make some major changes, and quick, Microsoft is going to go into the 2030s less relevant than they’ve been in decades.