On most of the fediverse, I find discussions really great with no idiots/trolls... apart from technology. Here it seems some get triggered by any tech from outside the US.

This announcement would be seen as a massive breakthrough anywhere else. China has its problems, I'm fully aware of the red flags and government influence. But only a fool would question their technological advances at this point. They are moving ahead at lightning speed, especially in energy and battery tech.

Even on the consumer side, Huawei invested more in R&D last year than Samsung or Intel. Huawei consumer division could have been expected to be dead by now with the chip ban, yet survived and are thriving again. Not because the Chinese were forced to by their phones, Apple still sell in China, but because they innovated like hell. A Chinese buyer has the option today of buying a tri-folding tablet phone with super fast charging or an American designed device with 3 year old tech (chip aside). Americans don't have that choice.

Its also the reason why traditional European car brands are tanking in China. VW can no longer expect to sell on prestige alone. Here in Britain, our consumer tech offering is already almost non existent. We no longer have a true British owned car company. Our famous Mini was sold to the Germans. Jaguar/Range Rover to the Indians. MG to the Chinese. Its depressing. But I do feel fortunate to at least have choice (we can buy a BYD or Xiaomi here) and that I'm not subject to only American tech reporting. BYD will later this year have 7 different car models on sale in Britain vs 6 (soon to be 5) from Ford. This is a paradigm shift, considering for almost the last 20 years Ford had at least 2 cars in the top 5 best sellers in the UK.

Apologies for going off on one. But i'd highly recommend US readers check out Chinese tech sites from time to time (eg carnewschina/huawei central etc) rather than just relying on the verge. Sure not all Chinese tech will be successful, sure some designs may be clones, but the shear scale of investment from China will make them unstoppable. I believe the changing of the guard happened a while ago, where about to see it play out in all industries...

Snake oil salesman.

VW where rightly punished for Dieselgate yet seems like the Texan is getting away with it (again). I also blame the US media. Remember to this date Tesla has never spent a cent advertising in America, their entire hype machine has been fuelled by sites like The Verge (until they eventually woke up a few years back - by which point Tesla had already sold gazillions of shares and took customers deposits). This is why we need real journalism more than ever, the bodies that regulate these cowboys are no longer fit for purpose.

For me, its not the console price thats the problem. £395.99 in the UK but if we consider inflation, the switch 1 would be around £360-365 today. An extra £30ish for a bigger screen and more power is not too unreasonable. Plus ending in 95.99 rather than 99.99 suggests Nintendo have tried to trim the headline price down.

The real problem is the accessories and games. £75 for new pro controller, £50 for new microSD Express (only ones compatible) £50 for webcam and £67-75 for physical games, £59-£67 for digital.

Ouch.

Appreciate its only been about 9 months or so, but been disappointed with Labour so far...

Starmer doesn't appear to be listening to the public mood on benefit reform, taxes or even the growing hostility here towards the US. It seems he's stuck 2 years in the past and as others have suggested it's difficult to see him as being the leader of the Labour Party. The most positive move I've seen him make was his warm welcome of Zelenskyy after the White House disaster.

I don't know if it was true, but I once read that Churchill rode the underground shortly before his famous speach which helped him get the mood of the public. Starmer really needs to doing something similar. He's looking more out of touch every passing week.

Brilliant and huge congrats to the amazing people who worked on it. One silly question though, is the "new" Gimp logo supposed to look out of focus or are my eyes getting old?

Not sure how they were able to remove so many buttons in the first place and not be marked down on safety. Suddenly trying to find a demister on a touchscreen menu while in motion was never a great idea. Surprisingly, Volvo off all companies have been one of the worst for this. That's why I like Dacias, little tech = little to go wrong.

Agree, however on clicking the photoshop link was first hit with 2 popups before I could see the page.

Chinese tech (hardware) is already better than most US (chips aside). The no. 1 smartphone camera ranking on Dxomark for the last 5 years has been owned by Chinese brands, who also dominate all top 10 places for battery scores. The reason Chinese cars have blown up locally in china isn't just lower prices, younger Chinese seek better tech and connectivity than VW or Audi can offer.

Huawei invested more in R&D last year than either Samsung or Intel. Software is their next target. HarmonyOS NEXT is now completely decoupled from Android and can power everything from watches to cars. I'd say US still has a 5-year lead in Chips/Software but after that my moneys on the East.

Expensive and slow. I don't mind waiting for the food to be cooked if it reduces waste, but the "restaurant" experience is now awful in the UK. Most of the offers on the app are for delivery only. Then have to wait alongside a queue of uber drivers with giant boxes.

I feel Mcdonalds have given up on the restaurant sit down experience. I believe they may end up with a subscription based home delivery service, where they don't need to worry about front of house staff and can just send out like warm boxes while raising the monthly price. We seen what happened when Disney gave up everything and tried to go all in with Disney Plus.

Mcdonalds was never about quality, but a fun cheap fast place to grab a bite. It's a shame because I do have some fun memories, yet another example of late stage capitalism.

Thanks for breaking that down, I wish newspapers or even BBC News did this. They do now have BBC Verify but its never super clear of their findings, certainly not in the format that you've just used. Perhaps theirs should be called BBC Balance. The only thing I would say with regard to your first point is that I'm not against the idea that any individual could make a breakthrough. At least with regard to theory.

We already know that throughout the history of cosmology, whole experts have been wrong when a new discovery is made. E.g. Highly likely that not everyone believed that Earth was centre of the Universe (like the earlier science communities claimed). The issue with this guy is he's using his own biased ideas and data and some people believe whatever is printed in a newspaper must be right.

Only silver lining is at least there clickbaity headlines give the public something more substantial to think about for 60 seconds instead of what the next Kardashian is up to...

Fun fact, in The Flash movie (guessing nobodys seen it considering it was a flop of the year) Barry opens his mostly empty fridge.. and there's a tin of these in there. Most people probably think it was a prop product but I literally ate them last week..

I have a weird thing about ratios with meat/bread and these are the only hotdogs that don't overwhelm me.

Thanks once again - these series of posts are the best thing on Lemmy at the moment. Wish the Internet had stayed like this rather than what it has become. Your content and the fediverse gives me hope...

Another top post.

I've pre-ordered the switch 2 (never owned the original) but already concerned about the reception its receiving. Seems Nintendo keep making mistakes with this one, similar to the wiiu.. The only plus is I've already paid in full for it (UK Curry's brick and mortar store) so hopefully no price increases for me plus got Mario kart world bundle so didn't need a 2nd mortgage.

I've recently installed ZorinOS on my Surface Go 2 as part of my migration away from US software. Had a great experience too so far, way faster than Windows 11 like 2-3x faster which is crucial as my base model only has 4GB RAM.

Only issue is my camera isn't working, but I rarely used it (unfortunately still have a work laptop for teams calls). Now just need to migrate rest of services away from Microsoft account and close it.

I wanna get back into gaming this year and have been looking into getting a stream deck, so timing of this post couldn't have been better. Not sure where you managed to find all this info but big thanks - looking forward to the next post...

Late stage capitalism is now turning inward. What a time to be alive.

Decent list, but I'd recommend Threema instead of Signal

I'm a fan of BYDs though, I just wish they were cheaper in the UK. Britain is not subject to the EU import tarrifs but the Atto 3 for example is around almost twice the price of the same Australian model.

I understand we're further away from China than Australia is but then they do have their own ships now. Anyone know why?

Sounds like something silicon valley would do.

Nah, this journalist can't say that the jury would reach a different verdict even in light of the challanged evidence - for him to announce they would today find her "clearly not beyond reasonable doubt" is incredibly arrogant. The jury spent 10 months of their lives on this - not a few hours writing this blog and he's phrasing it like they were stupid.

The biggest red flag for me and still is the handwritten notes and its funny seeing him try rinse away with word salad. I've never ever written nor know anyone - including those who have been to therapy - who has a written the words I AM EVIL and I DID THIS. And I Killed them on purpose. Its not careless admin, its damn creepy and certainly would alone be enough for me to feel zero empathy for her. Yes, one may say a normal killer would surely destroy the evidence, but we're not talking about a normal killer. This guy wants the families to go through hell all over again to likely (by his own admission) reach the same result. Guilty.