Genuine question: is it any different from us calling Deutschland “Germany” on our maps? Different countries, or at least countries that speak different languages, often have wildly different names for other locations.

I can't find exact numbers, but I did find a recently published Princeton study. According to it, grant submissions for the Competitive Grant Program closed in September 2024 (for a bill passed in 2021), and "[a]s of January 2025, over fourty (sic) entities, including a varied mix of municipalities, school districts, trade associations, and a hospital, among others, have been recommended for award of a combined $369 million pending 'budget review and processing.'" There's also a table showing grant status.

Additionally, it says "[a]pplications for [State Digital Equity Capacity Grant] sub-grants have opened in several states, including New York and Idaho." Since Texas "paused its sub-grant application process in March of 2025," we can likely conclude this part of the process, where the remaining $1.44B is allocated, is still ongoing.

It looks like the answer to how many people have been connected by the Act is probably zero. This shouldn't surprise anyone; however, proponents might point out we should judge the program's success after the funds have been allocated. Based on how these things often go, I won't hold my breath.

The program may well be a boondoggle, but Trump is, as often, his own worst messenger.

I'll ignore the "WTF" aspect of this, as that ground is well-trod by this point.

The videos and images they have are not representative of him. Not really. Not completely. They are representative of his best moments. Friends and family aren't keeping videos of the times he was angry, or argumentative, etc. This is fine and normal. But if you're going to feed those into an LLM and pretend that the result is "him", you've only got a simulacrum of part of his persona.

The whole thing is weird and, IMO, morbid, but I hope it gave the family closure.

It’s thin enough most can squeeze their finger under there, but it will probably be tight. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they, you know, tested the design and found it acceptable. It’s definitely a head-scratcher, though.

From what I can tell, the power usage during standby on a modern Mac is barely any higher than the phantom power draw you have just by keeping it plugged in. I found a discussion page indicating it’s less than 1W during sleep. That number is pretty astounding to me if true, though I admit to some skepticism.

It’s rare that I ever need to power cycle my Mac. About 90% of the time I do, it’s through the restart menu. But there definitely are times I have to hard-reboot. I need the power button maybe 3-4 times a year, if I had to guess.

I’m looking at the Mac Mini promo shots right now. It’s 5cm tall, so I zoomed on my display until it was actual size (using a ruler). Looking at it that way, I can definitely squeeze my finger under it to reach the power button, but it would be a squeeze.

I’m curious about the change. On the face of it, it seems like an idiotic change, but we can safely assume the designers are not, in fact, idiots. This suggests one or more of the following:

1. They had some sort of mandate to move it from the back. “Why” is an exercise left to the reader. Were people accidentally hitting the button while blindly plugging things in? It’s the only thing I can think of that would necessitate it.
2. Something about the design forced them to orient the power supply so the button had to go on the bottom. This is a very small machine, and it features a new thermal design. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is the case, and it’s a necessary* evil.
3. They genuinely think this is a better spot. See #1 about maybe people were accidentally pressing it. Or maybe it’s easier to find by touch if it’s on the bottom corner? I haven’t used a Mac Mini in a long time, so I can’t quite remember if I ever had a problem blindly finding the button in the old position. I expect not.

*Assuming, of course, you agree it was necessary to make this exact enclosure, and also assuming you accept the apparent need to keep the button off the front, top, left, or right sides of the device. I know many here lean much further toward the “function” side of the form vs function debate than Apple does, and that’s fine, but I think it’s only fair to consider things from Apple’s self-imposed contraints.

Iâ(TM)ve never understood the debate, but I assume there are historic reasons from before my time.

These days, however, I donâ(TM)t see how tabs arenâ(TM)t inherently superior. With tabs, companies donâ(TM)t have any need or even ability to mandate an annoying indentation policy. Like super wide indentation? Set your editor to do so. Like super narrow? Ditto. Want to copy some code you found on a GIST? Your indentation automatically matches.

The iPhone 4 was a huge release—new form factor, 4x the resolution of previous iPhones, and a significant camera bump. It may seem quaint now, but the iPhone 4 was amazing at the time. Apple testers even had special cases made so it looked like the then-current 3GS. That was a major leak.

This laptop? Seems like a spec bump. A welcome spec bump, sure, but just a spec bump. If this is the worst leak Apple's had since the iPhone 4, then they've done a great job keeping things under wraps since.

Oh, I certainly use my phone for 99% of my photos, and for some workflows, its image processing pipeline definitely makes it easier to take better photos than with the old Sony.

I actually only got interested in photography when I got a trio of poison dart frogs and was disappointed by the quality of the photos I got of them from my phone. I tried the A6000 with the kit lens and was pleasantly surprised by how much better the shots were. I later bought a $700 macro lens (more expensive than the camera!) and was blown away by the quality. Now I’m toying with getting an A7R V, but I expect there’s likely to be significant diminishing returns.

It might be a fad, but I wouldn’t call it analogous to the vinyl craze. Vinyl isn’t actually better than digital (and is in many, many ways worse). Dedicated cameras do produce better photos than do phone cameras. Even my decade-old Sony A6000 (which only cost me $500—far less than the cameras discussed here) blows my iPhone 14 Pro’s camera out of the water with just the cheap kit lenses it came with.

The real issue is that physical games can usually be found cheaper than their digital counterparts. The price difference is often significant, too: RE4 is $10 less, RE8 $14 less, SMT5V $20 less, and so on. These are new prices on Amazon. Even brand-new games are often appreciably cheaper. You can save even more buying used. Every time I buy a game, I check the digital price first, and it's only been cheaper once. If you buy more than a small handful of games (which I hope you do if you're spending $700 on a console), then you're just throwing money away if you go digital-only.

I've been looking forward to the PS5 Pro, but this price definitely has me reconsidering. My PS5 is still perfectly fine—I just wanted better frame rates in "graphics" mode. $780 + tax is a steep price for a relatively small upgrade. +45% performance still won't let many current games hit 60fps in graphics mode.

I have to run almost all of my games on âoeperformance modeâ, or my game becomes unpleasantly slow. Iâ(TM)m not one of those âoeanything lower than 60â is unplayable types, either.

Iâ(TM)ve been looking forward to the pro model in the hopes that it will let me play all my current games on graphics mode, but this is a pretty steep price. Iâ(TM)ll probably pass.

Worth noting that 99% of users != 99% of uploads.

I think the point is that, without free users, there wouldnâ(TM)t be any nitro users either. The free tier must exist in order for anyone to care about the paid tier.

In other words, the free users donâ(TM)t bring in revenue, but they absolutely provide value.