The show was really great. I had low expectations because the last Alien movie I loved was in 1986. It's not as good as Aliens, but it's about the corporate rivalry and new aliens, not the xenomorph. You have to let go that Aliens is an absolute masterpiece and no one has replicated. It doesn't seem THAT hard, but many have tried and failed. It was just a perfect movie. You're never going to recreate that.

However, if you watch Alien Earth with an open mind and don't just look for things to complain about, it's really fucking amazing. There are flaws, but the good parts make up for the flaws. With any show that long, there's always going to be something to complain about. I see this post is filled with dicks complaining about minor things. That's like having an expensive steakhouse dinner with drinks and dessert and complaining the salad didn't have enough croutons.

Sorry, I tried running a custom PC on a TV, it was a shit experience and my family hated it. I'm a gaming/machine building enthusiast. I've been doing this for 25 years. I know what I am doing...but Windows wasn't meant for being run on a TV. I built a perfect gaming PC with name-brand components during the pandemic when consoles were in impossible to find. I bought XBox controllers. They'd pair fine at first...and disconnect mid-game around 2-3 hours in. It sucked badly. I tried the XBox Series X controller as well as XBox one...something would crash after an hour or 2. WiFI/Bluetooth wasn't reliable...so I had to move it across the room to an ethernet port. I tried switching out several components to no avail. We were constantly updating and troubleshooting and as soon as the kids started a game, 1h into it, my wife would have to call me in to fix something. Even when things worked, some games were just off on a TV. We had to keep the keyboard and mouse handy for daily fixes, updates, and troubleshooting

Everyone hated it. Eventually, I managed to get an XBox Series X (regret not getting a PS5, but that's a different story)...COMPLETE OPPOSITE EXPERIENCE. Everything auto-updates. Controllers almost never disconnect and when they do, it's due to the battery running out. It's smooth and effortless. A windows gaming machine is a project. The XBox is a product. You buy it and it largely just works. Press the center button on the controller and 20 seconds later, you're gaming...you definitely can't say that about any PC.

The steam machine, if priced like an xbox, would allow me buy a gaming machine at a reasonable cost that's not a project and will be well tested and well supported (or so the hope is). I was already considering saving up for the ROG XBox Ally X for similar reasons. If this is half the price and a lot better performance, I'd probably just rather have that.

Another use case is a second machine. My kids and I love playing games together, but we only have 1 gaming machine, so we're limited to couch co-op games or cross-platform ones. With this, we can play pretty much any multi-player game out there.

Finally, PC gaming stuff is kinda sketchy. I don't like spending 1-2k on an ASUS gaming device. They don't have a great history of supporting their products years out. Valve does. Sony does, MS does. ASUS/Lenovo?...kinda getting nervous. The ROG flow sounds amazing on paper, but will it work 5 years from now? I am not confident. The PS5 and XBox Series S/X are working great after 5 years...my Nintendo Switch is after 8 years. Hopefully Valve will bring console-reliability to PC gaming.

If you think of it from Google's perspective, they want to provide you LLM-based services that adapt to your actual data....storing that on servers and mining it is costly. It is cheaper to do as much on device as possible. If it can't be done on device? It is tangibly cheaper to throw away the data. Sorry, not everything you do can be monetized and Google has so much experience privacy raping, they can be selective about what they want.

Also, they know so much about you from their various other offerings, how much point is there? Can they really monetize your dick pics on your phone? You've already agreed to give them access to your e-mail, photos, map history, calendar, contacts, text messages, browser history and phone calls (did I miss any?) if you're a typical Android users. If you're an apple customer, you probably still have gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Maps...which is where the valuable data is.

Think of it from Google's perspective....assume they're fully evil....what will an LLM tell them that they don't already know? It costs money to store and process your data...wouldn't it make more sense to just not bother?...pretend to be the good guy?...save a few bucks?

Most would consider bitcoin a scam and 3DTV a dud. They're both still around, but didn't live up to the hype. What LLM companys promised and what they delivered were faaaaar different to the point they should be investigated for fraud. Housing and dot-com companies delivered value, just not profitably.

Pets.com and Kozmo.com offered legitimate, valuable services...just not profitably. They didn't lie about what they offered. Jensen Huang, Sam Altman, and all the others are outright lying about LLM capabilities...but hey, don't you dare question that...or else we'll lose this imaginary AI arms race to the Chinese!!!

A lawsuit is meaningless unless the judge rules in your favor. ANYONE can sue you for any reason...having a judge rule in your favor is what matters. Roblox has money, someone has a kid that's a victim. The natural response is to file a lawsuit and hope for a settlement. Do you have a specific reason to think Roblox passively let it happen? Talk to any lawyer, this is common and honestly 32 is really low....especially to get Ken Paxton to make noise in the news.

By all means, these people should have their day in court. However, I see what Roblox does daily. I played 99 nights in the forest (on Roblox) with my daughter, my son, and 2 of their friends last night. It was basic, wholesome fun...which is what Roblox is.

As their spokesperson said....if Ken Paxton was interested in protecting kids, his AG would work with the platform to help them find ways predators elude the platform's controls...but....that doesn't motivate clueless seniors to donate to the RNC to fight groomers in CALIFORNIA...with some platform they don't understand, but their grandkids love.

You are clearly lying. You've never been on Roblox if you think it's a shithole for predators. It's a predator's playground about as much as your mall's LEGO store...it's very clearly a game platform and a pretty wholesome one at that. None of my kids friends have reported anything like that and I have been on for many hours as has my wife playing games with our kids...no one has initiated any conversation with us, let alone inappropriate ones...and we both have female avatars (my daughter chose mine). The sexual misconduct is unheard of...and if so, it's probably from teenage boys, not adult men...these games are TEDIOUS. Old people like me like conventional games. But even if you're dedicated, you have to be slick because the AI catches obvious things and you can easily be reported...my kids have gotten booted for language or for literally no reason (beyond some asshole kid felt like reporting my son when he was little for standing in one spot too long)

I can guarantee you that your teen is choosing private servers because other kids/teens act like assholes...just like every online game in history. My daughter prefers private servers with her friends as well, but that's because you get some rando joining who either doesn't know what they're doing and messes up team games or just acts like a jackass....which people have been doing online since LAN days of Doom and Unreal Tournament. ALL games have asshole problems. There's nothing special about Roblox other than it's more popular with girls than past games.....and it's really fucking popular and has remained so for a long time because of the variety of free games on it.

With a platform this large, crime will happen, but far lower than any other environment. My direct experience is it's 99.99% games, often shitty ones. Ken Paxton is a low-credibility culture warrior who noticed a fat, popular target that has remained politically neutral. They're making too much money, haven't given the RNC their cut, and the CEO didn't attend the inauguration. If Ken Paxton actually gave a shit about kids, he would be targeting a lot more platforms than Roblox, including Trump's buddies. Ken Paxton's credibility on child safety is about the same as David Duke's on fire safety. You know both have ulterior motives.

Yeah, not the same as active users, but stats are not available for those. Nearly every kid under 18 plays it. It's MASSIVE and if it's not the most popular game in history now, it will shortly overtake Minecraft. It is a MASSIVE phenomena. It's honestly a decent gaming platform for kids and tends to cater to their interests. It's very clearly an environment for kids to make and share games...not a pedophile haven. They have better protections than any major platform in history and their clear focus is enabling kids to make games. Pedophilia is not profitable...having kids buy stupid overpriced avatars to play silly games with their friends is. I am skeptical of Paxton's motives here.

If you have people, you will eventually have crime...so yeah, if there are literally billions of accounts on Roblox, crime will happen, but they're doing a better job at protecting kids than your local school, playground, or grocery store. They have more mechanisms than online games have had in the past. It is pretty kid friendly and it's very clearly a gaming platform, as they say it is. It's not a dating platform and adult content is not allowed...even racy stuff probably exists, but I have never seen it. Billions of kids go on there just to play incredibly weird and stupid games made by other kids.

I don't know the specific details of those 32 families, but I am skeptical they're doing more than a cash grab. However, if the fucking state of Texas is suing them, you'd think you'd need a lot more than 32 stories when common estimates are that there are 5 billion Roblox accounts created.

I don't even personally like Roblox. I find their games dull and basic, but my kids love them. However, I hate Ken Paxton trying to get his name in the news with fake bullshit culture war stuff. Yeah, we know David Baszucki didn't donate to you or Trump so he needs to be punished. Anything bad on Roblox is 100x worse on Facebook and 100000x worse on Twitter...but hey...they're donors!

Paxton is just doing this to send a warning to any corporation out there...donate to us in our next election or we will weaponize our state or federal justice dept against you!!!! It's a routine cash-grab/shakedown. The Republican Party is sick of Silicon Valley staying out of elections as much has they have....they're making so much money, yet not bribing politicians the way oil companies have in the past. This cannot stand!!!!

Unless they have evidence they're not presenting, this is some bullshit culture war fodder. Tariffs are tanking the economy?...oh nooz...please don't pay attention to the failing economy, your lower standard of living or inflation...your local Republican Party may not be delivering jack shit on the economy or your pocket book, but hey...they're fighting those Groomers in San Mateo!!!!

I'm on Roblox nearly daily with my kids...never seen shenanigans. Some obviously happen at some time, but they do have pretty good AI filters and it's very easy to report people. I'm honestly not sure what else they can do. They're way ahead of Twitter or Facebook....but hey, that's the fault of Roblox founder David Baszucki for not donating to Trump's Inauguration, right?

The complaint I hear about is usually over-moderation. Kids are dicks and many have reported my kids for non-issues. My son got banned from his favorite game when he was 10yo for standing in the same spot for too long...annoyed another kid of a similar age, the dumb kid reported him, and my son was crying for weeks while we appealed the ban. My kids have friends who had their accounts suspended for routine cursing. My kids have been kicked out by AI moderators for saying bad words while their mic was on. With AI watching you, it's not easy to be a predator on such platforms, I would imagine.

Oppression is a multi-variable equation. Black Americans experiencing oppression experience a lot more related to class and income than race. IMHO, obsessing about race is doing a huge disservice to those who you want to help. All shootings that inspired Black Lives Matter?...nearly all were poor black men. Not a single one I know of was wealthy or upper middle class. Nearly all, if not all, were poor. Studies have shown that police presence is the strongest variable in determining probability of being shot by the police, not race....white people in similarly policed areas were just as likely to be murdered...it's just not as many live there.

A huge reason why liberal ideology failed was focusing on identity when class was the bigger issue. You want to help those police shooting victims?...get them a better job...lower the crime rate in their area. Very few of the police doing the shooting were confirmed white supremacists. Most were scared for their safety. Should they be?...were they lying?...you can debate that...but there is no evidence they targeted men because of their race. Many of the officers had black spouses, children, or were black themselves. So...is it race?...maybe...is it because the police were in a dangerous impoverished crime-ridden neighborhood and afraid?...well...I'd say that's a lot more likely. So by obsessing about race, you're not helping the victims, and you're alienating the white poor left behind....and you know who's not alienating them?...

...MAGA...they do the class rhetoric and have done well with poor white people and in 2024, even poor black and latino voters.

Making cops less racist will do little to help the black community...getting them out over poverty?...that'll do a lot...but that's a lot harder....and most liberals are confident they're not racist...are you confident you're not classist?

But regardless of motives...identity politics is a losing issue. Most minorities want a job and a good standard of living...not to be pandered to. And you can't fucking help them if you can't win an election. Making everything about race alienates white voters and hate them as much as you like, you typically need them to win an election.

Few things piss off economically struggling blue collar white voters more than wealthy educated upper middle class (mostly white) women telling them to "check their white privilege"...when they're living paycheck to paycheck and wondering which utility is least likely to shut them off if they underpay this month.

How about 3DTV? The way to "win" AI is to develop AI that actually works...not have the cheapest LLMs. AI will be "won" with algorithms and research, not raw compute. LLMs are limited in what they can do and I see no indication that will change. They are fancy autocomplete engines that are far more useful than one would expect given what they do, but far short of anything intelligent.

I use one daily, mandated by work. I can't remember the last time I prompted claude 4.5 to write something and it actually compiled, let alone ran without exception, let alone worked. Yet, listening to Huang, Altman, Zuckerberg, Benson, Nadella, Pichai, we should be firing all our junior engineers because their AI is so fucking good, you don't need them any more.

There's a MASSIVE gap between what AI vendors promise and what anyone can actually demonstrate. And we'll know when AI is intelligent because it will actually write code, not just promise to do it someday. IF...you had AI that could write working code from a prompt, you would generate unimaginable wealth...custom video games, custom ETL/data-processing code, services to rewrite legacy COBOL/Python apps to Rust, Java, or whatever the fashionable language....fucking Assembly for all I care. How about custom cartoons?...custom porn? (that look as good as the items they want to replace...not janky stuff with extra fingers or glitchy movements). I've seen interesting demos, but nothing beyond that.

It's been nearly 4 years...all we hear is promises and "someday." 4 years is an eternity in software, especially with so many trillions poured into these. All we have are tools, not solutions. Tools that are still "use at your own risk." Tools that "might" someday replace humans...that "might" actually save more time than they cost to use them. Tools that "may" make you more productive.

They're definitely fun to play with, but I I would personally pay more attention to researchers, not a country blindly imitating us. AI will be one by developing new algorithms, not brute forcing existing ones with subsidized power.

You can make a Dell last 5-7 years, but that's you, not my kids. And I know it's much better for Pro grade, but it's a lot of commitment for me to ignore my local Best Buy, which doesn't sell any...to go on the website to find the pro-grade laptops, which cost more and seem more business oriented.

1k is a low-cost laptop...IF...it's actually good. Lots of shit brands offer stuff that's too good to be true, but Apple usually does a decent job on hardware. You can generally buy anything Apple and be fine. It may not be the best deal or even the very best, but it's pretty much never shit...it may have shitty design, but the quality is good.

People underestimate how much folks are willing to pay extra for simple reliability. At your local Home Depot, DeWalt is a great example...same with Milwaukee...there are MANY cheaper brands and nearly all are functionally the same...it's just you can safely buy anything from those 2 brands and know you'll be OK. It will be professional grade. It may not be the best, it won't be the cheapest, it may not even be a great deal...but it will work and last and you won't really regret it if you can get past the purchase amount...the same is true with Apple. A macbook may be overpriced, but they have top quality batteries, displays, etc...no real weaknesses.

If we can get a 1k laptop with a good display, battery, etc, that can do everything a cheap Windows laptop can...I predict it will be huge and make a huge portion of Apple's customer base happy. It will never be my primary machine, but I would love to just buy it for my kids when they're teenagers and know everything will be fine.

It would be stupid to actively stop Linux, IMHO. If you're a desktop Linux user, you wouldn't have bought a MBP, I wager. They can be good citizens and not stand in the way and build a following among linux users who like apple hardware....or just send them to someone else.

If you care about such things, you're not a great customer for Apple, I'd wager. They want people who are willing to irrationally spend, not carefully control each penny. And...to be fair...there's something to be said for overspending for a brand you trust, vs rolling the dice with the various shitty windows makers. I'd rather spend 1k for an Apple that lasts 3 years than $500 for a Dell that breaks in 18 months.

Finally consider families...there's a value in simply using Apple across the board for simplicity. Maybe not enough to justify their prices, but given I have a wife and 2 kids that need a laptop, having Apple across the board is worth a few hundred than going on adventures with Dell, Acer, Lenovo, etc...who honestly don't support their products very well.

Many are missing the opportunity of this as a 2nd laptop for families...Mommy and Dad will have a regular mac, but their kids can have this instead of using mommy/daddy's old laptop. Their goal should be to lock as many people into the ecosystem as possible. Being able to buy a reasonably priced laptop will keep many families off Windows and Chromebooks. This encourages Apple Subscriptions and App Store purchases...recurring hardware purchases down the road...makes it all the harder for Daddy to switch to an Android when Samsung comes out with a model with some feature he wants. If they're smart, they'll make it a very nice laptop for the price and just make it visibly unattractive...like the old iBooks...plastic shell, kid colors, etc

In my mind, the key thing to remember is Apple makes the most money on irrational people overspending for devices. I am now one of them. Neither me nor my wife put a lot of thought into it...just give us the good iPhone Pro....we are mentally conditioned to spend a little more for the promise we're getting something good and reliable. It never occurs to us to consider MS/Google because we're invested in the ecosystem so much.

The iPhone Pros are for us...the cheap models are for our kids (whenever we decide it's time for them to have a phone) So long as the regular Macbooks are more fashionable, there's no need to cripple the cheapo models. They make their own chips, so it's not like it costs a lot more....but even so, it would make financial sense to make these loss-leaders...keeping MS/Google off the radars of families that can afford to spend more.