I've become convinced that there are simply two types of management out there. One type is comfortable with the idea that an employee or contractor can get work done from anywhere. Physical location is irrelevant in a world where we have high speed Internet plus tools like overnight shipping/delivery. The other type tends to run businesses where physical presence is key to the core of the business model. (EG. Transportation or Logistics companies, where the meat and potatoes involves people who show up. Trucks go nowhere without their drivers, and boxes don't get unloaded or loaded if dock workers aren't there to do the work.) It's difficult for some of the later group of execs and middle managers to wrap their heads around the idea that they can remote mange somebody who is getting just as much work done for them as if they were there in person, able to be watched.

And in all fairness? I've been on both sides of this, and been pretty frustrated with co-workers who work 100% remote and just don't stay focused on the work I'm stuck handling because I came into the office. So some blame needs to go to the people who want to work from home because it lets them slack off. They didn't do much to preserve a standard of allowing WFH.

Ultimately though? What I've observed is that management types really just prefer having their people come in to a central office because it's more comfortable/easier for them that way. If the keyboard or mouse suddenly stops working or their OneDrive stops syncing, they can just demand so-and-so walk over to their desk to assist them with it. They like that a lot better than scheduling time with some remote worker to do a remote session in to their PC, or to be told, "You'll need to go round up some batteries for that keyboard." instead of making some I.T. deskside support guy change them out. If they ever feel compelled to hold an impromptu meeting, they can just walk over and demand everyone meet them in the break room in 15 minutes. You're a captive audience for them.

So, SO true!

I'm constantly frustrated by the work situation I'm in now. The company keeps growing by acquisitions/partnerships and expanding its need for I.T. support. But there's zero interest in increasing head-count for the "rank and file" people doing the sysadmin or support work. Meanwhile, they've added 2 mangers for the department and both do little besides holding numerous meetings that feel like discovery sessions. They continually ask questions to try to understand pretty basic I.T. concepts and propose senseless changes (that we often have to reduce our level of daily support in order to work through for them). They literally reduce our productivity by being here!

I agree we're in the state of decline. Every nation in history has gone through or is going through the same cycle of ramping up, peaking, and then declining.

It's not just in the level of formal education people absorbed .... It's everywhere. I've always been into music and played in an alt-rock band for a while, back in the 1990's. I used to say there was no such thing as "bad music". It was all subjective and anything could be pleasing to the ears of the right listener. In recent years, I'd have to say that's still a fact -- but ... we're seeing a sharp increase in popular music that's mostly computer-generated or simplistic/repetitive, vs requiring a lot of musical skill. How many of today's rock songs actually incorporate complex guitar parts? How many have complicated drum riffs or musically interesting bass lines? Even with just the lyrics -- I'd say it's the exception, today, for a song to tell a full story or have deep meaning or clever lyrics. With your classic rock of the 60's and 70's, that was more of the norm.

The movie industry is the same way. Our local theater has such poor attendance for the latest Hollywood spew, they had to resort to showing random documentaries, which turn out to be far more interesting and draw in a more intelligent crowd, willing to pay the ticket prices.

I can't think of a sci-fi series that's more polarizing than this one in recent memory?

Even in my own group of friends, it runs about 50/50 that people either loved Alien Earth, or they thought it was trash.

I watched it because of a high recommendation from one guy I know, and tried to give it a chance. I had to stop after a few episodes. It was just painfully awful, IMO. I mean, sure - lots of money was poured into good special F/X and it's the creatures we all know from the long-running franchise. But the story line and characters were ridiculous.

I mean, sure -- let's take a bunch of kids and immediately throw them into harm's way, doing "save the planet" stuff! And "Boy Kavalier" is a bad caricature of just about every tech CEO in modern times that people like to poke fun at. Except even more over-the-top with his "poor me ... because I'm SO intelligent, nobody can even have an enjoyable conversation with me" garbage.

The thing is though? I *do* get the points people raise in favor of it. The concept had "legs" in the sense there's potential in the idea you have competing corporations with different approaches to "improving humanity" and it creates a dynamic of tensions between your cyborgs vs your hybrids or synths. It's just that to me, it felt like they took those great ideas and squandered them.

This concerns me from the standpoint of using FireSticks for TV signage purposes.

Our workplace uses the "ScreenCloud" software to turn a number of our TVs around our offices into digital sign-boards displaying things like employee birthdays and general office news, calendar info, etc.

We already had issues where Amazon decided to lock down a newer model of FireStick to the point the ScreenCloud app refused to run on it anymore. At first, the makers of ScreenCloud expected us to "root" each FireStick and do a bunch of steps to it in "developer mode" so their app could keep working on one. Then, Amazon locked them out of even that work-around. It seems the two companies got together at that point, and the result was a requirement we buy some more pricey variant of the same FireStick that's designed just for use with ScreenCloud!

We live in a society where like it or not? We marginalize crimes that involve theft of property or money, vs violent crimes against people.
Hacking almost never escalates to the level of it badly injuring or killing other humans. (You *might* argue it did if you could prove people hacking firmware or software running life support machines in hospitals was involved, or direct attacks on a person's pacemaker? But even outliers like this would be more the realm of the CIA than individual hackers.)

But even IF you imposed severe punishments for hacking? The problem is with catching these people. Sure, they tend to get caught eventually, because most criminals don't know when to stop. But you rarely recoup all the money they took from people or organizations. They probably couldn't ever get it all repaid even if you somehow forced them to work for the rest of their life for employers who turned over 100% of their paychecks towards restitution.

Just got email yesterday from Belkin, to tell me Wemo devices including their hugely popular Wemo mini plug and Wemo wall switch, outdoor switch and 3-way switch were on a list to be shut down in January, 2026. They're yanking the cloud server support required to make them work, and saying the only thing they'll still do after that is work on a LOCAL network via HomeKit.

It's not just Apple. Any of these vendors of "smart" devices get to dictate when they kill off the functionality. If it requires cloud servers, then all you did was buy some hardware that works with THEIR systems, on THEIR terms and conditions.

I use an Arlo video doorbell on my front door, and initially? I was fine with not paying for their optional monthly subscription that allowed uploading video to the cloud. I was content to use it so I could view live video when someone rang the bell, and to get push notifications when people walked within range of it. Well? After some relatively recent update they did, it seems I lost the ability to configure the zone the camera monitors for motion. They just monitor the whole darn thing if you don't pay for their subscription to "unlock" that capability. Worse yet? There's nowhere in their software to configure it to just stop alerting for motion. I had to suppress it on my iPhone app via the phone's own application settings.

It sucks but I don't see any alternative except buying only devices that give YOU full control over them on your home network. And a lot of those reduce the usability and convenience vs ones utilizing the "big cloud" offered by players like Apple, Google or Amazon.

As someone else here already commented earlier; "Call the lawyer!" isn't always the most financially smart move. I mean, in this particular case? Just dumping the shared family Apple accounts and setting up new ones would be a quick, self-service way to break free of the controlling ex. If the loss of all the purchased content is the sticking point? It's very likely they could repurchase all of it for less money than a divorce lawyer would bill for the time to sort this mess out.

Is there some collection of important photos stored in iCloud? Could be a real problem here, BUT, you also really should have been making a backup elsewhere. Anyone with a Mac probably has their photo library backed up via Time Machine, for example? (Just because the Photos app uploads new photos to iCloud automatically doesn't mean it doesn't store the originals on the Mac hard drive and they all get backed up.) Besides, it's probably a far more clear-cut "ask" to demand the ex turn over a copy of the photo collection on a USB memory stick or whatnot, if you want to address that one thing in court later.

I say all of this as someone who went through "the divorce from hell" a long time ago. Despite my ex literally cleaning out my entire house (got a full size moving truck and gave away some of my electronics and furniture to friends, in trade for helping move everything) AND taking my sports car and forging my signature on the title to sell it off without me knowing? It *still* made more long-term financial sense to just have a settlement hearing with her, vs a lengthy/costly divorce trial. The fact is - anything a judge would have declared she owed me or had to return would have gotten me nowhere. She already liquidated all of it and was a deadbeat after that who owed thousands to her landlord too, and spent the rest of her life sponging off other people. The lawyers are the only ones who really "win" in divorce cases.

I've done a lot of food delivery "gig work" over the years, as well as having friends in the restaurant industry who deal with it from the opposite end.
The apps like DoorDash absolutely rip you off as a customer. They add large percentages on to the restaurant's normal food prices and then you still have to pay the driver a tip, which is really a "bid for service" since you pay it before even getting your food. In the past, they really soured some smaller restaurants on them too, with stunts like adding them and their menus to the service without even asking the restaurant first (and would generally just set those up so Dashers paid with their pre-paid debit card upon arrival).

I don't quite get restaurants saying the food delivery is "killing them" though, either? If your food is popular enough so lots of people will pay huge upcharges just to have someone deliver it to them? You should be able to sell it at a profit and get the benefit of your place not being too full and turning dine-in customers away.

Most of the time? The places I see who claim services like DoorDash hurt them are just upset they have to adapt a bit. Their one cook in back can't make food fast enough and they won't pay for more labor, for example?

I think there's a strong argument to be made that people often consider Apple's control over their app store (and indeed, control over their hardware and software ecosystem in general) to be a FEATURE?

The fact that Apple vets apps that get published on its App Store adds value for a certain class of consumer. I completely get that there are people out there who want to buy only devices that give full freedom to install anything on them they can get their hands on. But a whole lot of people simply want to buy a reliable smartphone that they feel is relatively safe from malware/spyware or other "bad actor" applications.

I'm one of those people who usually owns/uses a combination of Apple products and other computers running Linux or Windows. I like the toolbox analogy... that while you might find your screwdriver an incredibly useful tool you're regularly reaching for? Sometimes a hammer is far better for a given application. Apple's whole ecosystem is, IMO, superior to the buggy mess of drivers/software and sometimes poorly tested OS updates in the Windows world. But when I want to play the latest AAA game title? The Mac is usually the inferior tool. And by the same token? I like the consistency of iOS devices over Android, where various handsets have front-end apps bolted onto them, depending on who made the device -- and where Android OS updates quickly become unsupported on many of them. I also like them for being able to give one to a fairly non-technical person while not fearing they'll click to download an app that steals their data and locks them out of the handset.

Buyers and sellers don't negotiate on the App Store from Apple but neither do they on most web storefronts I know of? If you don't host your own, you're stuck paying what the hosting service charges you to have a presence there, period.

I completely get arguments about such things as Apple refusing to accept app submissions based on the apps "competing" against their bundled offerings. (So for example? Apple blocking acceptance of a wallet app for crypto-currency - which I recall them doing during the frenzy of people mining LTC and BTC with off the shelf PCs using GPUs.)

I don't at all follow the logic that Android and iOS are "so entrenched" that owners of either type of device will rarely switch to the other platform? I know so many people, personally, who went back and forth between an Apple iPhone and an Android of some type. If nothing else, people start to get a little bored of the phone they've had for years and get curious about trying the competition's device out.

I also disagree that in most cases, developers take issue with Apple and Google taking a cut from purchases made via apps. I think most people completely get the value in someone else distributing your app for you and incurring the bandwidth usage/hosting expenses involved. Most of the bickering comes about when they want to sell extra content or subscriptions related to the app by directing customers away from the App Store. That's really a separate issue, IMO.

I hadn't even considered this, but I think you're right. Microsoft doesn't really stand to lose anything by getting rid of the console hardware at this point. They probably realized the income brought in by selling the hardware isn't even worth the marketing costs, the need to provide warranty coverage, etc. etc.

Everything they sell to play on X-Box can run just fine as a native Windows PC game, and there's a convenient Microsoft Store included in every copy of Win 11 for people to shop in and download the titles.

Yeah... this would be my bet, honestly? Most of the other suspected causes mentioned are really things you'd be hard-pressed to pin as things only the millennials would be predominantly exposed do. Ultra-processed foods, for example, are consumed in large quantities by Gen-X -- because they were the "latch-key kids" who got used to the whole idea of fending for themselves at an early age. As a pre-teen or teen trying to fix their own meals, they turned to all the fast/easy solutions available to them and it became ingrained as the way to eat, over time. Circadian rhythm disruption? Come on now... You're going to tell me nobody ever worked odd shifts until they came along?

The glaring issue is stress.

If you bought one of these things, you deserve it. :)

This reminds me of a story too. I was working at a place just rolling out Microsoft Office 365 and the whole 2 factor authentication thing. We started looking at the devices people had registered for MFA. Obviously, you mostly had various smartphones and a few people even used iPads or other tablets. But this one guy had a Samsung smart fridge as his device. He explained that, "I work from home and have a desk in the kitchen. So it's easy to confirm the authentication from the refrigerator screen. And this way, I know I won't just lose it someplace like I might lose my phone!"

But seriously, I really dislike this trend of making basic home appliances Internet connected and/or computerizing them needlessly. My old Black & Decker 4 slice toaster finally gave out on us last week. I was shocked by how much a new toaster costs now! I was expecting to run out and grab something for maybe $20 or so? Nope! Many of the highly rated models are well over $200! The cheapest I could find was about $45, for one at Costco that has 2 digital strips down the front. One side lights up with icons of toast, in various levels of darkness, and the other depicts all the different foods you mgiht toast; bagels, waffles, pastries, toast...

We got it home and tried it out, and guess what? When you select toast with a darkness of "3 out of 6", shown as a medium brown? It absolutely burns it! The lightest setting just ejects warm, untoasted bread. I couldn't find any point to a setting on the thing other than the second-lightest one! Highly inaccurate. All of this seems really unnecessary, when the light/dark knob on my old toaster worked just as it was supposed to.

The machines that can run Windows 10 but not 11 really have no legitimate reasons they're incapable of using 11. It's generally artificial barriers put up by Microsoft because the chips lack a feature or two they're trying to make a new standard.

In a few cases, it's literally nothing more than an oversight! My co-worker was just telling me about a specific model of Xeon CPU he's got that has some long "sub-model" vs a simple model number like 5360 or 5500 or what-not. It has every single function in it that Microsoft says is needed by Win 11, yet you can't put 11 on it. Why? Only because Microsoft neglected to list its specific model/sub-model in its database it uses to determine the machines capable of installing 11 on them.

If they want all these people off Windows 10, they could design 11 so it runs more like 10, with a few of the features disabled that require the instructions the older CPUs lack, when it detects those processors.

Apple did this with iOS multiple times already. A new iOS version still runs on older phones but with a few features disabled if those specific features need the newer phone's CPU to work.