Our modern Western economies are messed up.

But even before modern economics, inflation was a fact of life.
See what a house sold for in 1850 vs. 1900 vs. 1950 vs. now.

The modern era of economics started with unpegging of paper currency from gold started this cascade of events.
From that point, money was worth what the country as a whole produced.

And we have this continued growth imperative, otherwise it is called a recession.

That is why people not spending money is 'bad' in the view of modern economics.
Because spending money goes into other people's jobs.
If everyone sits on their money, then goods will not be sold, and no services will be delivered, making other people's jobs' vanish.

But it is what we have, until something better emerges.
Just like democracy ...

We are told that "inflation is good" by economists -- for me, it's nothing but a tax. Asking an economist whose very paycheck comes from inflationary measures is same as asking a christian Bible scholar whether the Bible is trustworthy.

Inflation is not a tax, despite many holding onto this notion.
Some inflation is good, when it is no more than 1-2% per year.

In our current Western economies that are based on continued growth, if there is deflation, then people will defer spending since the money they have today will have more buyer power tomorrow.

Japan is such a case: they have been in deflation for decades. Read up on the effects that made on society.

Another issue with no inflation is that there is no borrowing costs, and some investors will abuse this to gobble up real estate (e.g. some investors bought high rise rental buildings, then raised the rent, making it unaffordable for regular people.
Other people will buy homes, and the unnatural influx of buyers will raise the price for other people.

That is why central banks use interest rates as a tool to curb excessive inflation.

Under 2% inflation is the least bad of the options available.

If your needs for a table are simple, then Lenovo fits the bill nicely.

My tablet is several years old. It is the Lenovo Tab P11 Plus.

My use case is for 'normal' stuff, such as browsing, Youtube, email, ...etc.
I don't use it for drawing or with a stylus.

But it has been solid overall, and quite usable for a long time.

A friend of mine has a backyard astronomical observatory.
In the Great Lakes weather, it is challenging to keep the equipment inside safe year-round from humidity and condensation. Summers are hot and humid.
Other friends have an A/C that they keep running, so there is no condensation, and no mold on optics, and rust on electronics.
This friend though, does not use an A/C at all.
Instead he covered the observatory's roof with something that commercial building use to safe energy. It reflects all the incident Infra-Red, and keeps the building within 2C from ambient temperature.
The material is not a paint. It comes in flexible sheets, similar to neoprene, but not porous.
It is made by Lexan and is called Hi-Tuff TPO.
It does not shrink, and is relatively impact resistant.
He had it for ~ 19 years, and only uses water, detergent and some bleach to clean the green algae that grow on it.

Related: Inside the observatory, he uses a large fan to keep the air moving inside, and has a mesh covered vent on the other side. He says that moving air causes mold to never grow.

Is there anyone else in the consumer/SOHO space you would recommend?

There are some routers now that ship with OpenWRT, and you can update them to later versions.
So these won't be plagued with security issues to the same extent as proprietary firmware from the manufacturer.

Many of them use the MediaTek Filogic SOC.

One such company is Cudy, which is available for purchase on Amazon. For example, their WR3000H has 1 x 2.5Gbps port, used to be C$99 on Amazon.

Well said ...

Mod parent up more!

This has been tired before, and ended no where ...

Anyone remember Openmoko and the hype around it in the Open Source community?

There were also Nokia's Maemo (before Nokia abandoned it and the underlying hand sets after that CEO took over) then the Linux Foundation's MeeGo.

I hope this effort succeeds though despite the odds.

Here is a non-paywalled article that even has a summary at the top:

NY judge sanctions lawyer for fake AI citations.

Moto phones let you shake the phone to turn the flashlight on and off. It's simple, but it's one of my favorite features, and when people see me do it, they usually tell me they wish *their* phone did that.

I have a Motorola too, and love this feature.
You make a chop-chop gesture to turn on the flashlight.

Another gesture is shake left-right, and the camera turns on.
Love that feature too, and actually used it more.

Their guy should not have called the Georgia Secretary of State, telling him to "find 11,780 votes".

Their guy (through his subordinates) should not have tried to send fake electors to Congress for the meeting of the Electoral College.

Their guy should not have fomented an insurrection on January 6, 2021, in an attempt to stop the ratification of the election of Biden/Harris.

Their guy should not have stayed silent for hours as the Jan 6 crowd stormed the capitol, chanted "Hang Mike Pence", and made congressmembers and others fear for their lives.

I'm sure there's more they shouldn't have done.

The bigger picture is that the percentage of the electorate who voted for "that guy" grew from 2020 to 2024, despite all of the above and plenty more.

That is the bigger problem that brought us to where we are today, and whatever else the next 3 years bring ...

While we both excel in some areas, others we are just clueless on. Give me something technical and I'll figure it out, guaranteed. Put me in a room full of people in a social setting and I feel like a literal fish out of water. It can be sometimes be scary and lonely which truly sucks. I wish Autism was bull.

Exactly that same with me.
Suffered all my youth from being pushed to socialize, because I was a book worm, and 'normal' people have to socialize.
It was stressful for me, and still is.

But give me any nerdy challenge, and I will dive deep into it and it will be smooth sailing.
Be that biology, programming, electronics, ...etc.

Rome died over 300+ years. They don't die instantly.

NOTE- most Americans won't realize until it's so bad they can't deny it and some will never get it even if he does Musk's Nazi Salute because they are still in denial over that.

Modern despotism has a fake democratic element so the lower third of the bell curve don't participate in any resistance or help defend the despotic "democracy."

Spot on ...

And even when Rome became a empire, with full autocratic rule, the motto SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus, "[For the] Senate and People of Rome") continued to be used.

For example, after the Republic's end by more than 2 centuries, in the Arch of Septimius Severus from 203 CE.

So even when democracy ends, and autocracy takes over, there is a fake semblance of what has ended.

That is exactly what the panspermia hypothesis postulates, though it proposes that live cells is what spreads, not just precursors (prebiotic molecules).

Once famous proponent was Nobel laureate Francis Crick of DNA spiral fame.

I've never seen a software distribution mechanism as careless and sloppy as NPM.

I've always been against running anything that requires NPM, because of exactly that.
Their repository governance is abysmal.
Compare that to, say, Debian/Ubuntu, and you see a huge difference.
Debian has been around for almost 3 decades, and we have not had the repositories being a vector for compromised software.

If it is NPM, I pass ...

That pretty much sums it up ...

I wish it was more widely used.