Oh, look! Fireflies! AAAH It stung me!

How much more money is going to be thrown into fire for this technology that just does not work?

It's great! I mean, the syntax is a little unusual in that it seems to start with the URL google.com and the protocol isn't http or https but "site:reddit.com"...other than that, the search is great!

I mean...I'm not American so have no view on your parties but otherwise, yes you got the idea. That's what a competition authority is meant to do. Of the ones you mention there's investigations into Google search, Microsoft was already convicted for Windows but wriggled out of it, Apple and Google are both being investigated for practices on iPhone/Android respectively, Apple Music/Spotify both complained about dominant abuse and I think there was some investigation (I know there were complaints, not keeping up to date with outcomes), Coke and Pepsi are enormous if you consider their sub-brands too and I completely agree with looking into the food market (throw in Unilever as well), Amazon's abuse of dominance has led to many fines, Walmart - again not American but what I read about them going in at a loss, waiting for things to close/go bankrupt and then raising prices all the while claiming subsidies for their workers - yep, agree they should be investigated. Steam absolutely should do - it has far too much dominance. Meta and Tiktok both were investigated...

Yes, you're pretty much spot on with what a competition authority should be doing.

There is a kids' app.

I can assure you that if you harnessed a large number of peacocks, their potential as a sonic-based weapon is far higher than as a laser-based on.

Root cause found. See also: JLR (Jaguar Land Rover).

Windows Vista and 7 - it's can be looked at as Aero++. But...Aero copied and arguably improved (in the transparency stakes at least) Apple's Aqua. And this is before we throw in the Linux window manager crowd.

It's a design trend and it can be pointed to at various places where it really started. Honestly I liked Aero, so for me just like command-tab copied ctrl-tab - I don't care. If it's good, I'll take it. I haven't tried any of the betas so I don't know which side of the fence I'll land on yet.

It was not entirely based on how academic you were, it was also based on how many places existed and were funded. There was a cap on university placements to fit within the funding. A key part of the thinking for the tutorial fees (which I am personally against, but for this post will argue its rationale for existing) was to remove that cap and have placements based on demand.

Student loans came in early 90s rather than mid - I'm from the first year ever to have them, and I gradated in 1992.

Not sure about these particular devices, but in general devices will still be fine. You add via a QR code, HomeKit stuff is local only. But even with this - it's Matter/Thread that's the current hotness, not HomeKit/Google/Alexa-specific. If a thing supports Matter and Thread, *properly* (i.e. hubless), then you're fine. If it doesn't, or it does but needs a hub in the middle before it spits out Matter out of the other side...be wary.

This is a good example of why you pick things that work natively with what you want. In this case, if you've connected them via HomeKit then they'll carry on working without issue. In future cases - buy the standards, look for Matter (and preferably Threads) integration to make sure you don't need this kind of reaching out to servers.

Although the literal answer to that is "yes" since people have definitely rewired houses before, the more relevant one is - this isn't a completely different system. Your light bulb remains a light bulb. It screws into the same sockets as the last ones did, and is operated by the same switches.

In terms of protocols, I've already got several protocols running in my house and they mix and match without issue. Gradually switching over to emphasises one of them (Matter/Thread) more than the others won't affect the overall setup at all.

Many aren't doing Matter properly unfortunately. Take Switchbot for instance - it uses a hub to expose its devices over Matter. Aqara did too, though not sure if their latest stuff needs it.

Many people did Matter as "take our Zigbee kit, run it through yet another hub, and we'll push it out the other side as Matter". Not ideal.

Interestingly I've found that there are good deals...just not at Amazon. It's from stores making sure they can compete/are still relevant during Prime day. For example I'm a musician who's into synths: this is a good deal on a well-regarded (if a bit controversial) synth. There are other examples for other niches - I get emails from smart home tech manufacturers for instance and they seem to do ok.

And no-one has ever replaced a light bulb in their house before. No, not ever in the history of the universe.