NGram

They do use handheld and never define it, but I can hold my laptop with my hand so I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good way of disqualifying laptops. That also seems to strictly apply to the operating system (“runs an operating system designed […] for software applications on handheld electronic devices”), which might be a fun legal quagmire as well since Linux is designed for all sorts of platforms. If I install Linux on my (formerly) Windows laptop does it suddenly become a mobile device?

It does bring up another interesting niche of computers: handheld PCs, especially handheld gaming PCs. Does this law apply to Steam Decks?

This whole thing screams “written by tech illiterates” since it seems to ignore regular computers and only focus on phones when it’s all just variations of the same thing – form factor and the software running on top isn’t very relevant to whatever goal I presume they’re trying to achieve. If they really want to collect everyone’s ID, age, and other privacy-violating information they’d be better off doing it everywhere. But maybe I shouldn’t give out advice for speed running fascism…

That was my interpretation too, except not restricted to “modern” websites. It sounds more like any website, modern or not, JS or not.

The part that is funny in that situation is that probably means web browsers are considered “app stores”. From a technical standpoint that’s actually pretty accurate (though they also handle running the “app”, unlike a regular app store), but has the fun consequence of making web browsers also “app store stores”. Most browsers can be used without an account though, so I look forward to the dumb antics companies with large legal departments come up with for this one.

Do you still hangout with your childhood friends? Would you want to marry them years later? Socioeconomic status changes how people treat you, including people you already have existing relationships with. It can also affect how you treat other people if you’re not a very good person. And unfortunately a lot of not-very-good people are rich and/or famous because it requires the willingness to exploit others for personal gain.

Imagine you’re a famous person. Many people who are less famous than you now want to be you. Many other people now dislike you just because you’re famous (or maybe because some bad thing you did got covered in the media which any regular person would get away with). How do you find people who aren’t in one of those two categories to not only befriend, but date? The easiest way is to find someone in similar circumstances as you: a similar level of famous and/or rich. Sure, there are other ways, but they’re harder.

I’ve got no clue about legal documents, especially how they work in Texas, but this seems weirdly broad and with a pretty glaring loophole.

The weirdly broad part:

(2) “App store” means a publicly available Internet website, software application, or other electronic service that distributes software applications from the owner or developer of a software application to the user of a mobile device.

This sounds like any website suddenly becomes an app store as soon as it starts distributing software for a mobile device. So (ignoring my following point), if I suddenly post my new APK on my personal site suddenly it’s an app store!? Also aren’t websites software applications? That’ll be a fun one to fight out with browsers…

(4) “Mobile device” means a portable, wireless electronic device, including a tablet or smartphone, capable of transmitting, receiving, processing, and storing information wirelessly that runs an operating system designed to manage hardware resources and perform common services for software applications on handheld electronic devices.

This sounds like it includes laptops but not desktop computers.

The glaring loophole:

(a) When an individual in this state creates an account with an app store, the owner of the app store shall use a commercially reasonable method of verification to verify the individual’s age category under Subsection (b).

So if your app store does not require an account, you do not need to verify anyone’s age!? I’m all for it but that doesn’t seem to be in the spirit of the law. F-droid and my (example) personal-site-turned-app-store rejoice!

More features that are preparing for full federation support! Exciting!

Unfortunately Nvidia is also big tech so starving out (sort of) competitors doesn’t help get rid of douchebags. It actually has the added risk of giving some of the douchebags a monopoly.

Buying one of those AMD Ryzen AI Max chips actually makes more sense now…

Apparently genocide is ok but mass surveillance isn’t, so they’ll continue to do business with Israel but just won’t let one unit use it.

Microsoft must completely stop all service to everyone in Israel. Anything less is still supporting genocide.

Varying levels of disappointed for me.

Others elected a very pro-suburbia mayor who is slowly making our city worse for people who rely on transit (like me).

The provincial government is somehow worse. The leader is very corrupt, which anyone voting should’ve predicted since he used to be a drug dealer… (and also this is his second term)

Federal government just gave a standing ovation to Charlie Kirk so… yeah they’re winning for being the worst right now. Sadly enough that was the only leader I actually voted in support of. Every politician in the room when that happened should resign. It’s now the second time many of them have applauded a Nazi in that room (and this time they definitely knew he was a Nazi).

Technically free education and universal healthcare are more communist than socialist (as in, they achieve communal control/ownership over them instead of just social ownership). But broadly, communism is a form of socialism so…

And before anyone says that either of those examples aren’t controlled/owned by the government, let me point out that having a monopoly on who pays for something is an awful lot of control over it. You even see this with (nongovernmental) health insurance; they exert a lot of control on what doctors do by saying what they will and won’t pay for. Ownership is just the end game of control.

I hope the Moscone Center didn’t have to ban all LGBTQ+ and/or 18+ events to get Visa to commit

It’s never really been about upfront price so much as longevity. If you can avoid a laptop upgrade e.g. every 5 years by upgrading just a few components instead, it’ll last you longer and cost you less longterm.

Fundamentally, the cheapest way to build electronics is with very little modularity. Making parts swappable is more complicated to design and needs more components to be included. Both drive up the cost of the product.

No sweat if it’s too expensive or that’s not what you care about (ok, though you should sweat not caring about longevity), but making it all about the price is sort of missing the point. Capitalism is a tool for improving our lives but is not the only tool for that.

I don’t. Personally I think it has led to more proxy wars, as the stability-instability paradox suggests. I think the amount of actual aggression went down after WWII, but has since recovered and surpassed pre-WWII levels. But now everyone is afraid of declaring war on nuclear powers, so they’ll let the nuclear country get away with genocide or other atrocities instead. Look at Israel and Russia right now for easy examples. Seems like the winning strategy now is to convince your adversaries that you’re crazy enough to launch your nukes and then you can do whatever you want without other countries taking a strong enough stance to stop you. That’s not peace, that’s nuclear intimidation. I don’t even see a peaceful way out of it.