> There should be some kind of OS level flag that can easily broadcast to products that a child is using the device.

Anything like that should be configured by the parents. Your child is your responsibility. I shouldn't have to take a picture of my passport just because someone is a neglectful parent.

Absolutely. Of course. Is there any question about this? Do you see people advocating for something other than this?

Yeah, there're people saying everyone should verify their age for the sake of keeping children off internet.

Wasn't writing on the wall when Aaron Swartz got prosecuted?

And people still don't believe Apple is giving a good deal on Macs.

Prompt processing on Macs is VERY slow...

which engine? cause there are dozens already, and some are quite fast.

Which one is the fastest and how fast is it? Even the "fast" ones doesn't seem to even reach close to consumer NVIDIA GPUs released years ago when it comes to prompt processing.

large model and slow, or speed and a teeny model, make your choice

Or you get N of RTX Pro 6000 and get large and fast models :) Make your choice, and do it before the prices go up even more.

indeed. make up your mind, and also "slow/fast" mean very little given plethora of models to choose from. fast for what, slow for what. fast with which harness, etc...

well yes if money is no object, why not

none of them are Nvidia GPU FAST

But more memory is available so a larger model can be loaded. It depends on the use case which is better. Any chat or voice model will have better UX with nvidia but document or code generation will be better with apple.

it's not a binary thing. At some point Apple becomes too slow with very large models. If you can just run a model at 1 token per second and it takes 30 mins to process a long context, it's useless

> Prompt processing on Macs is VERY slow...

That sounds like a contradiction.

/J

With that attitude from the corporations, why wouldn't anyone pirate?

I think the current iteration of foldables is still too bulky for me. But I can see how it'd be cool to have a large screen while the device still fits in my pocket.

Wait till you hear about the UK.

I don't understand how this is news. We have a ton of science fiction talking about the very same scenario. We (as a humanity) just have no solution.

We absolutely have a solution: Don't do the thing. It's the solution to pretty much every problem our planet is facing.

The problem is that very rich/powerful people want to be very much richer/more powerful by doing the thing.

Science fiction said many things. Look at Star Trek.

Have all these things become reality? If not why would you then insinuate this is the default for everything to come in the future?

> Have all these things become reality?

Quite a few of 'em. Communicators and commbadges became smartphones. PADDs are iPads. The ship's computer is a LLM (with the weird inhuman blindspots to questions, even).

The ship's computer reacts like an (incredibly good) expert system. It refuses to say anything that isn't verifiably correct, and if you get it into a logical inconsistency it essentially throws and error and doesn't elaborate further.

LLMs don't do have those responses. LLMs are like humans: humans respond, correct or not (with humans hopefully if they only know incorrect stuff the response is to say so, but that is not a guarantee, but they will respond). And if you give a human, or an LLM, a logical inconsistency they will simply proceed, whether they detect the inconsistency or not.

This is how LLMs are designed ... and if you look long enough at the human (or animal) nervous system you will eventually realize that this is also the design of our nervous system: if something goes in, something comes out, guaranteed (in fact that's close to the only guarantee). Very different from expert system's "either something correct (according to the programmed axioms) comes out, or nothing".

Hell, if you then look at insect nervous systems, they are also designed that way. The key is to respond to everything. And while reasonable responses are certainly preferred, an idiotic response is still seen as a lot better than not responding at all by God/Darwin. Exactly like LLMs.

Of course, for humans/insects our bodies are what is called "active stable", like a plane. Meaning our bodies damage themselves, and just outright die without constant neural control. Heartbeat. Breathing. Blood flow regulation. Temperature, probably even the immune system. All need constant neural feedback to stay stable, and if that neural feedback totally disappears, we're dead in 2-10 seconds (heart failure), 2 minutes (breathing), a few hours, maybe a day (temperature regulation). Now we have a distributed nervous system, meaning lots of parts can fail semi-independently, for a short while, but even without your cortex operational you die in a few weeks.

The consequences of this are even explored with "I, Borg" (5x23) and the Datalore episodes after that, where the underlying problem is that the Borg try (and fail) to adapt to and to process a logical inconsistency but Soong's androids have no issue with it (with Data trying to help and his brother Lore trying to control them and Data with it)

> It refuses to say anything that isn't verifiably correct, and if you get it into a logical inconsistency it essentially throws and error and doesn't elaborate further… And if you give a human, or an LLM, a logical inconsistency they will simply proceed, whether they detect the inconsistency or not.

Claude has a `End conversation` tool for that. There was a bit of a fuss over it.

And it'll happily give (apparently) wrong (or bafflingly incomplete/confusing) info.

TNG, S4E5:

Beverly: Computer, what is the nature of the universe?

Computer: The universe is a spheroid region 705 meters in diameter.

You should watch that episode. It's really cool and in that episode the universe really is a sphere 705 meters in diameter.

I'm aware. The point is the computer sees nothing odd about this.

It's a concrete example of something a human would consider "a logical inconsistency they will simply proceed" past without really noting.

Modern LLMs have to some extent exceeded Star Trek in this regard; they will go "huh, that doesn't match expectations..." at times.

"The scenario has been explored in fiction" doesn’t mean "everything in fiction will happen." Your reply conflates familiarity with inevitability.

Science fiction is relevant here because it has explored the problem of humans losing control of what they create. Whether that could happen with AI needs to be assessed on its merits. Pointing to other fictional things that haven’t happened neither answers that question nor rebuts the original point.

As a pretty avid Star Trek watcher from childhood, I found most of the things there technologically plausible other than the conversational nature of the ship's computer. Well, LLMs now are far more impressive conversation counterparts than those ships were ever depicted.

> As a pretty avid Star Trek watcher from childhood, I found most of the things there technologically plausible other than the conversational nature of the ship's computer.

so the faster-than-light travel seemed plausible?

Warp drive is among the more plausible ways to get FTL sure - it is compatible with relativity at least...

you're being extremely generous.

> Have all these things become reality?

I suggest you read 1984. It ended up being a field guide.

What's up with that? Younger generations don't even play on PCs anymore.

What I find funny is the whole "PC gaming is growing" kind of speech, as some generations abandon consoles for PCs.

I and most of my peers have been playing home computers, since the 8 bit days, eventually moved into PC gaming with a 386SX in 1991.

While I owned a few consoles, the PC remained the main gaming platform.

Do agree that younger generations are mostly playing mobile games.

PC sales peaked 15 years ago, and have been declining ever since. Most of the best selling PC games are from 15-30 years ago.

Laptops are also PCs.

Yeah, that is why no one uses Steam, only old games there.

Laptops are already counted in PC sales, since they are PCs.

PC game revenue hasn't been declining:

https://www.visualcapitalist.com/video-game-industry-revenue...

Games doubling in price hides less copies bought, much like movies selling far less tickets yet having higher revenues.

No matter how you count it, PC gaming has been in decline for a long time.

I think your maybe counting just physical sales? 15 years ago was the start of the shift to digital sales, which have greatly grown. Just steam (which is the bulk of digital PC sales):

Steam units sold: 402M (2019) → 704M (2024), up 21% in 2024 alone.

Steam peak concurrent users: 3.52M in January 2011 → 42,042,778 on January 11, 2026. Roughly twelvefold, directly measured from Valve's API.

Valve's own disclosed number, which isn't an estimate by anyone: between August 2024 and August 2025, Steam averaged 109,000 people making their first ever purchase every day. That's about 40 million brand-new paying customers in one year.

Games released on Steam: ~8,100 in 2019 → 20,282 in 2025.

Steam gross revenue: $4.5B (2019) → roughly $16.9B (2025).

Some of the best selling games did come out roughly 15 years ago, but that's because they've been selling consistently ever since. Like Minecraft, the Witcher, etc.

Not counting physical, which certainly died.

Games released is not indicative of revenues: 80% of steam games make < $5k, and median steam game makes at most a few hundred $. So that doesn't really tell much about sales.

Recent data seems available in reports from Newzoo: their The PC & Console Gaming Report 2025 states there was 1.2% total PC growth 2021-2024 in nominal dollars (40.5B to $40-42B). In real dollars that is around -15%, so enough shrinkage that many industries would really feel the pain. In smaller sections, their 2014, 2017, 2024 reports show PC share of global games spend fell 17%. They (and SuperData) data show premium PC fell a few percent (nominal, more in real $). Playtime per player fell 26% (Newzoo 2024, 2025).

Also, around 50-60% of revenue, which is nice, is not new game sales, but microtransactions, and these are extremely weighted to the largest few games. Of the remaining, around 10-15% is subscription fees, also not new sales.

Using Steam as a proxy for the whole industry hides losses if more title % moved to Steam, since then the numbers you posted are not comparing like to like.

Some Newzoo data is easily found, use AI to find copies of their closed reports floating around the internet.

> On a bus or train, barely one or two people are actually doing something other than watching something online.

I mean, what else should I be doing? Self-analyzing and staring in the window?

Read, knitting/crochet, sleep, listen to music, play games (eg. emulator + pokemon games), study, read a newspaper, do crosswords, play chess online, watch a movie, listen to a podcast, learn a language, talk to other non-scrolling people, and yes, you can also stare outside, daydream or self-analyze, or even do nothing. Just a few decades ago we had a lot of dead times, it's not that crazy to pass an hour without having anything to do.

A lot of those suggestions mean staring at a phone or smilar device and a bystander like ggp might not be able to tell them apart from looking at social media.

Comments like this always ignore the fact that in the olden days before phones, a majority of people read newspapers or books and busybody news columnists bemoaned how everyone was lost in their media instead of socializing.

Literally nothing has changed in the past century other than the variety of idle tasks one can keep in their pocket. People chose to not engage then exactly the same as they do now.

If only there was a device I could use to play games and listen to music at the same time.

I treasure my memories of being on subways and busses and getting lost in thought while staring out the windows, yeah. I mean, people have done this for basically all of human history (okay walking or something, not on a train, but, yeah). It's not a bad thing to have some time with just your senses existing in the world.

I mean, you're right. When I travel, I rarely use my phone or listen to music because everything is about discovering new things, and I love it

But when I'm home, on my way from home to the gym, I take the same route every day, and it can get boring sometimes

I'm also terrible at keeping my phone charged, so sometimes I end up alone with my thoughts anyway

The problem with being always online is not “not-enjoying” but stopping to think. People are getting used to be feed what they need to think constantly (from politics to product reviews) and then their critical thinking skills atrophy.

Moreover, I’m not sure if being on social media is something “enjoyable” anymore, and it’s more like smoking tobacco where it becomes necessary but is not enjoyed.

Do you really enjoy doom scrolling? Because I don't, it is just addictive and makes me feel tired and sad most of the times, with infrequent sparks of joy.

They are really adictive and engaging, and they trick you into spending more time there. Nobody ever says "let's watch reels for 3h", but here we are.

> Self-analyzing and staring in the window

you say this like it's a negative thing :( have you tried it?

It just gets me how some people are telling me what to do in my free time in such a condescending way.

Social media companies are also telling you what to do in your free time- they're just doing it in a much more subtle, pernicious way that goes straight to our dopamine pathways.

Reading and conversing with a stranger? Maybe not every time but at least once in a while?

I read but on my phone or ebook reader and have done so for nearly 20 years. Especially since mass market paperbacks were replaced by larger ones that do not fit in my pocket or bookshelves.

I am in England – It is considered very odd to talk to strangers on a train or bus

I would say it's pretty common to talk to strangers on the train in England. I could just be the "Northerner terrifying Londoners by saying Hello" though. I do know not to start a conversation with a stranger on the tube.

I think it depends on the train journey personally. I'd never dream of striking up a conversation on the Tube or a busy commuter line; personally I'm the definition of 'not a morning person' so I've no social battery to spare in those circumstances. On the other hand I quite like a chat when I'm not in a hurry or it's not the morning, makes the time go faster.

Mind you most of the talk seems to be along the lines of 'GWR couldn't organise a piss-up in a brewery' these days.

Thinking. Taking notes, ideally on a piece of paper. Relaxing. Talking to strangers. And yes, self-analysing. Staring in the window, maybe not so much.

its ok to just be bored. that was life in the 90s for me

I've first seen this in Moscow around 2018 (in Google Maps) and then in Ivano-Frankovsk in 2021 (some local custom app). I think such live maps are the best use of public funds one could imagine.

I dunno, I think there's one better use and that's funding a federated framework for this so any transport network can just plug into the system as a source and any client can plug in as a consumer.

Well, there is this: https://mobilitydatabase.org/ which sounds about what you're looking for, although it is still up to the client to combine the feeds its looking for.