BananaTrifleViolin

It's because a quid is worth much elss that it used to be, not because a mars bar is worth more (although I'm sure some of it is increased profit margins masked as inflation gouging customers too)

So assuming this is not a hoax, you should get a second opinion medically. You're saying elsewhere you have elevated cortisol, estrogen and prolactin? What about your thyroid function tests? Have they imaged you from head to toe? Is there extreme eating that might account for the weight gain rather than the hormone changes?

The first concern really has to be a hormone secreting tumour. Couvade syndrome should only be considered as an extreme last option when everything else is excluded, as couvade is actually minimal changes in the male not this extreme. The psychological side of couvade would need to be relied on as the main explanation for such extreme weight change.

If your doctors have latched on to this diagnosis without throughly working you up then you need a second opinion. You need to see a good endocrinologist.

The next option to consider well before couvade is could you be being poisoned? Either intentionally or unintentionally are you being given female sex hormones and other hormones? Who prepares your food?

The idea your doctors ascribe this to couvade and wait until you partner gives birth to see what happens seems odd unless they have a very good explanation for all the changes . They would need to have extremely good reason to believe that.

If it doesn't say the year it means Nov 10 this year. The page you linked shows last release was 2 weeks ago for me.

Ubisofts being anti consumer? Surprise surprise!

They're not happy because they think people seeing other people not playing a game is the cause of the problem. They're wrong - it is the result of the problem - they make bad games, so people don't want to pay rip off prices for them.

Ubusift needs steam more than steam needs Ubusift. They tried to leave the platform and dictate to their users via their own store and launchers, and then realised people didn't follow them.

Steam is no paradise - it's basically a glorified piece of convenient DRM - but it's popular and they have no reason to bend to the demands of Ubisoft. Plenty of other devs that make good games that are popular have had the concurrent gamers tally work in their favour - helping people see that a game is growing in popularity or unexpectedly popular.

I suspect best case for Ubisoft is their games are somehow excluded but that'll end up being worst case because then it'll look like no one is playing their games. And I doubt Steam will want to open the can of worms of publishers dictating which features are or are not allowed on steam.

This is such a bizarre story. First as others pointed out 1 in 125 is 0.8% not 0.008%. They presumably forgot the 100 but in percent conversions. It's presumably 0.8% as if it's 0.008% then they're saying 9billion devices were sold on the last quarter. At 0.8% it's 90million laptop devices. They later say 20% of all laptop sales were AI laptops at 13.3 million which would be 66.5 million laptops overall, not 90milljon. 720,000 would actually 1.1% of all laptops and 5.4% of the AI subcategory.

So whoever wrote the article doesn't seem to know how to do basic maths? They also don't make clear how they arrived at their figures with these contradictory figures elsewhere in their own article.

But the main thing is this whole story is some bizarre idea that a new device getting nearly 1% of global sales in its first quarter is doing badly?

To me that's actually good? But maybe the manufacturer had some crazy expectations? Or maybe the writers think that all products should behave like incumbents?

This reads like shitty journalism - trying to make big claims to get clicks. I have no idea if the product is doing well or not versus expectations, but I don't trust this articles take on it.

I'm personally skeptical about the "AI" bullshit in these products, but I do think the power efficiency of ARM chips may give these Snapdragon X a chance to take market share from traditional chips.

He sounds very Trumpian.

We will have to see if this happens. Google will certainly be appealing so this will still drag on for years.

And let's not forget the last big anti trust case in the US - Microsoft. That was supposed to break up Microsoft but in the end the government and Microsoft came to a settlement. And it was a very weak settlement in Microsoft favour.

Microsoft opened up some of its APIs to developers but that only applied to Windows, not allowing those APIs on other systems. And the Web browser part of the case was dropped.

And look what happened - Microsoft maintained it's monopolies with Windows and Office, and they have only strengthened. On Web browsers it's monopoly wa overturned but that was in part due to the EU case (forcing a choice window in Europe) and largely because another monopolist Googlr came along leveraging search instead of an OS.

Microsoft has oblitered competition again with office. The latest example is bundling Teams in, which has destroyed Slack. And it's now aggressively pushing Edge, integrating it in unnecessary ways into the OS and making it unremovable.

The US anti trust actions against tech are weak. I don't see Google being broken up or receiving harsh sanctions. It's lost the case, but like Microsoft it will negotiate a settlement that costs it little but gives the politicians something to point at to say they did something.

I suspect the big loser will be Firefox. Part of the case against Google was that it makes exclusivity deals to funnel search customers to it. Mozilla has such a deal and is very reliant on that revenue to keep going.

And if it were forced to sell Chrome, who would buy it? It's entire business model is around funneling people to search, and snooping on customers to strengthen Googles ad data. Likely one of the other big tech companies, and they'd just try to redirect everyone and built a new monopoly.

All told Trump is up about 2m votes and Harris down 7m compared to Biden in 2020.

This is not a massive increase in support for Trump but it is a significant drop in support for the Dems that lost them the election.

The mandate "myth" is irrelevant. They won all 3 parts of government , they got their mandate.

In the UK we had Brexit and it was extremely close at 48% to 52%. Yet ever since all we ever heard about is how it was decisive and people treat everyone in the UK as if we're pro Brexit. In our elections the tories got 42% of the vote yet massive majorities so dictated what we did.

In short the problem is not the number of voters, it is the electoral system. In the US system if you win enough votes in the right places you win decisively. That seemed like a good system when there was a consensus. Not so good when there is division.

The solution in the US is the same as the UK - electoral reform is needed. The problem in the US is the same as the UK - no one will deliver that as the parties that win power are the ones who benefit from the rigged system.

Statistically if you're born, at some point you will die. Being born is deadly.

Jeeze both people come across as petty idiots. Lots of passive aggressive nonsense, and both sides want to have the last word.

Also it drives me up the wall when 2 people argue and one person tells the other to "calm down". And in this case it's "CALM DONW" and "CALM YOURSELF" between line by line quotes. So fucking childish.

I wish Blackbeard all the best on Bluesky; I think they will be disappointed. Human nature is human nature; I've been around long enough to see the cylical nature of social media. A new thing comes along, everyone joins, there is a love-in, and a "consensus" is built around how this time it's be great and what is and isn't allowed. Then things grow and a consensus that holds with 10 people breaks down with 100 or 1000, and people blame the new people for the change.

And mods at each others throats is just the nature of the beast. This has played out over and over on the internet - Usenet through to X, Reddit, etc, and the fediverse will experience the same. It's just human nature.

Apple's focus is vendor lock-in. Everything in their ecosystem integrates perfectly. They're selling devices that lock you in to their ecosystem and they get a 1/3 cut from all digital sales from competitors also using their platform.

They're not interested in getting as many people as possible watching their shows. They're interested in getting as many people as possible buying Apple TV devices, and then getting drawn into the Apple ecosystem.

Regard the $20bn spent on TV shows as marketing spend.

The reason is Apple is not in the streaming business, it's in the hardware business and sales business.

Apple is not trying to get you to just join it's streaming service. It's trying to get you to buy it's hardware so you're in it's ecosystem so it gets 1/3 of everything you spend on content and services. It's the ultimate route in upselling.

You buy an Apple TV device, you watch some of their shows but also you buy some apps, and you sign up for other services (who have to pay apple for access), maybe you buy content through iTunes.

Apple wants you using Apple TV, and get an IPhone and a Mac and tablet etc. If you're not on an Apple device they don't want you because you're able to spend money elsewhere.

Apples whole business is vendor lock-in. They just lock you in a gilded cage so you don't realise you're a prisoner. And they make you pay for the gilding.

$20bn is nothing in the scale of Apples ecosystem.