You’re spot on that it wasn’t perfect, and it especially falls apart when you look at the politicization of science and objective facts. E.g. climate change should not be a debate, so there should be no obligation to humor a talking head with an R next to their name who is there to “refute” climate change every time a story is run about it.

So on principle, I can’t say I love the idea that the Fairness Doctrine required a good bit of oversimplistic “both sides” nonsense. But in practice, it wasn’t the media personalities spreading politicized pseudoscience who ended up deplatformed with the law’s removal—the opposite ended up happening. Having realized that sensationalism sells, the “alternative facts” crowd are now the only voice in the room for a lot of clueless people. And I think that’s the outcome Republicans wanted when they did away with it.

In the absence of a better system today, I can’t say I wouldn’t like to see it make a return. I’d prefer it if there was still a legal obligation for all of these media outlets to platform at least one sane person.

Also right that it wasn’t just the removal of the Fairness Doctrine that led to where we are now, appreciate the other examples (and for a bit of a twist, it was under the Clinton administration that the Telecommunications Act was signed).

Thank the deregulation of the 80’s and 90’s, coupled with the internet making it easier than ever to access anything and everything.

It used to be that spreading falsehoods or political bias on network TV or the airwaves via radio could get your station’s license revoked by the FCC. But Reagan killed the Fairness Doctrine, and with that out of the way, there were no barriers for Rush Limbaugh and similar ilk to make more money by saying whatever kept the hyper-conservative, over-religious pearl clutches tuning in.

Of course, but I think when people complain about the software, it’s that out-of-the-box experience they are describing. The vast majority of users are not savvy enough to flash custom ROMs, sideload, or even install a new launcher. And even for those with the expertise to do so, it’s extra work.

But then that also doesn’t quite address the app situation either. Android, for better or worse, is all about scalable interfaces to accommodate an infinitely wide array of devices, but most people with a tablet will tell you that they don’t like “tablet” apps that are just rescaled phone apps with way too much whitespace. So there may be something to be said about the way Apple maintains iPad OS separately from iOS, with more stringent design standards to adhere to for app developers to have their iPad apps listed in their app store.

It’s a valid concern, though. The tablet experience has always sucked on Android, so the foldable experience is trying to hybridize with something the OS has never been able to get right.

But the inverse is also true. There’s no telling if a future software update will take a good experience and make it terrible.

Only difference I can see is that it looks like they sharpened the edges and removed the screen bevel in the process.

But that could have already happened on prior devices without me noticing, since my current device is years old and I haven’t seen a need to upgrade yet.

Ahhh, so they “mischaracterized” it. That makes it okay, then.

Banning an entire class of ads online and in media during peak hours? Sounds like a win to me, even if it doesn’t have the effect they hope for.

Ads suck, especially ads that are selling garbage no one needs. The fewer, the better.

Some Republicans, like all of the ones endorsing Harris, but Trump’s MAGA core voting base is still shielded by their reality distortion field where Trump “won”.

I couldn’t even watch 10 minutes because it was so painfully obvious they were just lying through their teeth, and it was so desperate sounding that to a non-R voter, it came across as them not even watching the debate.

I think that may be their strategy. They assume a lot of their base doesn’t want to watch the debate, instead they just tune in after the fact, and they get the bizarro universe account of what happened presented as fact and thus feel more validated in their beliefs.

During Cerny’s presentation, he specifically talked about the compromise between 60fps performance mode and 30fps graphics modes, so it’s to get 60 fps that people are typically enabling performance mode for.

That’s the only thing I wish they’d say more often. Get out and vote!

Depends on how they say it.

“Pokemon Go…to the polls” still echoes in the dark recesses or my memory.

All new cars are spying on you.

From what I’ve been seeing around the internet, Republicans are convinced that the debate was rigged. Harris was given the questions in advance, the moderators were biased, etc. etc.

Could give the justices 18-year terms, with a new justice appointed every 2 years. That way every presidential term gets to appoint 2 new justices, 4 justices if they win a second term.

Chasing the “best version” is a fool’s errand, though. Unless you’re buying top-of-the-line hardware every cycle, you’ll never have the best. And even then, there are games that seem to target future hardware by having settings so high not even top-end PCs can max them out comfortably, and other games that are just so badly optimized they’ll randomly decide they hate some feature of your setup and tank the performance, too.

Everyone has their threshold for what looks good enough, and they upgrade when they reach that point. I used my last PC for 10 years before finally upgrading to a newer build, and I’m hoping to use my current one as long as well.

But just based on the displayed difference in performance between the base PS5 and the PS5 Pro, it doesn’t seem like a good investment for what benefits you get. It’s like paying Apple prices for marginally better hardware, and with overpriced wheels disc drive sold separately.

Now that’s a hot take.

Trying to be the Adobe of game engines is fine, but their online service is the line in the sand?

My memory may be hazy, but I recall the mainstream acceptance of the digital distribution model on PC as more of an early 2010’s thing. People hated Steam at launch, having yet another launcher you had to download which was basically just DRM for Half-Life 2 and Counter-Strike.

It wasn’t until their marketplace opened up and they offered very attractive sales that people came around to it eventually.

The side-by-sides are definitely diminished returns compared to earlier gens where hardware bumps had very noticeable gains.

I am sure the performance is measurably better than the base PS5, but I don’t think it’s $200-plus-separate-disc-drive better.

I also found the game choices they used for some of these comparisons to be odd picks. Sure you have “Made for PS5” exclusives like the new Ratchet and Clank, Returnal, and Spider-Man 2, but they also heavily showcased:

• The Last of Us Part 2

• God of War: Ragnarok

• Ghost of Tsushima

• Horizon: Forbidden West

• Control

All of those are last-gen games that received PS5 enhancements. Being on a base PS5, I already feel like I am getting the “better” experience compared to the default for those games, so why upgrade?

And Kristy Noem even bragged about murdering her dog in a book as if it were some sort of selling point for conservatives.

The script I used also edited my comments prior to deletion, but it apparently didn’t hit my older posts on the edits either.