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Per the video though, the problem clearly is Windows’ ability to enumerate the serial devices and assign COM* port numbers to them. Linux might do a bit better there, although looking at my Ubuntu systems the hard-coded maximum serial port count is 64 (adjustable by recompiling the kernel, at least).

In any case, that is only an attempt (as they say themselves) to maintain period accuracy. If you ignore that, you’d probably have a much easier time with USB modems connected to either a bunch of hubs, or a handful of multi-port PCI(e) USB cards.

Also - and we are getting extremely off-topic here - individual Epyc CPUs allow 128 PCIe lanes, but 48 or 64 are used for the inter-socket link in a 2S system, leaving a maximum 128 or 160 available as external connectivity. A moot point anyway as PCIe switches exist, and can be found in all manner of hilarious expansion chassis that could allow hundreds of PCIe cards even on a desktop system: https://shop.bressner.de/en/products/hpc-solutions/gpu-computers/gpu-expansions/gen5-4u-pro-16-slot/

This video made me wonder what is the most PCI slots ever found in a single system.

During the dialup era, the most reliable modem I ever used was the 3Com 3CP5610A, which to be fair is probably much the same hardware as in these external models (just packed onto a PCI card).

It’s just an awful lot harder to cram a dozen into a single PC when it’s one modem per PCI slot.

(It was a great modem because it appeared to the system as a hardware serial port, so was 100% Linux compatible without crazy driver hacks unlike most “winmodem” devices of the day)

It would be the other way around, if at all.

“First-surface” mirrors where the reflective layer is on the front of the glass are quite fragile, so wouldn’t typically used for residential applications (you’d remove the reflective coating by cleaning it).

A regular mirror has the reflective surface on the back of the glass (which is then is further coated with a protective paint), leading to the effect you describe.

I don’t however know enough to say one way or the other whether a surveillance mirror would becessarily be a first-surface mirror.

Fair point. Games clearly need to start decoupling the UI scale/resolution from the general screen resolution.

In a somewhat parallel issue, I’ve found that playing games on the couch (usually with Steam in-home streaming, from a PC elsewhere in the house) I have to reduce the resolution because the game’s UI is far too small at TV-watching differences.

There are two kinds of people who would like a refreshed Steam Deck, in my experience:

1. People who seem to think it needs to be faster. Since it appears to be crafted to provide suitable performance for the 720p display it has (which I don’t personally think needs to be changed, considering the whole “portable” use case), this seems to just be a “bigger number better” argument and those people should probably go out and buy a Lenovo Legion / ROG Ally / whatever.

2. People who are otherwise happy, but think it should have a newer, more efficient processor to get longer battery life, and make less heat/noise in the process. There’s a measurable gulf between the current Zen2/RDNA2 CPU and a theoretical modern Zen5/RDNA3.5 (or even RDNA4) model in that regard; it could be tuned to deliver roughly the same performance as the original (or a little more, for the handful of games that tend to miss their performance target slightly) but deliver longer battery life.

We got a hint at 2) with the OLED model’s CPU using a newer manufacturing process improving thermals and battery life (of course it did also have a bigger battery). I think the number of people willing to pay a bit extra for what could be an even larger improvement in that area is probably more than some would like to admit.

(I personally fit in that latter category. Considering a full work day including a public transport commute and lunch break, not a whole lot of extra battery could well be the difference between having to carry a charger and not)

That’s “missing” as in “an additional problem that’s not on your list”, I brought it up as it’s one I’ve run into myself with online installers; not actually delivering the version of something that you’d asked for.

You’re missing one massive issue here, which is that - irrespective of the version you think you downloaded - they can use this tactic to force the latest version to be installed instead.

Need an older version, because they broke a feature, changed the license terms, made something that was previous free paid-for, or otherwise? Too bad. That installer is only ever going to do one thing, and it’s the newest version (if, as you say, it continues to work at all).

I think they’ve advertised 4 years OS / 6 years security for 2025’s models.

I fully agree with you it was terrible previously, in fact as low as 2/2 at one point.

They did, but I honestly preferred the old version. I swapped recently from a 1ii (21:9) to 1vii (19.5:9).

I now can’t reliably use the phone one-handed and reach the entire way across the display with my thumb, which feels like a much bigger usability issue. Being unable to reach the top was mitigated by side-of-screen gestures that allowed access to the notification bar without reaching to the top of the display, so it was never actually a problem.

While I can indeed now reach the top of the screen with my thumb, the phone is wide enough that I can’t firmly hold it while doing so, which really isn’t an improvement if I’m liable to drop the damn thing.

And to be clear, this is with a very small real-world difference in size. If you look at GSM Arena’s size comparison tool, the actual difference is only 3.1mm (1.9%) shorter, and 2.9mm (4.1%) wider: https://www.gsmarena.com/size-compare-3d.php3?idPhone1=13843&idPhone2=10096

The other thing I can also no longer do is watch a video and use another app at the same time; previously you could have a full-screen-width 16:9 video at the top of the screen, an app with an actually usable amount of height in the middle and the keyboard at the bottom and interact with everything. There’s just not enough room for all three with the shorter aspect, the video always getting scrolled halfway off the screen when opening the keyboard.

Curiously, have you actually owned one of the earlier 21:9 models? Because I’ve noticed the absolutely overwhelming majority of “complaints” come from people who’ve never actually tried it, but my experience is you hand someone your (21:9) phone and every time they make a positive comment about it.

Losing these “unique” features is also the thing that is probable to kill Sony phones for good. Without some point of differentiation they’ll become another “also-ran”, selling devices that are otherwise similar to their competitors but cost more. That isn’t sustainable long term. Just ask LG, HTC, or any other non-Samsung Android manufacturer who’s no longer with us.

Carrot sticks and hummus are my go-to for this situation. It might not be the lowest calorie option, but still healthy without at all feeling like I’m torturing myself in the process.

Like so many things, there are degrees. Yes you can sit down with a big bowl of celery, but making yourself miserable isn’t going to help you keep up the good habits.

Also Futurama, though the “musical” episodes there tend to be only a single song.

How Hermes Requisitioned His Groove Back is a masterpiece though.

The facilities team at our office would previously build a C-shaped box out of MDF or plywood to sit a regular, fixed-height desk on top of.

To be fair they did a nice job, they were sturdy and would have recesses for the desk’s legs to sit in to prevent sideways movement. But the problem then became “what about when those people wanted to sit”, so tall office chairs - that didn’t match the rest of the chairs in the office - had to be bought, undoubtedly at considerable expense.

The new, all-standing-desks use-it-if-you-want-or-don’t-it-doesn’t-matter-to-us regime seems to just avoid a lot of unnecessary shifting of furniture.

It should be a great idea, but I feel like the quantities involved are too vastly different.

I’m seeing estimates of 300kW/hectare (30MW/km² or 77MW/mile²) for heating glasshouses. With individual datacentres frequently confirming multiple gigawatts, the land area required just doesn’t match up.

This is not to say it isn’t worth considering, but it would be a rounding error in the datacentre’s heat output before you ran out of space to build more glasshouses.

There’s a secondary concern of water consumption. You might extend that to ah but what if we could use that to grow the plants too? but the evaporated cooling water out of one of these systems tends to be anything but clean. Maybe that’s a more solvable problem.

It’s an old trope, but it is of those things that pictures truly cannot capture, too. The ship is unfathomably large.

I didn’t have a camera lens wide enough to reasonably get the entire thing in frame, from any location in the building.

We took gin, a bottle of tonic water syrup, and a lemon. The tannins in the river water it was mixed with making it look like a cup of tea in no way detracted from the experience.

Your other trick is to decant the alcohol into a stainless steel drink bottle. Saw so many people pulling glass bottles of spirits out of their pack, lotta extra weight to lug about with you.

Compose key, hyphen, hypen. Because while it’s a less common usage, visually I prefer the shorter en dash – over the em dash — anyway.

Also for people missing the Unix-style compose key on Windows: https://wincompose.info/. Memorising numeric codes is for chumps :)

If he makes it into the bathroom, my (void) will put his paws on the seat between my legs and try to headbutt me in the nose while I’m pooping.

Like dude, I try to even avoid eye contact with you when you’re in YOUR toilet, don’t I deserve the same respect?

I’m considering a similar one.

Our kitchen ceiling lights now have a Shelly relay in their circuit. I’m considering a smart bulb in the rangehood - unusually, it fits a full-size A60/B22 bulb, so basically any standard smart lighting is an option - so it can be synced with the rest of the kitchen lights.

Also who wouldn’t want to be able to have green light while cooking?

Not seen mentioned yet, but Homeworld (1999).

The transition from the opening cutscene to the game proper scored to Agnus Dei (Adagio for Strings) by Samuel Barber really set the tone for the thing.

I don’t remember much else about the soundtrack, but that one piece stuck with me.

“Surveillance-minded” (hereafter, “Helicopter”) parents were almost certainly already doing that.

It just required a sharp knife and a tube of contact adhesive previously.