Looking at my younger sister, I'd risk saying it's the same in all generations. I'll even say more: I think earlier generations had a general thought of "computer consists of separate parts; you can buy them separately and replace if needed / want better performance", even the less technical ones. But now everything is a black box (therefore e.g. why not overspend and always buy a black box from Apple if that's fashionable now).
But maybe that was kind of related to times and the place – where I live people needed to be a bit more savvy, so thought like "why you buy an iPhone if Xiaomi can do the same 4x cheaper; if you chose the right model you may even have a good camera too" was popular even in non-tech circles.
But yeah, now that hardware is a bit more of a commodity and such tradeoff might give you a bit more adware with a bit less convenience, maybe it's different. But the next generation's understanding of computer/phone as something else than a magical black box is gone.
Yeah it's not my point to say Apple is bad – their laptops are now without competition on build quality, battery life and performance; and iPhone is really solid, and was probably the only good UX back in the day. But it's also pricey (and building antipatterns for repairability and interconnections other vendors happily copied later), and back in the dat it was just natural to be "savvy" – and that meant understanding how much juice you'll get with configuring something with that RAM, HDD vs SDD and whatnot, or that getting phone with SD slot gives you more space for your photos, and it didn't matter it's slower than whatever flash phone manufacturers are using.
Apple popularised the idea of "just buying a computer", which took away some understanding in the common public. It happened somewhere during my generation, and it's just ubiquitous in the following one.
I'm happier with my Opencode Go running with the pi harness than Claude Code at work currently. I'm not sure if this will be that big of a moat, at least in the software dev market.
I've tried GLM a few times but each time it ends up getting stuck in a loop and burning tons of tokens before I eventually kill it and restart. Has anyone had the same issue / know how to avoid it? I've been using Qwen 3.6 instead
I have zero quality issues on Z.ai Coding Plan and maki.sh as the coding agent, but I've seen many reports on 3rd party providers that they host heavily quantized versions of GLM models.
...or any cheap VPS? I now do most of "second brain" things via pi harness with Opencode Go subscription, and it costs me like 20 bucks a year, with added benefit of "you can have tmux and open session realtime on whatever device".
If I told you a consumable substance is mind-altering, habit-forming, pleasurable and difficult to quit, very bad for your health in the quantities most abusers take it, but they continue to do so anyway- what would you call it?
I've always maintained that most "drugs" are just drugs other people dislike, and everyone is apparently happy to go along with this cognitive dissonance; hence the common phrase "drugs and alcohol", "drunk driving" vs "drug driving" etc etc.
> If I told you a consumable substance is mind-altering, habit-forming, pleasurable and difficult to quit, very bad for your health in the quantities most abusers take it, but they continue to do so anyway- what would you call it?
No need to wait at no window.
After you activate Alipay, just click on "Transport" and create a metro card for Beijing. Scan code on enter, scan on exit, pay the sweet low fare automatically.
One app, 30+ cities.
So you can stay in line or go private to skip it. From my European POV, both paths are viable, but when you have "free" options, paid ones don't have exorbitant prices.
> but when you have "free" options, paid ones don't have exorbitant prices.
This is not my experience. Paid options in the UK are exorbitant, because there is almost no market for them. In my experience, it's cheaper to just fly somewhere with good medical tourism for the issue you are having than get it treated privately in the UK.
For the record, I still much prefer the UK system to the US system.
I'm an expat Brit, been living in the States for a decade and a half. I've been through the NHS for various more significant health things, and had family that have opted for private.
I don't think you grasp just how expensive private healthcare is in the US, even with an insurance policy.
Private health care is so much cheaper in the UK. If you're saying it's much more expensive than Europe, maybe that'll give an idea how expensive it is to get sick in the US!
The US system is messed up beyond belief. One of the notable improvements recently has been the transparent pricing rule signed in to law a few years ago. So now I can see what things cost a bit more in advance, but I can't ever predict how much my insurance will actually choose to pay. Oh, and if it's inpatient, and I don't like the cost, well tough. I've really only got a couple of hospitals to choose from, and their prices are pretty much in sync, and only one of them is "in-network" for most procedures (meaning insurance wouldn't cover much at the other one)
No one is comparing UK private insurance to Turkey or Vietnam. They're comparing US to UK, and yes, even private care to skip the lines in the UK is way cheaper than similar care in the US.
I went public and private routes for a surgery last year, ended up with the NHS as the process was faster, additionally ended up getting a payment from my private insurance for going the public route.
But maybe that was kind of related to times and the place – where I live people needed to be a bit more savvy, so thought like "why you buy an iPhone if Xiaomi can do the same 4x cheaper; if you chose the right model you may even have a good camera too" was popular even in non-tech circles.
But yeah, now that hardware is a bit more of a commodity and such tradeoff might give you a bit more adware with a bit less convenience, maybe it's different. But the next generation's understanding of computer/phone as something else than a magical black box is gone.
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