Which means anybody with a Linux gaming PC can probably run any game that works with the Gabe Cube. They might have to tweak a few settings so that the game thinks it’s running on a Gabe Cube, but that’s nothing Linux users aren’t used to doing already.

I think number 2 is the biggest deal here.

Right now Steam runs on Linux, and has now reached 3.2% of all Linux users, which is getting too big to just ignore. But that’s 0.3% of all Steam users running Arch, 0.25% running Mint, 0.15% running Ubuntu, and so-on. Say you’re a smallish publisher like Klei. You might want to release your games on Linux, but it would be a pain in the ass to have to do QA for a dozen different distros, each of which is less than 1% of your user base, especially when nearly every box is customized in some way. But, if the Steam Deck and Gabe Cube take off, they’ll have to support at least one Linux distro. That means that if you’re running say Ubuntu, as long as you can get your system to look enough like the Gabe Cube, any game that works well on the Gabe Cube should work for you.

That could start off a positive feedback loop. More games will support Gabe Cube and Steam Deck, so Linux for gaming PCs becomes more and more viable. With more and more users using Linux, making sure Linux is well supported becomes a priority for publishers. That encourages even more people to move to Linux.

Also, for the other points, it might also be something good for families where one person (say mom or dad) likes building their own gaming PC, but 8 year old son isn’t yet at the age where he can build his own PC, and mom doesn’t want to have to build a whole gaming PC for him too. Now you can just quickly add another gaming PC to the house but without having to do significantly more upkeep and maintenance.

Not immune, but not safer, definitely. A lot of bullshit like that is a south-of-the-border phenomenon.

So, I can tell you what I know from a bassist’s PoV.

What I posted was the 12 bar blues chord progression in Roman Numeral notation. What it tells you is that if you start in the key of C, the other bars are 4 and 5 notes up from C. In addition, since the notation is in uppercase, the chords / arpeggios you can play in that bar are major not minor. So, if a bassist is playing a walking bass line for 12 bar blues, they’ll probably start those bars with C, F and G. But, since they’re C major, F major and G major, the bassist can play major arpeggios in that key in those bars and it will sound good.

For other kinds of blues progressions, if you know Radiohead’s “Creep”, you can see that as being an 8 bar blues with the following progression:

So if the root is C, the 2nd bar is E major, third bar is F major, 4th bar is F minor, and so on. Because the 3rd and 4th bars are both rooted at F the bassist can just play an F there and it sounds good (which is what I think Radiohead’s bassist does), but if the bassist chooses to play more notes in an apeggio, they have to play notes from the F-minor scale in that 4th bar or it doesn’t match.

As for why those various chord progressions happen to work, that I don’t know. I don’t know if anybody does. But, I do know there’s some math / physics behind it. A perfect fifth is one of the most pleasant sounding intervals, and those notes are at a frequency ratio of 2:3. The only better sounding thing is an octave at 1:2. And, the inverse of a perfect fifth is a perfect fourth. So, songs being made from 4ths, 5ths and octaves makes sense.

I I I I IV IV I I V IV I IV

Baking is not chemical engineering. Chemical engineering doesn’t even have much to do with chemistry. It’s mostly about temperatures and flow rates, pressure, etc.

Saying “the baseline of programming knowledge could be more than zero” is meaningless. The baseline of chemical engineering knowledge could also be more than zero. It’s also a fundamental part of our society. But, the average person doesn’t need to know how to program, just like the average person doesn’t need to know how to design a refinery.

People do learn some basic computer skills. They should learn more. They should know about files. They should know how to back up their data. And, more importantly, they should learn how to restore data from a backup after something goes wrong. They should know how to properly update their devices, how to tell if their devices are infected, and the basics of managing a home network. They sometimes learn how to do basic functions in excel spreadsheets. That’s about as far as they do, or should need to go in programming / IT. Beyond that, why should the average person need to know how to do recursion, or how loops work?

the general public has failed to learn programming

That’s like saying that the general public has failed to learn surgery, or the general public has failed to learn chemical engineering.

There are certain things that it just doesn’t make sense for the general public to ever be expected to learn.

It never actually seems to work out that way though. Sure, for Y2K there was a short period where there were decent contracts fixing that bug in various codebases, but it wasn’t something that lasted very long.

Managers and owners would much rather pass off a terrible PoS and have their users deal with it, or somehow get the government to bail them out, or hire a bunch of Uyghur programmers from a Chinese labour camp, or figure out some other way to avoid having to pay programmers / software engineers what they’re actually worth.

I did that myself back in the day. Not overly complicated, but a SQL builder.

I think it’s because SQL is sort-of awkward. For basic uses you can take a SQL query string and substitute some parameters in that string. But, that one query isn’t going to cover all your use cases. So, then you have at least 2 queries which are fairly similar but not similar enough that it makes sense just to do string substitutions. Two strings that are fairly similar but distinct suggests that you should refactor it. But, maybe you only make a very simple query builder. Then you have 5 queries and your query builder doesn’t quite cover the latest version, so you refactor it again.

But, instead of creating a whole query builder, it’s often better to have a lot of SQL repetition in the codebase. It looks ugly, but it’s probably much more maintainable.

The canonical video which demonstrates that truth.

You think I’m ignorant because…?

Is that better than them speeding and not paying?

Sure guy.

I don’t want to have to completely redo my whole email stack.

Well, yeah.

Oh wow. AFAIK Boston’s is the oldest one in North America, more than a century old now.

Yeah, the red line is, IMO, Boston’s best line. But, that was also partially based on where I mostly travelled. But, I imagine the red line probably receives a bit more attention than the other lines because it’s the line that serves Harvard and MIT.

And you sound like someone who wants to be able to run red lights without consequences.

They have speed and traffic light cameras made by the same companies and they are pushing them out indiscriminately.

Who’s “they”?

Also why should that company get money if someone speeds or goes through a red light?

Around here, the company doesn’t get money. The fine is sent by the government and the government gets paid. I don’t know why it’s different for you, sounds like you need to change your government.

I made this point in another comment, but these cameras send you bills instead of tickets

Maybe where you live, not where I live.

the T was lightyears ahead of the Dublin metro system.

Wow, Dublin’s metro must suck. Boston’s subway is good by US standards, but it’s one of the worst of any major city I’ve been in elsewhere. The Green Line is more a tram than a subway line, and has that horrible tight turn under Park Street. For a city the size of Boston it has a decent number of different subway lines, but the whole system is old and poorly maintained.