frezik

I think you could do it in Lemmy itself combined with RSS feeds. The mods would curate a list of RSS feeds, and use the keywords to pick the ones for a bot to automatically post (which means if a programming blog did a post about windsurfing, it wouldn't show up as long as the meta keywords didn't match). Mods could take suggestions each week for feeds to add or remove.

One part of this (which isn't really covered in the article) is that Google historically had a give-and-take relationship with people gaming search engine results. SEO has been a thing for a long time, and it's impossible to make it go away. However, Google used to punish sites that took it too far. It wasn't necessarily ideal, but it worked well enough to keep egregious spam out of the top level results, and companies could still direct users to their site when they had something they were actually looking for. SEO consulting companies sprang up who knew Google's rules well, and that arguably meant a bunch of grifters being overpaid, but at least the results stayed relevant.

Google seems to have given up on enforcing many of those rules.

Hunter S Thompson wrote a scathing eulogy for Richard Nixon, which I think is relevant here:

"Some people will say that words like scum and rotten are wrong for Objective Journalism -- which is true, but they miss the point. It was the built-in blind spots of the Objective rules and dogma that allowed Nixon to slither into the White House in the first place. He looked so good on paper that you could almost vote for him sight unseen. He seemed so all-American, so much like Horatio Alger, that he was able to slip through the cracks of Objective Journalism. You had to get Subjective to see Nixon clearly, and the shock of recognition was often painful."

(Non paywalled link: https://web.archive.org/web/20150213034115/https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1994/07/he-was-a-crook/308699/)

Sometimes, you need one or two journalists who are in a position to say "you know what? These people suck, and I'm sick of pretending they don't". It doesn't need to be every journalist, and it probably shouldn't be, but someone needs to say it.

Thick isn't a problem for bags (up to a point). It's reviewers complaining about it and deducting stars that's the problem.

The do have to source the same parts as the rest of the industry. This is why, for example, they can't have a socketable laptop CPU. Those don't exist anymore, and Framework is too small to afford a custom part from Intel or AMD.

Same with batteries. A thicker laptop battery may not even exist.

Longer doesn't work because it has to fit in existing bags people have. Thickening it won't work because reviewers will then complain it's too thick.

I have a Toshiba laptop from around 2012 which has a slide-out optical drive. To me, it's thick but not too thick; it's just right. If we could return to that size, I think we'd be good. It'd also support better cooling (my Framework 13 with an i7-1280P gets hot, and there just isn't enough space for a bigger cooler). Reviewers over the past 10 years have pushed for thinner and thinner, and we gave up too much in the meantime.

Same goes for screen bezels and built in webcams. All else being equal, a cam with a bigger sensor is better because it can capture more light. Thin screen bezels force a small webcam, and thus your laptop has a shittier camera than a 10 year old smartphone.

In both cases, I don't think actual customers care all that much past a certain point. Reviewers have been deducting stars for a slightly thicker case or a slightly thicker bezel than other models on the market, and customers just go along with it.

Here's the internals of the 13 with a 61Wh battery:

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/IMG_0054.jpeg

And here's the 16 with an 85Wh battery:

https://images.prismic.io/frameworkmarketplace/0b001897-9e05-406e-8f50-af54ba76a723_Load+up+on+memory+and+storage.jpg?auto=compress,format

Where would a larger battery fit?

The real answer to your question is to wait 3-4 years for battery technology to get about 20% better (given historical trends of 5-8% improvements per year).

Hmm?

https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs/

M3 pros are 72.4Wh.

I'm going to blow your mind: it's also capable of being run through a car wash.

The main obstacle is that they aren't very good. They're a transitional step. We're already moving past the point where it makes sense. The next Mini EV models coming out will be purpose built designs.

Production numbers are awful, but that's only more reason why laying off workers is a bad move.

Do you mean converting an ICE into an EV in your garage? There are hobbyists who do that, but it's not a small project.

Do you mean taking an existing ICE frame and making an EV version? It happens. The Mini Cooper EV is a Cooper S with the guts from the BMW i3 dropped in. They changed as little as they could get away with. They even left the hood scoop on.

It makes for an EV that's just OK, but not great.