This is obviously logical. If I know how to program in Python or JS but not C and am familiar with SSH, I can do something with a SBC in a few minutes.

I get paid $200/hr. If I spent even one hour to learn what I need to deal with a microcontroller, the time cost is four times the cost of materials if I stick with what I know.

How many small projects do I need to do in my free time before it's financially smart to learn a whole new technology?

I find it remarkable that they haven't tried to make all of that easier. Any board with arduino support is easy to start using, with pared down c++, boards similar to the micro:bit support micropython and javascript as well as a few others, and a ton of modern development boards have UF2 support.

UF2 is a step change in how easy it is to flash a binary onto a microcontroller. You hold down a button before connecting it to a USB port, and then it appears as a USB drive for you to drop a file onto, once it's done "copying" the board is flashed and will run your code as soon as it resets.

If you want to gain familiarity with a board, you can drop a .uf2 file with a REPL on it and run code on the board a line at a time.

(Anyway, I still remember the thrill of writing assembly for a 68HC11 and getting a pair of hobby servos to respond.)

These days, with ESP32, Pi Pico W etc... things have changed a lot.

But before they got popular, Why deal with MCU + wiring some weird peripheral for wifi / ethernet when you get a Pi Zero W / Clone with built in wifi for the same price?

  void setup() {
    pinMode(LED_BUILTIN, OUTPUT);
  }
  
  void loop() {
    digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, HIGH);  
    delay(1000);                     
    digitalWrite(LED_BUILTIN, LOW);   
    delay(1000);                      
  }

It is c++ though. Just limited in similar ways to the US air force's requirements for using the language.

(Of course, there are those to whom an Arduino is an overpriced piece of junk and they don't understand how I can't solder a three cent chip myself.)

But let's be realistic - all of these things are like my Steam library - purchases made but never used (I have a drawer full of Pis and other SBCs, and Arduino dev kits, etc. Someday I'll have time time time!).

  int main() {
    setup();
    for(;;) loop();
  }

I'd assume the average user on HN should be able to figure it out pretty easily.

In fact it's a lot more straight forward to not have to deal with Network Manager config files or systemd unit files or read only rootfs headaches of Linux world.

You can usually find libraries for your language of choice to speak GPIO and expose the pin's state as a variable in your code.

Now what I would have loved to have done is come up with some crazy analog circuit to implement an arbitrary transfer function from potentiometer input to LED voltage, but I didn't know how to do this at the time and the dev cycle would be a lot more painful than with software.

I would not have fallen in love with microcontrollers without Raspberry Pi and PocketCHIP as stepping stones.

The messaging of "it's a tiny computer, make whatever you want with it" is so much more approachable than anything I've found on the microcontroller side. Even Arduino. I dismissed it for a long time because I misunderstood it. I thought I had to buy Arduino devices, then Arduino shields, then program them in the Arduino language using the Arduino IDE.

Either way those elected to supposedly serve are the only ones winning.

Sounds like they're all just different brands of scum.

But really, the admissions were really nothing much, I'm actually surprised that's all they got. The former minister was forced to resign under allegations of corruption and was/is under investigation for it, no big surprise. And the talk about having access to Ljubljana's mayor (and that he is "for sale") - well that's been in the news for years, he's under several open investigations and many more were already closed (he always comes out victorious - either because he's innocent and it's all just hearsay, or more likely because he's extremely good at dodging liability and covering his tracks). The rest is just people who used to have some power trying to appear like they still have in order to impress a potential employer or get a business deal (that was the agents' cover).

Again, I hope the authorities are combing the tapes for evidence, but it really wasn't anything bombastic. That the Israelis were doing this on the other hand...

While AArch64 represents the technical revolution they needed their business compass has just gone ever since he stepped down. This grimy stuff, and as others noted competing with your own customers, were no goes in the earlier era.

It's also a quasi inevitable side effect of the push to encrypt all communication back to the cloud, since now it's too easy for malicious devices to hide what they're sending back.

Back to wearing the tin foil hat in my faraday cage.

https://hindenburgresearch.com/roblox/

To quote just a section of the report:

Core to the problem is that Roblox’s social media features allow pedophiles to efficiently target hundreds of children, with no up-front screening to prevent them from joining the platform.

For example, in 2018, prior to Roblox going public, a 29-year-old was caught by police with 175 hours of video footage of him grooming and engaging in explicit behavior with 150 minors using online platforms, namely Roblox.

Media and non-profit exposés from 2020 to July 2024 revealed digital strip clubs, red light districts, sex parties and child predators lurking on Roblox. The National Center on Sexual Exploitation in 2024 labeled Roblox “a tool for sexual predators, a threat for childrens’ safety”.

Numerous criminal indictments from 2019-2024 allege that sexual predators groomed children in-game, ranging from 8-14 years old, then kidnapped, raped or traded sexual content with them.

Following years of scandals, we performed our own checks to see if the platform had cleaned up its act. As a test, we attempted to set up an account under the name ‘Jeffrey Epstein’…only to see the name was taken, along with 900+ variations.

Many were Jeffrey Epstein fan accounts, including “JeffEpsteinSupporter” which had earned multiple badges for spending time in kid’s games. Other Jeff Epstein accounts had the usernames “@igruum_minors” [I groom minors], and “@RavpeTinyK1dsJE” [rape tiny kids].

We attempted to set up a Roblox account under the name of another notorious pedophile to see if Roblox had any up-front pedophile screening: Earl Brian Bradley was indicted on 471 charges of molesting, raping and exploiting 103 children. The username was taken, along with multiple variants like earlbrianbradley69.

After we found a username, we listed our age as “under 13” to see if children are being exposed to adult content. By merely plugging ‘adult’ into the Roblox search bar, we found a group called “Adult Studios” with 3,334 members openly trading child pornography and soliciting sexual acts from minors. We tracked some of the members of “Adult Studios” and easily found 38 Roblox groups – one with 103,000 members – openly soliciting sexual favors and trading child pornography.

The chatrooms trading in child pornography had no age restrictions. Roblox reports that 21% of its users are under the age of 9, a number that is likely underestimated given that Roblox has no age verification aside from users seeking 17+ experiences.

Registered as a child, we were also able to access games like “Escape to Epstein Island” and “Diddy Party”. We found over 600 “Diddy” games, including “Survive Diddy” and “Run From Diddy Simulator”.

Since September 2nd, 2024, third-party monitor ‘Moderation For Dummies’ has reported ~12,400 erotic roleplay accounts on Roblox. These include everything from “rape/forceful sex fetishes” to underage users “willing to do anything for Robux”.

Users seeking sexual experiences on Roblox are so pervasive that there are thousands of Roblox sex videos on porn sites, inviting users of unknown ages to make explicit content on the platform.

We tested out Roblox’s experiences to see what else kids were being exposed to. We quickly encountered images of male genitalia and hate speech in Roblox’s “school simulator” game, which had registered 28.9 million visits with no age restrictions.

The reason is the highly successful competitor, in that case Steam, inspires a sort of megalomania in those aiming to compete with them, which leads to spectacular self destruction and consumer confusion as stores try to act big long before they are self sustaining.

There must be some fundamental problem with either developers or management system or both...

And doing this requires including a near complete web browser with piles of added hooks, obviously.

The minimal here was to take the Unreal Launcher (which was always meh. But devs rarely interact with the launcher) and shove the tab into there. Any problems with that launcher were passed to the EGS, and amplified by being B2C.

If I have to be honest, it's also tribalism. Exclusives are not a new concept even on PC. But the reaction to some EGS exclusives was so extreme. The PR hit didn't do many favors.

All of the competition has missed either one or more of the features, making them feel like only a cash grab trying to avoid Valve's cut for providing these features.

We really did have a far better shot at it than even most insiders appreciated (to the point rival companies would tell me to my face how confused they were by the apparent failure to execute), however, the core team were more interested in fighting over who would take credit for it when it succeeded than ever ensuring that it would.

To me, this was the crime. Me and my friends played mass effect 3 multiplayer around launch, which was an EA Origin exclusive. It was a total pain! All of us needed to download and install the launcher, then buy & download the game through it. Then add each other as "EA origin friends". The whole process was riddled with bugs at the time - including payment problems and download problems. Origin would crash sometimes. Sometimes we couldn't see each other in multiplayer, and needed to restart origin to fix it. Sometimes another of our friends would join us - and it was always "oh god, what do I have to do to make this work??".

I really love mass effect 3. But the experience was traumatic enough that I never bought or played anything through EA Origin ever since then. The quality of Steam is table stakes now. And there's so many good games coming out that game exclusivity usually isn't enough to get you over that initial hump.

The biggest gripe I have with the origin launcher (and to a lesser extent, the epic launcher) other than "why does it exist at all?" is how laggy all UI actions are. Game developers can render a 3d world at 120+fps. Why on earth does it take multiple seconds for the UI to respond to a button press sometimes? Its completely inexcusable. The blizzard launcher is (IMO) the best launcher by this metric. You can tell competent people made it, because everything responds instantly. (The EA launcher might be good now, I wouldn't know. I mostly only play games that release on steam.)

At the same time Steam had polished a lot of the rough edges like this for their catalog and other publishers so there's really no excuse. I've never had to open support tickets with any other storefront because the DLC map pack for a game would stop loading while the base game kept working.

Gabe Newell is a billionaire and has shown no particular need to enshittify his brand just to extract more profit. May he blessed with health and a long life.

That is the future we have walked into.