Random +10 insightful comment on hackernews. You will not find a more wretched den of scum and villainy, but there are gems there to be found:

post from bob1029 below:

bob1029 1 hour ago | prev | next [–]

> If coding is easy, how come programmers were in high demand, and have demanded large salaries for years (even before ZIRP)?

Because programmers have generally been forced to wear additional, invisible hats that are essential to making the code happen in the first place.

Writing code is not hard. Writing correct code is. Knowing what is correct in a setting with paying customers generally involves interacting with those customers. Either directly or worse. The gigantic salaries paid to the most prolific employees is not due to their ability to write code. It is due to their ability to interrogate the shit out of the customer until they finally reveal the true requirements.

People bitch about AI slop - but it's not the AI's fault.

The AI just does what it does; it lacks the ability to reliably judge its own output.

It's not a new problem - many or most humans also lack that ability. That's why we have editors and test audiences and standards committees and inspectors.

The fault lies squarely on human laziness.

If a farmer in a field plows a crooked row because they didn't bother steering the tractor - that's not on the tractor.

Stop calling it "AI slop" and use a phrase that puts the blame where it belongs - lazy humans who didn't do due diligence and just phoned it in. This is why we can't have nice things.

Ran into this on hacker news but it's worth sharing - look at this, and realize that the sort of self-manufacture is *necessarily* a feature of, honestly, any colonization beyond the moon.

https://www.centauri-dreams.org/2026/07/10/a-metallurgists-doubts-about-self-replicating-probes/

The fundamental fallacy of comparing the Steam Machine to a PS5 is that the PS5 doesn't play your steam library. And that's fine it's not supposed to, but it also means it's not a valid comparison.

What you'd need to compare it to is a gaming PC. The problem is, the Steam Machine form factor and fit and finish are effectively a new niche category, as anyone who has tried integrating a PC into their living room can attest. PCs are generally poorly suited for living-room gaming - they tend to want a mouse and keyboard, are often loud when in use, and are either large or very underpowered for gaming if you go with a Pi or such.

Anyone who says "oh I could make a frankenbox with a similar spec for $100 less" is omitting important valuable features - first and foremost being not having to spend hours of time and effort sourcing parts and making them work together reliably. Valve has spent *years* designing and building a hassle-free experience out-of-the-box for living room gaming. There's value there above and beyond that of the hardware. And there's value in the freedom this gives you as a consumer - your pre-existing library comes along for the ride.

I am very confused by folks coming onto mastodon to post how much awesomer bluesky is than twitter.

Yay? But - weird flex. We already got what you're selling.

Is there just some multi-service post spammer software? This feels like a side effect.

I am nearly 60 years old. If anyone online thinks I am going give you an image of my face to age-verify, I will happily leave your site and blacklist you, never to return. Into the Pi-Hole you go.

I'm looking at you Discord. it's been nice, but it can be gone realllly easily. Especially in your case - I understand you have a track record here of leaking data. Hire some real security folks and do it right, or don't do it at all.

Was in a conversation in Slack where I was asked why I wanted a Steam Machine, as opposed to fighting to get things running on my mac mini or a home-built linux box. This is my reply, which I was asked to repost:

"I like linux. I don't like having to constantly fuck with things to get simple shit to work. I get PAID for that, I don't want to do it at home. I just want to web my webs and play my games and watch some videos."

The superpower of the Steam Machine, the magic bullet, the gold star is: it'll just work. Like macs used to. I expect I will be able to pick a game on steam and it will just work without me having to screw with settings or get a different driver or remap my controls or whatever bullshit inevitably comes up. Having one vendor provide the hardware and software and actually be concerned about the whole experience? Priceless. And if I want to go do something weird (like install Pico-8!) - they're fine. They won't stop me from doing something weird because their goal is to make money by having happy customers, not by maximizing profit-per-unit. That's damn refreshing, and to be supported.

Funny part is - I tried running bazzite on my minisforum pc. It crashes. Do I want to spend 30 hours troubleshooting it? Nope. Hard pass. See above.

I know I'm a big dork but: does anyone know if I will be able to stream Steam Machine Desktop mode to the Steam Frame? I mean - that should work just fine, right? Ie. Just a big virtual monitor?

Sometimes I think we peaked with basic shell scripts, and everything since has been regression - extra complexity that's honestly not worth the extra trouble.