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Microsoft are raising prices on their own streaming platform, though: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/09/03/microsoft-xbox-game-pass-clo...

I'm certain that the payment processors aren't aligned with my interests!

Europe actually solved this by simply legislating how much Visa/MC are allowed to charge.

(yes, Wero, Vipps etc, but Visa/MC are still huge in Europe)


Yes, cycle-accurate is very expensive because it prevents optimization. But as described they say they're doing an AOT version of cycle-accurate anyway?

In some ways this is similar to the concurrent-systems problems that memory barriers are a tool to address. Your emulator will come in two halves, a CPU side and a gfx/sfx side, as well as control inputs, and the "intermediate" approach is when you're just trying to preserve the sequence of load/stores between the two with an accuracy relative to frame timing. Maintaining ultra precise timing within a frame imposes more detailed coordination requirements on both sides of the emulation.


Being cycle-accurate is annoying when you want full realtime if the hosting platform doesn't have enough CPU power to emulate all parts at full speed.

I guess the point is that a pre-compiled version could have HW checkpoints from a slow emulated run, so that it can then run at full speed and just advance the HW to the required timestate when a write is to occur (ie, instead of costly cycle-accurate emulationg, most HW operations can be batched inbetween time-sensitive checkpoints).

Then again, why not just record a video at that point? :P


I don't know why this was downvoted, the practice of purchasing commissions in the army was only abolished halfway through Victoria's reign.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purchase_of_commissions_in_the...


> The hedonistic generation of leadership that came out of this era basically lost it all.

I don't think that's correct; the end of Empire was the two world wars. Much of the empire didn't leave until the late 40s/early 50s.


The article mentions Churchill who was a major leader in both world wars. He also served as a lancer at the Battle of Omduran and grew up during the time of Empire born smack dab in the middle of the Victorian Era (1870s). His generation formed the leadership of the empire during that period.

The generations BEFORE the Victorian Era enabled it excesses. People who were born IN the Victorian Era (which this article seems to argue were responsible for Britain's success) formed the leadership caste of Britain's ultimate downfall in the World Wars.


The British Empire controlled something like ~20% of the world and other European powers were adding in 10% here and there. Probably more than that weighted by economic and military strength. It is kinda on the British elite that the world wars even started. Even with the most charitable read we're talking about a situation where the message was "lets not break the power of Europe" and they couldn't sell it to Europe.

The world wars were a crisis that caused change, but that is a bit like going bankrupt. Just because the crisis is fast doesn't stop the process being slow.


> Even with the most charitable read we're talking about a situation where the message was "lets not break the power of Europe" and they couldn't sell it to Europe.

That feels like retrofitting a modern frame onto a very different situation? I don't think any of the European elites thought in terms of "the power of Europe" as any kind of unified front vs the rest of the world until after they lost the world wars. It was intra-European conflict as it always had been. England/France/Germany(+)/Spain/Austria against each other; those elites that were unhappy with the fallout of the last great redistribution of power at the Treaty of Utrecht.

(there's probably a chunk of history I'm missing as to how Russia went from enemy of Britain at the Crimean war in the 1850s to the ally in the Triple Entente which caused France and Britain to go to war with Austria-Hungary; but WW1 is definitely not the fault of the any kind of British elite, we can blame it on the Austrians and, of course, the Serbs and ultimately one guy with a gun)

The rest of the world wasn't conceived of as independent powers until the Russo-Japanese war. They were prizes to be allocated among the (European) players. At that time, it was even conceivable that the European powers might take and divide China as they had done with Africa and India.

(+) strictly, Prussia; remember German and Italian unification happened during the Victorian era.


Ww1 and ww2 had a lot to do with Germans lusting after British Imperial greatness (having missed out on large colonization due to lack of national cohesion prior to 1870)

> That feels like retrofitting a modern frame onto a very different situation?

What, the British weren't up the challenge of forecasting a major war in Europe might end badly for them? I mean, I'm sure their leadership didn't, but that is why they don't get to run an empire any more.

> but WW1 is definitely not the fault of the any kind of British elite, we can blame it on the Austrians and, of course, the Serbs and ultimately one guy with a gun

It looks a lot like the fault of the British elite. They failed to use their influence to get a positive result in Europe; which descended into a bonfire over 40 years until it ran out of fuel to burn and half the continent was under the thrall of communism. And if they were doing something productive in the mean time overseas it didn't deliver much result. There'd be an argument that their laissez faire attitude was a problem except they kept actively declaring war on Germany over and over until their empire fell apart.

That generation of British leadership demonstrated no capacity to get positive results apart from a remarkably swift decommissioning of the largest empire ever built. I suppose history can remember them in the positive light that as group they could have failed even worse except they at least had the good sense to bring in US management before the situation became unrecoverable.


The pre-Victorian system was known as the "Old Corruption" (capitalized), so while it was less so there was still quite a high baseline.

https://historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/old-corrup...


"The Tories in England long imagined that they were enthusiastic about monarchy, the church, and the beauties of the old English Constitution, until the day of danger wrung from them the confession that they are enthusiastic only about ground rent."

-- Karl Marx

> Landowners were expected to take on government roles, also for free

This was just the dying embers of feudalism. Which is still theoretically present in England, having been abolished in Scotland in the year 2000.


Walking everywhere. Mass obesity (there's always been a few obese people among elites everywhere!) is a product of the motorcar.

Also, food unevenly distributed across the day. Any one individual probably wouldn't have a large breakfast and elevenses and a large lunch and afternoon tea and a large dinner, on every single day. Even if you can find examples of each of those separately.


mass obesity is a product of people eating unhealthy. i have access to plenty of luxuries compared to the rest of the world, and even America, yet my BMI is about ~20. individuals are responsible for being fat.

If by individuals you mean the individuals stocking the supermarkets with ultraprocessed foods, maybe.

The timing doesn't work. In the US, obesity didn't start taking off until the 1970s and 1980s, and the motorcar was ubiquitous long before that.

> It does release CO2, maybe 1/10 the rate of fossil fuels but not negligible

Where from, or is this just lifecycle accounting for the construction works?

> tyranny of temperature - like all heat engines you want higher temperature inputs for efficiency

Yeah. The input heat is ""free"" but the process of turning it into work isn't all that efficient.


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