We should probably leave this here, because I don't think this is even close to true (that it's what they're trying to do, or that it's what they've done—I do believe it's the sort of claim their marketing departments and investor-hype-meisters might make, though).

> If it was the underlying data, that's freely available.

A bunch of it is not, but was pirated. And "underlying data"—JFC, that's billions of person-hours of thoughtful work by real people, practically infinitely more worthy of respect and care than what these LLM companies have done, without which they would have nothing. Alibaba's being more above-board about this than the major American firms have been (are they in general? Oh no, I doubt it, but in this particular case, yes). Extra accounts to get around TOS restrictions is the lesser evil here, and it's being done to companies that did worse. This is the least they should suffer, and their complaining about it is as comical as a professional fence crying about how unfair it is their shop got burgled.

Live by the sword...

Only if you’re trying to muddy the waters. No, obviously it’s not. One can also support licensing for driving a car on public roads but not for walking, even though both involve traveling. This is only confusing to people pretending to be confused, for effect.

> Would it be an attack to take your meal by force if you used a public recipe to prepare the meal?

“You wouldn’t download a car…” (unless it worked like copying an MP3, then, of course, you would, everyone would)

It’s as if you’re using terrible analogies and comparisons because stronger ones don’t exist. Great news for the AI-should-be-open crowd.

It'd likely be better as a living room TV PC than any PC I've ever owned or have seen for sale before, and it's likely to enjoy years of good support and frequent updates for its entire software stack by the same vendor that's selling the hardware, which is something I've never seen from anyone but Apple (aside from Valve, of course, for my Steam Deck) in more than 25 years of buying PCs and PC hardware. I tend to use my gaming PCs for five or so years at a time, despite never buying any parts that are top-of-the-line, so I'd expect to use this at least five years, and if the steam deck is any indication, it'll likely have 1st-party support for exactly the device and software I am using that entire time.

It'd be better for approximately all the games I play now than the power-hungry giant tower I have (it's effectively a lateral move on everything except 3D processing speed, which'll be roughly double what I've got now), plus, unlike this bazzite-running franken-PC, I expect it won't do stuff like have a weird whole-screen momentary color-shift every couple minutes (multiple monitors, it's the software, not the monitor's fault), constantly forget how to connect to bluetooth devices it's paired with (this, with a USB-attached bluetooth chip that's allegedly "really good on Linux", LOL; incidentally, it also can't pair with some devices in "desktop mode" [KDE] but can connect to them there once paired in "Gaming Mode", it's so weird), freak the hell out and scream like the damned(!) if a game tries to output something other than stereo audio, et c. I expect it'll have fewer "minor" problems like that on account of the 1st party vendor support and their having very few total hardware configs to test against.

I want it to play video games. Who in god's name would brag about something they merely bought? Especially if that something is mass-produced electronics.

For me the Steam Deck proved to me that Linux gaming was viable (finally! I've been trying since the days of Unreal Tournament being a current game and having an official Linux binary, LOL) and that I like the idea of an official Valve device, but that I needed a little more power and a desktop-alike form factor to reach a point of "good enough" for me (well, portable would still be fine, I just wouldn't use it that way so it'd be better if I didn't have to pay for the extra parts or have the added complexity and jank-risk of a dock)

Like if my gaming PC broke I would't replace it (at least not for quite a while) but I would plug my Steam Deck into my monitor and start using it again, it's not that the device is wholly useless to me. It just wasn't quite a fit for what I do & want, it turns out. I do use my gaming PC, and that's what a Steam Machine would have replaced. I even have Bazzite on there so I for-sure would have used the Steam Machine, as I basically have a somewhat rougher-edged (and way bigger, with obnoxious "gamer light" horse-shit all over because that's hard to avoid for some reason) version of it already.

I'm not aware of a single other product on the market that offers what Valve's device does. Tons of companies offer gaming PCs and you can slap Bazzite on lots of them, but that won't get you everything the Steam Machine offers. It's, AFAIK, unique.

[0] "But I've been running a PC attached to a TV literally for decades..." yeah, you've probably been missing some HDMI features that you don't care about but others do, or had trouble with them, while any gaming console or media player will have those features and have few or no problems with them; do you have surround sound over HDMI to a proper audio receiver, with non-broken mode-switching depending on current output? Use CEC features to wake your PC from sleep? What's your color gamut like? I've done this before too, a lot, hell I did it all the way back when I needed a composite or S-Video out on my video card to make it happen, on a CRT TV before HDMI ports were really a thing. Really good support for the use case looks a lot different than what you usually get by just plugging a PC or laptop into a TV.

They risk alienating fans (and, often, do so-alienate them) way too often to put them in this category, I think, and specifically for the reason of having failed to play it safe and target nostalgia.

In 2026 the single most useful port to add to my Macs would be USB-A, with no close competition. On any device with 2+ USB-C ports, it'd easily be worth sacrificing a USB-C to get a USB-A.

The wired controller is USB-A. The bluetooth controllers "are" USB-C... but came with A-to-C cables, not C-to-C.

Approximately every time I want to plug something in to my laptop that's not a charging cable for another device, it's USB-A.

If they fit poorly, you bought the wrong size or a pair made from a last that is very wrong for you. Ditto if they hurt your feet. Past a the first 3-4 wears of break-in neither of those should be true, they should fit and feel awesome. They’ll shrink if you soak them in water, and I mean soak, but even that’s usually not fatal to them, they’ll stretch back out. I have a beater pair of camp moccasins that I’ve straight-up walked down a waist-deep river in three times, and I regularly wear them for kayaking and briefly submerge them when getting in and out, and they still fit fine.

Also you don’t need to polish most of them. Hit ‘em with leather soap and conditioner a couple times a year if you want them to last a decade-plus, yes. Polish? That’s only necessary for certain types of shoes for certain purposes, and even then, you shouldn’t need to do it all the time or anything. I don’t put polish on any of mine.

(All this void if we’re talking reconstructed or fake leather like most of the “leather” shoes at the median Macy’s or other common department store, those are terrible, yeah)