If it’s more expensive than a entry-level gaming laptop, then I doubt the average user would buy a Steam Machine, when a laptop is far more flexible.

It has to be cheaper and more convenient than what’s currently available.

I might be way off the mark, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it priced like the OLED Steam Deck. At least at launch.

With a later price increase due to RAM and SSD shortages.

True. All I can think of is that before it gets to Halloween shops have sold off most of their stock and are in the process of getting all the Xmas stuff out. I’ve been places where they have a Halloween and Xmas mix of songs.

I’m not ruling out that a few hundred thousand completely random people around the world all decide to listen to Xmas music around the same time. I just think it’s more likely businesses switching to seasonal music as early as possible, and streaming Mariah Carey 20 times a day, causing the big sudden spike.

Is it just a load of stores/shops immediately switching to generic xmas playlists after Halloween? To me that’s the only reason I could see there to being a sudden spike. This song is bound to be in most of them. But we’d also need to track other popular xmas tracks.

(I know there used to be significant music licensing issues about what music could be played in a store, to the public. Don’t know if there is some special Spotify business account now?)

I know this is just my tiny view on things, but I’ve been testing code from a very experienced Dev, who was recently instructed to use AI coding tools in their work (Cursor, maybe some Copilot).

Functionality in our product is now breaking in weird and wonderful ways. Completely new ‘WTF!’ moments. It’s hard to describe.

Core behavior that I’ve taken for granted - things I didn’t realise could go wrong, are.

It reminds me of when after particular iOS update many years back, (for certain scenarios) Apple’s own calculator wasn’t doing addition correctly.

For me, it’s both fascinating and unnerving. Like some unfathomable cosmic horror.

Obligatory link - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seal_finger

Don’t let a Seal bite you.

“Seal finger was first described scientifically in 1907. It can cause cellulitis, joint inflammation, and swelling of the bone marrow; untreated, the course of “seal finger” is slow and often results in a thickened, contracted joint. Historically, seal finger was treated by amputation of the affected digits once they became unusable…”