GreyEyedGhost

First and foremost, this is the technology community. If you wanted to see mature tech that is in production, you're in the wrong place.

Second, battery tech has had steady improvement for decades. The cell phone I had 30 years ago had a battery pack that was about as big as my current cell phone with a capacity of 500 mAh. My current cell phone has a battery tucked away somewhere inside it that has a capacity of 4000 mAh. The price per mAh has also gone down about 99% over that time span. There have also been three major "new battery" types over those 3 decades. The changes have been happening whether on not you bothered to notice it.

"I came to the technology community and was surprised when they started talking about things that aren't in production."

There is a ~~solid state~~ sodium battery factory being built in Japan, I think, and one in America. (Yes, I mixed up my two battery technologies, a common problem in a stagnant field...) But yes, real life isn't a game, you can't immediately use new tech as soon as it becomes viable, and factories take time to build. That doesn't mean that advances haven't been constantly occurring, just like advances continued to occur with NiMH battery technology a decade after lithium was mainstream. Partly, no doubt, because factories are expensive, they take time to build, and companies like to maximize the profits from their investments.

There may not be a revolutionary discovery, but we are nearing a tipping point where battery makes more sense for most disconnected power storage than anything else.

The cell phone I had 30 years ago had a battery pack that was about as big as my current cell phone and was 500 mAh. My current cell phone has a little battery tucked away in it that stores 4000 mAh, recharges about as fast, and can be recharged more before it loses a significant amount of its capacity. It also costs about 1% per mAh of the price of that battery from 30 years ago.

Just because you haven't bothered to investigate advances in battery technology doesn't mean significant advances haven't occurred.

So I was between relationships, hanging out with a friend, dropping her off at work when one of her coworkers catches my eye. I ask my friend who she is, and she laughs and says she's in a long-term relationship. I laugh and move on.

Later on, I try to call my friend at her work, and this lady picks up the phone. I'm in a good mood, I flirt with her a bit and hang up once I've gotten the info about my friend.

Months after all that, I'm renting out a room and this friend refers her coworker who just broke up with her boyfriend. She moves in, engages in some rebound activity, and we hang out a bit. I determine I'm interested in her and she's interested in me, but I've been dating someone for a while. This relationship is only a few months old, and it's reminding me of my first marriage. I break it off and have sex with my roommate on what could charitably be called our first date. Within 6 months she stops having her own room.

We proceed to blow past a number of other red flags, and have now been together for about 14 years, married for 7.

I told (and tell) my kids that we did everything wrong in starting a relationship, but it worked out in spite of it

Then rail the maid of honor on the wedding cake table. Time's a wasting!

Here's some elucidation. The second infographic is a handy synopsis of the article. Only 10 or 15 steps (that's we know of so far) that have to happen to get to either side of that chart, and what do we do with everyone in the middle? I'd rather shrug and use whatever label they prefer than insist on using the one my layman's knowledge might suggest.

Yet. Their TVs, on the other hand, will do everything in their power to go online. Their phones just had an update to their software where the privacy policy is basically "We need access to all your data if you want to use anything beyond the base functionality." So, given the trends, no, I don't put it past them.

I believe one of France's kings had aluminum dinnerware back when it was still hard to make. Fun times.

I only do phone calls when I'm in a situation where I can't look at a screen, such as driving. Otherwise, if it's not in person, it's text or video. And, given my personality, it's usually text for most people.

I honestly don't put it past Samsung. Their TVs already do. I have an old monitor, and I'm currently using what will probably be my last smartphone from them. They make good hardware, but I'm tired of them insisting on knowing everything I do to use it.

Okay, but what does any of that have to do with Meta?