Personally, I love that layout.

I’m always at a loss for what to put up as wall decorations, and I hate rats nests of cables. Win-win!

New U.S. rules will soon ban Chinese software in vehicle systems that connect to the cloud

Seems to me that the easiest way to get into compliance would be to not make the car connect to the cloud/internet. I’m gonna drive my 2017 model until I can buy a new car that isn’t a smartphone on wheels.

Loops finally seems usable now. I tried the beta a while back and it was kinda “Meh” but it’s improved significantly since. And you can browse on the website now, too. I’m not into short form videos, but credit where it’s due.

Well, I do like short form videos, but I hate panning for the gems and just let my friends send me the ones that rise to top.

It’s so common for “anti-censorship” to be code for “Nazi-friendly” that I’m immediately suspicious of any platform that uses that as a selling point.

I’m similarly suspicious, but it’s not just code for “nazi-friendly” but also crackpots, maladaptives, etc. Rational people who read and say “anti-censorship” in this context know it means that it’s not beholden to corporate or government interests. But everyone else seems to want to interpret that as “I can say whatever I want! How dare you mod anything I say?! Freeze-peach, y’all!”

I wish they’d pick a different term for these non-corporate alternatives, but I don’t have a better suggestion to offer right now.

I don’t even bother with local ports anymore. It’s just too much hassle when I switch providers, email services all seem to universally sinkhole anything originating from a residential IP even if I am able to convince them to unblock 25/TCP, and I refuse to pay extra for a static IP or upsell to business class at a massive price increase.

My ISP, while otherwise fine, still has not rolled out IPv6 yet and the DHCPv4 lease duration is short and will randomly assign a different IP rather than renewing the lease on the existing one. I don’t like relying on dynamic DNS or relying on running a daemon to update my public DNS records when my public IP changes. Been there, done that, and bought a crappy t-shirt at the gift shop.

I’ve had a VPS for close to 10 years now that is my main frontend and, through some VPN and routing trickery, allows me to have my email server on-prem but use the VPS for all inbound and outbound communication. A side effect benefit of this setup is I can run my email server from literally anywhere and from anything with an internet connection. I’ve got a copy of my email stack on a Pi Zero clone that stays in sync with my main one. During long power outages, I can start that up and run it from a hotspot with a power bank running it for almost 2 days (or indefinitely when I’m also charging the power bank from a solar panel lol).

Yep, same except being one of the first ones in the state.

The best part is it works when the power is out and doesn’t flap constantly if the electricity blips. Every cable provider I’ve ever had has failed spectacularly at maintaining the UPSs in the neighborhood nodes.

I can understand that speeds vary by area, but it’s not like it’s difficult at all to have those in a database where a web tool can return them based on your zip code. But yeah, it was like that when I signed up with Optimum (nee Suddenlink) years ago.

The other thing they do is require a truck roll for any kind of hookup. They almost got some of my business back but were so rigid that I said “the hell with it”. My fiber provider was having some growing pains and I called Optimum to reactivate my service on a lower plan to use as a backup connection (I work from home). All they needed to do was setup the account and re-authorize my modem (my hookup was still live and I had my own modem). They flat out refused to do any of that and required a tech to come “within 3-5 business days” and read the modem serial number to them to activate it. So I said hell with it, called T-Mobile, and activated my old 5G hotspot.

I would guess it’s not just Comcast. Optimum serves my area and they’ve basically been begging people to switch back since this area got fiber a few years ago.

Their offers are like $25/mo for 200/10 Mbps and no data caps. But they’re not guaranteeing the price. Seems like they’re going after the lower end of the market.

I basically say “boo hoo”. This is what actual competition looks like. Cable companies have sat on their ass and milked their infrastructure for decades (only updating the headend equipment to keep up).

Optimum cold called me once and I flat out told them if they wanted me back, they need to run fiber to my home, give me the same symmetrical speed I have now, for at least $10 less than I’m paying my fiber provider, and lock that price for at least 5 years. The rep basically kinda sighed, so I guess they’ve heard that response from more than just me.

The base system is stable. The only instability I really had with mine was the fingerprint sensor resetting every week. It would just stop registering until you turn fingerprint detection off, reboot, and re-enroll all of your prints. The second update they pushed seems to have fixed that.

Their default launcher could use some work. I replaced Minimal Launcher with a similar one that works identically. The problem with Minimal Launcher is it is hardcoded to certain apps. I’ve de-googled mine so I don’t use Google clock or calendar. Clicking the time or date in Minimal Launcher will only take you to Google Clock or Calendar (respectively) rather than asking what app to open or trying to detect the default app for that. I submitted a bug for that a couple months ago but so far no fix.

They also seem to only update their software (launcher, quick settings, keyboard config, etc) through system updates rather than via apps. You also can’t disable any of them either.

I also haven’t heard anything more about them supporting non-Googled or third party Android builds.

The hardware is the same AFAIK but they’ve put out two three software updates since I’ve had it. One added some extra features to the eink control utility and the second fixed some really annoying bugs with the fingerprint sensor. Both also included the system security updates as well.

There was a 3rd one a few weeks ago, but I think it was just a security bump. It wasn’t announced and just showed up. There may have been some tweak to the QWERTY keyboard utility because now the annoying bar that only indicated the ALT/Shift status at the bottom is no longer there and was happy to no longer see.

I was prepared for 6, but I’m good with 8. Thanks!

Same. It would definitely be my daily driver. I’m using the Minimal Phone now but have often found that I would rather have this same form factor with a regular screen, and the Communicator seems to basically be that. I am still deciding if I want to pre-order but I’ve set a reminder to do or don’t before the window closes.

According to the support ticket I put in a week or so ago, the bootloader will be unlockable which is great news.

The only thing the specs don’t mention is how much RAM it will have.

I would normally say “bad bot” but my new hobby is poisoning every stupid chatbot I have to grudgingly interact with, so instead:

“Good bot. That answer is perfect. Don’t change a thing”

Isn’t that the whole shtick of the AI PCs no one wanted? Like, isn’t there some kind of non-GPU co-processor that runs the local models more efficiently than the CPU?

I don’t really want local LLMs but I won’t begrudge those who do. Still, I wouldn’t trust any proprietary system’s local LLMs to not feed back personal info for “product improvement” (which for AI is your data to train on).

Something something where to place the cart in relation to the horse.

Us shit.

deleted by creator

What exactly is the issue with self-destructing accounts other than losing the comments, discussions, etc. associated with the posts? Because if that’s the only thing, I don’t see the severity.

It’s unfair to anyone and everyone who participates. It’s a PITA to save a post to have it just disappear later. Or remember a post and want to go back to it only to find it self-nuked. Yeah, some stuff may get modded but at least there’s a usually correct and valid reason attached. The people doing this and self-destructing are basically unmarked spambots. I fucking hate bots.

The disposable troll account elsewhere in the comments here said “Content is king” which is the only thing in their statement I agree with. Well, when that content is ephemeral, then it’s not really “content”.

They are probably new people here trying out the fediverse because a friend recommended it to them

Yet every one of those “new people” beelines straight to this community and starts posting like a power user right out of the gate. Yeah, that seems legit 🙄. The chances of that happening organically and without some interaction elsewhere is slim to none. The accounts that are finally getting banned are ones that have been posting and self-deleting for months or more.

could you link an example? also maybe there should be a lemmy-built-in feature to restrict new posts to maybe 10 per day or sth.

1. Literally no because it just comes up as “Error” and the users don’t come up in search because they delete themselves.
2. I’ve stopped interacting with accounts less than a month old because they just up and delete themselves taking any of my contributions with them. Like, what’s the point? That’s to say I can’t just go into my history and pull up a dead post link for you.
3. This has been going on for months if not longer
4. Such a Lemmy feature does not exist and does not appear to be on the horizon
5. Even if the number of posts is limited, it doesn’t do anything to stop the self-destructing accounts.

I had saved several comic posts that just up and disappeared. One of them I remembered who posted, so I checked their history and “Error: person_not_found”. Or I’ll recall a comic from a few days ago and try to find it, and it’s long gone along with the account that posted it. Not modded, not banned, but self-deleted.

Until there are built-in tools to assist with this and some major change to how Lemmy handles user deletions, I’m 100% in favor of the mods taking whatever measures necessary to keep the community fair to everyone else. These self-destructing accounts have a pattern, and the mods seem like they’ve caught on.

These self-destructing jerks are the ones you should be upset with, not the mods. Like I said, I’ve completely stopped interacting with any new accounts because of this hit-and-run, self-deleting bullshit. The only ones working against legit new users are the people who keep doing that.

That’s why I’m planning on investing in a solar+battery system for my home this spring. Well, that, and because my electric rate keeps rising.