Shurimal

How does one find out what chips are in what USB sticks? Manufacturers don’t make this information available. At best you just find read and write speeds, usually just the max possible read speed and nothing else.

As much as I like Firefox/Librewolf, Vivaldi still has the upper hand in UI/UX. Workspaces, more feature-rich sidebar, one-click access to recently closed tabs right there in the tab bar, speed dial, tab stacks and other QoL stuff that makes just enough difference for me that I can’t really daily-drive any other browsers. Until FF reaches feature parity (it’s getting close, but still isn’t quite there yet) I don’t see myself migrating anytime soon. Quess I’ll just need to rely more on AdGuard DNS and Vivaldi’s built-in adblocker if uBlock becomes neutered on Chromium…

Windows 11 is easier on the eyes and easier to use. We took the best elements of Windows 10 and refined them to create a soothing place to work and play.

Nah, no, hiding basic stuff behind bazillion clicks in nested menus deeper than hell is not “easier to use”.

Wake on approach. Lock on leave.

Windows 11 can automatically wake up when you approach and lock when you leave.

Why would I want that on a desktop that needs to do work even when I’m AFK? My PC doesn’t even have a password on it—because if a stranger gets access to it, something has already gone horribly wrong and a burglar seeing my furry pics is the least of my problems🤪

3D spatial sound

This technology makes it possible for you to perceive the sources of sound in games. 3 It requires compatible headphones and is available on both Windows 10 and 11.

I don’t use headphones and I already have a bangin’ good surround sound setup with 18" sub and tactile transducers.

Smart App Control

Exclusive to Windows 11 is Smart App Control. It provides a layer of security by only permitting apps with good reputations to be installed. Only available on the latest version of Windows 11.

Why the fuck would I want that? I and only I get to decide what programs have the priviledge of getting installed and what don’t. I bet M$ will deny “good reputation” to harmless code injection mods for games (SKSE/OBSE et al, ENB) because these are basically hacking while allowing data-stealing privacy nightmares like Discord app.

KDE Connect is awesome. And completely cross-platform, and FOSS.

Child holding a teddybear.
ED-209: “Put down your weapon! You have 40 seconds to comply!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFvqDaFpXeM

Oh, who am I kidding, human cops do exactly the same shit…

Since I mostly listen by dropping a whole genre into an ephemeral playlist, there is zero overlap. I rarely even hear a piece more than a few times a year, and sometimes the whole playlist takes more than a year to play from 0 to Z at an average of 1 hour play every day (eg I have pretty much the complete catalogue of Ektoplazm, including 575 goa trance and 377 downtempo albums).

Even if I have a few static playlists of random pieces, they’re also thematic (eg a bluegrass playlist as background music for dogfighting) and with zero overlap between them.

Come to think, of it, I only have two static, saved playlists—one for dogfighting and one with pieces that have subbass and ULF content down to and below 20 Hz. Playlists for me are wholly ephemeral, the default one that gets cleared and refilled as I go, acting more as a playback queue, and temporary ones that get deleted when I’m done with them.

DeaDBeeF sort of is similar but doesn’t seem to have the plugins I need to do a proper full-screen 10ft GUI, Facets-like library browsing, surround upmix, DLNA streaming to other rooms etc.

I have to give Krita another try and see if it can import/export .dds, but my impression from playing with it for a few hours is that it seems to focus more on digital painting instead of photo manipulation (which modding textures essentially boils down to). I also have my GIMP workflow down to muscle memory, it only takes me minutes to do eg a recolor or upscale+fake details via sharpening and noise.

At this point there’s just a few pieces of software that keep me on Microshitty’s teat. Foobar2000 being the biggest one—there simply ain’t no good alternative for Linux, and I’ve tried them all. Freesurround, actual dB scale volume control via Jscript, waveform seekbar, precision spectrum analyzers, modtracker player are just some of the essential plugins, as is ASIO (in addition of bypassing all OS audio stack shenanigans it has the accidental benefit of not only auto-muting , but also auto-stopping auto-playing videos on websites that might slip through uBlock).

Also, Paint.net is so good for converting .dds files. Never got .dds to work properly with Gimp.

Especially with movies, the people who made the thing are already paid by the time it is released. As little as possible. VFX houses are often fucked royally and don’t even break even. Even big-name actors are usally screwed over by Hollywood accounting.

By paying you only feed the leeches who then use their resources to fuck over everyone else.

That’s a very silly morals indeed.

Nice! Too bad they got caught, though.

No sympathy for cryptobros and trading bots.

They’re not jets. They’re ducted fans. Different things. “Electric jet” makes as much sense as “electric V8 engine”.

They’re not—as long as the PV cells are a supplementary charging solution, in addition to wall charging, to the batteries. You’ll get a bit more range out while driving, especially when the car is a lightweight low drag design and PV cells may be the only thing needed to keep the constant 90 km/h speed in a sunny day. And when not driving the cells might be enough to get the 10…20 km or so commuting range back over your 8-hour workday.

But putting PV cells on a 3 ton electric SUV or pickup truck is stupid, it won’t do jack all due to the inherent inefficiency of such vehicles.

Not worse than a fusion torch. Or open-cycle nuclear propulsion. Or an antimatter drive.

You know, the Kzinti lesson😉

Velcro, or maybe Van Der Waals force, or maybe whatever the hell makes gauge blocks stick to each other.

Downvotes shall list better headphones.

Moondrop, Truthear, 7Hz.

And from the old guard Shure, Ultimate Ears, Westone.

At these prices I’d expect at least 32 GB of RAM. 8 GB is for entry level phones and SOHO 2 to 4 bay NAS boxes.

Third party apps: “OK. We’ll show ads. Muted. Behind a black overlay. If we really can’t find a workaround.”

In 2006, it became possible for anyone to search WorldCat directly at its open website [REDACTED], not only through the subscription FirstSearch interface where it had been available on the web to subscribing libraries for more than a decade before.

So how is this “hacking” if the information is publicly accessible for all?

Saying that AptX is lossless since 2016 is blatantly false. And yes, just like with HDMI and USB, AptX standard naming and Qualcomm feature naming schemes are a misleading mess.

There are 4 flavours of AptX (linked article states this as well), and only the latest supports lossless, but is available only on very few chipsets and devices so I even forget that it exists, because for all practical purposes it doesn’t.

Denon Perl Pro, Bose earbuds and Cambridge Audio M100 are the only non-chinese earphones that I know of that support AptX lossless and the latter are not even listed by my local importer. Plus, you need a very specific (expensive) phone to use them because AptX Lossless is not available for all chipsets. Basically, Asus ROG 8 or Xiaomi Redmi K70 Pro for ones available to buy for me, and then it’s not available at every retailer, either, and the b2b wholesalers I have access to through work only list ROG Phone 8 (~1200€ retail).

In conclusion, to make use of lossless AptX you have to jump through many hoops and spend a lot of money—700+€ phone and the 200+€ earphones. The standard is far from being, well, a standard; common and widespread. 99,9% of devices on sale and in use by people only support older AptX standards, mostly AptX HD (which is not lossless!).