It’s weird here too because states set sales taxes. I live in Oregon, and we don’t have a standard sales tax here. That means what you see is what you pay at the register for most things, and it’s so freaking nice.

About the only thing I regularly see is the bottle tax (0.10/can added at the register). That’s refundable too, at least theoretically, so it’s not that bad.

Hmmm, I’ve never noticed what you mentioned on my recent phones. That said you should test a newer android yourself before making a purchase!

More of my personal experience… I have a Pixel 7 XL and a work Iphone which (edit) is an Iphone 12. Generally they are the same in terms of having no scroll lag or input lag at all. But, there is some lag on both when they are overheated, especially on the Iphone if I put it on a higher power charger (I trickle charge both when I can).

From a design perspective the biggest difference I notice is that my Pixel feels significantly smoother because of the 120hz display, and just the larger display in general. While I said neither of them have much lag, the Iphone feels noticeably less speedy. That said, I’m sure if you compared my Pixel to a high end Iphone results would be flipped. My work isn’t shelling out for whatever pro max stuff they sell (and neither would I!).

Beyond that, I can’t offer guidance. In my personal experience the Iphone UI is so frustrating that I can’t judge which one performs “better” or not, because only the Android feels comfortable to me. Between that and the lack of labels in some places (like the pull-down settings menu) it is impossible for me to daily drive the apple.

What’s really happening here is that advertisers can use the Reddit Ads Manager to create normal user posts and then pay to make them appear prominently on the site and in the app as promoted posts, aka adverts.

Look it’s not exactly revolutionary or new, google search has been littered with promoted ad results for years. But I still hate it. Fuck off, reddit. No respect intended. Icky. So glad I stopped using it.

Putin might as well just say the quiet part out loud at this point. Classic sociopath dictator, gotta pretend blood isn’t on his hands.

Rest in peace Navalny. You and your people deserve better than this.

I agree that pi-hole is an option here, but yeah, the reality is that most daily users don’t even know what it is. At least, not yet.

Adblock Plus and it’s betters became ubiquitous in large part because they were so incredibly easy to install. As easy as gramma accidentally installing yet another yahoo toolbar on accident. Like, too easy.

Pi-Hole isn’t hard to install, and there are some fantastic guides to help users get it running with essentially zero prior knowledge. But in my opinion, I think until it gets closer to “push-button” easiness, pi-hole and systems like it will really be limited to the <5% of users motivated enough to go through the steps, who aren’t mortified of logging into their router’s admin page. I want us to get there faster, and we’re a hell of a lot closer than 10 or even 5 years ago. But we’re not quite there yet.

Edit-typo

Check!

Also, I forgot all the tomfuckery he pulled with starlink in Ukraine, cutting off access and the like.

It’s truly a testament to how much shit this guy has done that we forget so much of it.

Literally only the best strategies here! I mean lets recap:

• Threaten to buy company then double down and agree in writing as a bullying tactic: check
• Roll a nat 1 on your intimidation check: check
• Be forced to follow through when called out on being mentally an 8 yo by the feds: check
• Fire critical employees, like basically all of them: check
• Yoink verification away from public news orgs: check
• Let anyone pay to be “legit,” even if they’re parodying you: check
• Rename twitter to the stupidest thing imagined since head-on (apply directly to the forehead): check
• Gut content moderation policies but also stop enforcing regardless: check
• Post own hate content and racism to the platform: check
• “Accidentally” run ads next to hate content: check
• Be told your sign sucks and to take it down by city: check (lol)
• Become a living embodiment of “big yikes” energy while telling aforementioned advertisers to “go fuck yourselves” on live TV: check
• Hallucinate about making x into a libertarian wechat alternative: check
• Tank the value of the company while blaming literally anyone else for your failures: mission in progress, #1 priority

10/10 solid buy, gonna grab some long calls rn. The koch boys and rupert murderjock must be holding back a tsunami of jealousy by now 🤣

Free Geek here in Portland OR used to do this. Might still be doing it too, but I haven’t been back there since 2018 so I’m not 100% sure.

But yeah, the last I was there, you could walk in and just buy a refurbished laptop or desktop with Linux on it. They would even give guidance on what people needed if they weren’t tech-savvy.

Ooof, I’m sorry about that. Yeah, as much as I like the idea of PHEVs getting the best of both worlds, it also means risking the worst of both as well. Ultimately if the manufacturer cheaps out in the gas engine it’ll be a rough experience no matter how good the EV side is

This tracks with my anecdotal experience. The EV drivetrain on my 2017 model 3 has been bulletproof, but I’ve had plenty of issues with Tesla’s poor build quality in other areas. Here are the notable examples:

• Tesla had to replace two control arm joints that were poorly designed and didn’t seal out water, so they started squeaking/creaking extremely loudly

• Two repeater camera assemblies that also didn’t seal against water well enough and stopped working

• A faulty frunk actuator that locked the frunk shut (no, there’s no manual release except from inside the frunk lol). I don’t keep anything too valuable in there now.

• So many software bug fixes. I’ll add to that, the original Intel computer just wasn’t good enough for this car needs it to do and it shows.

Honestly this isn’t too much worse than some of my ICE car experiences. I had a brand new Subaru Crosstrek which just kept going back for software updates (not having OTA or at-home usb updates SUCKS) as well as a pair of recalls around the engine. In one of those, the Subaru dealer nearly destroyed my engine by fucking up the timing chain alignment entirely on their own. Fun times.

Agreed. I started out with r-pi for the TV and and refuse to ever go back to just the smart-TV or stick interface. I’ve since moved on to more powerful HTPC/dedicated game server PC so I can host games for our friends but I still have the r-pi.

Honestly as nice as some of the smart TV or smart stick functions are, they’re only nice because they’re zero-effort. For just a slight amount of effort and no technical knowledge you can have a much better and safer setup.

Personally I can say the only reason I don’t ride my e-bike more for daily use is due to the rampancy of bike theives and vandals. Shit is genuinely getting hard to deal with and I don’t have time or money to put up with it.

If I could guarantee with just a high end u-lock or bike chain, something not too unreasonable, if that allowed me to park my bike at a busy grocery store and be able to ride home 15 minutes later, I’d use it that way. I genuinely love my e-bike and find it fun to ride, even with the annoyance of locks and security.

But after having wheel(s) stolen, a shifter broken, lines cut and even a lock fucked up, and after having transients and crackheads harass me for parking and locking up, I’ve just given up. Our police are still choosing not to do anything about this kind of crime, and I can’t get insurance against theft like I can with my car.

Plus, my EV has security and cameras, and critically is big enough that even a jacked up thief can’t walk off with it. Worst they can do is break windows or smash mirrors. I’ll waste the extra time and energy driving to the store if it means I won’t lose thousands of dollars to theft with absolutely zero chance of recompense.

If it a) successfully fools people into thinking their products are good, b) further fools them into thinking they’re worth the batshit insane pricetag, and c) isn’t illegal enough to be unprofitable, then they’ll keep doing it.

So yeah, I’d wager they keep the blue/green boxes. Bet they’ll also change non-rcs+non-imessage to another color to further divide things up as well.

I just feel like musk wants a western version of wechat for a hybrid user base of hardcore republicans and hardcore libertarians. That seems like such a fundamental oxymoron… but here we are.

And in fact, I hate to say it, but given how good those groups of people are at bending reality and making themselves conform to a warped capitalist standard, it might just work out for a while. But more than likely it’ll probably also go the way of “trump bucks” or whatever those psycho-loyalist cryptocoins were called. Basically it’ll end up a big old miserable fraud.

The again if it’s Elon’s coin on the table I’m not so sure I care. He’s just ruining spacex, tesla, et. al. Let him bleed money.

What’s genuinely sad is that the people who can’t bail from twitter quickly will be spitroasted by musk in the process.

He won the birth lottery, as it were

Honestly the range isn’t even an issue. Yes they did something wrong, but IMO in terms of misleading customers it’s not at the top of the list long list. They have all this horseshit about “full self driving” that they stick all over their website with pretty animations and graphics.

Then you actually read into it and the fine text says “oh by the way, it’s technically just a slightly suicidal/homicidal level 2 ADAS that nobody has signed off on, and that Tesla can yank it out from under you at any time, and thst WILL be conveniently forgotten about and valued at $0 if you decide to trade in your car with tesla, but it’s cool brosky just do it for the likes”

I have to play devil’s advocate here. Are you really fine with the current level of ads? Fine with some past/historical level less than now? What level is ok exactly?

To me the current level of youtube ads is unhinged. Even minus the privacy issues it’s not usable. And it got that way (to me, at least) as soon as skip wait timers (remember when that was all we had to deal with?) became a thing.

Now? With unskippable ads, huge wait timers, and ads injected into the middle of 8-minute videos? Nope nope nooope. Not a chance in hell would I watch unblocked or non-premium youtube.

Pretty good analogy though. Steam has some ads (out of the box it literally launches an ad window at startup) but it isn’t really a pain in the ass about it. You close the window, you move on, it only happens once and there’s nothing unskippable. It doesn’t shove ads in front of my face every time I launch a game from the library (I’d immediately leave the platform if there were.)

Fact is if steam and the other major platforms were ever to devolve within striking distance of how bad youtube has become, piracy would become unhinged. So far Valve has resisted the illusory “infinite money lever” that idiots in c-suites have misunderstood ads to be.

My rule for a while has been to limit myself to one major subscription at a time. It really curtails the rampant streaming costs.

I made an exception for spotify for a while (so I’d have spotify + one streaming service + maybe one small low-cost one) but with how expensive they’ve all gotten I’ve reverted to only spotify and low-cost stuff.

Right now I just have spotify and dropout TV so I can catch up on Dimension 20.

I’m sorry, I hate Elon and Tesla (and with good reason) but saying that an EV is rolling e-waste is going too far.

My model 3 has been bulletproof for the last five years. It’s a 2017 model, one of the earliest, so take that for what you will. The earliest models like mine were apparently some of the better ones until 2021+ model years. I wouldn’t consider buying one now due to Elon’s tomfuckery and the unresolved racism issues within Tesla, but to claim that they’re rolling trash isnt correct.

Plus, the fact is that virtually all cars (ICE models as well!) are rolling out of factories with dozens of integrated computers and touchscreens. It’s very hard here in the US to get something cheap that doesn’t have any electronics - basically imposible. And, if you do the compromise on cheaper and fewer electronics, the reality is that the poor grade of those cheap electronics will actually lead to a shorter lifespan and more overall repairs.

I’m not suggesting for that reason to go buy an EV - certainly not a new Tesla. A used one might be fine. But more broadly, electronics in cars (not just EVs) are really a huge problem. Unless they’re designed with repairability and durability in mind, all new cars have this issue, and you can’t single out Tesla for this.