No waiting for firmware updates
Buy old stuff
Use open source
Downdate
etc
It is incredibly difficult for me to describe just how powerful a Linux desktop experience can be. You can buy a cheap computer that suports emulation and put QubesOS on it. Bonus points to putting a GPU in it and playing on either Windows or Linux with that GPU.
I don’t think Linux people entirely understand just how uninviting the prospect of messing around with an operating system is for the vast majority of the public.
As bad as Windows is, and it is it getting worse by the minute, it honestly does just work. I dual boot my computer, mostly into Linux everyday and even now I occasionally come across problems that don’t exist on the Windows side. The community need give up with this idea that Linux doesn’t have major usability issues.
The fuck are you doing, that you need to mess with the OS?
Yeah it’s funny. Post about stuff just working out of the box.
First reply: Open source. Downgrade. So… Do exactly what the post is raging about.
There are many advantages to open source software and a lot of it does actually just work. Linux isn’t one of them though.
To be fair that’s because an operating system is far more complicated than most open source projects which tend to be applications.
Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication (a bit ironic when you consider this quote comes from Apple).
Steam is fun and all, minecraft is a great game, but goddamn, i have a 10kbps at home, and network is unstable where i live, why can’t i play my fcking
game“licence” which is not even online based, because the network decided to stop??I prefer from far a simple folder with assets and a .exe that i will put on my desktop with a shortcut.
What an application is supposed to be anyways.
Simplicity is easy to pirate though.
If the product is a program that executes 100% of its functionality on your computer, it is impossible to make it pirate-proof. Even if all the functionality is client-side and the server is used only for authentication, it can be pirated.
The only way to make a program pirate-proof is if it runs on the server with a thin client.
That being said, some products execute on the client. Therefore if they want to prevent piracy, the only thing they can do is security through obscurity. That is, make it as complex as possible so the pirates take as much time as possible to reverse-engineer it.
Luanti is a credible replacement option for Minecraft single-player
You don’t need a network connection for Minecraft single player. I’m not actually sure what they’re on about.
I don’t think it’s ironic, it just doesn’t say the quiet part out loud. Everything just works if they control the entire ecosystem, so if you want ‘sophisticated’ let us control everything and it will all just work.
I really wanna ditch the smart TV I have and just get a display that only displays the picture of the devices I have plugged into its inputs and doesn’t get online, doesn’t receive updates or “improvements” and has inputs for everything:
3.5mm AUX audio
Composite
S-video
RGB
Hdmi
That optical audio jack made by (IIRC) Sony I can’t remember the name of right now. It’s what my stereo uses and it’s amazing. Used to be super common on TVs.
I mean I have that. It’s called a smart TV that I never use the smart functions of, connected to the HDMI output of a PC. It’s great for watching stream content and I don’t have to worry about ads and stuff.
In actual fairness to the TV it isn’t too bad in that respect but the interface is just god awful and I hate having to type with a TV remote so I still use the PC.
I recently got really tired of my TV constantly nagging me to update the firmware for all the newest features. I just disconnected it from wifi instead. I do not use my TV for smart features, I use it as a display. I update the things plugged into it, because that’s their job. If i need to stream something, I will use a box. A box that can be replaced or easily updated or changed out.
A display has one job, to display whatever.
I’d do that except that every few seconds, a big pop up that takes up 1/4 of the screen from top down tells me that the network is disconnected. 😬
what brand is your television? I wanna avoid it at all costs
Samsung.
The standard optical audio jack was developed by Toshiba.
TOSLINK might be what you’re thinking of. And yes, it rules! I have a surround system that uses it and it sounds amazing
…TOSLINK can’t handle atmos bandwidth; you need eARC for uncompressed multichannel digital audio…
I had fun with eARC a while ago, my TV definitely supports it because it was on the box but what it doesn’t say is the fact that only one of the HDMI port supports it and it doesn’t tell you which one. I had to go online into a random forum to find out, It’s port 3 by the way, because that makes perfect sense.
I helped my dad install a new dumb thermostat last winter. We just had to drill a couple of new holes to mount it, and moved the wires over. Boom,there was heat again. I thought about how much of a pain in the ass it was to get my Ecobee working, and how refreshing it was to just have something work immediately.
It’s a very similar feeling to playing my GameBoy Color again after messing around with retro gaming linux handhelds. You just turn it on and play, then just turn it off. No boot sequences, no emulator settings to tweak. No SD card corruption that ruins your game library. Just on and off.
it’s the reason why the original Odroid Go it’s so special to me… it’s all built around an ESP32 microcontroller and it does emulate only NES, GB, GBC and a couple more, while honestly not even being perfect at it, but goddamn… it boots in like 1 second, even directly to the last game you were playing, it has no settings whatsoever, the battery lasts for like 7 hours it’s such a neat little device.
and it’s funny because in my head that it’s the device that kickstarted this whole retro handheld emulation craze, but it is the only one to take such a minimalistic approach
No boot sequences
(being annoyingly pedantic) technically there is a boot sequence: the Gameboy logo. on the DMG there’s a little blob of code from 0x0000 to 0x00ff that clears some memory, sets up the screen, reads the logo from cartridge memory and scrolls it. the loader only jumps to the game if the logo is byte-identical (the idea being that unlicensed games could be sued for trademark infringement.)
on the GBC the loader is a little beefier but mostly the same.
t. made a horribly broken FPGA core for the DMG that got just far enough to load the Tetris intro
Yes, but that’s pretty miniscule compared to booting any of the linux based retro handhelds. An Bernice, Powkiddy, R36S, they all have like a 30-40 second boot time.
Just booted my R36S. 21 seconds to be on the title screen of a game, Gameboy is apx 4 seconds. I was just curious so I thought I’d share.
It’s not comparable. Nintendo must have spent millions on developing the Game Boy, meanwhile retro handheld is a hobby project someone did over the quarter. Ever try to port and run an RTOS on those ARM chips? And port a mainstream Game Boy emulator to it? “What do you mean you have to have MMU support?Just work, damnit?”
It doesn’t work like that.
It’s completely comparable in this circumstance. They are performing similar functions, playing handheld games. My R36S is a pretty impressive little device, and it performs excellently at playing games. But using it is much more complicated and longer than popping a game in a gameboy.
Gameboy: insert game, turn on, play, turn off. R36S: turn on, 30-40 second boot time, locate game, play, exit emulator, shut down, 10 second shutdown time.
Sir, I sincerely think you missed the point. Somebody, that nobody who only knows just enough programming, spent three months (at most) in his basement, putting together a embedded Linux and integrated emulators in a portable computer, cannot be compared with a video game company’s officially released commercial product. The money, the time, the effort, the equipment, the testing, not one is in the same magnitude.
Sponsor a group of enthusiasts who have the right skill to live for a year, they can replicate Game Boy with modern hardware too, 100% identical or even better. Consumers like us who only paid $20 for the retro handheld emulator? We don’t have a right to complain about the performance and quality.
This is one of the reasons why I still only use wired headphones.
Yup.
Comcast “updated” their network yesterday and broke every fucking smart plug in my house. None of them will work anymore.
Did they disable the 2.4ghz band on your router?
Thought of that too, but yup it’s still active. A couple other devices are connected via 2.4 but none of my plugs or bulbs will connect. They worked just fine yesterday and now they’re all bricks.
What fantasy world are you living in? How could my glass hold water if I didn’t sign up for a service that sends me spam? How could my table hold a book if I didn’t sign up for the monthly subscription that prevents it from ejecting books into the air? Even my cat came with a ToS that said that by petting her, I give her access to my bank account and first born child. Hasn’t it always been this way?
I went to a coffee shop yesterday that tried to tell me they only accepted orders through their app. I almost walked out, until the finally poured my coffee, but continued to give me shit about it, “ok but next time you have to use the app”
“Yea no. There will be no next time.”
Luckin Coffee, the extremely successful Chinese competitor to Starbucks exclusively operates via their app. Sadly, users prefer it because of all the discounts and coupons it offers. So really, just surveillance capitalism as usual.
There’s an Always Sunny in Philadelphia episode for exactly this situation
I havent watched Sunny in ages. But yes, that was my experience lol
It’s so good. Best of theirs in a long time.
Dennis??
“It’s a work phone. I’m not allowed to install apps.”
A QR code and a website I could understand. But app? No.
No, even QR I can only accept as an option, as in completely optional. I’m out and about without a phone quite frequently.
I have my phone on me all the time. Still no way im using an app to order. The screens I can tolerate at fastfood joints because it gives me time to decide.
But if you can’t be bothered to come to my table to ask what I want at a real restaurant, I can’t be bothered to go to your > resturant.
OP said coffee shop so I’m presuming it’s not a real restaurant, and the app would facilitate ordering without queueing. Which I like. But I don’t wanna download an app, I want to just sit down, scan a QR and pay with one of the cards stored in my phone. And obviously cash should still be a backup option. I can see why they might want to do away with card terminals though.
True. I would put coffee shops in group with the fasfodd joints. There’s wasn’t really much service to begin with. But it should always be possible to order by a real person.
I wonder if it isn’t actually illegal to deny personal service for accessibility reasons.
Honestly, no idea. Laws vary so much by jurisdiction anyway.
Tbh I agree that there should be an in-person option always. If for no other reason then just to be able to pay in cash. Just make sure to let people know it’s not the most convenient option but it’s available.
I’m not entirely sure what the point of the app is though, compared to a website with payment options. Lots of people will say tracking, but you can get a lot of info through a browser too.
This sentence makes me realize I take my phone with me everywhere
I rented a car, a Mercedes B class or something
Everytime I started it, it would ask me to sign up for some bullshit Mercedes service Half the features of the car were disabled due to requiring subscriptions
I will NEVER buy that car nor rent it ever again
OP is now a proud BMW owner!
the fuck, which features?
My guess would be heated seats and driver aids.
Enter your pazswird; enter the code from your authenticator
hunter2
*******
Huh?
For the outdated services I use that still require passwords, my password manager handles all that.
This is why I like hardware synthesizers
everything is still a problem, it’s just a self-inflicted problem! 😁
Everything being my fault means I’m still in control!
(This is actually not always true and is instead a rather toxic delusion of someone who has lost all control of their life blaming themselves for everything for the aesthetic of feeling like they still have agency and responsibility)
car
Terrible mid 20xx introduction of full on touchscreen tablets to motor vehicles would like to know your location.
And your phone number and your address and your contact list and permission to read-write access to your files and your social security number and your blood type and your date of birth and your mother’s maiden name and the location and shape of any birthmarks or scars and your fingerprints and your genealogy and your deepest darkest secret and what you ate for breakfast last Tuesday and if you’ve made any pacts with yogsathoth and if your soul is still available for sale and your dental records and your porn preferences and your favorite color and your BMI and the name you gave to your favorite stuffed animal when you were six years old
This is a lovely comment, thanks!
After trying to get my new automated kitty litter box working with a POS app that can’t sync with the poop machine and the PM can’t connect to my 5 GHz wireless network (only 2.4 GHz) nor does it have any way to enter the password for said network I have resorted to deleting the app and just pushing two physical buttons in sequence on the PM twice daily to clean the litter area.
Me too, I gave up on the app. It’s easier to just push the button on the machine. Hate things that need an app. Also hate having an account to use everything.
I literally refuse to use ANY app. None. If your service needs one, I don’t need your service. End.
The 5 ghz vs 2.4 is such a pain in the ass. As far as I can tell Android won’t let you pick which to use so you can’t be on the same network as the device, even with the same ssid.
You can have your router split the different frequencies into different named networks to make it work. But you shouldn’t have to
Using them in the same name isn’t that great either. These days you shouldn’t ever need to connect to 2.4 is markedly slower
2.4ghz is faster than my max bandwidth so I keep using it for range
Slower but up to spec for most people unless you need high data transfer speeds, and it also provides wider range than 5ghz.
Shit either has no buttons, with an capacitive touch surface, or if it has buttons, it’s never immediate response, you have to press it for an extended amount of time.
it’s fucking infuriating.
You just described my Chevy Volt so accurately. All the buttons are touch surface except the parking brake switch, and I usually have to pull that twice.
Yes long press needs to be relegated to the most obscure functions of a device, not the main uses.
