Brewchin

I have a 2015 Shield. Best device I’ve ever had, and haven’t ever had to factory reset it.

My main recommendation - in case it applies to you - is to not run any server software on it (eg. Plex). It’s a solid client device, but has never had what it takes to run server services.

I think it has plenty of life left in it, so a factory reset might be worthwhile. Also note that the drive in yours may be well past its best.

Agree with you. That last paragraph reeks of Reddit-like monetisation of community goodwill.

The US$75 Lifetime price has traditionally been their Black Friday deal, regardless of the usual price.

Anyone’s guess if that deal will still be a thing, given their recent behaviour, though.

This is what FAFO in public looks like. Gold!

I don’t mind it with companies that produce multiple products, as nesting them does make sense.

But for one-hit-wonders it’s a bit… 😬

The most American post I’ve seen on Lemmy to date. 😬

I was thinking more of one product companies using a $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/Boop Snoot Partners, Inc/<Software Name You Remember Installing>/ convention, which seems to be the norm inside %APPDATA%.

But I take your point. 😊

So much this. It’s like these clowns don’t read the XDG directory spec and think $XDG_CONFIG_HOME and $XDG_DATA_HOME are interchangeable, and even that cache files can be in either or both. No, one directory you need to backup for when things go sideways, and the other can go to /nev/dull.

I’m not a fan of ~/.local/share/ being the data directory (two directories deep seems stupid), but it’s definitely where regular data belongs.

Never mind developers who, in 2025, still think their project is special enough for a $HOME dotfile/dotdir or - somehow worse - those who put $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/<weird-name>/subdir/[subdir/]. The latter strikes me as well-meaning Windows developers trying to follow best-practice-like-Microsoft-does, but it makes my teeth itch.

Rant over. :)

If you’re going back that far, I remember hearing a story about the Australian military experimenting with immersive AI during a typical “give us money” event where a helicopter was flying over an area and the kangaroos scattered at the sound, disappearing over a hill…

Then reappeared with RPGs and fired them at the helicopter, taking it down. Lots of red faces and mumbling about working out some kinks. 😄

tl;dr: I’m old enough to remember when “AI” was a benign comic novelty. 🙃

Calibre (Kindle) and Libation (Audible) are essential backup tools.

Y’know, in case their servers are down…

Every serious person in law enforcement, who doesn’t have an agenda, acknowledges that the old fashioned policing methods make all of this redundant.

It just takes longer (and so costs money), which is what this is about.

These people would destroy the security of the world’s protocols just to save a few quid. It’s deplorable.

I get what you’re saying, but I’m not sure greedy pigboy is doing that. Everything changes.

It won’t be what it was, and the grift will grow be off the charts, but I think it will evolve into a mix of what it was and grifters grifting. Just delineated by subreddit.

The algorithmic feed and the low barrier to entry, including UX familiarity.

Aside from the headache of understanding what instances are and choosing one, and finding a decent mobile client, a lot of people care about unique usernames - especially those in the business/professional sphere.

I see their point, when @trustedname@genuine-instance can have all their effort and goodwill destroyed in a day by @trustedname@malicious-instance. While the Verification option exists, more needs to be done in ActivityPub and client developer guidelines to prevent or intuitively mitigate this kind of impersonation. But mentioning such shortcomings get sneered at or waved away, which keeps serious well-meaning people away.

Why would they go through that hassle when Bluesky’s shortcomings are ideological and potential future direction?

Now do January 2025.

The IRL version of the used car salesman meme: “(Slaps roof) We can fit so many months inside this bad boy…”

Can’t escape Cory Doctorow’s observation that the internet is “five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of text from the other four”.

We may be away from those 5 sites, but the behaviours and content from them is very much here.

I’ve worked with both in my career. Tell me more…

Email? So its just encrypted SMS?

Might come down to the metadata, then, like SFTP vs FTPES or GET vs POST.

Google wants everyone to have location services permanently enabled, gotcha.

Christ, this image is like a 50-post long thread on Mastodon, etc: the worst possible choice of format/platform for that type of content.

“I have an essay to share, and I’m going to send it in snippets of a few hundred characters!” Why?

(Looking at you, Doctorow… 👀)

To add to this, for those of you in roles that deal with email, think of every time you’ve dealt with a vendor or partner who’ve told you to “just whitelist *@<our-domain> - it’s not in the contract or terms of service, but it’s a requirement”.

The correct, considered and professional answer is, of course, “Fuck off and die.” Without exception, equivocation or apology.

This site is one such example, but at a B2C rather than B2B level.