Spyke

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Kagi now has a Fediverse Forums search toggle

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Most platforms usually start ad free and with no restrictions. That's how they capture a chunk of the market. Then, once they have an established customer base, they typically introduce ads or a subscription so they can actually pay for the hardware and bandwidth the service runs on.

This is what YouTube, Google, and pretty much everyone did. It's the standard play book.

One-time fees are not feasible for this type of business model. If the server costs are ongoing, meaning you have to pay for the user's usage constantly, then you need to either constantly charge them too, take money out of your own pocket to subsidize it, or sell customer data to once again subsidize it. Nothing is free.

A one-time fee would have to be absurdly high (think hundreds of dollars) to take into account multiple years of usage, otherwise it's too risky and you're most likely losing money.

This mindset that subscriptions are all evil when hardware and bandwidth are billed to you every month/year is ridiculous.

Kagi at least is honest from the get go and never tried to trick customers into believing their service would be free forever. That's what's actually shitty behavior, when companies put out a product that they then enhsittify for the purposes of extracting profit.

Kagi was a subscription from the get go and told you that's how they pay their bills, and in return you get the service they promised with no compromises. I'm not arguing whether the price is fair, but at least the business model is honest and doesn't try to take advantage of me and my data.

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Digimon

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Because Digimon was a tamagochi clone first and everything else second. There was never a Digimon game formula or a Digimon card game formula or a Digimon anime formula. They just made random media to sell toys without any care for consistency. That lack of consistency made it have less general appeal.

Even today it's hard to introduce people to Digimon because there really is no right starting point, it's all different media and how much you like each one depends on your personal tastes.

Pokémon had it all consistent from day one. The tcg, the games, the anime, it's basically all the same even today. You can introduce someone to Pokémon with any media because it's all so consistently transversal.

privacy

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I just halted a job interview process - due to self respect.

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Unfortunately I'm inclined to believe this is on purpose to filter out people with self-respect such as yourself.

It's not just a cost-saving thing (though I'm sure that's also a factor), it's a way to make sure the only people who go through with such interviews are those who are very desperate. Because people who are desperate are more willing to subject themselves to poorer work conditions.

Companies will only stop doing this when it actually stops working, which is unlikely given the massive inequality in our world today.

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The while the US talks a big game, China plays a big game.

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You can also look at Japan, where railroad isn't even the main moneymaker for the companies that operate them (pretty sure some even run at a loss). Instead, it's the hubs that those railroads create (ie all the real state connected to the stations which is owned by the railroad companies and can be rented out to businesses).

In essence, railroads shouldn't be built because they're profitable. They should be built because they're a basic necessity for unifying a country/region. The profit comes from the increased mobility and the new hubs and opportunity that mobility can create. But most politicians are too short-sighted for this.

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BVG out here recommending the best 2FA Apps!

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This isn't really a good idea because then you're putting all your eggs in one basket. The whole point of 2FA is that the second factor is in a separate location so if your first factor (password) gets compromised the second one (OTP code) still protects your account. If both factors are in one place you're back to a single point of failure instead of 2, losing a key benefit of 2FA.

If you're gonna do this, at the very least have 2FA with a security key on your bitwarden vault.

movies

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I watched Arrival (2016), there was a lot more to it than I was expecting

I watched it for the first time last year without knowing anything about it and, as someone who loves to nerd out about anything linguistics related (am translator, for context), I cannot describe how gleeful I was that such subjects had center focus in a big blockbuster like that. Obviously the other aspects of the movie were amazing as well and the story got me very emotional by the end, but I will never shut up about how interesting and important that translation/communication aspect of the movie was.

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Portable Music Player with Open Source Firmware and CAD Files (Now in production)

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As someone who owns a digital audio player I can give some reasons:

  • Since most phones don't come with headphone jacks anymore, it's nice to have a device you can just plug your wired headphones into. It also means headphone jack inclusion is no longer a factor when choosing a smartphone.
  • Better audio quality depending on the DAC inside the device.
  • Expandable storage. Most DAPs let you insert one, some even two micro sd cards. No need to stream anything, plus you have space for lossless files.
  • No need to worry about data/wifi, your music is always there ready to listen offline.
  • Some DAPs are really small (Shanling M0 for example), making them more portable than a phone for a lot of use cases.
  • More headphone compatibility. A lot of higher end DAPs support more than a 3.5 mm jack. The Fiio m11 plus for example has a 4.4 and 2.5 balanced output jacks in addition to the standard 3.5 mm.
  • Higher power amps to power hungry headphones. A smartphone can't power say a pair of Sennheiser HD 600s, a DAP can because it comes with a preamp (not all though, depends on the specs).
  • Dedicated physical buttons. A touchscreen will never compare to controlling playback with physical buttons.

Though I will say, even as someone who owns one, unless you're really into carrying your music library with you it's generally not worth it. But they are nifty little gadgets and new ones come out every year to innovate the space.

It's similar to an e-reader as others pointed out. Sure, you can read on a phone/tablet as well but it's nice to have a device that's purpose built for one thing and does it really well. The same applies to a digital audio player. Yeah you can (and most people are fine with) play music on your smartphone, but a dedicated device does add some nice QoL to the experience.

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Google is discontinuing the Chromecast line

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No? Some of the most popular TV brands like LG and Samsung don't. And if your TV doesn't have Android, buying a Chromecast is a super cheap way to get it.

I have an amazing 4k oled TV but it doesn't have android so I still had to buy a Chromecast for it because otherwise I had no way to watch TV.

linux

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Debian is Ditching X (Twitter) Citing These Reasons

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This is to me one of the major reasons Twitter discourse is completely ruined and the platform is mostly useless for seeing what people think now.

When the only people who get to be at the top of discussions are people who pay for twitter, the only opinions that get shared are those that are pro Twitter, pro Elon, etc. Because they have a direct stake in the game.

And that's if the accounts posting aren't all bots that pay for a checkmark to boost engagement, which is almost all I see when I occasionally have to check Twitter these days.

So glad more people are leaving it. There's nothing to gain from it anymore.

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Those who live outside Europe. What are things Europeans are not ready to hear.

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Over simplified, because Romani are usually nomad, they live in moving settlements and don't typically integrate much wherever they settle in. A lot of the hatred they receive also stems from these settlements being illegally set up in private/public property, as well as how they result in a lot of trash being dumped everywhere. There is also an issue with Romani criminality (stealing, damaging property, and sometimes there are even shootouts between different Romani families which result in casualties).

There is also a perceived notion that governments do not want to deal with these problems, which further fuels the hatred against the Romani as they're seen as criminals who get away with everything.

The truth of course lies somewhere in the middle. Most Romani are not bad people if you take the time to know them, but there is definitely a lot of toxic cultural norms being perpetuated by leaders of many Romani families, which doesn't help with clearing the stereotypes, and with very little to no integration between the Romani and the cultures they are in, it's hard to get rid of the animosity.