Spyke

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This is the last stand.

It's been getting ridiculous. One of the apps on my partner's phone recently warned that they wouldn't open with Developer options enabled.

This app is a fucking drink menu and digital punch card for a popular coffee shop, what could be done from the developer options that affects this app in any way? Especially since I only enabled developer options to speed up the godawful Android animations. Out of principal I've stopped going there and deleted the app.

Here's a massive list of "Alternative Internet" software. There are some blockchain items in there, but otherwise it's pretty extensive.

memes

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I wasn't intending to but now that you mention it...

I wish I could find it and share the actual quote, but someone on Twitter (iirc) posted something like, "the best way to approach urbanism and biking to conservatives is to say 'I'm for traditional neighborhoods that use independent transportation methods without government overreach' or 'I want fiscally responsible transportation methods'."

To no one's surprise, these refer to walkable cities, using walking or biking, and include buses with the second quote.

games

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Steam Deck OLED is now available

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Let me get this straight. Valve decides to break into a market with a niche product few people have purchased from other vendors in the past (GPD, Aya, etc), says "we want this to be affordable and just work", releases a 1.0 to test the waters, and you think their initial device should have had OLED?

I can see why you don't run any companies.

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7 January 2024

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He tripped in front of the chickens while gathering their eggs, destroying all their hard work, and now they look at him in disgust and disappointment.

And that's why you never keep all your eggs in one basket.

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what, in your opinion, drives the start time of factory and manufacturing jobs to 5am?

If they are 12 hour shifts, so that the people can head home at 5 with everyone else. If they are 8 hour shifts, usually for the later shifts to have an okay life balance: 5-2 for day shift, 2-11 for second shift, and a third shift option that overlaps.

Even though I'm a night person, 5 is a common time to wake up for enough people who presumably want to be productive, and the benefit of getting off work before the school day ends has to be enticing. And on the second shift side of things, they get to have lunch with loved ones before going to work, and 11 is early enough that they could potentially go out for drinks or other fun before bed.

It's also nice that for either shift, the person has time to run errands at a time when most stores are open and activity levels are low.

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My brother in Christ, this is the exact reason why we are pushing for better public transportation and reduced car dependency.

We dream of a world where, god forbid your car breaks down, you can make it to work within roughly the same amount of time whether you walk, bike, or take the bus. And this isn't even a fantasy, this dream is alive and well in The Netherlands, Japan, even fucking Disneyland.

We just need to actually start taking Public Transit seriously in this country so that it can improve.

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The reason everyone thinks Americans have no culture is because their culture is prevalent everywhere.

Ehhhhh, I don't know if I agree with this.

American "culture" has had a whole bunch of definitions, usually changing with the decades. For most of the 20th century, you could point to something and say "That's American"; things like milkshake bars and greasers, anything surrounding the hippie movement (that we actually probably stole from somewhere else), and... Whatever that strange design of random shapes the 90s had.

After 2000, there hasn't been really anything that stands out, in part due to the rise of the internet, and in another, the dangerous build environment. In order to have culture, people need to congregate in a place and create something meaningful. Because Americans go to work and then go home, often with little-to-no time in between from long commutes, they have no time to create the next "culture moment".

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Here’s Mario’s new voice actor

He's a pretty decent drop-in replacement. I thought for sure I'd notice a difference from the promo video at the end of the article. Even though there is a minor difference, it's so negligible you could easily just pretend Charles had a cold in the booth.

It's a lot better than the Sonic Voice Actor fiasco Sega has had.

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If I'm honest, video games and computers in general. The community has some to do with it, I guess, but more because the people making them just seem to not care about the customers at all anymore.

If I had to put my feeling into words, its that they try to make things at the smallest possible cost with the highest return possible, including throwing ads into everything (making for a poorer experience for the users), while simultaneously making everything bland so they can appeal to everyone.

Ten years ago, I loved video games, and now the only "next-gen" console I have is a Switch and a Steam Deck. I used to be a huge Windows fan, but now I can hardly stomach Windows 11, and run Linux exclusively as much as possible.

Big tech ruined tech. Big video games ruined video games.