In life we all have unwritten rules like how far behind someone you stand while you are in line or the "nod of recognition" you give someone if you make eye contact while they are walking toward you.

There are lots of these about airplanes, famously about 3-deep-seats.

But I'm curious about the unwritten rule for the window.

To me, if you are in the window seat, unless someone specifically needs the window to be open for motion sickness or something, you are responsible for closing the window once the plane is at cruising altitude so people can sleep if they need to. If you dont do that, I find it a little grating.

Curious what other folks think.

Moved into my own house again recently. I would like to get a lot of stuff automated like I had in my previous house.

Unfortunately, theres a lot if old wiring here and most switches have no neutrals in the box.

What is the current best option for smart switches (ideally dimmers) that dont require a neutral wire?

I'd prefer a non-wifi solution that doesnt require a proprietary hub but it seems like there are limited options anyway and I am having trouble finding almost any good options that dont require a neutral.

Anybody using anything they really like?

I have a Motorola Razr+ 2023 from T-Mobile that I have had for 2 years and is now paid off and unlocked.

It works with physical sims from other carriers but no esim will begin to activate. It only pops up with a message to call T-mobile which I did but, they won't help me because I am no longer a customer.

The carrier unlock in the settings of android says unlocked so I don't know what to do next.

Any ideas or fun ADB things I can try?

These seem like ideal machines for workstations, for mom and dad, and for virtualization hosts.

This model, the Beelink EQi12 even has a built in power supply so managing them in a rack is also super handy. And of course the price is not too shabby either.

I have had pretty good luck with these in the past but I'm interested in hearing other's experiences, if any.

I can't imagine that they are 100% on top of firmware updates, but have they had issues in the past with Windows keys or any other shady stuff I should know about?

I've been watching the Rockford Files on Samsung TV and the commercials and syndication cuts have been getting on my nerves. I decided to get the series on Blu ray and ordered a set on eBay that I didn't realize was from Mill Creek.

I figure I'll just rant and post my warning here.

The Packaging-Not as bad as I have seen in the past from Mill Creek, but there are 4 discs per season and only 2 disc spindles per case. This is annoying and may or may not scratch the top discs over time. There are also 2 of the Blu Ray cases that have slightly different cases than the rest. Not the biggest deal in the world but still just a lack of attention to any kind of detail. The cardboard case that holds all the Blu-ray cases is incredibly flimsy and not glued or printed with any gloss. The slipcovers are kind of shoddy too.

The Content-No special features, no commentary tracks, NOT EVEN SUBTITLES! Half the reason I like physical media is stuff like that. At least the scans are nice. Clean and pretty with DTS-HD audio that sounds as good as its going to at this point. It's just what I assume is the original stereo track and doesn't have a 5.1 or 7.1 remaster. Its a good thing the picture is clear because our deaf friends are going to have to read lips and thankfully it is at least in the original aspect ratio.

Other Annoying Stuff-The DVD release of Season 1 contained the original TV movie pilot in its original release format. This Blu-release only has the chopped up "Season 0" 2 part episode with cuts and alterations. Again, not the end of the world, just highly annoying to have the Blu-ray release not be the superior version.

The printing on all the Blu-rays has a huge section of the artwork covered up with an ad for Mill Creek's website.

The Menus are lame too but what can I expect when there are no features to select from They don't have to be amazing but they just suck.

This is the only HD release of the Rockford Files. I understand that I am probably one of the few people who gives a crap about the Rockford Files but it's a shame that such a good show that was shot on film on location in LA is treated in such a slipshod manner by a fourth rate company like Mill Creek.

--WARNING FOR POSTERITY-- Mill Creek sucks. This is far from their worst release but frankly, all of their stuff is just crap. I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir here but seriously? NO SUBTITLES? That sucks.

I don't know whether it's a popular opinion or not, but I think Dr. Pulaski was a great character and I found her much more interesting than Dr. Crusher. I don't know if it was down to the writing or the performance but Pulaski is one of the best parts of season 2 and I would have been happy to see her character continue.

She wasn't very nice to Data but that bit of friction between some of the main characters of the show was welcome, especially in the early seasons. And her performance in Unnatural Selection is a moment in the series my mind returns to often.

How about it? Do we like Dr. Pulaski? What's her best moment on the show?

I use heliboard for my keyboard and quite enjoy it but on the 2023 RAZR+ it only allows Gboard to be used on the outer display. No other keyboard will fail to crash on the front screen.

I know its a niche issue but this is Android. Surely there's a way around it. Either with some kind of context-aware keyboard that only used Gboard on the outer display or some way to get other keyboards working on the front display.

I run a Windows 11 VM on xcp-ng to do testing and Windows specific graphic and video work. I use an old R9 390 in passthrough mode right now but it's running out of steam.

I'm particularly interested in the A380 series of gpus as they have a lot of the modern compute and video encoding features for around $100.

Before I pull the trigger I just wanted to know if anyone has had much experience with ARC GPUs in a VM passthrough scenario. I see in their official docs that resizable BAR is a requirement and I didn't know whether that is handled properly in a virtual environment or on XCP-NG specifically.

Any experience you're willing to share would be most appreciated.

Thanks!

I went out and got the AMD 7800xt to do ultrafast AV1 encoding of large h264 and hevc files.

I am able to select VCN acceleration options in Windows but not Linux Handbrake.

I have tried the flatpak and both the Pop_OS and ppa deb packages of Handbrake. I have the latest mesa driver and am running the most current version of PopOS 22.04. I've had no issues gaming at all, just with picking the hardware encoder in Handbrake. Any ideas or rabbit holes I can go down?

My first Android phone was the HTC One M8. I got it because at the time it made my iPhone 5 look like a chump. Bigger screen, unrivaled stereo front speakers, much more internal storage you name it.

I also got the LG G series after that because I loved that the battery was removable (I ended up with an enormous aftermarket battery pack that lasted 3.5 days of constant use) and the buttons were all on the back of the phone.

I got the Essential PH1 because the ceramic body was nice and the promise of the 2 pin magnetic accessory port was really neat (only a 360 camera was released for it but still).

I got a Pixel 4a because every Android phone at that point was a 6 inch rectangle with side buttons and a fingerprint reader but at least it was cheap and still had a headphone jack.

I'm glad to see flip phones returning because I think it is giving Android back what has always been its biggest advantage to me which is unique hardware features.

Personally, the HTC M8 speakers with the button layout of the LG G4 would be an intsa-buy for me to this day.

What kind of hardware features have you guys fallen in love with over the years and what do you value or would like to see return?

Of course the real-world reason is that it's cheaper to shake the camera and set off a firecracker than to build a scale model just to paint a burn scar on the side.

But my thoughts were always that the in-universe reason had to do with the modular nature of federation starships.

In almost every episode, someone on a starship either suggests rerouting something, shunting power from one thing through another, bypassing something, compensating for one power source with another etc.

It seems that in space, being able to re-configure everything at a moment's notice is important, and to be able to do that, you need easy, fast and direct, access to everything, therefore it needs to be immediately accessible, ergo high voltage power directly behind the controls.

The lack of seatbelts goes right along with it. If a console blows up in someone's face, the next guy over needs to be able to quickly move down and take over. Don't need to have to be fighting with seatbelts when nobody is steering the ship.

I don't know why they don't have safety glasses however....

I don't know whether this is an unpopular opinion or not but I actually think that the way Tasha Yar died gave the show much higher stakes throughout it's entire run. Here is the chief security officer, main bridge crew, tragic back story, potential love interest for the robot character just slapped down by the monster of the week. It made all the subsequent dangerous situations seem much more dire because "they were willing to kill off someone in the main cast". I also think that Yesterday's Enterprise was an awesome send off for that character that let them have a heroic ending for her after all.

It was a shame because I think Denise Crosby could have been awesome as a recurring character and in my opinion, we didn't get a great strong female character in the main cast (until DS9 which is an embarrassment of riches in that department). But I maintain that casually killing off Tasha Yar made my first watchthrough of TNG much more exciting.

I don't however like the additional stretch of her half-romulan daughter. It's pretty soap-opera-ish in my opinion and tarnishes the heroic sacrifice of her character.

At the end of the day, its pretty clear to me that Youtube is going to lose the war on adblocking. Either by hook or by crook those that want to use Adblockers are going to keep doing it no matter what.

And to be clear, I am not trying to equate Adblocking to video piracy. To me, the fact that I choose to go to the bathroom during a commercial of a tv show doesn't constitute piracy and Adblocks just automate that process for me on Youtube. I would also never click on an ad purposefully, no matter what it is for.

With all that being said, I am a hopeless cause and I don't think that anything will convince me to buy YouTube premium, but I also used to think that about MP3s.

My real question to anyone reading this is, as the devil's advocate, what could YouTube do with ads or otherwise that would solve the "service problem" of "YouTube piracy"? And furthermore, is there any situaton where you would do anything other than block all Youtube Ads immdediately and with extreme prejudice?

This is an old article but this is Gabe Newell describing video game piracy as a service problem and why he believes that in case anyone is unfamiliar with it.