This is why I still prefer public restroom glory holes in 2024.

Phones are becoming less and less interesting by the day.

Once they get to the point were all of the options that don’t require incredibly inconvenient sacrifices in functionality to maintain the interesting stuff like a video game console then that will kill interest in the market for me.

If I can’t do anything besides basic smart phone crap I might as well just buy whatever has a good camera once every half decade or so and be done with it. So whatever top end thing Samsung or Apple are putting out.

I’m not sure Google has fully thought through what it means to just be a worse version of what Apple puts out, but with more ads.

I’ll believe it when I see it.

Everything in these kind of cases tends to be a negotiation. So if the starting point by the DOJ is “break them up”, then I imagine they are willing to settle for something much less undesirable to Alphabet.

Tony Hawk pro wheelchairs

As the customer, which in a practical sense is the only perspective that matters to me day-to-day, Epic offers me nothing close to what Steam or GOG can give me. Hell, even EA’s and Ubisofts launchers were more useful since they at least had exclusives. All Epic has is Fortnite and for someone like myself that doesn’t care for that kind of game, there is no reason to even consider their platform for anything.

And given my recent switch away from Windows and to Linux full time on my gaming PC to put a further wedge between me and the things Microsoft has been doing with Windows that I don’t like that is a good thing given Epics history of embracing things that will never work as smoothly on Linux as Steam games do with Proton or GOG’s native Linux options do.

I’ve been using KISS launcher off and on since Branch bought Nova. Not nearly as flexible when it comes to customization. But if you just want a simple launcher that supports stuff like custom icon packs it is a good one.

I moved to esim for everything since my carrier (US Mobile) supports it and has a nice utility built into their mobile app to allow you to move your number to a new esim anytime you want to switch phones.

Mine stays on 24/7/365 unless I am going to be out of town.

It has gotten to the point where if you work for a game studio that gets bought out or sold, might as well get ahead of the game and start looking for a new job before they have the chance to fire you.

The fuckery Microsoft has been doing with trying to outright trick people into signing in to the OS with a Microsoft account and using things like OneDrive combined with just how good Proton has gotten pushed me to make the switch full time a year or so ago for my personal usage.

I don’t have any hard numbers, only what I have seen out in the world. But a good number of POS systems, embedded things like MRI machines, tire balancers in mechanics shops and ATMs run some flavor of embedded Windows.

It is not nearly as huge as *nix is, but it is not exactly uncommon either.

Smartphones are actually a good window into what computers in general would have been like had the IBM bios not been reverse engineered and survived a bunch of legal challenges.

All of these types are articles always leave out the calculations of what your time is worth to you and the maintenance costs of spare hard drives and other equipment. The TCO is not just the initial investment in hardware/software alone. Unless you plan to host something unreliably and value your time at nothing. In which case I hope you don’t get friends or family hooked on your stuff or everyone will have a bad time and be back to Google Drive/Docs and Netflix within 5 years.

The reason they leave it out I feel is because once you factor all of that stuff in the $10/month your paying for Google Drive storage or the ~$25 your paying Netflix starts to make a lot more sense when pared with a decent local backup from a Synology NAS for the “I can’t lose this” stuff like baby pictures of your kids. Which blows their entire premise out of the water.

I moved to Podcast Republic, and sometimes AntennaPod, on Android, Downcast on iPhone, and just import the OPML from one of those into gpodder to listen on desktop/laptop.

No accounts or other BS to keep up with, just the latest OPML export. Much nicer, and no one can take it away from me or “shut the service down” in the future.

They can try, but it is unlikley to work for long. So my general reaction is:

Capcom are making the same mistake with RE as Ubisoft did with Assassin’s Creed in my opinion. Focus the whole giant studio on making games for one IP, then when that stops selling the whole ship will sink.

When it comes to tablets, if it is not an iPad, Galaxy Tab S, or Pixel tablet don’t waste the money period. Everything else is pushed out the door and forgotten about by the OEM before the delivery truck leaves the warehouse.