The ads on over the air programming are so so terrible. And even with a great antenna the many channels aren’t exactly the highest quality content even if they didn’t have ads.

YouTube has taken the place of over the air TV and for good reason.

If they had an actual plan or history of preserving games I’d not care about emulator development. But with the industry track record being so poor we need emulators if for nothing else for preservation.

So much culturally interesting data has already been lost to time which I bet future historians would absolutely love to have access to. The internet archive is missing much of the early internet, while old iPhone and Android apps are largely unable to be run even if you have the APK/IPA required,

Not sure, this was 2 weeks ago. Apparently the season was somewhat earlier than normal this year. The C&O Canal trail is the place to go though.

This goes a bit deeper than their connection to America. The whole reason they were aligned with America in the first place was their mutual hatred of Iran. The Saudis HATE Iran. Coincidentally Hamas’s biggest supporter is Iran. Israel surely knows this and for similar reasons why most of the Arabian peninsula states are keeping their distance from this war.

I finally managed to try pawpaws this year. It was quite nice in Maryland and they’re all over along riverbanks. They had nearly identical taste and texture to the sweetsops available throughout Asia, just with larger seeds. I have no idea why they’re not widely available, the flavor is sweet and mild like most fruits that are popular in the US.

WMATA busses need serious work and there aren’t enough bike lanes for last mile connectivity, but by US standards it’s about as good as it gets outside of NYC.

The busses are the main differentiation between European and US cities in my experience. Only Seattle and SF get close to running a decent bus service.

The generics I’ve tried all work but noticably worse. The quality of the bristles is different and it doesn’t leave the same clean feeling. The price of the genuine replacements is stupid and they keep increasing it, but I’ve given up on finding a good quality generic one and just pay the price. They don’t need replacing that often anyway.

If anyone does know of a good quality C2 compatible replacement please do let me know though.

Dental and vision are never included in US health insurance and operate on a totally different confusing insurance framework. They’re only available through separate plans and have their own deductables and terms. But unlike health insurance the premiums are generally orders of magnitude lower for both vision and dental.

The problem I’ve had is that the maximum benefit is typically in the range of $2k-$3k/yr for dental which is quickly hit if you have any oral surgery needs. Unlike with healthcare I don’t feel ripped off when paying for dental/vision since the few hundred dollars per year covers preventative care visits too.

There are a ton of things to be upset at Apple for, but as someone who would never consider owning an iPhone I do understand where they were coming from. The problem was the aging batteries no longer being able to source sufficient current to run the processor at full speed. Since the batteries in iPhones are nearly impossible to replace this meant the phones would crash whenever performing a demanding task leaving much of the battery capacity unusable and the phone e-waste. By throttling the processor they reduced the current peaks and allowed these phones to continue operating.

My Moto G4 had the exact same thing happen, but without a software update to throttle the phone and hide the issue from me it started to crash all the time. I simply replaced the battery, but for most people the only option in this case would be to buy a new phone.

Apple probably should have made it an option even if enabled by default on phones with aged batteries. That way you’d need to acknowledge the risk of running at full speed again and not be upset when the inevitable crashes come. Of course Apple being Apple they refused to give the consumer the option so simply throttled them all.

Despite the outcry claiming the opposite, I’d bet that decision significantly reduced the amount of phone waste from non tech savvy consumers.

Thank goodness. I’ve been dreading the renewal process with how spotty usps is at actually delivering mail to my building. I need the visas in it even after I get a new passport as some are valid significantly longer than the passport itself.

As an outsider I’m just amazed that with Brexit there wasn’t a large push to unify with Ireland. They never wanted to leave the EU and the border issues it has created have caused so many headaches.

Without a distro to rally behind I’m personally somewhat skeptical. Ubuntu was the best shot we had but since switching everything over to SNAPs it’s on the slow side. With the number of Windows ads and early end of support for Windows 10 there’s a real opportunity for desktop Linux, but until there’s a well supported distro that genuinely doesn’t require using the terminal I can’t see there being mass adoption.

At the time animated series didn’t have the same quality they do today, I suspect it’s reputation is so good because there’s no subsequent animated series.

Basically, though I tend to use GMX email aliases for these sorts of useless signups. I don’t want some temporary email account to be all that’s needed to get control over my TV should I ever connect it to the internet again.

Many of the cheap TVs with Roku built in require you to set up a Roku account before you can even use the HDMI inputs. After setting up your account you can disconnect it from the internet and use it as a normal TV, but I spent a while trying to get around this block. In the end I had to create a Roku account.

I work in tech and needed to do this as part of onboarding after receiving an offer. Asking during the interview is a little weird but if they’ve had problems where their desired candidate didn’t have the necessary documents then it makes sense. I wouldn’t assume they’re wanting to see your house, they’re likely just wanting to make sure you won’t need H1B sponsorship to get the necessary documents to complete the I-9.

Tasker has a similar companion app, it just doesn’t work with as many things on my Pixel 8 Pro as Macrodroid. The only phone automation I rely on anymore is Wifi hotspot toggling based on connected Bluetooth devices, which Tasker is incapable of now even with the companion app. I really don’t know how Macrodroid does it.

Of the automation apps my preferred UI Automate with its flows. It allows the complexity of Tasker without becoming unreadable as the automations become big. It’s harder to edit and even worse without root than Tasker.

It’s still a cat and mouse game between Google and playintegrityfix/next. If you need to rely on your phone at any time rooting isn’t really an option anymore. I don’t see Google changing to be less hostile toward device automation unfortunately.

We really need a 3rd competitor or better workaround. It would be cool if you could have a virtual Android device inside a rooted device to run apps requiring safetynet. But that’s way way way easier said than done.

It’s not even just banking apps anymore. Tons of libraries just check by default before allowing apps using them to run. I can’t use my local transit agency’s app with root, not can I order a fast food burger.

It barely works for Android 14+ without root. Macrodroid has much better compatibility for whatever reason.

Unfortunately rooting while passing safetynet verification is very hard or impossible lately depending on the device. If apps didn’t unnecessarily check safetynet status this wouldn’t be a problem, but since so many now the rooted phone effectively becomes a brick. I really miss the days of custom ROMs and full device automation without stupid workarounds. Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any going back without app developers getting on board with an alternative to Google-verified security on Android.