There are giant swaths of area with no coverage, especially in the mountains of arizona, including the freeways and especially highways. The entire western US can be spotty with signal out in the great wide open. It isn’t until the Midwest and more east that one should largely not worry about signal coverage anymore.

What is a non-mechanical mechanical part?

Maybe it is my ad blocker that is filtering this kind of stuff for me. Or maybe the things I look up most often are specific enough that there isn’t much bullshit or clickbaity stuff to show. Sure, I’ll see the occasional “Sponsored” link. I think my brain just auto-filters those and I don’t even take notice. I really don’t intend to sound like a Google fanboy - I’m not. I just don’t seem to experience this, but hear people say this a lot. The attached screenshot seems like a typical result for something I’d look up, and it’s exactly what I’m looking for. In any case, thanks for your perspective. I’m going to try to be more conscious to see if I’m just fooling myself.

As a programmer and system admin, I’ve been using Google since its inception, too. I can’t think of an instance that I’ve failed to find whatever I’m looking for in recent times. People say what you’re saying a lot, so I don’t doubt you. It just makes me wonder what it is you guys are searching for because I search for some extremely obscure stuff quite often with no issues. This is all to say, I have a fair share of qualms with Google, but the search engine itself isn’t one of them.

There’s really not much to it. I don’t understand why you’re so dumbfounded such a thing is possible. People steal or buy up formula. Those who steal it make a profit no matter what price they sell it at. Those who live in an area where it sells out have the ability to mark it up big time. Paying 10 extra bucks is better than driving hours away with the hope they have it in stock there. People will sell it on offerup, craigslist, facebook, etc. Search for “formula” offerup if you’re in the US and you’ll likely see it. This was especially a problem during Covid and we saw the same scheme extend to many other products. In 2022, there was a massive shortage for the better part of a year. Any that came around got bought up immediately - by some that were lucky enough to get it at the right time and the rest by scalpers. This is not a new thing and I find it surprising that you’re so surprised. I often see them locked up and purchase limits at the store because of this.

Holy naivete, my sweet summer child. This has nothing to do with conservatives. This is a well-known scheme that is problematic in many areas.

Google Maps is always dead on for me. I regularly drive very long distances across the US. The time estimates are within minutes of accurate even when there are sudden or extreme backups like in Los Angeles. There’s plenty to criticize Google for, but it isn’t Google maps for me.

Despite autopilot’s flaws, this is already true, if we are speaking statistically.

Ash is the only one I’m aware of, but that’s primarily going to be found and used on stuff like routers or other embedded devices. Any modern shell can support history. That said, many users will disable it or wipe it on logout for security reasons.

Well, yes. I wasn’t really intending to make a comparison. I was just explaining the meme. There was a time when getting your wifi/network card going in Linux was somewhat of a hassle for many.

This is true today. Had you tried that back in 2005, you’d very likely be fiddling with drivers. I specifically remember making a disk that contained all the drivers I’d need if I had to reinstall for any reason. Without it and without a network, you’d have to have another computer available to grab drivers from the internet.

I run overwatch and rdr2 from ntfs partition with no problems. I just created a symlink from the default install path.

I wouldn’t mind if they moved Signal to use smart contracts for messaging, but call they have to come up with is crypto? Lol.

You do not need crypto to call with it. It is simply a payment mechanism. I don’t see anything wrong with it. If anyone is uninterested, they can simply turn it off or not use it. Conversely, burning up fees to interact with smart contracts to message is what seems more silly to me. There’d be no opting out of that.

I hear what you’re saying and I’m not trying to promote Whatsapp, but want to note that backups do offer encryption. They did not use to and I believe it is off by default, however.

I’ve used it for years and somehow had no clue they even had sms support. Doesn’t really matter to me because SMS is wildly unreliable for the location I’m at anyway. I’d rather use the actual app if still given the choice. I can understand the move to drop support for it, to be honest.

I can infer what you mean by “particular things”, but I’ve never really heard of that amongst anyone I know. Many people think that of whatsapp, too.