scojjac · HackerTrans

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I was paying $6/month for Google Workspace Business Starter and refused to pay for the Gemini add-on because it was like $20/month on its own. Now Gemini is included and the plan is $14/month. I've been decently impressed with it's ability to work with PDFs and images, create tables that can export to Sheets, text that can export to Docs, Deep Research, and Help Me Write. I really think the imtegration with other Google products is where it shines. Now I use Gemini most, and bounce off of Claude occasionally. I rarely touch ChatGPT.

scojjac

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Yeah making it a focal point of identity seems to be very popular online and I find it extremely offputting. For myself, medication helped little if at all and sometimes made me feel worse. Although I do notice a difference in my ability to focus with good diet and exercise, the biggest positive changes come from better sleep habits and nearly eliminating unnecessary tech use. ADHD is a dopamine disorder and our smartphones are little slot machines.

scojjac

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I addressed that. High price is an artificial problem caused primarily by red tape, from tariffs to environmental studies to rolling over to NIMBYs over neverending hearings. We had electric streetcars in small towns in the early 1900s in the US. Small towns in other countries have them today.

Buses suck. People don't like riding them as much as trains and streetcars. Bus lines do not attract the same kind of investment that streetcars can. Attracting denser development along routes improves ridership AND tax base, which helps balance out the cost.

I think we will massively regret BEV as the solution to ICE vehicles. They don't handle temperature extremes well and I believe people are overly optimistic about recycling them.

scojjac

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Battery is silly for buses, IMO. Invest in streetcars (electrified fixed-route buses) and be done with it. Streetcar lines represent continued investment, and are therefore more attractive to developers, unlike bus routes that can be changed on a whim. And they've been around for longer. Cut the red tape on building them and on zoning if you want to see serious results.

scojjac

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My neck just twitched in a way it never has before. Thank you for that.

scojjac

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Modern phones are more like general purpose computers than game consoles. The console argument from Apple is disingenuous and gets far too little pushback from courts. Same goes for their argument that developers who don't like the App Store rules should make web apps — but limits Safari support for PWAs and limits third-party browsers to an older, slower JavaScript engine.

From a different angle, corporations are not people; they do not inherently deserve the same consideration as people. Sideloading provides actual individuals the option of more flexibility in how they use the device they purchased with their hard-earned dollars. Sideloading also provides the freedom to continue to install apps that might be removed due to government pressure. "It's their platform" holds absolutely no weight as an argument in my mind; it's reflects excessive deference to corporations.

Apple should be forced because the real-world use of devices they make is broader than they argue in court, because it is a company not a person, and because other actions it takes restrict the ability of developers to take advantage of the alternative Apple itself promotes.

Less bureaucracy is the solution yet the United States, famously lazy about regulating tech, has managed to support only two truly viable mobile operating systems. Not even Microsoft wants to be in the game. This indicates that the bar is much higher than "they should just go make their own" and therefore we can expect more of the behemoths.

scojjac

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You can see some of their financial data at ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/314...). I'm curious what longtimers think led to this.

Declining memberships, maybe companies not valuing technical communication as a separate field as much, the rise of LLMs all seem like possible contributing factors.

scojjac

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What was your experience with Tidal? I felt like it was better at recommending new albums and artists I want familiar with and there was much less of a focus on playlists.

scojjac

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Exactly my thoughts. Ellison and Oracle are surveillance-friendly (after all, it's kind of in the name). Oracle has a history of of privacy violations. This deal, coupled with the new AI data center in Abilene and their past, is ominous.

scojjac

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Very meta post. ;) I need a filter on all web browsing so that I never hear about LLMs ever again. They're a scourge on critical thinking, on workers, on the environment, on the internet. If they are the future, leave me behind.

scojjac

2 lata temudiscuss

On iPhone, you can use the Shortcuts app to do this. Create a new shortcut with the Restart action and save it. Then go to the Automations tab, set the schedule, and select your new shortcut. Make sure it's set to Run immediately.

scojjac

2 lata temudiscuss

A friend and I were recently talking about working toward our General licenses! He put me on https://hamstudy.org and I already have a Baofeng UV-5R. I've used it to access some weather radio here in North Carolina.

I'm not sure about the community aspect, either, but I definitely can see the disaster preparedness value, especially after Helene's devastation.

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