dRLY

dRLY , 14 days ago

If she cares about aesthetics but is fine with the current functions. Maybe there is a way to do some kind of low level mod of the outside that wouldn't mess with the actual sound? I am not a case modder on really any level. But with all the folks that love making stuff "theirs," I would bet there are guides about changing the look of basic speakers. Or even audio shops that do custom builds that could allow for her to get the aesthetics (and even mean more) while keeping the functions that you want to keep. Though I also imagine that it would cost more up-front, but I think that we are going to see stuff that isn't "smart" or requiring accounts tied to apps that will eventually stop working artificially be the most expensive options.

But those "dumb" devices will last many years longer. Just really hate how these current "premium" brands make shit that is both less well made AND constantly sell off our data. Also bullshit that the concept of repairing stuff is being made basically pointless as they make sure it costs around the same or more than buying the new one.

dRLY , 22 days ago

ability to reach engaged customers

Not sure that being stuck to a spot in a tube you can't just escape (and easily live) from is the same as "engaged".

dRLY , 2 months ago

More like open windows that were painted to make shutting them almost impossible.

dRLY , 2 months ago

What did you do to freeze your stuff? And how do you thaw it for stuff, and how long does it take? I did go ahead and make my My Social Security account after seeing your comment though!

dRLY , 2 months ago

Thanks!

dRLY , 3 months ago

Mastodon and other federated platforms are still confusing to normies and less ideologically-minded users. Aside from that, unless VLC starts hosting their own instance, it is hard to say if the particular one they decide to use will stick around. They can relocate by taking some extra steps of course. But they would likely care to put that effort into making VLC Player better instead of into social media. For now at least. X has been more or less the same for a long time (even with the past couple of years) for what they use it for. I am sure they would like to be on an open platform over propriety if that were the only difference. And nothing is stopping them from using both at the same time in order to reach as many people as possible.

dRLY , 4 months ago

Bookmarking this to help motivate customers that still install Avast (and AVG for that matter) and just click "yes" to all the extra "features" being installed. Some even pay for the shit and just get a very slow and distracting PC from just so many apps just running and keep popping notifications advertising more "protection" levels to buy. So many people fall victim to scams that abuse the built-in Windows OS and all browsers' notification systems. And the supposed programs that claim to be "speeding up your PC and keeping you protected" are non-stop the same tactics.

Avast, AVG, and Norton (which I think are all owned by the same company if I remember correctly) love installing their bullshit Chromium browsers and default to launching on startup and take over being the OS default. This is peak capitalism for the AV world. No value and charge you more and more even after you pay for it all.

dRLY , 4 months ago

I agree with you is the TL;DR, and the rest is just my mad ranting opinions about companies being allowed to just auto-censor us. So feel free to completely ignore the rest. lol.

It is like just banning words and phrases just because bad people use them has just become the norm. I really really can't stand the way that channels on YT constantly have to self-censor basically everything (even if the video is just reporting on or trying to explain bad shit that is or has happened). And it never seems to actually stop the actual issues from happening. Just means the bad people just move on to a new word or phrase that is then itself banned. It isn't about actually stopping fucked-up shit from happening. It is just about making sure advertisers and other sources of money don't throw a fit.

We always hear about how places like China are bad in-part for censoring words and speech. But in the US and other western nations we pretend we are allowed to freely speak uncensored. We have always had censoring of speech, it is just that the real rulers of the country are allowed to do it instead. Keeps the government's hands free from legally being the enforcers of doing it to us. Shit like CP is fucked, and it should be handled for what it is, but allowing for-profit companies and especially their algorithms/AI to decide what we can and can't say or search for without any level of human interactions that very much lead to false bans is also fucked.

It is waaaay too easy for all the mega corps to completely take down channels and block creators from revenue of their own work just completely automated. But the accused channel can't ever get a real person to both get clear understanding of what and who is attacking them, and to explain why their strike/bans aren't valid. I have heard that even channels that have gotten written/legal permission from a big studio to use a clip of music or segment from video (music being the worst) will STILL catch automated strikes for copyright violations.

We don't need actual government censors, because the mega corps with all the money are allowed to do it for them. We have rights but they don't really matter if they can say a private company or org made up of people from various mega corps are allowed to do it for them.

dRLY , 4 months ago

Auto-moderation is both lazy and is only going to get worse. Not saying there isn't some value on things being hard-banned (like very specific spam like shit that just keeps responding to everything with the same thing non-stop). But these mega outlets/sites want to just use full automation to ban shit without any human interactions. At least unless you or another corp has connections on the inside to get a person or people to fix it. Just like how they make it so fucking hard to ever reach a person when calling (or trying to even find) a support line.

This automated shit just blacklists more and more shit and can completely fuck over people that use those sites for income (and they even can't reach a person when their income is cut off for false reasons and don't get back-pay for the period of a strike/ban). The bad guys will always just keep moving to a new word or phrase as the old ones get banned. So we as users are actually losing words and phrases and the actual shit is just on to the next one without issues.

dRLY , 5 months ago

I am really going to miss the old settings when they finally remove what is left of Control Panel. So far they have removed things or moved shit to force the Settings app. But they keep failing to make the new things have anywhere near the level of control. The power settings from Control Panel still matter way more than Settings and seem to actually stick when applied. And I just really have no idea how they have made stuff like resetting networking/connection issues worse over time. Fucking right-clicking on the networking icon on the taskbar and picking "repair" would actually get shit working again 8 times out of 10. But just seems to be a placebo at this point. There are still so many times that using different resets in Internet Options fixes more stuff I see regularly than the resets in Settings->Networking.

And the newer Troubleshooting options never fix any of the Windows Update issues I come across. Just a glorified verification of the failures I already know are happening. I never thought I would so badly miss being able to tell Windows Update to ignore updates if they were bugging out (not to avoid them all together but at least stop the OS from just constantly going through the motions of installing and failing during each reboot/shutdown). So many of the updates that used to give me issues were really either down to them trying to install out of order or due to a fuck-up on MS's end that pushed bad updates.

The push to so deeply embed these AI models into everything so fast is really pissing me off. Shit is known to have issues with just outright making shit up. Which is IMO reason enough to not be adding them to end-products (especially since the end-products are also still not finished with removing old versions of things). One thing that really worries me in my job with fixing people's PCs is the AI and search that pushes web content (and the now inescapable placement of ads) above local resources/programs/settings/etc. The main issues people have aren't actual viruses like in the past. It is the massive levels of scams and fake alerts followed by fake "repair techs." If the average person is so easy to trick when it is people scamming them. AI is going to blow shit up waaaaaaaay worse and will be able to do it so much faster and completely. Average people are still under the impression that these AI chats are giving completely real and accurate information (reminds me of how people used to believe that if something was said on TV that it was real).

Shit is fucked and going to get much worse at a dramatically faster rate due to rushing things in order to make as much money as fast as possible. Even Microsoft used to ship things in a more complete state. But gaming has made shipping broken products completely normal. So no reason to care about keeping any level of quality.

dRLY , 9 months ago

It might be a good idea to get a good VPN for any of those sites (even the streaming ones). No hate if you ran into an issue with FF. Every now and then I do see some PCs act weird with FF DNS options. Never able to figure out what causes them to not work correctly while most other PCs are working fine on the same local network. Opera and Opera GX "feel" too "busy" for me personally with just all the random things on the UI and features. I support people using anything that isn't official Chrome at this point.

If you don't already have a VPN, here is a list article with more than a few options and give some basic info on stuff like if they keep logs of IPs and for how long. Some of them also have additional DNS options for removing ads. https://torrentfreak.com/best-vpn-anonymous-no-logging/