midori matcha

Study the weak points, make true your aim. The inevitable human-robot war draws nearer.

A cost worth cutting nonetheless

boolean bloat

A smart TV nowadays should only be treated as a computer monitor loaded with a bloated, spyware-ridden OSD.

I’ve connected a Samsung and a Roku TV to my WiFi one time, and they each routinely make hundreds of thousands of advertisement and data collection requests over the network daily.

Take advantage of the deals if you must get a TV, but never connect it to the internet, only navigate the UI to switch display inputs, use external devices only, and always, always, always turn off motion-interpolation!

I haven’t had streamslop subs in years.

Been sailing the seven seas ever since, and I’m watching it all burn from the crow’s nest.

Why throw the kids in the slammer? So they can eventually come back out as hardened criminals and contribute to the recidivism statistics, further circling society down the drain because they were betrayed by the corporations that injected their explosive products into our tax-funded school systems? They should give the TikTok kids full STEM scholarships for exposing these dangerous design flaws!

Hold the Chromebook manufacturer liable for the unsafe hardware design flaw with no overcurrent protection, hold the school liable for recklessly issuing these dangerous laptops that cheaped out on safety features, and hold Google liable for neglecting power handling in their Chromebook software! Get the CPSC on the phone and get every single Flamebook recalled across the nation!

It’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous!

It’s prohibitively difficult to establish municipal broadband. Much, if not all of the infrastructure used for internet in the US is privately owned.

Hundreds of billions of tax dollars were once given to these ISPs to establish fiber networks all over the land, and it’s still sparsely used outside of major cities-- in favor of milking older copper lines with cable/DSL for as long as possible. None of them are working on expanding access or improving infrastructure, simply because they don’t find it profitable to do so.

The ISPs have carved out their own little fiefdoms across counties and regions, and effectively act as a cartel with all of the steadily increasing prices and no actual competition in their territories.

The way it’s set up now, there has to be lengthy lawsuits and decades of legal teeth-pulling for the state to take it all back for public broadband. Aggressive ISP lobbying has made it all practically impossible with restrictive laws and outright bans. These little wins now are merely temporary concessions that the telecom mob will be certain to undo as soon as they inject another corporate shill into the government ranks.

I know someone who recently flew with Philippine Airlines that got an email exactly like this, after booking the cheapest possible economy seats. It’s a Wild West bidding war against other passengers for maybe a “premium economy” upgrade that gets you three economy seats in a row for yourself, so you can lay down and sleep on all of them during the long flight. It’s telling of an airline when this flight booked almost a year in advance wasn’t ever going to be a full flight.

That being said, if you’re ever flying to the Philippines, take any other Asian airline but PAL. They’re stingy with drinks, they have strict overhead carry-on weight limits that forces you to check bags in for a fee, their food is school/prison cafeteria quality, they delay flights without taking responsibility for screwing up your connecting flights, and you’re overall treated like cattle when in economy.

Apple Intelligence hasn’t been much better than old Siri on unsupported devices.

For a third of the time, she has a hard time recognizing the trigger word the first time (usually “Siri” rather than “Hey Siri”), and not perform my commands when all I want her to do is act as a voice-activated light switch.

What exactly is the trillion dollar company struggling with here?

You’d may as well run the red light