yukichigai

yukichigai , 10 months ago to mildlyinteresting in An "airport neighbourhood" where people can store their planes in their yard and taxi directly to the runway

We actually have one of these in Dayton, Nevada. Half hour away from Carson City, hour from Reno, not much to speak of at all in the town really (other than some historical interests) but there's an entire subdivision with a golf course and a small airfield and "hangar homes".

yukichigai , 10 months ago to asklemmy in What's a current or growing trend only you seem to have concerns about?

Unfortunately it's becoming the norm. Some are less obtrusive or take up relatively little space, but every Smart TV I've used in the last year has some un-removable portion of the home screen that displays an ad. So far it's almost entirely limited to TV shows or movies or services or otherwise TV-related things, but it's really not hard to imagine that expanding to other goods and/or services.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to asklemmy in What's a current or growing trend only you seem to have concerns about?

Every smart TV is like that now. Every single one has ads of some kind, at least that I've tried. I mean there might be one weird knockoff brand that doesn't but chances are it's got even larger problems, and forget about finding apps for it.

But yeah, I have my TV connected to the internet. One of the things I had plugged in to my old "dumb" TV was a Chromecast, and the Android TV has one built in... but that requires it be on the internet for it to work. It is running Android so you bet your ass I loaded it up with all sorts of sideloaded goodness (Revanced, SmartTube, Retroarch to name a few). I just haven't gotten around to replacing the launcher to get rid of the ads, since it's a bit involved.

Oh, also it didn't originally have ads, that came in an update about a year later. I'd care more if I spent much time on the home screen, but most of the time the TV's just displaying the output of the Roku.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to asklemmy in What's a current or growing trend only you seem to have concerns about?

I've taken to calling people out who use the term unironically. Remind them that we're adults and we don't need cutesy euphemisms.

For what it's worth, when I do the response is generally supportive.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to asklemmy in What's a current or growing trend only you seem to have concerns about?

It's everywhere, and for no good reason. I've yet to find a Lemmy instance that will work without JavaScript enabled.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to asklemmy in What's a current or growing trend only you seem to have concerns about?

Another one that gets me: buying things but not actually owning them. You buy a game but you don't actually own the game, you own a license to play a game on a service that might shut down sometime in the future or change their mind about the license they sold you. You buy an e-book but the storefront you bought it from might change or remove it, and then forcibly update or remove any copies you have on e-readers. Most people don't even buy movies or TV shows, they just subscribe to some streaming service, and if they do "buy" an electronic copy it's the same issue as e-books.

At least physical copies of movies and tv shows and books are still a thing, but even then we're heading towards a future where physical media may require phoning in before it'll play.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to asklemmy in What's a current or growing trend only you seem to have concerns about?

It's not just that they're smart, it's that the "smart" features actively interfere with normal operation, though it's bad enough that you can't find "dumb" versions. TVs for example: a few years ago I tried to replace my dying "dumb" TV and discovered that they basically don't sell TVs that aren't smart. I figured "eh, worst case I can just use it as a normal TV" only to discover that on some models no, I could not. I've come to despise Roku-integrated TVs: standalone Roku devices are great, but their TVs lock down basically every single adjustment you'd find on a normal TV other than brightness and volume, so too bad if you have to deal with glare I guess?

Finally wound up going with an AndroidTV, which at least lets me change inputs and adjust the picture as needed... but also the home screen is loaded with ads that you can't disable. At least it still lets me have it boot straight to a specific input instead of showing the home screen.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to linux in Craziest/most "exotic" devices able to run Linux?

The Sega Dreamcast. Live CD distributions of Linux were really taking off around then, so some enterprising sorts decided to see if they could get Linux running on the Dreamcast. They partially succeeded, though accessing some of the hardware was... dicey. That said, the Dreamcast had a native keyboard adapter and they managed to get support for that going pretty quickly.

Unfortunately the project kind of stagnated, but you can read up on more of it on the sourceforge project page.

yukichigai , 10 months ago (edited 10 months ago) to linux in Craziest/most "exotic" devices able to run Linux?

You still can. Not only that, you can install emulators and Retroarch, the thing is capable of running consoles up through PS1 games, though the button mapping for most games is a bit awkward.

Also !sbcgaming if you're into that sort of thing.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to memes in Today's electrical tip to stop unwanted questions about the living room ceiling hook.

We always just hung plants from them.

That or a Sky Chair, though ironically they kinda look like sex swings on their own.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to memes in I give up on this capitalist rat race, and I'm going to spend my time with my wife and kids from now on!

Just throw someone else's phone into the ocean. Then you get to experience the thrill without the consequences. I mean unless you get caught.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to memes in It ain't much, but it's honest work

Aided by the stain-fighting power of OXY CLEAN! (snorts massive line of coke)

yukichigai , 10 months ago to mildlyinfuriating in Updated Edge and it now seems to put a frame with rounded corners around every website

Gosh I love scrolling through 7 pages just to read two paragraphs!

yukichigai , 10 months ago to technology in How to make an MP3 player work in 2023?

Opus consistently impresses me with how good audio sounds at ridiculous compression levels, both music and speech. 4 minutes of music not even breaking 900k and it sounds just as good as the ol' 128kbps mp3s, and that's stereo. Can't even imagine how much you could squeeze down mono audiobooks.

yukichigai , 10 months ago to technology in How to make an MP3 player work in 2023?

I bought a first gen Sansa Clip ages ago on Black Friday sale and fell in love with the damn thing. Small but not too small, good controls, good sound, intuitive UI, uses universal drivers (not a sure thing at the time), even has an FM radio built in. I've picked up so many more advanced devices over the years but I keep coming back to it. It's just a solid piece of hardware.

Also you can install Rockbox on it and play DOOM, if you're into that sort of thing.