DashboTreeFrog

@DashboTreeFrog@discuss.online

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is china as bad as america makes it out to be?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have family in China, I have family in the US, and I live in neither. Your average person just goes about their lives no matter where. You can be a political activist and go about your business in the US but you can’t in China (and some other countries I’ve spent a few years in). Where I’m at, I can get spinal laser surgery and pay absolutely nothing out of pocket and well, US healthcare is memed the world over. Different countries, different worries.

  Governments and politics is one thing, but getting by as average people, I feel we all just do our best no matter where we are.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK about Darkpatterns.games, a website that rates mobile games on their "Dark patterns"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As a former gacha addict I totally agree. Nowadays when I get the urge to play on my phone I’ve been doing Open Sudoku, Fruity Game or Ricochlime. They don’t scratch that same itch quite right but I’m definitely wasting less of my time and money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨there's now more ads in "legit" sites (YouTube, amazon) than in piracy sites⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Not the way I use legit sites!

  Jokes aside, I agree and I hate it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are the pros and cons to buying a smart watch from temu?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, exactly. A buzz in my pocket, pull out the phone, see a bunch of different distracting stuff vs glance at my wrist, know it’s a casual message from a friend I can respond to later or in rare cases, something I need to deal with immediately. It’s a lot less mental energy

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are the pros and cons to buying a smart watch from temu?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Cheap but probably won’t work I’m guessing?

  If you really want a cheap smart watch there’s a bunch of reliable ones worth looking into rather than getting something random on temu. I haven’t tried the Pine Time but it looks good if you like fiddling with the tech.

  If you can put up with Xiaomi they make a ton of different options. I used a Mi Band for a few years and it kinda did what I wanted it to do better than my current Wear OS watch does

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are the pros and cons to buying a smart watch from temu?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  For me personally, I want to limit interactions with my phone by reading notifications on my wrist, only allowing certain apps to send notifications through, and maybe sending a quick reply through the watch if needed.

  That said, most smart watches now are overcomplicated bloat, it’s all been downhill since the Pebble Time IMO

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How many squirrels do you think you could take in a fight to the death?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If they’re all ganging up at once, coming from all directions, I feel like it wouldn’t take that many to nip you in the nasties and go for the jugular.

  Assuming there’s some kinda animal instinct where they know to go for vulnerabilities (some animals know to aim for hamstrings and necks right?) I’m not sure I could handle 10 unarmed and in regular clothes

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are stories that take place in another world where everyone is white and Asian are normal, but it's "woke" if they are all black?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I wanted to bring up something like The Broken Earth series, but I suppose some people would find that woke too

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This smiling robot face made of living skin is absolute nightmare fuel⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That was my first thought too; would this improve treatment for serious burn victims and such. Sounds like what they’ve made is better overall for sticking to applied surfaces and moving without tearing. Heck, maybe this could even lead to prosthetics that allow physical sensation

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chevrotain⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You joke, but in Malaysia, they do have a car named after the local word for mouse deers, kancil (the “c” is pronounced as a “ch”). I learned to drive in one of those.looks like this

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 11 just isn't enticing Windows 10 users to upgrade, and its market share is actually falling⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  IIRC, that was actually the plan. I remember Microsoft saying way back that 10 would be the last version of Windows and everything would be just upgrades to 10 moving forward.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨CD Projekt Red still 'don't see a place for microtransactions' in singleplayer games⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hell yeah.

  Plus, was just having this thought recently, who needs micro transactions in single player games when mods exist? And CDPR has been great with mods.

  Even if it’s multiplayer, I can see non performance enhancing mods being OK, which then throws things like mtx skins out the window.

  Only micro transactions I’ve done have been on f2p games where I enjoyed what I was playing and wanna give money to the developer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Schrödingers cat⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I love how it looks like the cat is looking at the empty box thinking "Yo wtf???”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Study finds anti-piracy messages backfire, especially for men⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I really enjoyed “The Strike” when I discovered them on Spotify, but all of a sudden I noticed all their best songs were gone from my playlists and I found out they made specific albums/songs exclusive to their Bandcamp/physical copies, so I bought them off Band Camp.

  I’ve always been kinda mixed on that move like, they clearly know which of their songs people really wanted, and decided to paywall them outside of a service I already pay for, which feels bad in principle. But at the same time, I like their music and I agree with them getting paid what they think they’re worth.

  I hove no clear cut thoughts or conclusions, but I can totally imagine different bands/artists trying to find the monetization strategy and platform that works for them and leading to bad experiences for consumers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are your favorite third party controllers?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  In recent years I’ve gotten a couple 8BitDo controllers that I love.

  As a kid though I think I had one Wildcat controller for the N64 that I felt was lucky, but besides that I was never even aware of what brand my controllers were, it was just whatever you could convince your parents to buy you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Best games that can be completed in under ten hours?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Was gonna say Outer Wilds as well. It’s such an amazing experience and kind of made he rethink what video games can be as art and just… an experience. Can be finished really quick though for me it took a good chunk of time.

  I’ll also reiterate, don’t look up spoilers. The game is so much about exploration and discovery that going in blind is best.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FastCompany: E-books are fast becoming tools of corporate surveillance⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I honestly hadn’t considered that eBook licensing data could be used in the way they describe in the article. EBooks becoming part of big data surveillance somehow feels especially disheartening to me.

  Lately I feel like I’ve been duped for years since I used to believe strongly in the phrase “if you’re not paying for it, you’re the product” but it feels like with every paid product or service nowadays you’re STILL the product…

  But a pirate is always free 🏴‍☠️

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The salaries of Wikimedia executives are sparking an online debate about tech sector wages⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m all for CEOs and executives limiting their pay, ideally based on what they pay their regular employees, but of all the companies in the tech space to get mad at, they choose one that’s actually doing a significant public service?

  And I know people are gonna say it’s the volunteers that do the real work but people still had to build and run things. I dunno, I respect them getting luxury pay more than anyone at Facebook at least.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Seasonal Affective Disorder⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The internet has proven to be very clever with its “loss” memes. I keep seeing innovative and/or fun applications of it before I ever feel they’re getting stale.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Whitmore knew.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I wasn’t into it when it first came out. A big part of the Disney movie experience for me as a kid was the music, so I left disappointed.

  I rewatched it years later and was just mesmerized by the art and overall feel of the movie. Got the feeling that if it came out as a Dreamworks, or some other studio’s movie instead it would have been better appreciated, but could just be me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube's plan backfires, people are installing better ad blockers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s like we’re reverting to the days you would go to homestarrunner.com, illwillpress, etc to see content from people you actually wanted to see content from. Honestly looking forward to it

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How should I go about making an online identity that can't be tracked by advertisers?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  There are a lot of VPNs and a lot of opinions, so hard to recommend specific ones. There was a site I used a while back with a quiz that helped suggest VPNs, I think it was www.vpntierlist.com but I’m not sure. I seriously looked into ProtonVPN by whatever site it was’ recommendation, but I ended up just renewing NordVPN, which I was already using, because of a special offer I got for ending my subscription in the first place due to privacy concerns. In the end, despite NordVPN having some potentially fishy business connections, it still suits my general needs, and with their various discounts feels like good value to me at least.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How should I go about making an online identity that can't be tracked by advertisers?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Completely stopping tracking for shopping especially is gonna be impossible, but since you say “least trackable” I think there is some obfuscation you can do. Keep in mind, I’m by no means a security expert or anything, but general paranoia at the state of the internet has made me interested in trying to obfuscate my online identity for a while now (I say as I post on Social media…), so I’ve got some things I’ve found helpful

  A simple easy thing is to start using browser containers for your different identities, which is built into Firefox. This way, details of one identity are less likely to leak into another, as in, what you search for in one identity isn’t gonna end up in the shopping results of another. Related to this, I’d look at script blockers and other extensions that can stop trackers. My go to is NoScript but I get some people don’t like it cause it’s fiddly and can break sites. I’ve heard good things about Ghostify but haven’t tried it myself. Getting started with NoScript way back, it was crazy to see how many different useless trackers and scripts were loading in the background that you don’t even see and are apparently completely unnecessary to the functioning of a site.

  Then I’d also recommend using a VPN. I love it when I see ads being served to me from completely random countries because of how often I change my location, confirms that whatever advertising service that for whatever reason slipped by my blockers still don’t even know my general location.

  And that’s about it off the top of my head. If I can think of more I’ll come back and edit my post.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Petition demands that Microsoft extends Windows 10 support⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I am starting to make the effort in switching but honestly, it’s not going as easily as I hoped… I got my old Surface Go running fully on Mint now and I’ve got some frustrations trying to make it work the way I want. I’m sure I’ll get there, but what seemed like a fun project has become frustrating.

  Next I plan on setting up dual booting on my gaming setup, which I suspect should be less frustrating than trying to run Linux on Microsoft hardware. If that goes smoothly I’ll wipe Windows on the machine and switch fully to Mint there.

  Only thing I don’t think I can let go of Windows on is my work laptop. I use too much MS office suite stuff for work and have to move documents between people all the time. I already tried using Libre Office at work a few years back already and it just didn’t work out, especially Power Point / Impress.

  Overall, yeah, I think we should all start making a move off Windows when I see the state of things, it’s just… not that easy for everyone.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft is killing WordPad in Windows after 28 years⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s dozens of us!

  Yeah, when I want to just jot some words down quick in Windows, Wordpad has always been my go-to, but main thing for me is opening .txt files. Maybe I’m dumb and there’s some Notepad default layout thing I never bothered figuring out, but I don’t want to have to scroll right to read long lines of text.