foggenbooty
@foggenbooty@lemmy.world
- Comment on I keep waffling on Proxmox. Sell me. For or against. 1 week ago:
Ah, got it, it’s for VM migrations. That makes a lot more sense.
- Comment on I keep waffling on Proxmox. Sell me. For or against. 1 week ago:
Can you quickly run me through how USB over IP is helping you out? I get it for devices that are physically distant, but how is the abstraction helping you for reboots? Isn’t it just the server you’re rebooting that talks to the USB device anyway?
- Comment on Long-time iOS user considering switch to Android - Need advice on $1000 flagships 1 week ago:
Eww, yeah that’s not cool. Was that Samsung forcing that on the phone or the carrier? I know US carries are atrocious for their uninstallable apps like that. Regardless shame on Samsung and the others for allowing it. The only apps that came on mine were Samsung apps.
Regardless, your dislike is completely justified. I really wish someone else could step up and make the phone we need. Repairable, jack/slot, small-midsize, proper updates, but I just don’t think the market is there. The iphone-ification of smartphones is basically complete, and now Microsoft is trying to do it to the desktop. In the future there’s going to be a lot of old people telling stories to their grandkids about how they used to own a computer and choose what was installed…
- Comment on Long-time iOS user considering switch to Android - Need advice on $1000 flagships 1 week ago:
My very fist Android phone was a Samsung and while it had all kinds of cool features like TV out and an IR blaster, the software never got updated. I ended up installing and tinkering with custom ROMs and that led me to the Nexus line when it first launched. I stayed with Google ever since because they kept the Nexus and A series affordable, and had a much nicer clean OS with constant updates.
When they switched from Nexus to Pixel they decided they wanted to price it like an iPhone, even though it totally lacked the polish and value proposition. I stuck with my Nexus until they introduced the A series. It was affordable and new, but lacked video out, wireless charging, and thr SD card. Things the Nexus line all had. It was the beginning of the iphone-ification of Android IMO, but there were no other good options because every other vendor abandoned their phones after a year.
Now several years later things have only gotten worse. The amount of brands selling Android phone that are actually decent is like 2, maybe 3, they all are just slate designs with nothing interesting, and only a few actually give you proper updates. Samsung stands out in that crowd for having the most interesting phones and still decent support, but I agree that they are too expensive when new, and the locked bootloader sucks.
As you mentioned I’m 100% I’m just talking about Samsung’s phones here. Samsung as an entire company is one I would stay away from in most cases. I also would never buy one of their appliances and while I may have considered their TVs in the past due to them being an excellent panel manufacturer, I would think twice today.
- Comment on Long-time iOS user considering switch to Android - Need advice on $1000 flagships 1 week ago:
I agree and disagree. I switched from a Pixel to an S series and I have to say I like the Samsung better.
While the Samsung UI used to be a sore spot, I think the Pixel design language shift of the past couple years is far worse. All the big colorful pills with too much whitespace… Samsung brings back a proper notification shade with lots of quick buttons, like it used to be 3 or so versions ago with a Pixel. I put my custom launcher on basically forget it’s Samsung.
There’s spots all over Android that have been rough that Samsung just, smooths out. It’s like they’re actually using the phone and willing to take matters into their own hands when Google isn’t, because Google isn’t focused on AI assistants and letting everything else rot. Samsung lets you customize, whereas Pixel keeps walking you toward an iOS style experience one step at a time.
DeX, if you have a use for it, is awesome. During my lunch break at work can unplug my laptop from my dock, connect my phone, and have a personal workstation for watching videos, whatever. I also have a much better Private Folder with multiple apps. It’s like Samsung understands that with one device we need separation. Google has been saying a competitor to this is coming, but at this point it’s so far behind I’ll believe it when I see it.
Samsung doesn’t hold you hostage in format wars. My old Pixel in 20fucking23 couldn’t support external storage with anything but FAT32. That’s insane. It was screwing me up trying to easily back up a large file and that was no problem for the Samsung. Same with casting, Google is all in on Chromecast and nothing else, Samsung can CC but it can also Miracast. So now I can cast to any TV instead of only some.
Samsung’s hardware is usually better. They try new things sooner so you have a refined ultrasonic fingerprint sensor while Pixel was still doing illuminated, depending on your version the processors are better.
Now, places where Samsung sucks are obvious and you stated a few. No unlocking is bullshit. I own the phone, I should be able to unlock it. If you’re into tinkering then stay away, but Samsung’s do tend to have higher resale value, so if you want to get into ROMs then you can always sell the Samsung and grab a cheap used Pixel. Samsung kept the headphone jack and uSD around a little longer, but they’re both long gone on today’s models so that’s moot.
Samsung (and I can see where they’re coming from) was concerned with how much control Google had over Android so they made their own first party apps for everything. This means a lot of duplicate apps. I will say that while some can’t be easily uninstalled, they can be easily ignored. I just don’t use most of them and I’m fine. They don’t really force them on you or keep changing them to the default handler or anything. I’m OK with it, but I could see some people being annoyed.
That’s about it honestly… Samsung reminds me a bit of the early Nexus era days. Lots of customization, interesting tech, and work being put into the OS. Google is just plodding along, content to lock people into an iPhone clone and sell AI. I say give them both a try. If you pick up used or a refurb you can save a fortune and easily switch if you don’t like it without losing much if anything.
- Comment on Its a solar powered phone / webserver! Made from a pixel 6a, solar panel, and hopes/dreams. 2 weeks ago:
That sounds like way too much, unless you have a really congested network or interference in the area. Should be able to get it at least 10x faster, unless you’re taking the web server page load time into account in your latency numbers and not just the network.
- Comment on The AWS Outage Bricked People’s $2,700 Smartbeds 2 weeks ago:
We were originally discussing why subscriptions can make sense to fund ongoing costs and you replied:
What kind of subscriptions require large infrastructure?
My response was based on the original topic of services provided by large companies, not self hosting for individual consumption. I also run a proxmox server and have similar requirements to you, but this is not indicative of the type of infrastructure a larger company with higher SLAs and demands would require.
Saying you can slap together a couple proxmox servers and have something equivalent to what it takes to run Netflix is highly disingenuous. Saying you can do the same and have an alternative to Netflix for YOU is true, but not what we’re discussing.
- Comment on The AWS Outage Bricked People’s $2,700 Smartbeds 2 weeks ago:
This isn’t meant as a slight, but I take it you don’t work in IT. You are way underestimating what it takes to run a service at the scale these large companies do. Homelabbing is cool and a great way to get off these providers, but we as individuals have completely different requirements. A proper cloud service is incredibly complex with multiple environments, rigid change controls, global availability, zero allowable downtime, etc. You can’t just wing it with a few desktops.
- Comment on AWS crash causes $2,000 Smart Beds to overheat and get stuck upright 2 weeks ago:
Oh wow, that looks even better! When I was looking into this about a year or so ago all I could find was the BedJet and it used air instead of water. There was another company but it went out of business, this looks like it might be it?
Do you know if the Chillpad Dock Pro has sleep tracking like the Sleep 8? A big seller for me is that it automatically prevents overheating/being cold, and wakes you up at the right time. The website says this:
Automatic Temperature Adjustments for Optimal Sleep Schedule automated temperature adjustments throughout the night to keep your bed at the perfect temperature for optimal sleep.
That sounds contradictory for it to be both automatic, but also scheduled.
If you don’t own it or don’t know don’t worry, I’ll research it more. I really appreciate you showing me these options!
- Comment on AWS crash causes $2,000 Smart Beds to overheat and get stuck upright 2 weeks ago:
Wow, I didn’t know freesleep was a thing. I wrote the sleep pod off due to the subscription snd cloud reliance. Looks like someone is working on a Home Assistant integration too! This is definitely something I’m going to follow.
I’m conflicted though, as I really don’t want to give money to a company with such a terrible business model, but they’re the only ones who make this kind of bed.
- Comment on The AWS Outage Bricked People’s $2,700 Smartbeds 2 weeks ago:
It doesn’t need one. Sleep Eight decided to make it that way.
I’ve been having a lot of trouble with sleep lately, and it’s really impacting my work and life. Apart from working with my Dr I was seriously considering ponying up the big bucks for a Sleep Eight until I found that literally all of it’s features rely on the cloud, and a monthly subscription, for no legitimate reason whatsoever.
Look, I’m for subscriptions when they make sense. Have a service that requires a lot of infrastructure? Subscription. Something that needs continuous dev work? Subscription. All I ask is that the subscription be kept low so that it’s affordable and everyone can be happy. But that’s not how it goes. Two things end up happening:
- They price the subscriptions at $10-15+ per month making it quite a large expense in aggregate. They’re not being priced the fair cost of maintenance or development, they’re being priced to make even more money.
- The device doesn’t need cloud infrastructure at all, they just chose to do it that way to retain control and keep you dependant.
Both are what’s happening with the Sleep Eight. You literally can’t use any of the sleep detection features (things that run locally on a cheap smart band from 10 years ago) without the cloud. Its insane. There is no good reason that couldn’t be done on device.
I refused to buy it because of their business model, but they’re really the only game in town for this kind of product. They seem to be getting away with it, so I guess fuck me.
- Comment on YouTube will start using AI to guess your age. 1 month ago:
I don’t want account sharing either, except theres things like Google homes where you can’t sign in with more than one account. People sharing the same account in a TV aren’t trying to, it’s just the natural way they use it.
- Comment on Trump says TikTok should be tweaked to become “100% MAGA” 1 month ago:
Exactly. I see that it can happen, I am seeing it happen first hand. I still don’t understand why it’s happening.
- Comment on Google says adblockers caused YouTube views count to drop - this is what adblockers told us really happened 1 month ago:
Yeah. I use Nebula and go out of my way to watch there whenever possible. The app isn’t great, but I still recommend it.
- Comment on Google says adblockers caused YouTube views count to drop - this is what adblockers told us really happened 1 month ago:
How much do we need to pay though? Most content creators I see have their patreon around $7 CDN/mo. Add even a couple and you’re now at the cost of a streaming subscription with much more content. I would have no problem paying content creators if the fees were more reasonable, but right now I only subscribe to a couple.
Should a creator’s patreon drop in price to $1 or $2 a month, or should the viewer pay a small fee per view? What new monetization system would make sense where the consumer doesn’t have an unaffordable pile of subscriptions, but the creators still get paid a fair rate for their effort?
- Comment on Roku wants you to see a lot more AI-generated ads 1 month ago:
A quick way to test would be installing the Flatpak version of FF. As far as I know it should contain everything you need in one go, plus super easy to uninstall.
- Comment on Roku wants you to see a lot more AI-generated ads 1 month ago:
The data would have to be scaled back, no doubt about that. Right now they collect everything under the sun because they can. Remember, this would be data they otherwise wouldn’t get at all.
If I were to predict how it would work I would say they would continue to send back full fidelity data over Wi-Fi the same as today, but mesh would be used as a fallback if nothing is available. That data could be bundled to once a day, or week or whatever they decide makes sense and would only include summary information like, how much time spent on each channel per day, SSIDs scanned in the area, etc.
- Comment on Roku wants you to see a lot more AI-generated ads 1 month ago:
Are you using Linux? Do you have the right codecs installed? Firefox shouldn’t be jerky.
- Comment on Roku wants you to see a lot more AI-generated ads 1 month ago:
It may not be that way for much longer. Take a look at Amazon Sidewalk. They’re using low power, long range mesh technology so Ring Doorbells and Echos can communicate without access to the internet. That may not sound like a big deal, but the potential is huge.
If companies like Amazon/Google are able to create a “side network” they could use it to provide low bandwidth backhaul for other companies that want to get telemetry from their airgapped devices.
So, for example, you get a new Roku smart TV and don’t connect it to your Wi-Fi, but your neighbour has a Ring doorbell so it just uses that.
Mesh tech is awesome, and so is tech in general, but we are so slow at regulating it. This stuff needs to be opt in at the absolute minimum.
- Comment on Big Tech: Convenience is a Trap 1 month ago:
I’m not a big social media user myself. Lemmy is pretty much it, unless I count watching videos on YouTube social media. I still feel a lot of the points he makes in the video.
Richard Stallman is a household name to tech enthusiasts, but there’s a whole young generation that’s being brought up in a world where this stuff was already there. I’m lucky I remember not having the internet as a child and I worry about how this is effecting the people who are oblivious to it.
- Submitted 1 month ago to technology@lemmy.world | 28 comments
- Comment on Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed - Louis Rossmann 2 months ago:
I can’t even follow your arguments anymore.
As a user, I want as many options as possible, but if I can get a phone that’s $100 cheaper because it doesn’t have a headphone port, I’ll definitely choose that option.
You’re the one that implied headphone jacks add cost to phones. I’m saying that they don’t, and whatever cost they do add is minuscule. The implication that any cost savings is being passed to you is laughable.
Look, they killed the jack because they could save a couple bucks of design time and get a few cubic millimeters of space, but most importantly they could softly force their users to buy wireless headphones (maybe even the ones they sell and bundle?!). The former outcomes being happy accidents in order push the latter. It’s win win for them, and lose for the customer.
They know that their price concious customers are still using wired headphone and unlikely to take them up on their bundle, so they keep including it there. The affluent ones are the ones with cash to burn and little care for this issue. I get you like BT headphones, so do I, but there’s simply no good defense for the 3.5mm removal other than shilling.
- Comment on Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed - Louis Rossmann 2 months ago:
And yet headphone ports are on all the cheap phones and lacking from the high end phones. Your argument just doesn’t hold water.
- Comment on Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed - Louis Rossmann 2 months ago:
You’re missing the point again. It’s not one or the other. We used to have BOTH. I use BT headphones day to day because I like the convenience, like you. However there plenty of times I wished I had an aux out or forgot my BT buds and wanted to use a pair of headphones I had at the desk.
We deserve BOTH.
- Comment on Samsung schedules Galaxy event 5 days before Apple's 2 months ago:
Yeah, that’s a good analogy.
- Comment on Pi NAS for multi-location backups 2 months ago:
Well, I mean it kind of is a solution. It’s a cloud backup solution. OneDrive doesn’t just keep a single version of your file, there’s versioning, retention policies, etc.
Cloud makes a lot of sense for businesses with small IT staff and a lot of users because while it’s not fully in your control, it comes with all the things being discussed here “out of the box” and scales infinitely.
For self hosters there’s some fun and power in doing everything yourself, but even then adding cloud as part of your backup (if done securely) is usually a pretty good idea.
- Comment on Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed - Louis Rossmann 2 months ago:
I’d love for that to be the case, but without a lot more polish and the ability to run Android apps in some kind of sandbox I don’t see it happening.
- Comment on Samsung schedules Galaxy event 5 days before Apple's 2 months ago:
No, and if it does it would be an unnoticeable amount. I’ve run custom launchers since the Nexus days. If I ever load the stock launcher it’s slow to start so that indicates it hasn’t been sitting in RAM.
There’s so many extra things you can do with custom launchers that I would have a hard time going back. One thing I like about Nova that I haven’t seen anywhere else, is folders within icons. So I can make a folder called “Messengers” and put all my different messaging apps in it. I then put Signal as the first in the folder (because I use it most) and in the folder setting select “launch first app” as the tap action and “open folder” as swipe up action. The folder then just becomes a Signal icon and works like a regular Signal icon, but if I swipe up on it, all my different messaging apps come up. Its great and I have these hidden folders for everything. My camera app is actually my gallery, picture editors, etc. My Phone app is also my contacts, meeting app, you get the picture. Keeps my home screen nice and tidy but I still have everything categorized and easy to reach.
- Comment on Samsung schedules Galaxy event 5 days before Apple's 2 months ago:
That’s a feature of the launcher. I use Nova Launcher, but there are plenty of others to choose from that don’t do that. The launcher is essentially the “home screen or desktop” of your phone, including the app drawer. It can be swapped out depending on taste. So with that changed the only thing that remains “Samsungy” is the notification shade and the main settings menu.
- Comment on Samsung schedules Galaxy event 5 days before Apple's 2 months ago:
I have a Samsung S23 and literally none of the issues you describe. I swapped the launcher out but other than that it’s stock. I don’t use any of the Samsung services so yes, there is some bloat there, but it takes up minimal storage so it’s not a big deal.
I have sideloading, don’t have any subscriptions, have amazing Work/Private sandboxing, and I have DeX which is so damn good. I came from Pixels and I honestly thing a lot of the tweaks Samsung makes to Android are real fixes to things Google ignores. It’s not perfect, of course, but I’m not seeing much better from Apple or Google right now.