cerebralhawks

At what point do we stop glazing tech companies and draw the line in the sand and say this crap won’t be tolerated anymore?

Unfortunately I think the glazing is led by influencers who aren’t affected by the price increases. And they figure — likely, correctly — that if they don’t give the company good coverage, they’ll be scooped, and forgotten. But, that’s where you start. With the fanboys. The loudest supporters.

The alternative is, these things just keep going up until the line is drawn and enough people hold it. And sure, it’s fine if you bought at the lower price… until you need a new one.

When did I say FLAC isn't lossless? I said I know how to make the second best thing after lossless. Lossless is WAV, FLAC, ALAC, it really doesn't matter which one it is. I'm actually encoding to low-complexity m4a (aac) at the highest bitrate. To my boomer (Gen X actually but they always forget us and I'm closer to boomer than Millennial) ears, my m4a files sound pretty close to lossless at about a third the size. It's my sweet spot of quality to file size.

I used to have Spotify Premium, on the family plan. My wife almost never used it, but she had it. I put it on her phone, made her an account, added her to the family plan. So she had access. She just didn't use it.

I left because, at the time, Spotify was not engaging with the Japanese market. About 10-15 years ago, the big western record labels in the US, UK, et al stopped signing new rock bands, stopped promoting rock music, and rock radio was quickly dying. Meanwhile, Japan was taking rock music and running with it, and a lot of the popular acts were singing in English, or mixed Japanese and English. And Spotify was not biting. You could get a couple Japanese bands on Spotify, if they were huge, but most of them? Not up there. I wanted rock music. Culturally, rock music moved east, and Spotify mostly refused to follow.

Apple Music had a six month free trial (this was... 2018?) and we dropped Spotify to Free and went with that. Worst case scenario, I figured, I'd just get six months of free music and go back. Now for background, I'm an iPhone guy, my wife uses Android. Even with an iPhone, I was using Spotify, because, at the time, it was just what you did. No one cared about Apple Music, it was a cash grab, it wasn't taken seriously. But I checked it out, I imported all my playlists, it had everything I wanted... and it had all the Japanese stuff I was looking for. We never paid for Spotify again.

Best of all, my wife actually uses Apple Music. Apple Music is fine on an Android phone. She got a new Android phone at one point and was told her old one wasn't worth anything. I took it, wiped it, and put a few apps on it. Of course I have Apple Music on it. Even on a 2019 Galaxy S10, it still runs. I've also got a 256GB SD card in it with a backup of all my music, so it has the streaming, and it has offline playback (via an app called Poweramp, but any offline music player would work).

I wouldn't mess with Amazon or YouTube for music streaming. If I had to choose an alternative to Apple Music, I'd only consider one where their primary business was music, like Qobuz is a new one that looks promising, or maybe Tidal. Ironically, last I heard, Napster pays artists the most per stream, but it's not the filesharing Napster. That app died almost 20 years ago. A streaming service (Rhapsody, I believe) just bought the name and logo.

I'm one of those guys who doesn't need to pay for music streaming. I have a massive collection and I have room to expand it. I know how to take a CD and get the second best digital copy (the best being lossless) from it. My computers don't have optical drives, but I have a USB-powered one that, with an adapter (USB A to USB C) works just fine on my laptop. Haven't plugged it into the desktop yet. Ports are all in the back, it's a pain in the knob, I'll just use it on the laptop. I pay for music because I love music. More than movies, more than TV shows, more than books, and more than video games. I don't see paying for streaming as a bad thing. Pay for what you love, if you can. A lot of people pay for services they don't use. My wife insists on paying for Netflix. I never use Netflix. I think she uses it sometimes. I think it's a waste of money. She doesn't. So she pays for it. I pay for Crunchyroll because we both love anime, and I do it through Apple TV so everyone on our family plan can access it. I would not pay for streaming of dumbed down TV shows, but that's just me. I pay for what I love.

Past $800, you’re not getting a better processor. The base iPhone and Galaxy offer the same chip as the Pro Max and Ultra, respectively, in most generations.

You’re only getting more cameras or screen. The $2000 ones fold.

No. The only innovations these days are AI. If you don’t care about that, you’ll be fine with whatever.

My iPhone is pretty current from 2024, but my Android phone from 2019 isn’t much slower or less capable. It has less storage, but it has a memory card slot. There isn’t much it can’t do that the newer iPhone can, except for generate AI slop on device.

If you need AI, they’re gonna make you pay to play. If you don’t… just chill.

They don’t care about user experience, they care about monetising the content that already exists.

They being Reddit or the article, dealers choice

Agreed, but I don't see anything to suggest that the leased phones are getting a special edition of iOS 27 that has the locks. I think what they're saying is that every iPhone running iOS 27 will have the locks, and they will be able to be triggered by third parties. That is worrying.

If you own the device outright, it should not have kill switches. I absolutely understand the point of them on the leased phone. They should not be on the phone that is paid for outright.

Vista was not bad. It gets a lot of hate, but Vista SP1 was rock solid. But 7 came shortly after and Vista never had the Aero Snap/Peek stuff and that was game-changing. 7 should have been a Vista service pack. Vista got shafted.

There were also driver issues, but that’s the fault of lazy vendors. Vista itself was fine, but only just fine.

I like Windows 11 at work well enough (and I have about 30 years of experience with that platform) but at home I’m a happy post-PC Mac user. Honestly there are a couple things Windows does better, and I’m familiar with the platform. But Microsoft needs to learn how to get out of their own way, and the way of power users.

Generally I agree with this sentiment, but did either American party campaign for AI data centers and/or technological deregulation in 2024? I suspect Trump may have, but I kind of doubt it. I always thought the Dems were the ones who wanted to push the tech industry. Now I think both of them do (maybe different companies/industries but they both wanna cash those checks).

I have cruise control in my car, and not the smart cruise control that slows you down if some arsehole pulls out right in front of you. I rented a Toyota Camry for a month that did that. While mine was in the shop. It could also change lanes without you touching the steering wheel. It wasn't FSD, but it could take turns for you. I feel the tech was there, but it wasn't enabled, but it could do it in short bursts. Anyway, MY car doesn't have the adaptive cruise control, just the regular.

My point is, if I'm cruising at 40 and the speed limit drops to 20kph and I get a speeding ticket for not reducing speed, I can't say "well I had cruise on." Sure, but it's up to you to reduce the speed. FSD doesn't absolve you of liability, it's still your car and your responsibility. Not sure how people don't get that. I mean, fuck the elongated muskrat and fuck the regime he's propping up, but let's not go crazy and act like Teslas and other EVs aren't a net positive for the environment. Sure, they have their flaws, but making them out to be murder machines is straight-up false. If you don't want that much tech in your car (I don't — I just want my music and Maps, so I use an aftermarket CarPlay from China and pair to that), don't buy a Tesla. Pretty simple. I kinda want a Tesla though. But I'd rather have a BYD. They're more cost efficient, I think. And I'd rather not support the fascist muskrat.

Makes sense. I've never seen him live