You could potentially match on audio, though -- look for the 15 seconds of podcast audio preceding the ad, and the 15 seconds following it, if folks reported it in a sponsorblock way.
Alternatively, we could build a shazam-style database of 30 second podcast ads, then skip them when they're identified. There isn't much variety out there.
Unfortunately true. Support sites you love through purchases, subscriptions, and donations. Ads are, at best, a vector of mental malware. At worst, a vector of actual malware.
Hopefully the next Fairphone closes that spec gap. I could easily live with 2022 specs for a long time, giving plateauing performance gains, as long as the phone is supported with updates.
Of course, I would also kill for a headphone jack and a 5.4-5.8" iphone mini-sized screen. It's so frustrating that I want to buy a fairphone but the compromises are too much.
What are the chances that an IR LED hat would get you run over by a self-driving vehicle? We already know they don't deal well with anything out of the ordinary, and they routinely slam into trucks and barriers.
Maybe I should start walking at an irregular pace like the Fremen in Dune to throw off gait detection. Since it's probably trained on an average lazy American gait I suspect an intentionally irregular gait would completely fuck the algorithm. Of course, if you're the only one doing it you might wind up even more identifiable. But maybe you could introduce some subtle irregularities that most people wouldn't notice in person but a computer would pick up.
Yeah, roll one out with a 5.8" screen and a headphone jack amd I'll buy it at a premium. I'd shell out even more for a true iPhone mini-sized phone if they make the battery fat enough for decent battery life -- small phones can still be ergonomic and light enough with a little extra chonk.
Giant screen, no headphone jack? No thanks, I might as well buy a $50 android phone at a gas station.
10/10 review of purelymail as a 2 year user.
Cost me $20 so far. Because the service is just a service, not a massive ponzi scheme. We need more devs like the creator!
Plus the M7 had a nicer aluminum unibody. The M8 had plastic on the front. Still handsome, but not the same level of gorgeous macbook-style design the M7 had. Fuck, I'd rock an M7 today if they trimmed the glass bezel down, removed the hardware nav buttons, and tossed in some new hardware.
If only we could get RCS with any app other than Google's. I wonder how long they can gatekeep those APIs.
Minimalist with a 6.7" screen, eh? Now I really want to know how they define minimal lol. Minimal features? Minimal security? Minimal support?
Consider giving Steven Erikson a try. Malazan Book of the Fallen is huge and time-consuming, but his style of writing is worth the effort in terms of story and character development. His Willful Child series is Sci-Fi and might provide a way of sampling his very unique style without diving into Fantasy.
Someday we'll get that planned SGU conclusion. Someday...
Citymapper is the gold standard. Osmand is excellent, except for delays. Many countries have third party top-tier apps for transit and train navigation -- Trainline comes to mind in the UK, but it varies by region.
Interesting points here. I hope things don't work out this way, but I think there is a very strong chance that this is exactly what will happen: the streets of Manhattan below 60th will stay mostly-as-busy, but with more ride shares and private car services, since clear streets means rich people can finally transmute money into quick, private transportation.
I'm curious about this statement:
There exist way more people in New York who would drive if they could, but they literally can’t fit.
I believe there are a lot of rich folks in NYC who would rideshare even more if they didn't get stuck in gridlock. But I'm not sure we have sufficient evidence to say that "way more people" would drive if there was less traffic. When I lived in NYC (just before covid hit), none of my friends owned cars even though they all had the means. It was just too much trouble to park them and maintain them for the few days a year you need a car if you mostly hang out in the city. And driving is a pain if you're mostly in a city -- the NYC lifestyle is very alcohol heavy and for a lot of folks only spans a couple of miles on an average day. Not exactly a huge benefit from cars there.
100% agreed that we should reclaim parking space and lanes from cars, though. Perhaps congestion pricing will temporarily empty the streets and give the city ammunition to reclaim that space? A smart city would enact congestion pricing, downsize the largest avenues before rideshares figure out a way to exploit the opportunity, and then use that reduced main throughput to justify downsizing and pedestrianizing streets across the city over the next few years. But I suppose they could have done that during the covid traffic downturn, too, like how Paris and London seized the empty streets to expand bicycle infrastructure and pedestrianize streets around schools.
The containers UI is damn near unusable, they've squeezed so many of those "offers" into the tiny addon manager popup.
I wish Mozilla had management who understood their userbase. But instead they keep pulling this crap which only makes me (and likely most other power users) less likely to use Mozilla branded products.
Saw someone open a PR with this fully implemented a couple of months ago.
Goddamned PM faffed about "UI research necessary before we make changes", linked them to a bugzilla post closed in favor of a JIRA ticket only internal users could view...
And then closed the PR, denying the change. And we wonder why Mozilla has been struggling so much lately.
Yeah, the small car thing is a perfect parallel. The market doesn't necessarily fit preferences perfectly: instead, companies optimise for whatever MOST folks will buy that nets them the most money.
They make more money selling a large phone with a bigger sticker price and a bigger profit margin, so they make big phones. And the most phone-hungry people, power users, who buy a new phone every year or so, tend to buy big phones. So they cater to that group.
Think of it this way: when I bought my iPhone SE 2016 7 years ago, I cast maybe $100 of profit "vote" in the marketplace.
Every time someone buys a $1700 folding phone, they cast something between $500 and $1000 of profit "vote" in the marketplace. And they do that every year, not once every 7.
Of course, I'd be willing to spend a lot more on a really decent small phone. But nobody in the market has really experimented with that model yet. And it is admittedly harder to fit components into a smaller phone body (though not as hard as Apple would have you believe -- after all, the 14 and 15 literally takes up more space with a useless empty plastic SIM card spacer than the headphone jack used to take.
I was going to say that the Mini should be pretty cheap now that it's two generations old -- the 13 is down to $629 new, after all, and the Mini ought to be $100 cheaper...
But it looks like Mini demand has actually driven prices much higher than the normal 13. Strange, almost as if there IS demand for small phones...
The Z fold is 67.1mm across in folded mode. The iPhone 12 & 13 Mini is 64.2mm.
