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InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)SI
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2 yr. ago

  • Very cool idea. Yeah real holographic projection is still a ways off, especially from a portable emitter. AR however is much closer. There's an increasing focus on AR tech and making it smaller and cheaper- I saw a glasses the other day for $400 that projects a real 1080p screen onto your field of view and can talk to a phone. That stuff will only get better. The key is making it lightweight, have a long battery life, and fashionable. You also need some kind of separate input device, if you assume the phone remains in the pocket as a compute module. Or for those willing to accept a larger watch, perhaps the watch becomes the phone rather than an accessory to one. There's of course issues of size, weight, battery life, etc; but as tech improves those will get better. And in theory, the main reason you don't have the watch as the main phone is lack of screen size; if an external AR display was common that problem goes away.

  • Interesting. Personally I was planning to buy a phablet for my next phone but they've gone out of style it seems and been replaced with folding phones.

    I would be interesting to see something with a rolled up slide out display like the Global communicator from Earth: Final Conflict, basically a slim stick of a phone with a larger display rolled up inside that can be pulled out as much as necessary for the desired screen size.

  • phone design has pretty much been perfected now and the only room for innovation is going to be on the software side of the UI and a better camera.

    Strong disagree.
    Phone design in one form factor has been mostly perfected, but even there room for innovation exists. More ports, more features- remember how the early Galaxy phones had IR blasters and headphone jacks? That could make a comeback. Or maybe make the phone 2mm thicker and put a battery that will last for days. Or make the phone 5mm thicker and put rubber padding around it so it's indestructible even without a case. Or do like the old Compaq iPaq and make dockable modules that add significant functionality (week long battery, small projector, full HDMI/USB suite, etc).

    There's a bit of innovation happening with other form factors- foldable screens are being used in the most boring and basic ways possible. I want to see something more like the Global Communicator from Earth: Final Conflict- little stick of a device that has a pull out video screen that can be pulled out to various sizes.

    I think there IS room in the market for innovation, it just requires companies that are willing to a. take the risk and b. commit to better software support than Samsung.

  • This is bullshit. There is no confusion. Their new policy was very clear and easy to understand. If the word confusion applied at all, it would be to how/why Unity is doing such a brain dead move that alienates their entire user base. This is a weasel word announcement that doesn't say what it should, namely 'we fucked up and we're sorry'.

  • Your straw man is that it's a testosterone fantasy, and that the idea is to fight off the US Army with someone's basement guns. I'm saying the straw many is largely your representation of attitude.

    Look at Al-Qaeda and ISIS. They had little more than AKs, no electronics more than cell phones, and they managed to drive us out of Iraq and Afghanistan. So let's agree that it is POSSIBLE for a weaker force to defend against a stronger force, albeit with higher loss rates, especially if the weaker force blends in with a civilian population.

    However Al-Qaeda is a bad example. A much better one is the Bundy standoff from 5ish years ago. And that shows a big part of the usefulness of guns- increasing the cost of using force.
    Now for the record Bundy was an asshole so don't take this as me idolizing him. But the situation is a useful example.
    Put simply- there was a dispute about whether Bundy was allowed to graze cattle on some public lands. Bundy claimed a legal ancestral right, government claimed ancestral rights were removed because endangered turtles lived on the lands, but the government would still allow him to graze the cattle for a steep fee. Bundy refused to pay, so the government sent in workers to seize his cattle.
    Bundy and his followers then took up armed positions to defend the cattle. The message was simple- it will take a firefight to get you the cattle. Everybody (including Bundy and his followers) knew the government would probably win, a bunch of ranchers with guns isn't going to fight off the National Guard. BUT, it would also mean a lot of blood spilled on both sides. As in, 'think twice guys, is seizing a few cows worth another Ruby Ridge type fiasco?'
    Fortunately cool heads prevailed, the government backed down and agreed to bring the issue back to the courts.

    The lesson remains though. A bunch of armed ranchers 'defended' against the mighty US government without ever firing a shot, simply because them being armed raised the cost of using force against them. If they'd not been armed, the government would have sent in riot cops with batons to beat them all up and arrest them and that'd have been that.

    And THAT is why I say that defending against tyrants is still a valid goal of 2A. Because defending against tyranny doesn't even necessarily mean killing tyrants, sometimes it just means making oneself a harder target to tyrannize.

    (And once again, I should clarify I'm not necessarily siding with Bundy. I'm just pointing out that from his POV the government was being tyrannical, and his resistance against what he saw as tyranny WAS effective.)

  • Crack open an iPhone sometime. The mainboard is a tiny little thing with only a couple of chips on it. In general- CPU, storage, RAM, baseband (cellular radio). Sure they could add a USB 3.2 controller, but that's another chip sucking power and taking board space, increasing BoM cost, and since most iPhone users never plug their phone into a computer it'd be wasted.

    So they use the USB controller built into the SoC (system on chip), and with the old chip that's 2.0 only.
    Guess they must have a surplus of A16 chips and/or the A17 is proving expensive to make.

  • I'd say this is incredibly cheap. That's $3,650 per decade. So if you're say 70 and you want to go back to your first day of high school (15yo for the sake of argument), that's a hair over $20k to basically live your entire life over.

    Of course the question is, do you de-age as you go back? Or does the 70yo stay a 70yo just 55 years ago? If you don't de-age, then the whole thing is much less useful- it's basically an opportunity to undo one or two mistakes.

  • So what the fuck do you all want? It's a phone. All the innovations that could be crammed into a candybar-style phone have pretty much been done.

    If you want real innovation that means a return to the early 2000s when there were tons of different form factors in the market. Sliders, flips, phones with full keyboards, etc. But that means you either need The Only Phone Manufacturer to produce more than one product line of phones, or it means you need to consider other options.

    There's a LITTLE innovation happening- Samsung and Google are both using the new flexible OLED panels to make flipbook-style phones that look pretty cool. Motorola has one too that's a flip phone style gadget, kinda square when closed but flips open to be a standard phone size. Sadly I don't see any real contenders with a physical keyboard.

  • Okay so serious question here.

    Why does Plex get to make this decision?

    I don't use Plex. But if they CAN do this, it seems to me there must be some unnecessary cloud dependence in Plex.

    A good media server IMHO does not need a cloud connection, it should just work on your local network.

  • With respect this is a straw man argument. You don't address @BaroqueInMind's point- that 2A is designed to protect against government overreach by people who would ignore the Constitution, and for self-defense.
    Nobody wants to fight the US army with a basement gun stash.

  • More free in that the moderation doesn't have a bias. I think any bias is harmful, be it Left or Right leaning. I much prefer the current approach of fact checking posts with community notes over hiding posts that are deemed undesirable.

  • When Elon bought Twitter I was hopeful- I strongly believe the world needs an open, free-speech based, 'public square'. The problem with the Internet right now is many 'public squares' are privately owned, and those private companies cater to advertisers more than users.

    Sadly I don't think it's worked out that well. I think Twitter is probably better off than they were, but you can't have a public square without openness. And while Twitter/X is now more free, it's also less open.

  • You make a good point- along with term limits there has to be something to prevent a revolving door of people going between government regulating industry and the industry they regulate. An insider trading law for Congress is a good start- if not requiring investments to go into a blind trust, to at least require Congress representatives and spouse to publicly declare all holdings and trades so insider trading would be obvious.
    I'd really like to make elections publicly funded though. Get the money out of Washington.
    And while we're at it, let's reform primaries by removing them entirely. Let anyone with some number of petition signatures get on the main ballot, and use ranked choice voting so you can vote 'for' the best guy without losing your vote 'against' the worst guy. Then we might actually get some GOOD politicians.

  • Amen to that.

    There's a few good dynasty reps, but for every one good one it seems like there's 4-5 bad ones.

    Being a representative is not supposed to be a career job. You can't represent the people if you haven't been one of the people for 20+ years and you have no idea what life in your district is actually like.

    Plus there's a natural predisposition to re-elect incumbents. Thus you get dinosaurs like McConnell and Pelosi who both should be in nursing homes but they stick around because they have seniority. These people are not doing a good job of representing the will of their constituents, if only because it's been longer than anyone can remember since they've been one of those constituents.

  • With respect- that is not accurate.

    Airsoft guns use spring-pistons or compressed air tanks to fire little plastic balls that don't generally pierce the skin. They are NOT accurate at all. Airsoft guns are used for gaming and recreational activities- like paintball, just no paint. It's very much a team sport with honor system, because if you don't call your hit (loudly say HIT and put your hand up and exit the field when hit) there's no obvious way to tell you've been hit.

    Air rifles and pistols are sometimes used for certain target competitions. These use air pressure from a tank or hand pump to fire a lead pellet at energy levels that WOULD pierce the skin or kill a small animal like a squirrel. The air rifles are generally quite accurate.

    However due to the mechanics of how they work, air guns are not usable for many target sports like 3-Gun.