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das-hinterland

Re:PC Engines EOL on Thursday April 20, 2023 @02:36AM (#35637074)
First Soekris now PCEngines. Sad that this market is being ceded to untrustworthy shite from Shenzhen.
Re:SD Memory Card Formatter for Linux on Tuesday April 18, 2023 @02:11AM (#35610509)
It may be proprietary but it's developed by Tuxera, the same lads who created and maintain the NTFS drivers for Linux.
The infrastructure overhaul needed for a full-on changeover to electric would require an investment on the order of the Apollo program and I don't see that happening. Not just from a financial perspective but the engineering as well. Banning petrol cars and gas cookers and praying the rest of the dominoes fall in place isn't going to work.
My response was directed at this comment:

> Nuclear energy is expensive, dangerous and will only work with massive taxpayer subsidies.

It's unhelpful and doesn't move the discussion forward to unilaterally label something as shite and provide no viable alternative.

When I hear "incredibly dumb" the first thing that comes to mind is the following chain of events:

1. Declaring ICE vehicles dead and EVs as the future, and setting hard dates for sunset of ICE (with no legitimate infrastructure plan).

2. Declaring point of use natural gas evil and phasing out natural gas heating and cooking.

3. Declaring all fossil fuel power generation sources (coal, natural gas) as evil and demanding their elimination.

4. Declaring nuclear power as dangerous and unfit (you are here).

5. ???

6. Switchover to green-friendly all-electric architecture complete.

People love to offer criticism but propose no practical solutions. Emphasis on practical.

Renewable energy is a drop in the bucket and cannot possibly serve the steady and sharp increase in load demand.

Unless the US intends to have widespread mandatory rolling blackouts like third world countries, something's gotta give.

No more criticisms without solutions.

1. There was a serious and highly infectious virus circulating. However this is no longer true hence the rest of society having moved on.

2. The asthma analogy is irrelevant.

3. Societies in east Asia wear masks when they're sick; to prevent the spread of illness. Somewhere along the way this narrative has changed to it being a magic invincibility cloak and credited to Asian society, which it never was.

Immunocompromised people existed before covid yet they weren't walking around like Darth Vader. When is it going to end? Covid is significantly weakened. They cannot continue to live the rest of their lives in fear, it's debilitating to their mental health. However social media has enabled this behaviour.
The covid vaccine damaged my heart and nearly killed me, but you do you pal.
Because it's a made-up disease whose symptoms can be ascribed to many generic viral illnesses.

It's the proverbial ball of string for those that don't want Covid to ever end.

The people that still wear N95 respirators at work or to the grocery store that stare everyone else down as if we're the mental ones.

Folks in tornado-land are well aware there are many official methods for alerting the public about severe weather and Twitter was never one of them. They are all free, reliable, and around for years. See NWS SAME service. Also the "emergency alert" feature on all modern phones. The WWW (of which Twitter is a part) is simply an unreliable method for communicating emergency alerts. More "spaceman bad" manufactured outrage from the legacy media.
Re:Chipotle plans to ditch gas grills at 100 new locations on Thursday April 13, 2023 @07:34PM (#35563627)
Fair enough. Do you think it's easier to add some vent fans or retrofit a building gas->electric in every flat? It's not as easy as it's made out to be. Buildings were designed with sufficient electric service given the utilities available at the time. Buildings with gas have undersized electrics. In other words the service (transformer etc.) is likely inadequate. A massive retrofit from gas to electric cookers would be insanely expensive.
Re:Chipotle plans to ditch gas grills at 100 new locations on Thursday April 13, 2023 @07:23PM (#35563522)
And largely unnecessary as most building codes now mandate exhaust and fresh air requirements where gas cookers are fitted.
Re:Chipotle plans to ditch gas grills at 100 new locations on Thursday April 13, 2023 @07:19PM (#35563495)
By comparison, the CO2 emissions released by a residential gas cooker is in the noise. Eliminating them all will accomplish very little in the grand scheme of things (whilst industry in China and India continue to pollute on a massive scale).
Re:Chipotle plans to ditch gas grills at 100 new locations on Thursday April 13, 2023 @07:17PM (#35563460)
Pandering to their key demographic. Chipotle is the Whole Foods of fast food. The same customers who think their reusable grocery sack makes a measurable difference. (It doesn't.)

I recently overheard some construction workers discussing lunch options. Chipotle was suggested and immediately discarded as being too expensive.

Chipotle caters to customers of means.

> He popped in the new battery and tossed the old one in the trash.

...and then declared "This is MAGA country!"

I have my doubts this anecdote actually happened - where do they keep the variety of mobile batteries needed at the duty free, behind the bottles of gin and bars of German chocolate? Does Samsung even make "garbage tier" phones? Don't forget Apple gave us the iPhone 5C and other phones in Playskool colours.

Even if it did, most legit battery shops will recycle the old battery for free. If you're peddling massive Chinese schlock, not recycling batteries is the least of your ethical concerns.

The actual reason is irrelevant as this story will likely be flagged and memory holed in a matter of hours. Sadly the overreaction induced by the internalized shame of many SF residents saving face would rather pretend these issues don't exist than discuss them openly like rational adults.
The easy assumption is that in cities like Miami, LA, Chicago, St. Louis, and (previously) NYC the violence was confined to particular pockets of the city e.g. those rife with gang violence. It was easy for ordinary people to avoid by staying out of those areas.

In cities like SF and Seattle there is widespread and visible chaos and disorder, even in the large shopping districts and tourist areas. This is perpetuated by their residents' indifference and acceptance of utter lawlessness as normal.

You could likely leave your car parked on the street during a night out in the aforementioned "murderous" cities and not worry.

In SF and Seattle there is a very good chance you will have your windows broken.

What is it going to take to admit that The City has a problem? Because the collective denial and doubling down on our failed policies clearly isn't working.
This has been going on for years. Not many people know of the deep integration between Apple and the carriers. Your iPhone, when a SIM is inserted, pairs it with a "carrier profile" which is downloaded from Apple's servers. This profile, among other things, has network settings and preferences such as the APN. That's why you need to have the phone connected to the internet to "activate" it; it's part of the provisioning process. These wifi offload networks (along with likely a setting if it can be disabled or not) is likely downloaded as part of that profile.

This is reminiscent of those "ad supported" ISPs of yesteryear that people would subscribe to then complain that it has ads.

We don't know much about the OP's WiFi setup other than he chose to use his own equipment and not to use the carrier's gateway - which would broadcast its own, stronger, passpoint SSID in his apartment and likely these issues would go away.

Consider the following scenario: the OP's router is flaky and disassociates stations during which time the phone gets kicked off then "sees" the carrier's SSID from the neighbor and joins it. Now it's on that network. Suddenly this becomes a self-created problem. The solution is to not use Xfinity mobile or any other "Wi-Fi first" MVNO.

Top posting because there is a lot of mis/false information overwhelming the comments section and this needs to be known.

Facts:

1. OP is a customer of Xfinity Mobile - which is a "Wi-Fi first" internet service. Note they don't call it "cellular" because it isn't.

2. Their terms of service are clearly laid out here: https://www.xfinity.com/mobile/policies/broadband-disclosure...

To quote:

"Comcast's Xfinity Mobile broadband Internet access service ("Xfinity Mobile service" or "Service") utilizes Wi-Fi service - both Xfinity WiFi and Wi-Fi provided by other Internet Service Providers ("ISPs"). When not connected to Wi-Fi, the Service utilizes our carrier partner's mobile broadband Internet access service network and is subject to its network management practices and controls."

Basically they roam onto cellular when their WiFi is out of range.

3. OP keeps claiming that he never agreed to anything blah blah yes you did. When you sign up for anything with Comcast they make you sign an agreement that you agree to their ToS. See South Park episode "Human CentiPad".

4. The service OP signed up for is at a discounted price because of trade offs. The trade offs are that your device will prefer the Xfinity hotspots over cellular. That's literally how it works. That's why you're getting it for cheaper because the service sucks by design. That's on the customer.

5. People attempting to point these facts out have been getting downvoted which is just sad.

That's great when you never leave a 10 square mile bubble in the Bay Area.

There's a > 40 mile stretch of state route 542 (mt baker highway) in WA where there is no cell signal. Zip. Nada. No matter the carrier. And this road can carry nasty rapidly changing weather conditions in the winter. Your iPhone 26 will continue to proudly display "No Service." So, no, it has not replaced this.