Yes

Artemis is set in a colony on the Moon. Cool science and economy about running the colony, but writing was meh (if I have to read “head full of steam” for the third time…) and MC swears a lot in a juvenile and cringe way.

Here is one of iPad reuse projects

And here is a crazier and thorough project on replacing internals

TBF I considered using my old iPad2 as in-car navigation or just as permanently-on weather display or picture frame. (If battery doesn’t swell from being on all the time)

IOC is just bending over for bigots.

In these winter olympics the IOC forbade a Ukrainian athlete to wear a plain grey helmet with 12 portraits on them. There was no text or symbols, but it was deemed “too political”. (The helmet was to honor athletes killed in war)

If that doesn’t sound idiotic enough, Ukrainian paralympic athletes were not allowed to wear the outline of Ukraine on their gear. Again, “too political”.

The feedback loops that local funding creates are vicious too:

desirable neighborhood -> higher prices -> more taxes -> better funded school -> desirable neighborhood (for families)

undesirable neighborhood -> low prices and no population increase -> worse funded school -> undesirable for families

As you said, next to one another. By sheer luck I happened to live in an apartment building that somehow belonged to a rich school district. Next building over was in the poor school district.

Apps like Google Messages

Samsung Messages, and… ???

Smartphones and tablets manufactured circa 2015 were powerful enough to run many apps and software, and not yet locked down as much as they are now. So there were a lot of custom ROMs and kernels being made for Android and jailbreaking tools for iDevices, allowing you to customize much much more than the manufacturer intended.

And it’s just fun to make something that most people consider “obsolete” perform well, or well enough to be usable.

Not sure what role gender plays into that though.

So when you receive a call from a friend or family member, you’re greeted by something more visually interesting than the generic incoming call screen.

??? Displaying caller’s photo (from your contact list) has been standard functionality since… a long time ago. What is this trying to achieve?

Large companies can do / have done that (dumping) to drive out smaller competition.

Small companies usually cannot afford this.

Unless you can pitch this as a disruptive idea to gullible investors (looking at all tech startups that burn trillions without making profits)

Wow. This is literally the argument used by the megacorporation in book The Every (sequel to The Circle). It’s supposed to be social commentary and satire of greenwashing - the megacorporation claims only it is capable of saving the world by being “green” (which includes recycling people’s prized posessions like heirlooms and photographs into bricks for prisons)

Soviet-era sci-fi, The Final Circle of Paradise (Хищные Вещи Века) by Strugastky brothers.

It’s really weird. MC poses as a writer in a peaceful resort town while investigating a case, but the townsfolk are just strange and unpleasant. There is a conflict between “intels” (high society type of people) and regular people, but it is still unclear if anyone is in the right.

I have a geographic one for you:

Friend: posts some statistics map
Me: Czechia is an interesting outlier here, weird.
Friend: [sic] its czechoslovakia, not chechnia

All countries/regions that start with “ch” sound are the same i guess. Also Czechoslovakia split in 1989.

My friend at the time watched some documentary about chess computers (Deep Blue etc.) and was telling me about the “super advanced algorithm called Brute Force”. I told him that brute force is means trying every possible combination, is the least efficient approach, and does not generally work for chess. He was adamant it was some genius algorithm. The only time in my life I remember saying “I have a computer science degree, I know what I am talking about”.

Who are these smooth-talking scammers that can guide a regular-ass user to jump through hoops in settings to install a malicious app?

Maybe I should ask them how they do it, because I cannot convince my family to download and use Signal. You know, the legit app from the official app store.

Edit: Author says GenAI was not used for code, see below.

Original comment, observing signs of GenAI project:

What’s up with these brand-new “Discord alternatives” being cranked out en masse? Would be easier to contribute to XMPP or Matrix IMO.

Initial commit 14,203 files changed +2872320

AI? Or “i worked on this for 10 years and uploaded just now”? /s

Overabundance of emojis in description. Probably AI.

Would be cool to see if anyone manages to get it running.

Were you able to run it yourself? What.

As article says (and IIRC from other sources) it’s the offshore turbines that pose the most risk to birds, and mostly to gliding fishing birds (bald eagle, osprey) because they barely see in front of them (they are looking down) and do not expect obstacles on open water.