• 0 Posts
  • 70 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

help-circle



  • I was considering a Mazda for my next car. Now I’m not.

    I live in a place that gets fucking cold in the winter. If the normal fob option were always available and you get the option to pay for the convenience using an app, that would be one thing - though $10/month for that is ridiculous. But removing the fob option and locking this basic feature behind a subscription is exactly the sort of game I don’t want my vehicle to play with me.

    Go ahead and sell roadside coverage, parts/repairs, batteries, get royalties from Sirius or whatever for extra cash flow. Make a great app that adds new convenient live-service features and is worth paying for, even. But fuck all these new subscription un-gimping games.





  • I use DuckDuckGo for search, and it gives you the option to watch full YT videos without actually going to YouTube. I only watch videos that I’ve searched for - not ones that YT suggests to me, so this has been sufficient. Watching this way does not have ads (so far) but it does warn that YT can still use trackers.

    Other’s advice (plugins etc.) are probably better overall, but this is the simplest option for me. I haven’t felt the need to find a more robust solution, but that’s only because of how I use YouTube.

    Edit - when you click a DDG search result that is YT, this pops up:











    1. You are human. Accept that imperfection is a built-in feature. No one is going make 100% of people happy. It’s not possible.

    2. 95% is great. Your lessons are more successful than most, I reckon. You know if you’re doing a good job or not. You’re the expert here - not the 5%.

    3. You have to accept that you can’t control how other people feel, how things affect them, or how they behave. Your lessons may just not reach certain types, and that is probably not your fault. It may not be their fault either, but they may not understand that.

    4. Students (especially teenagers and often college-age) often think they know the one right way that everything should be done. They’ll find out eventually, hopefully, that their views aren’t infallible, or they’ll grow up to be insufferable. Many students are also just vindictive in reviews if they find out a class isn’t as easy as they expected or if they got a bad grade when they didn’t study. The possibilities are so endless that you’ll just drive yourself insane if you try to take every criticism at face value, when they may well be mostly fiction. (Your being upset by the negative reviews may be their intention.)

    Look at other reviews of other instructors, teachers, professors, etc. and you’ll see a pattern. Grade yourself on a curve.


  • Google search has some features that alternative search engines don’t. I use DuckDuckGo for 99% of everything, but I occasionally use Google to see local busy hours, or sometimes any hours, reviews, phone numbers without navigating a shitty website, etc.

    I think there are ways to break up Google search on its own, and make some of those features separate and accessible on other search engines.

    Then there’s the matter of advertising, data collection, SEO, exclusivity with corporations like Reddit, etc.

    Google is doing things with its search that seem to intentionally reduce the ability of other search engines to compete with them, and that’s really all that the antitrust laws are meant to prevent.


  • I’ve been playing Dying Light (1) on PC for the first time. I really like it, but I’m questioning whether I want to play a high-stress game where I’m constantly looking over my shoulder right now.

    Debating getting RDR1 on Switch instead, or waiting to see if it ever comes out on PC. Have any of you played it on Switch? and is it a good experience? RDR2 has been in my Steam library for about a year but I’m holding off till I play the first game.