TheFeatureCreature

TheFeatureCreature , 6 hours ago

In this day and age, a bunch of processor and camera specs does nothing for me. I want to see what they plan to do with the UI and OS as a whole. Will it just be a lazy Android skin or will they go the extra mile and make it look and feel like a Windows phone of old?

TheFeatureCreature , 2 days ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/8bf88da3-8281-48f2-b078-f6f5af7a2b46.jpeg

Cilantro toothpaste. I like the other flavours this company has but this one is awful.

TheFeatureCreature , 2 days ago

I'm not one of the people that tastes cilantro like soap, but I still find it disgusting.

TheFeatureCreature , 2 days ago

True, but to a point. Being external, it'd be something I plug in occasionally to back up large project files. I don't technically need blazing speeds but I'd still be displeased if my transfers took 10 minutes or more.

TheFeatureCreature , 3 days ago

https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/cde2bf78-5787-4e43-abd9-368822660e24.jpeg

TheFeatureCreature , 3 days ago

For basic behaviour and pathfinding, yes. But aesthetics, outfits, dialogue, backgrounds, etc etc was all made by humans. The reason why NPC's can feel so immersive and part of the worlds they exist in is because they're made and written by the same people that made the rest of the game.

NPC's with awkward AI-gen voicelines spouting hallucinated nonsense that has nothing to do with the game or the player's actions is going to be an absolute dumpster fire.

TheFeatureCreature , 3 days ago

Potentially yes as at least the Bethesda NPC will say lore-accurate lines.

Or line.

TheFeatureCreature , 4 days ago

New AI technology promises to-

Hmm, where have I heard this before...

TheFeatureCreature , 4 days ago

It's almost like it's a requirement for every landscaping company to use the most noisy, ear destroying, gas-powered leaf blower that they can buy that can be heard from 2 city blocks over.

TheFeatureCreature , 5 days ago

Weaving together your little home on the slumbering body of an angry giant.

Awesome.

TheFeatureCreature , 6 days ago

The important part that you should know (and should already be using):

Remember, you can always opt out of sending any technical or usage data to Firefox. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to adjust your settings.

TheFeatureCreature , 7 days ago

Almost never. And neither do computers in general, now that I think about it. Which is weird considering how much time I spend using them.

TheFeatureCreature , 8 days ago

Pubic hair is much, much thicker.

TheFeatureCreature , 9 days ago

The perfect powerhouse chip to handle the iPad's cut-down OS and half-baked apps because Apple refuses to take the iPad's software seriously.

TheFeatureCreature , 9 days ago

What a clown.

TheFeatureCreature , 10 days ago

Cowards.

TheFeatureCreature , 10 days ago

Petition to rename this man to "Ted Faro"

TheFeatureCreature , 10 days ago

I was just talking to my dad about this the other day and I told him that it was only a matter of time before the US government goes after Chinese EV's at the request of the US auto lobby.

I didn't think it would be this soon, though. Hurray for more garbage EV's for $50,000+

TheFeatureCreature , 10 days ago

They will if there is enough demand for 'em.

TheFeatureCreature , 11 days ago

Please, people, for the love of the gods, stop using Spotify. There are numerous other services that are so much better value for your money and don't treat artists (as much) like trash.

And that being said, try to support your beloved artists directly as much as you can. Buying digital downloads or physical media will give them more money than a lifetime of streaming ever would. Plus you get to keep the higher-quality music even if the platform or artist goes tits-up.

TheFeatureCreature , 11 days ago

You are not wrong, but there are other services that are just as convenient and for less money. Spotify knows they are the "default" music streaming platform and they are exploiting that.

TheFeatureCreature , 11 days ago

Sure, although keep in mind this will vary by region due to licensing issues.

Deezer is probably Spotify's best direct competitor. They are priced equally (depending on region) and now offer high-res streaming as default instead of a paid extra. They've been expanding with new features such as lyrics, collab playlists, song identification, and they recently improved their recommendation system. They also offer a discount if you buy subs yearly instead of monthly so you can save if you like the platform.

Apple Music is also an option now that Apple has put in some work to make the platform easier to use on non-Apple devices such as the recently added Windows app. It's not as feature-rich as Deezer but if you don't use those added features anyway then it is an option. I personally would phrase it as "has less bloat". If you own any Apple devices already then it will have tighter integration with them.

Tidal is the old favourite of audiophiles and music appreciators. They have been expanding their platform with new features and music and, somewhat recently, have also lowered their prices. High-res streaming is now included in the base sub tier. All of these alternatives pay artists more than Spotify but Tidal has one of the best artist payouts.

Qobuz is similar to Tidal and is a premium platform with a focus on quality. They are a newer service and are still expanding their regions, so I don't have personal experience with them as they only recently opened up to my country. Their price and feature set looks competitive, though, and their UI does look slick. They also have better artist payouts.

Amazon Music apparently has better payouts for artists but Amazon is a shit company so I've never looked into them further. I'll include YouTube Music here as well which has shitty payouts and is a shitty company.

TheFeatureCreature , 11 days ago (edited 11 days ago)

W11 is such a great example of how out-of-touch Microsoft's management and shareholders are. Its market share is tiny compared to W10 and is actively decreasing and they think pulling stunts like this is going to be beneficial in some way. Like even if you follow the usual routine of enshittification, they've missed the entire part where they expand their userbase first before making things worse.

MS needs a leadership shakeup so badly.

TheFeatureCreature , 13 days ago

I've considered the Light Phone before but there are just some things I think it goes too far with such as lack of email and texted images. I consider these to be basic communication fundamentals and should be standard on dumbphones. It's not like they're closed-source software tied to specific companies.

TheFeatureCreature , 14 days ago

A lot of lists for private alternative email services start and and with Proton, seemingly. Services like Posteo, Mailbox, Hushmail, Fastmail, etc are frequently overlooked. It's a shame because many of these other services are great and Proton is one of the most expensive and not suitable for everyone. I've been with Posteo for years and I have nothing but praise for it.

TheFeatureCreature , 18 days ago

Late-stage capitalism going full steam ahead.

TheFeatureCreature , 18 days ago

I run Windows 11 on my workstation rig out of necessity and it's serviceable as an OS... as long as Microsoft keeps their greedy fingers out of it - which they do not. W11's lack of uptake is entirely their fault and they have done nothing to grow any good will amongst their customers and, in fact, constantly treat them like money pinatas to beat repeatedly.

TheFeatureCreature , 18 days ago

This. I have dabbled with various Linux distros over the past 15+ years out of curiosity. I have, without fail, had to spend days troubleshooting and fixing various problems of all kinds. Sometimes it was WiFi drivers, sometimes it was GPU drivers, sometimes it was power management issues, and most recently it's soundcard drivers and poor audio control/quality issues. I always installed Linux as dual-boot so I had my normal Windows install to fall back on but I just couldn't see myself able to fully switch primary OS over.

Nowadays I couldn't switch over even if I wanted to because numerous programs I use for my work are not supported properly or at all. Linux has indeed come a long way over the years in terms of UX and software compatibility, but not everyone uses their computer just for games. There is a lot of creative and productivity software (and devices!) that have limited or zero Linux support and many FOSS alternatives are not sufficient. I hate Adobe as much as the next person and Photoshop is a bloated pile of trash, but part of my soul dies whenever a Linux fan tells me I can just replace Photoshop with GIMP. GIMP is clownware.

Another major issue I had was the community itself. When troubleshooting the issues I've had over the years, one big problem that kept popping back up was how toxic and condescending the Linux community can be. On more than a few occasions my requests for help on forums were met with passive aggressiveness and hostility because I "should have known better" or something along those lines. The most recent example I can think of was someone asking me to post a debug log to troubleshoot an issue I had and I had to ask him where to find the log. He told me the folder it would be in but not the folder path to get there. When I asked again where to find the log, he just told me that "maybe Linux isn't for you".

You know what? Maybe it isn't. It sure isn't for most people and I can't see that changing soon.

TheFeatureCreature , 18 days ago

Two words: Elon Musk.

TheFeatureCreature , 20 days ago

His commitment to pissing away his wealth is pretty hard core.

TheFeatureCreature , 21 days ago

My phone knows my age, my account(s) know my age, the phone maker knows my age, so please for the love of the gods stop removing my cusses. It should damn well know that I have almost never intentionally typed "ducking" and yet I often correct words to "fucking"enough to be able to learn some basic usage patterns. I'm 30 years old, stop "correcting" my text like I'm 5.

Also some really obvious words are constantly "corrected". My phone will not let me start a sentence with "We'll". It will, without fail, change it to "Well" and I have to fix it.

TheFeatureCreature , 23 days ago

I've been largely unaware of a lot of these things going on with Asus but the other day I was reading up on Armoury Crate, which Asus integrates as a hardware-level rootkit on many of their motherboards. That is absolutely goddamn absurd. Bloatware baked right into the hardware itself? I cannot express how scummy and disrespectful to your customers that is.

I'm very glad I picked no Asus parts for my latest build.

TheFeatureCreature , 24 days ago

Like when tech companies forced "Cloud" everything upon us in the early 2010's, and then the digital home assistant craze that followed after.

These things are not meant for us. Sure some people will enjoy or benefit from them in some way, but their primary function is to appease shareholders and investors and drum up cash. It's why seemingly every company is desperately looking for ways to shoehorn "AI" into their products even if it's completely nonsensical.

TheFeatureCreature , 26 days ago

and then abruptly cut its price so it could quickly get rid of existing inventory.

Why would anybody buy a new car that has no future of warranty or parts availability?

TheFeatureCreature , 29 days ago

I stopped watching his content after his ableist campaign with NEXT For Autism (another shitty autism “charity” like Autism Speaks) and his subsequent removal of comments and banning of users who criticised his campaign or attempted to inform him of the dangers of the organisation.

It’s good to see that his morals and ethics are still, to this day, not exactly heartwarming. /s

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

DDG’s classic “Trust me bro” privacy policy.

I don’t dislike DDG and I do use it, but goddamn I’d love to see a public audit of their privacy claims. DDG is closed source and they’ve only ever given Their Word ^TM^ about their claims. The privacy community puts a lot of faith in DDG despite not being able to test anything it says.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

Considering DDG’s privacy claims cannot be independently verified (and their MS tracking fiasco 2 years ago) they should be treated with the same level of caution that Startpage gets.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

They probably will eventually, but it’s just not priority. Most people interact with YouTube via Chrome (or one of the 400,000 rebranded Chromimum browsers) or the YouTube app, both of which Google can more tightly control. Firefox, with it’s smaller market share, just isn’t worth chasing… yet.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

As if the NSA ever needed legal permission to do whatever the hell they wanted anyway.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

I looked up what it would cost for me to buy one of these and run it daily.

After conversions and shipping, it would be $1100 to get one in my hands. It would be $50-60/month (Pin sub + data phone plan) to make it functional. And when the company inevitably folds in 1 to 2 years (or any of the companies they use for processing), the entire thing will turn into e-waste. It has literally zero on-device processing or functionality nor can it piggyback off your phone. It will turn into a paperweight.

This thing is a scam.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

Excited to see Discord do absolutely nothing about this despite it being an egregious breach of their TOS.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

You know, they’d probably get a tenfold increase of Premium subscribers if they just, I don’t know, dropped the prices a smidge and had better regional pricing. Not everyone can or will subscribe, but Google is only making this more difficult for themselves by making it such an expensive service.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

It’s already been added to the Google Graveyard.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

I have. I pay for a non-Google alternative email service.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

I am so very tired of every company nonsensically shoehorning “AI” into their software to appease shareholders and investors. Discord shut down their AI chatbot in less than a year – take notes from that.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

That sounds like some other sort of issue going on, not Win11.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

This. I don’t partake in anything anime related and I’m mostly neutral on it as a whole, but the prevalence of pedophilia and related themes is highly disturbing as is the lack of pushback against it from the community.

And, that being said, the people who make anime their entire personality are also… difficult to be around.

TheFeatureCreature , 1 month ago

Guess they didn’t learn their lesson after Tumblr.