skuzz

eSIM works until it doesn't. Carriers in the US have had eSIM phones fall off the network when their activation servers fail, or bill data usage incorrectly on eSIM lines, among other weird issues. It's a way too fragile technology that adds more problems than it attempts to solve.

I started watching this 1950s TV series called The Fugitive that was on some cable channel 10 or so years back. (The movie was based on the series.) There was an episode (in the 1950s) about illegal immigrants, and how they are needed to pick crops, and California is on fire and they need firefighters for a big wildfire. At the time, I just went to myself, "well, these problems have existed for a long time." Obviously climate change has added a shit twist to the fire part, but how much string-pulling has politics dragged us on forever with alleged problems they never solve so they can keep their votes and power?

It's good to be king. Get paid to do nothing.

Windows 7 and especially 10 started changing the tune. 10: Linux and Android apps running integrated to the OS, huge support for very old PC hardware, support for Android phone integration, stability improvements like moving video drivers out of the kernel, maintaining backwards compatibility with very old apps (1998 Unreal runs fine on it!) by containerizing some to maintain stability while still allowing old code to run. For a commercial OS, it was trending towards something worth paying for.

Their modems are crap. The primary function of a phone is to access cellular signal. No thanks.

That's all he has ever done. Born into wealth by the work of his mother. Like Musk and his father. When you're that rich, you can fail your entire life and still be rich.

If people just understood this more broadly, the misplaced respect for them wouldn't exist.

Oh yeah that is so frustrating as well. eRetailers: If you want to be a broker, stop selling products directly and just live the dream of being that grifty middle-man. You can't have it both ways.

Thanks, I appreciate the advice! I've been pretty adept at filtering but it's just so exhausting. It's like going through a truth table before clicking buy.

Then vendors like Amazon have been doubling down on the ghoulish behavior doing things like changing filter options, example:

• Go search Amazon in a private browser for "desk fan"
• You'll see a list of manufacturers, generally one or two name brands and a bunch of made up consonant-filled Chinese fake names
• Click on a name brand, (as often when searching for something I might want to say, compare Black & Decker to Honeywell) then the page refreshes
• The list of brands changes, removing the other name brand, and only showing the CIEWJJOE Chinese brands as further filtering options
• Only real way around this, per se, is to open multiple browser tabs and sort one name brand vendor per tab

What's worse, is for a year or so, this sorting worked correctly if you had Prime, and incorrectly if you did not have Prime. Then (probably when nobody noticed enough to complain) they made it so it was broken on both Prime and non-Prime.

Although, I'm trying to reproduce this issue both on Prime and private browsing non-Prime and it looks like for the first time since the pandemic, their product filter may finally be fixed. Probably all the legal heat on them right now is making them shape up and stop this dark pattern before it's noticed by someone with power to do things.

Honestly, with how terrible Windows 11 has been degrading in the last 8 or 9 months, it's probably good to turn up the heat on MS even if it isn't completely deserved. They're pissing away their operating system goodwill so fast.

There have been some discussions on other Lemmy threads, the tl;dr is basically:

• Microsoft has a driver certification process called WHQL.
• This would have caught the CrowdStrike glitch before it ever went production, as the process goes through an extreme set of tests and validations.
• AV companies get to circumvent this process, even though other driver vendors have to use it.
• The part of CrowdStrike that broke Windows, however, likely wouldn't have been part of the WHQL certification anyways.
• Some could argue software like this shouldn't be kernel drivers, maybe they should be treated like graphics drivers and shunted away from the kernel.
• These tech companies are all running too fast and loose with software and it really needs to stop, but they're all too blinded by the cocaine dreams of AI to care.

Really wish there was a real third OS choice. Hilarious that Apple (by force) is having to open up their platform to third-party stores. Meanwhile Google is continuing their enshittification of the entire platform full steam ahead. At this point, Samsung, bring back Tizen, or....someone do anything.

I really wonder how this is going to work, there are odd scenarios like the offline Wiki app Kiwix. If you install it from the Play Store, it can't see your filesystem and you can only download wiki images in the app itself and they live in the container directory with their own user:group assigned by the app. (One is also not even allowed to modify the user:group on files even via ADB anymore without root, so copying a sideload into the app container directory still won't work, as the app won't "see" it.)

If you sideload from the Kiwix web site, the app is then allowed to have access to what remnants of the filesystem apps are still allowed to see, and you can just copy the 100GB wiki file to your phone over USB and access it in the app.

If the app is then updated in the Play Store, will it inherit the neutered permissions of the Play Store variant and suddenly not see your wiki images?

This really seems like a win that I hope we see more of. On a personal level, I'm so tired of trying to shop at a Walmart or a Target or a Bob's Web Site and it turns out half the listings are just third party vendors selling on their eCommerce site. Sell the goods you sell. Let other sites like eBay handle third parties.

These big corps do these reseller models just to get a cut of the profits without any liability. Now the liability is coming to get them. Hopefully it will lead to a better Internet shopping experience. Probably not, but, one can hope.

It's a good and proven tactic. Ask 400% of what may never happen, but at least we get 50%. What catloaf@lemm.ee said.