kirk781 1 day ago • 100%
Yes, Amarok is also active again though it's UI is reasonably different from Clementine now.
kirk781 2 days ago • 100%
I used it in the past on Linux and liked it's relatively small memory footprint though I am currently on Strawberry ( a fork of Clementine).
kirk781 2 days ago • 100%
Yes, 4 out of top 5 slots in India (in terms of market share) are taken by Chinese OEMs (other being Samsung). However, not all are equally unknown. Brands like Xiaomi have released international phones as well and are regularly reviewed by Western publications. Techno, meanwhile, is slightly more focused on emerging countries and is out of depth in developed economies.
The unknown phone is *Techno*
kirk781 2 days ago • 100%
They aren't necessarily US specific. Wages not keeping up with inflation and rising cost of living is a factor from South Korea to Japan to Singapore as well. Some countries muck it up themselves like China with their one child policy back in the day (even the Chinese fertility rate has dipped below 2.2, I think).
kirk781 4 days ago • 100%
Wear OS is pitiable. My previous GW 4 40mm had 247 mAh battery and barely lasted a day with AOD on. Plus the charging was so slow. Even with Samsung's latest Galaxy Watch Ultra, it has lesser endurance that what Tizen based Frontier had.
kirk781 5 days ago • 100%
I was talking about the real entry level stuff, most likely the predecessor of the phone mentioned in this article. It had 4+64 GB combo and I think, the starting point. Of course, Samsung mid level phones are good. Four OS upgrades is quite good.
kirk781 5 days ago • 100%
Unless Samsung removes the 3.5 mm jack and microSD slot as well, it won't equal the iPhone!
Though seriously, I have a spare Samsung A series phone lying around. I used it for couple of weeks and it was unstable(like it often froze and restarted in the middle of something). I dunno if it was happening because I was using Goodlock modules on that phone which Samsung doesn't officially support. But it was lackluster. The audio jack was barely outputting loud enough sound via IEMs( same set plugged into other Android phones produced louder sounds).
I know this is supposed to be an entry level handset and I appreciate that Samsung is giving 4 years worth of security updates(many mid level Chinese OEMs won't give that), but the hardware is a little too underwhelming.
kirk781 5 days ago • 100%
Yes, it made Ubuntu standout with its own home brewn DE.
kirk781 6 days ago • 77%
Yes, emacs is a fine operation system. All it lacks is a decent code editor.
kirk781 6 days ago • 100%
They were heavily panned for that back then. My image of Ubuntu of that time is heavily associated with their Unity desktop which they latter dropped(only for it to spring up again).
kirk781 6 days ago • 100%
Yes, the title the author chose is a bit err, clickbaity. But there were still decent introductions to few old IDEs. Maybe if he had covered more(maybe some niche ones?), it would have been better.
kirk781 7 days ago • 100%
I think Hyper was another Electron based terminal. And talking of terminal and Linux, there exists an electron based file manager for Linux as well. I wonder who exactly their target audience for that is though.
kirk781 1 week ago • 85%
Is this what Google thinks people want than stuff like editing Playlist covers, removal of Samples, et al? I want my music player to be lean and simple, not a boggy useless mess.
kirk781 1 week ago • 100%
poop on company time
Amazon intensifies
kirk781 1 week ago • 100%
Isn't maintaining LFS a pain for the long run?
kirk781 1 week ago • 100%
I thought - - no-preserve root also needed to be added as an argument for self destruct to completely work.
kirk781 1 week ago • 100%
Some internet banking sites give access after only asking for login password. They will only ask for transaction password and OTP (that will only come on phone) later on. Asking for two passwords isn't necessarily more secure since many people will just reuse their original one again. And OTP instead of offering something like hardware security key is insane.
kirk781 1 week ago • 50%
I also use Iceraven. I think, apart from Smart cookiewebpreview, it's the only one that allows for extension sideloading.
kirk781 1 week ago • 100%
I read the conversation and someone should put logic into the guy's head who claims that British industrialised India. As Manchester industrialised, the Indian sub continent was actively not allowed to reap any benefits of it and deliberately kept only as source of raw materials. The theory of Britain industrialised and hence, it's GDP skyrocketed carefully skips the fact that it controlled a significant part of the world by military might.
I also like how he rebukes by saying that you must have read Marxist historian. I would much rather believe a historian than a reddit user.
kirk781 1 week ago • 100%
Churchill had a negative view of all kinds of people. He is quoted as saying I am in favor of using poisonous gases against uncivilised tribes or I do not admit ... for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia..
As for Bengal famine, when the then Viceroy of India asked Churchill about this, IIRC, he replied that if the famine was so bad, why wasn't Gandhi dead yet?
Many defend Churchill as a person of his time but that is contextually untrue. The Vice President of US, Wallace under Roosevelt found Churchill's views very condemning when the later started boasting about English superiority to him as well.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
Atleast in charging standards that Oneplus and that some manufacturers use called SuperVooc, two battery cells are charged simultaneously. Whilst fast charging is inherently bad for the battery, it's not that bad as it's made out to be.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
This is the only true answer here. Answers like Bandcamp (which hardly has a repository big enough) or switching to Tidal aren't practical. OP paid for his music, and deserves access to it.
I have Amazon Prime as part of Prime Unlimited but holy Christ, have I never gotten their web app to stream in Linux. As long as greediness on part of these lousy corporations live on, piracy would remain the only true option.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
IIRC, one can integrate Tidal with music players like Strawberry on nix too, I think.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
Samsung isn't under any sort of pressure. No one is forcing their hand to give updates. Their entry level phones still get 2 years only. Mid level 4 years. Where Samsung loses is price competiveness. Emerging markets are very price conscious. Chinese OEMs offer way better bang for buck than Samsung ever does. Heck, for a random mid level price, a Chinese OEM will give OLED screen, 120 Hz display (which Samsung has only for Flagships) and way faster charging(with an actual charger; and no, I don't believe Samsung gives a darn about the environment by not bundling chargers, they only do so so they can sell their massively overpriced chargers).
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
Ironic that the entry level Lumia 520 was more modular than these attempts.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
I wouldn't hazard that. The average Joe is not going around installing random apps from third party sites until they are actively looking for it, like modded games or stuff and get a virus in the process. Many such reported apps have very low download counts on Play Store and in fact, just fly under Google's radar. Google tries to present Play store as a safe walled garden but often fails.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
Sideloading xpi's is possible on Iceraven as well. I used Smart Cookie Web preview in the past but it was slightly lighter in terms of feature set then.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
Huh, I am hearing this source for the first time. I mostly used Mobilism and most of the apps from there used to come clean on Virus Total as well.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
I think these guys might be able to hack through the process and get stuff done and think getting other people to follow them will be trivial as well. But just because they didn't mess up, doesn't mean other people won't. A large majority might end up hurting themselves if they follow in their route.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
Isn't medical tourism a thing in the US too; like you can fly to a developing country, get your treatment done by top specialists there and fly back to US and the cost would still be lower than what it would have taken to do in home country.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
I just wrote it because it rhymed with the now memed 2004 anti piracy announcement You wouldn't download a car that was rightfully criticized.
You wouldn't pirate a medicine, would you?
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 92%
An old person is carrying a placard that says Thank You comrade Stalin for a wonderful childhood. A party member takes him aside and asks him how that is possible because Stalin wasn't born when he would have been young. The old person replied, "That's exactly why I am grateful".
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
C++ was my second programming language after BASIC, if that still qualifies as a programming language these days.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
I think Asus Zenfone was an option for that. But for the newer updated model, even they went for a larger screen.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 98%
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
Realme tested a 320W charging brick recently. It charged the battery in under 4 mins.
kirk781 2 weeks ago • 100%
There are two models, the base and Plus one. Motorola claims that the latter had it's sound tuning done with help of Bose and apparently, reviews praised it's sound quality. However, the ANC is mediocre and atleast one feature(spatial head tracking to give more realistic audio) is limited to Motorola phones only.
Their case is lighter and more compact than mine Sennheiser one(but then, the Momentum series is incredibly bulky). I think Nothing also has decent series of earbuds in the same price range though their flashy looks might not be for everyone.
kirk781 3 weeks ago • 100%
I had one too. Great specs and battery life but piss poor software support.
A decade old longread from Wired that also shines a light on how trivial it was to bypass mechanisms of some online services back in the day. (I am not sure if Wired has this paywalled because I had the BPC extension installed but it opens properly with it).
It is at a slightly cheaper value than *YouTube Premium* in my country and offers multiple games and few apps. Though the quality of the games are sometimes poor (I think Apple Arcade has some exclusive games for itself something which Play Pass lacks) and apart from apps like *Tasker* or *KWGT*, one would be hard pressed to find a good dev offering for apps in general.
This was seen on two phones, one running near Stock Android 13(Nokia G20) and another on an usual OEM customized variant of Android 14. When I sideloaded two different apps on each phone and attempted to give them *Read notification access* in the settings, a message came that it was restricted for my security and no way to bypass it. Is this by design? I don't think it improves security in any way except to restrict the user to **Play Store** apps. And when ironically, the latter is plagued with so much quality control issues.
I had a Youtube Subscription mainly for using *Youtube Music* since last year. I used to be on *Newpipe* before that. However, the mobile app always made be feel uneasy. From not being able to choose system wide video quality for all Youtube videos at once[ seriously, there is like 'High' or 'Data Saver' only and explicit options are available per videos only ] to Youtube nudging me to purchase/join a Youtuber's membership channel really irked me [I just paid you, Youtube ; why are you constantly asking me to pay more for something I don't want? Why can't I disable those notifications ?] I have some time remaining on my subscription but converted to *Tubular* [Newpipe fork with Sponsorblock] simply because it doesn't treat it's end users like trash. Even for YTM, I switched to Revanced version which offered endless customization. I could hide useless stuff like cast, share buttons to even functions in the Account tab. The granular control was so much that I was able to get a simplistic neat looking UI setup. In the transition, I understand, I lose some of my playlists [under a throwaway Google account since I don't wish to risk my main one getting banned] but I understand that the only true way anyone controls their music[or any form of data is by truly owning them and streaming services don't allow that]. It might sound stupid, but I have been downloading music from Soulseek for some time and now just plan to transfer some of my favorites over to the SD card. It was never a money problem. It was an experience problem. I paid money to Google and all I got was *Shorts*, *Games* and other stuff I didn't wanted. I never got customization or fine grained controls. The open source community offers that. Sorry for the long rant.
Amazon Prime, like many services, is a DRM hell. It won't go to over 480p on Firefox on Linux at my end. However, instead of a rant, I am interested in why this is happening. Say, I rented the same film from *YouTube Movies*(Yes, such a service exists) and the quality can toggle all the upto 1080p but the same title on Prime Video is stuck at 480p. Is it because both services use two DIFFERENT kinds of DRM?
What is exactly *Google Play System Update* buried deep in the settings that can be manually updated and usually has a date of say, eg, May 1. Is it part of Project Treble from Google to decouple parts of OS from full system upgrades and make more Modular updates possible?
I used to use NewPipe back in the days of yore. Then I got Youtube Premium since it bundled in Youtube Music as well which I used. But the former's app on mobile is a shit show. Even after paying, you are asked to tip random creators, purchase merchandise[ which are shown as actual ads below videos] and join channels to access exclusive videos for more money. Basically pay money once, and then pay more money for more content. Okay, one could argue atleast the above goes to a channel's creators and helps them. How would one say then that the Youtube app still doesn't have a systemwide option to choose video quality for all videos. New Pipe had that option long ago, but Youtube thinks it's user base are immature who need to be coddled with only two options like "High" and "Data Saver". Despite having a Premium thing, I finally crossed over to a Newpipe fork *Tubular* [available on F Droid] today simply because the paying experience on Youtube Mobile is so bad. I can't fathom how bad it would be for free customers using the official app.