cerebralhawks

Some people say you can use a de-Googled Chromium browser to enjoy the fruits of Chrome without supporting Google's ad business. I say just use Firefox.

By the same token, when some people say to buy an Android phone and deal with CFW, I say just get an iPhone.

I mean either way, Google gets your money and you contribute to Google's market share by buying one. Not using Google Play Services as an individual does not hurt them nearly as much as their efforts to keep you from doing so implies it does.

Of course, switching phones can be costly, but if you're in the market for a new one, I would say if you're going to pay roughly the same price, let it be the more private one, albeit the one that is further from open source. I mean it runs iOS, which is a stripped down version of macOS, which is UNIX certified, but you can't run a few apps that Apple doesn't approve of. Fortnite is back and emulators are back though, so a lot of bases are covered.

That said... the keyboard sucks. Sometimes if I'm gonna be typing (e.g. using Lemmy), I'll actually turn on my old Galaxy S10, just to use Gboard (which is on iOS but sucks there). I like my 16PM for a lot of things, but typing isn't one of them.

So yes. You can stop rewarding Google's bad behavior by not buying their phones. Draw a hard line between your personal data and their servers. But in doing so, consider getting in bed with a different monster rather than "the devil you know." It's not an easy decision. And, as a guy who's been mainly on iPhone for almost 10 years... I kinda want a Pixel. Maybe not the newest one, but I mean, I'm using a 6-year-old Galaxy phone and it's fine. I like both platforms. Both have their strengths. But I personally trust Apple more than Google. To each their own though.

I don't think I ever had a Discman until I bought myself the $150 Philips model that also played MP3 CDs. It was a fine CD player with good anti-skip, but you "only" had 80 minutes per disc.

With MP3 CDs, you could have several albums up there and the quality seemed to be about the same. The organisation was not so great and it was hit or miss what album number your albums would be (and I think it could change from day to day, so it wasn't like you could Sharpie it on the disc), but the anti-skip became nearly perfect as most of the song would be played from the buffer. I think (but I'm not sure) that made it spin less and thus, saved battery life. Makes sense anyway.

I knew they were from the 80s. I did not think they came out before '88-'89 though.

I remember when the CD was relatively new. And they were still writing the standards for it. Red Book is the standard for CDs. Philips, Sony, and the others went to the record companies and they negotiated quality vs storage amounts. The quality the music industry demanded would have allowed about 8 minutes per disc. The compromise got that up to 80 minutes. Now, CDs have pretty good quality audio. For a while we said "CD quality audio" and that meant something, largely in gaming, but also in streaming later to differentiate from lossy audio (that, to most of us, sounded the same). Later we'd surpass "CD quality audio" (e.g. Dolby Atmos on Apple Music... though, not everyone agrees spatial audio is an improvement) but for a decade or two, it meant something.

Anyway, my first CDs were "Bat Out of Hell II: Back Into Hell" by Meat Loaf, and yes, I understand what he won't do for love. I don't know why this was ever questioned. Certainly not by anyone who listened to the song. He said he wouldn't move on after she died. Because the fictional version of him talking was this immortal type, like a benign vampire or something. She made him promise that when she died, he'd move on and find someone else. That was where he drew the line. It's literally right there in the lyrics and it isn't hard to understand. The others were the Bodyguard soundtrack (so, mostly Whitney Houston), and "No More Tears" by Ozzy Osbourne. So, early 1990s. CDs had been out for a while, but I was happy with tapes for some years before I got a CD player. And, fun fact, I at least had the Meat Loaf CD for a while before I got my first CD player. I just kept it in a drawer until I could play it.

I just replaced my dying Windows machines (a laptop and later, a desktop) with Macs. Still closed source, but they're UNIX certified. I know FOSS folks love to hate on macOS, but even being smart enough to use Linux, and having used it off and on for 20-25 years, I just didn't want to. I did get away from Microsoft stuff, at least at home, except for Xbox. That was my wife's choice and we have a bunch of games for it. I'm more of a PlayStation guy, but I kinda got outvoted on that one. These days I mostly just game on the Switch anyway. And the cool thing about new Macs? They can basically run Switch games, with a bit of help (but same-ish architecture). And a lot of games going to Switch(/2) can also go to Mac (e.g. Cyberpunk).

It's a great time to get away from Microsoft. Their browser hasn't been good enough in decades. Their office suite is probably their biggest strength, followed by Xbox. Their cloud would be third, I'd say — OneDrive is underrated. I use iWork on my Macs and it's fine. And it can read/write the docx formats. For cloud I guess iCloud is fine on the Mac side, I just wish the pricing were more competitive. Don't really have a good answer for cloud. And for gaming... if you were starting from zero, I'd say look at the Steam Deck, Steam sales are unbeatable, the thing runs Linux, it emulates PC games pretty well (there's a whole certification thing), and you can do GeForce Now as well if you're near their CDN. Microsoft is arguably the easiest of the big three (vs Apple and Google) to drop.

I don't even need to know why people are going against Microsoft all of a sudden. I have my reasons. I don't hate them, and I would have stuck with Office + OneDrive (MS 365) if they didn't double the price to add AI to Office with no way to stick with the old product. They were getting $60 a year from me, now they're not getting anything.

I would say there is a case to argue it can be a delusion. I would say you don't have the authority to determine to what extent someone enjoys or relates to this delusion.

I saw a conversation on another site and I didn't reply the way I wanted because it would have been insensitive. But that point of view has greater context here. People were talking about the AIDS epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. I don't know anyone who died from AIDS, or really felt connected to any celebrities who had it. However (especially since you bring up anime in the OP), there is an anime that is generally disliked for a few reasons, some of them valid. Since I am introducing it in this context, I cannot say what the anime is, because the "AIDS angle" is a huge spoiler, and I really don't do spoilers. But it introduces this character near the end of the second season, and this character is all kinds of awesome and inspirational. You find out that what they're doing is due to their time being short... due to AIDS. Or, if we're going off the book those episodes are based on (light novel, not manga), it's actually AIDS and cancer because, like, eff this character in particular, I guess. I don't think I have to tell you how this arc ends. I will say if it were its own thing, if it were adapted separately from that anime with all the baggage, it would stand as one of the great drama series out there, it would have a lot more fans and attention on it.

So now we circle back to the OP's question. If happiness coming from anime (or the other media) is invalid, what about sadness from anime? What if it's an anime character with purple hair who really makes you care about a real-life social issue that doesn't affect anyone you know? Does that make it any less real?

It's not up to me to decide for you. I personally believe those feelings are valid. How you feel, I suppose, depends on factors that matter to you. For example, you might personally know someone who died from AIDS, and you're like "well screw that fictional character, because that disease claimed millions of lives and I'm more affected." But I would argue the story brings awareness. I would not argue that such a person is wrong for feeling that way, though.

If you know what anime I'm talking about, I'd ask that you follow my lead on the spoiler thing and not mention it. But I'm no one's boss here.

Here's why it's okay to block ads in pretty simple terms:

Ads can contain ransomware; that is to say, a seemingly innocent ad can deliver a payload which will run on your computer, lock your files, and demand you pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars anonymously.

Now if you go to the website that served the ad and tell them, "I allowed ads on your site because I support your right to monetise your content, and now I have to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars, will you help me pay that" or "will you pay that for me since your site served the ransomware," you know what they will tell you, every single time, without fail? Whether they actually answer you, or more likely, just delete your email. They're telling you that it's your problem. That you should have secured your computer better.

So secure your computer better now. Block all the ads.

Getting a little more technical, use Firefox or a fork of it. Use Linux if you can. Use a Mac if you can't. If you really must use Windows, know how to secure it. I use Windows 11 at work, I'd never use it at home, but I had a talk with the IT guy, and he let me do a few things to it. I know more than he does, but he's the one with the job, so I told him what I'd do before I did it, I did exactly what I said I was going to do, nothing more nothing less, and I still think my home computer is more secure, but I'm a lot less worried about using the work machine. I think it's wild that so many companies just use Windows. I'm not trying to hate on Windows. It's good for gaming and it's accessible. I'd love to see more companies roll their own *nix or just use Macs (which run macOS which is UNIX certified).

I feel like more people should know what’s going on. Facebook has done some scummy stuff in the past. Now Zuck is openly defending his AI grooming children. In and of itself it doesn’t make a lot of sense — what’s the upshot for Meta here? But outside the bubble of logic, it sets kids up to be groomed by real predators. It’s unacceptable.

People say the problem is that all the people they know are on Facebook. Two issues: most of those people would forget you exist if you leave Facebook. Also, you’re the reason they’re there. The second reason is that you are literally the product. You being on Facebook is part of the reason those people are, too, so be the change you want to see in the world.

I see the OP and hope that's who it actually is because he's awesome. Cool to see someone I respect and admire on Lemmy so soon after joining.

Right then, onto the topic and off of the OP.

This is me as well, never been diagnosed but I check all the boxes. Underachiever, always heard I was destined for great things. One teacher even predicted I'd make the next Star Wars movie. This was after Jedi and before Phantom Menace. I hope that teacher never blamed me for Jar-Jar. Wasn't me, I swear. Now Clones, I can get behind.

I recently (last couple years) heard a song that really speaks to me... except I can't understand the words. It's in Japanese. Japanese rap duo Creepy Nuts. They've done a few anime series but this one is one of their originals. They always have sharp and witty lyrics. I fear the lyrics on the official video are machine translated, maybe there are some better ones out there, but I feel the singer is speaking to all of us here.

(If it's catchy it's because nearly all Japanese syllables are open-ended, which means they end in a vowel, so rhyming gets real fun.)

The song is "To Us Former Prodigies" and here is the official YouTube video for it. You can read the translated lyrics if you hit the [CC] button. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_dAzUOzWvrk