I found that trying to access via FF on my Android would cause my cpu and data to peg out at 100% almost immediately. The phone would get hot and I could watch the battery % drop. I’m grateful for an app.
Half a dozen people in here already mentioned it, but Kagi has completely changed the search game and changed the way I use the Internet. It’s like an old school search engine with modern conveniences like a chat bot and summarizer, but without the ads and other shenanigans.
I know, that was my reaction at first too. But I tried it for a month and honestly it’s an amazing search engine. If it helps you to know, when you search they also use the (paid) search APIs of other search engines and aggregate the results in a way to get something better than any individual engine - so your searches actually have a decent marginal cost for them.
It’s either your wallet or your personal information…
A surprisingly and insanely expensive to run and manage a search engine that isn’t just a reskin on bing (DDG). Even more so when you can’t mine your users for data.
Kagei is doing really good stuff and the quality of results I get are much higher. The $10/m is it easily paid off within even a day or two’s use in my normal job. Never mind all the personal research that I do.
Is a different model that is a not providing you with the best results that you are looking for. As opposed to steering you towards ads or towards partnerships. I like it.
I totally get the sentiment of saying when you pay you are not the product, however… what does any company stop from still collecting data anyway? I know that the kagi people deny that but why should anyone trust that.
Companies have fucked customers/consumers over so much, there is no trusting anyone when it comes to data collection. It is just so easy. Even if they don’t use it right now, why not just collect it anyway.
So, while I’d love to pay a little bit to support a service like that, I am so jaded by how dishonest companies have been about stuff like that, that I am not really willing to also give them money in addition.
iPhones are far too big and have too many huge cameras for me. Everything requires a subscription or some login to do anything. Applications and operating systems are updated at the whims of CEOs while the job of UX designers is de-prioritized. Software updates keep breaking established workflows. I can no longer rely on devices or apps to maintain a consistent experience from one year to the next. It’s just been years and years and years of disappointment and stress as technology changes for the worse.
All this is pushing me towards a more unplugged lifestyle. Which is a bit ironic given how it adds more complexity with the need to own and travel with more things. A bag of five ‘things’ that always work regardless of network connection is better than a little tablet that could crash or die or be updated at any moment and having a significant impact on your lifestyle.
There’s just no fucking zen anymore. I feel like I’m living inside a simulation built by the same people who brought us Windows 95.
One part about this you may be surprised about is that the random updates to software tend to be pushed by UX designers in my experience.
They want to do “something”, and that’s something often is changing something that currently works. Or pushing for design that goes against UI best practices because it’s their pet.
As a former UI I artist, I wholeheartedly disagree. The interfaces and operating systems that I’ve struggled with recently go against human interface guidelines. It’s more likely that middle management is creating projects to make themselves seem more relevant. Or, in the case with Apple, my assumption is that upper management is trying to push all their other devices towards synergy with Vision Pro - a product which has yet to hit market and find acceptance.
iPhones are far too big and have too many huge cameras for me.
It’s the same outside of the Apple ecosystem too. It’s as if everything is tied together. If I want a high end phone with nice build quality and a good, high resolution + high refresh rate display, I’m usually forced to also pay for 3-4 different cameras that I might never use. If I want to constrain myself to a more reasonable price, I’m limited to either a last year flagship or a current midrange model.
I kinda miss the simplicity of Windows 95. Pre-OSR2, the last version before the integration of Internet Explorer, one of the last few versions before the analytics era, where everything you do is collected, catalogued, compiled into data that drives further UX change (which A/B test did the best this week? Cool, now let’s change it up again). The last one where I could reasonably understand every process that was running. And it was even possible to shut almost every one of them off in the name of giving every CPU cycle to the processes that I wanted to run. (Back when 350 mhz was as good as I could get)
Firefox is a good browser and unfortunately the only fully independent one. But I also believe there might be a bigger Chromium development split happening. Nothing increases action and unites people like a monopoly pushing greed.
Two movies from the 90s… “Ruben and Ed,” and “… And God Spoke.”
And God Spoke was a revelation the first dozen times i watched it, it was full of tiny little blink-and-you’ll-miss-them moments. Haven’t seen it in years.
Ruben and Ed is just surreal, with at least two scenes that have stuck in my head lo these thirty years.
Nobody needs bazillion cameras, a range finder, laser focuses and shit that’s needs to be in a professional camera hardware in a phone. You just need total of 2 cameras and a decent hardware. I don’t want to pay for a extra N cameras in a phone.
Also what the fuck happened to changeable batteries. I had a Samsung note 4 and used that shit until 2019 when I broke it ( had some anger issues that year). Waterproof dust proof excuses can go have an intercourse with their phones. I used that phone in 6 different countries and all kind of weather nothing happened to it.
Um, like 85% of my work and 40% of my hobbies utilize those features extensively so, yes, people do need those things. Literally for science. Them being baked into base design keeps costs down on tiny budgets. It also helps out students and citizen scientists who don’t have to go buy specialized gear- it’s already on whatever they have.
And that translate to us normal plebs in what way? And how much of a population you/your job/your requirements representative of the general population?
It seems my logical comment cause some of you camera junkies to get butt hurt. Good to know why even a below 200$ smartphone is coming with 5 different cameras.
Do you think users actually have to pick the camera and select rangefinder before taking a photo?
For the average user, which doesn’t mean teen social media user, the added cameras let them take better pictures. My mother in law doesn’t know or care how many cameras her phone has. It takes a good picture of her grandchildren.
That’s all that matters. The extra cameras and rangefinder is what makes that possible without her needing to know anything. The extra cameras are completely transparent to the end user. They don’t have to know or care.
Let’s see my old ass Samsung note 4 took the same quality of pictures with one camera module. Without the need of the range finder, laser focuses and bazillion extra cameras with different lenses. Somehow it managed.
Yes the average plebes like me doesn’t choose the fucking range finder and you don’t need bazillion cameras on your phone to took a decent picture. Your subjective experience with your in-laws doesn’t change the fact that you don’t need those extra bells and whistles.
Those extra cameras doesn’t bring ease of use or better picture quality neither your arguments in this discussion.
Let’s see my old ass Samsung note 4 took the same quality of pictures with one camera module.
Same quality as what? Because there are objective, reproducible tests that I can show where my Pixel 7 pro outperforms the Samsung note 4.
The note 4 has no optical zoom, where my Pixel has a 5x optical zoom. This gave me good photos of my son on stage in orchestra which would be a few pixel blur on a Samsung note 4.
The note 4 has no wide angle camera so getting that Christmas dinner table photo with everyone in the photo was an easy pinch zoom-out instead of attempting to stand in the far corner of the room and still missing some people.
Average users want their phones to take a good photo. I linked proof of that in the other reply. Average users don’t care what goes on behind the scenes for that to happen.
It doesn’t matter whether it’s one camera or 5. It doesn’t matter whether there is a rangefinder. What matters is the photo.
You claim to be an average user yet your obsession on how a good quality photo should be achieved, rather than how it is currently done is something only a technical user would care about.
Thank you for proving me right. Thank you for useless arguments and thank you for thinking that 24% of android users are a proof that 100% of android phones should have unnecessary camera tech. And thank you for letting me know why we have so many cameras on our phones.
It must be nice to have such an amazingly ignorant and stubborn mentality to just respond to what you think it’s instead of the reality. I wish you a happy new year and never to be came across in this world with you.
I actually use the rangefinding and other cameras quite a lot and im not anywhere near professional. The other day I took some measurements of my bike all through my camera without having to figure out weird geometries with a tape measurer. I can also use it to measure rooms to see if furniture will fit and conversely i can measure furniture on the fly. I had my doubts about using it at first but its suprisingly accurate
I don’t use them and I’m pretty sure overwhelming percentage of the user base doesn’t use them either. Because I’ve yet to see an argument I’m buying this phone because it has a range finder. All these extra cameras hardware are forced onto us because of the social media/selfie craze. As for your personal usage case I can understand you’re using range finder and measuring options but they are not utilizing different cameras. They are using phone sensors like gyroscope, acceleration, gps and algorithms not your different cameras.
As a side note you yourself admit that it’s not something you needed but found out and did even trust it.
Because I’ve yet to see an argument I’m buying this phone because it has a range finder.
No one looks for a rangefinder because they don’t need to care about the technical details. They only know that one phone takes better photos than another. That it’s because the phone has a laser rangefinder doesn’t matter.
No one looks for one because they don’t need it. Companies adding extras doesn’t mean it’s better for the end user nor they need it in case they are your in-laws and what good picturs of their grandchildren… Neither your bullshit argument about people don’t look for range finders because it’s already in the product.
WOW… 24% you don’t say!!! It must mean that remaining 76% doesn’t give a fuck and paying extra for the shit they don’t use or don’t need… How am I so blinded by my ignorance to see this!
24% of Android authority users. 24% of the most technical users in the world still pick the camera as the only important feature they look at in a new phone.
Did you even read the fucking page you’re sharing you ignorant dumbell? There are 4565 votes are cast at the time of my reading in that linked articles pool. Out of that 61% said they don’t care about the camera. 39% said it’s most important. In what way this is about most technical users or majority of the users you lying ignorant bastard? Let’s say this subjective pool is exactly representative of all the fucking smart phone users. How come 39% is the majority of the users? Your whole argument started with average users needing many cameras to have good pictures and turned into 24% of most technical users are wanting a good camera. Which is your argument you ignorant fuck?
How hard it’s to say that you like having many cameras and be done with that instead of giving these bullshit arguments and trying to prove something that’s only true to your subjective case and hoping that I’m an idiot like yourself and can’t see the difference between your bullshit and the reality?
Why the fuck are you arguing about wide lenses, different lenses while they are different camera modules with different optics and they all have different specs and pixels counts. You talk about technical necessities yet you have no clue about what the fuck you’re talking about. Most technical users my ass…
Just arguing with you is making me lose IQ points. Please I beg of you kindly fuck off.
In what way this is about most technical users or majority of the users you lying ignorant bastard?
iPhone users represent the majority of US phone users. How many iPhone users are going to read and reply to an Androidpolice poll?
Why the fuck are you arguing about wide lenses
You claimed your Note 4, with a single sensor and lens system on the back, is better. You claimed you didn’t see a need for multiple cameras. I explained, (and can offer objective test results) how the 3 cameras on the back of my phone are better than the single Note 4 camera.
The reason for all the lens’s on the back is technical. They can’t put a regular camera lens so they use multiple ones each with different focus ranges.
Even using a regular DSLR you need to swap lenses for different situations.
They are not interchangeable lens’s though are they? They are literally different camera modules with different optics. When you’re talking about a camera (not a phone) that makes sense. I’m not buying a camera am I? I’m buying a phone so all those optics and camera modules are forced on me to purchase when buying a smart phone. That’s the state of today’s smart phone market.
They can’t be large DSLR style interchangeable lenses because of the form factor. Nor can a single tiny lens even have the range of a compact digital camera because of the form factor. But by adding extra lenses to cover different focus ranges, a smart phone can replace the compact digital camera device. They can’t be as good as a DSLR, but I haven’t needed anything but my phone and DSLR in years where before I bought a new compact digital camera every few years.
You are either incompetent to understand what’s written or you’re deliberately trying to start a straw man style argument instead of coming up with a counter argument to what I’m saying. Since you took the time to wrote same bullshit under 3 different comments I’m guessing you’re an incompetent ignorant ass who doesn’t understand what’s being said but argue about what they understand.
First extra lenses are a very rare on smartphone/mobile phone cameras. it seems your ignorant ass thinks that all those came modules are different lenses… Secondly cameras on a phone is the result of social media and selfie craze not because people wanted to have good pictures of their grandchildren it their family. And lastly I don’t care if they are as good as professional cameras because it’s a fucking phone. I don’t need it to have a fucking professional camera experience nor I want professional camera hardware on a fucking phone! Because it doesn’t need that to function as a phone!!! Which part is this so hard for you to understand?
You must be one of those idiots that wants smart TV, smart fridge, smart cattle, smart washing machine that doesn’t work without an internet connection… To think that a phone having all these camera hardware is normal. You’re just consuming what’s pushed down your throat and justifying it to a point not ask why a phone has this many cameras but thinking that it should.
And if you really that much into taking good pictures and photography than you’re not seen average user are you? It’s your own subjective needs that doesn’t representative of what’s a phone is… Like my need to have less cameras and removable/changeable batteries. So kindly please go have an intercourse with your DSLR capable many lensed camera phone and have a happy new year.
it seems your ignorant ass thinks that all those came modules are different lenses
A camera is made up of a lens and sensor. In phones, there is a 1:1 mapping between lens and sensor. For example my pixel 7 pro has 3 lenses on the back each with their own sensor. If you know of a phone that has multiple lens feeding one sensor or vice versa, please link.
Secondly cameras on a phone is the result of social media and selfie craze
That premise isn’t supported by demographics. Over 80% of the US population is either over 50 or under 10, neither of which represents significant social media selfie craze.
Furthermore, point and shoot cameras used to be multi billion dollar market before smartphones. That market is now dead shotkit.com/…/smartphones-have-wiped-out-97-of-th…
Regular people were buying cameras. They replaced their camera with a phone. Regular people, before there was social media, took lots of photos.
I don’t care if they are as good as professional cameras
I didn’t say anyone cared about professional results either. I specifically mentioned in an earlier post that phones replaced the compact digital camera market. Regular people bought new compact digital cameras every few years to take better photos despite no social media.
And if you really that much into taking good pictures and photography than you’re not seen average user are you?
I already linked a survey that only 10% of technical Android users do not care about camera quality when deciding on a new phone. Regular users want a good camera. Regular users used to buy new compact digital cameras to take photos before social media.
A lot of millennials learned more IT skills due to user unfriendly operating systems, whereas a lot of GenZ don’t have as much exposure to that, due to phones being way more capable and having OS’s being more user friendly and locked down.
Millennials remember when video games weren’t pay to win.
So do millennials. There were a lot of really popular arcade beat ‘em ups in the 90’s. People claiming to be millennials who deny that are lying about one thing or another.
The digital landscape is so different. I teach undergraduates and it’s hit or miss whether they understand what a file path is. But honestly, I’m not sure it will be relevant in the same way for much longer. I grew up installing games from CD and establishing a specific file path and folder for install and if I did it wrong it wouldn’t work. With GUI’s becoming more simple and intuitive, combined with advances in machine learning and algorithmic design, I have no problem imagining a future where all file structures are transparent to the user.
Imagine an AI llm combined with an OS file search. Like “two years ago I was playing Skyrim and I installed a lot of mods, and I think one of them turned all the dragons into Kirby. Where was the installer for that mod?”
And then your computer is like “I gotcha bro, here’s the installer right here.”
That’d be pretty cool. But then again it’d probably also go “I’ll go ahead and install it for you. And hey, while I’m at it I know you’re gonna love this ad tracking program that paid M$ a few million dollars for your info, so Imma install that too. If you’d rather not install it, feel free to find your files and run the installer yourself”
Feel free to build your own computer from sand and charcoal. You’re totally free to do things your own way so long as you don’t use our platform, and don’t forget We Own Everything Already ™. You’re welcome to start your own village on another planet somewhere and take all the sand you need. But you can’t use our rockets to get there.
That’s funny I’d call that opaque not transparent.
I certainly don’t like that there are browsers that hide the full URL. That’s a key part of safe browsing in my opinion: watching the domain name and the parameters. Like, if the link doesn’t point to a domain you trust be careful with it you know? But you can’t know that if it’s not showing link targets or if the URL is obfuscated
We also remember when most video games involved having a finite number of lives and having to start over completely if you lost them all.
Some games are like this today, but not many. Back in the day it was the basic assumption of every video game. Based off arcade games. And it seemed so natural.
And finite lives was bad. Like super Mario world on the snes. The only penalty for running out of lives was that you start at the beginning of the level and not at the checkpoint.
Arcade games or handheld or video games didn’t have any storage. Even on old home computers if you’d want to program in a save feature, you’d need to instruct the user to change to a fresh cassette for save. Then back to the game tape for reloading the game. And rewind and find the save on top of that to load.
It took a long time before floppies became ubiquitous, even longer for hard disks.
Millennials remember when video games weren’t pay to win.
You mean like arcade beat ‘em ups that are near impossible to complete on one credit? Or Gauntlet, where you literally got more health just from inserting coins?
You speak with such authority, and yet, I know you are not a millennial. A millennial would know that arcades were white-hot in the 90’s. Have you ever heard of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Turtles in Time? The Simpsons? X-Men? All those Neo Geo games? There was also this game called…um, street something…streets of fighting? Street Kombat? Mortal Fighter? Street Fighter? I think they made a second one of those, too. Shoot, where did that come out originally? It’s escaping me right now. It’ll come to me eventually.
Edit: I’m re-reading your post; and you contradict yourself. You say people born in the early 80’s are millennials, but if you were a kid in the 80’s that makes you gen x? Do you not know how math works? Someone born in the early 80’s would be a kid during the 80’s.
Anyway, the more I think about it, the more “arcade games weren’t popular in the 90’s” seems like one of the top 5 dumbest takes I have ever read on the internet.
Have you ever heard of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Turtles in Time? The Simpsons? X-Men? All those Neo Geo games? There was also this game called…um, street something…streets of fighting? Street Kombat? Mortal Fighter? Street Fighter?
Yes and most if not all of those landed on console too. Your point?
I’m not saying that arcades are unsuccessful in the 90s. I’m saying for millennials, the notion of video games had shifted from primarily arcade to primarily console due to the console boom in the 90s, thus supporting OP’s point that Millenials should remember a time when games are not pay-to-win.
You say people born in the early 80’s are millennials, but if you were a kid in the 80’s that makes you gen x? Do you not know how math works? Someone born in the early 80’s would be a kid during the 80’s.
What are you on about? These generations are defined by date ranges and not something I made up. So yes, it is entirely possible that the oldest of the old Millennials might be arcade crawling at age 8 or 9 in the 80s, but a whole bunch more of them are still in diapers or not even born yet. Make sense?
Yes and most if not all of those landed on console too. Your point?
What’s your point? If a game came out on console, it doesn’t matter that it was ever an arcade game?
I’m saying for millennials, the notion of video games had shifted from primarily arcade to primarily console due to the console boom in the 90s
Speaking as millennial in the 90’s, this is untrue. I, and most of my millennial friends played games on consoles, in arcades, and even on PC! If a game came out in arcades, and later came to consoles, it is still an arcade game. It doesn’t suddenly not become an arcade game because it’s been released elsewhere.
Also, do you seriously not know about Street Fighter 2? This is the biggest takeaway that you are not a millennial. The 90’s had a HUGE arcade boom with fighting games. Arcades were filled with fighting games, and the most popular games would have multiple units and still have long lines of people waiting to play. This was a huge part of gaming in the 90’s as millennials. There’s a reason why people wanted to play Street Fighter 2 so much when it came out on SNES: it was already extremely popular in arcades! At this point I feel like you are deliberately trying to troll, and like the idiot I am, I’m just taking the bait.
thus supporting OP’s point that Millenials should remember a time when games are not pay-to-win.
Again, I am a millennial who played beat ‘em ups in arcades a lot. They were very popular Those games are straight up pay to win. Yes they came out on consoles too, but a) those versions weren’t as good, therefore b) the arcade versions were still more popular
These generations are defined by date ranges and not something I made up.
Whoops! My bad. Millennials started in 1981 and I was born in 1980. Guess I was never a millennial after all except the years keep changing and I’ve seen start dates of 1980, 1979, and 1978 as well. It’s hard to keep track when the date keeps changing.
So yes, it is entirely possible that the oldest of the old Millennials might be arcade crawling at age 8 or 9 in the 80s
Ok, now I gotta ask; are you an alien? Because most human children begin walking within the first 2 years. 8 or 9 year olds usually don’t need to crawl
but a whole bunch more of them are still in diapers or not even born yet.
Hmm, it’s almost like the experiences of everyone with a generation aren’t all exactly the same.
What’s your point? If a game came out on console, it doesn’t matter that it was ever an arcade game?
Dude I literally told you my point in the next paragraph lol.
Whoops! My bad. Millennials started in 1981 and I was born in 1980. Guess I was never a millennial after all except the years keep changing and I’ve seen start dates of 1980, 1979, and 1978 as well. It’s hard to keep track when the date keeps changing.
Yeah let’s make it all about you! So offended, so sad. Look, I’m not really interested in indulging you because this debate is a big nothingburger. I’ve made my case and other people can weight in. But feel free to continue blowing all the hot air you like.
While the LED notification light was awesome, it is something that I don’t really need. I also don’t need a removal battery because my battery life has been extremely good and I’ll replace my phone before the battery goes bad. I don’t need wireless charging. My phone had that years ago but it’s kind of a gimmick, especially when a phone can charge up in about an hour and a half from dead. I don’t need a 3.5 mm headphone jack because I don’t use wired headphones, I have Bluetooth headphones but they rarely get used.
I’m glad that you’re the only person who buys the entire global supply of phones then.
It’s not like some people might be harder on phone batteries and need to replace them sooner, or enjoys just setting their phone down to charge it, or has expensive non-BT headphones they want to use because BT compresses the audio and BT mics are absolutely horrible compared to even dollar store earbuds.
But, as we established, those people don’t exist because you are literally the only person on this planet that uses a smartphone, so the entire global market can cater to your use cases and no one else’s, and it’s great they have gotten rid of all those features just for you.
I never recall saying that my use case was everybody’s use case. I was just stating that sometimes things like this are fine for some people like myself. People like me are in the minority yet you made the assumption I was speaking for everyone. Options are always better. I wish the modular phone came to be.
I’m really curious about bonsai but it seems hard to get into! I also worry that I don’t have a good eye for aesthetics, and that might be a problem too, haha. It seems really cool though.
… also maybe this seems like a stupid concern, but sometimes I wonder if it’s cruel to the tree? I know little actual details, though… and also most people wouldn’t care about a tree’s feelings, haha.
Anna and the appolypse, it’s a fantastic zombie musical with insanely good songs. I have never met anyone in the real world or online who have heard of it (except a few who I forced to watch with me).
I watched it and I did not like it, but it is probably that I went into it with the wrong expectations. The entire premise of “musical about a zombie apocalypse” sounded a bit goofy to me and the trailer had the same mood, so I expected a comedy, or at least something a bit tongue in cheek. Instead, the movie is a total downer.
Yeah, it’s a bit bleak at the end for sure. But I just loved how catchy the songs were, and the cast was really great. I didn’t know anything before randomly playing it on Netflix, so that didn’t give me any expectations going in
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