PCR has been around since the 80s, though it has continued getting more efficient and cheaper
I was hoping it would help me save on international transfer fees when I was an overseas postdoc, but it would have actually cost more between the exchange fees and my time setting up all the exchanges in various countries, meanwhile also introducing risk in me being robbed of said money and screwing something up and introducing myself to some sort of tax liability. Needless to say, I continued to just pay for the bank transfers
Yep, I did! I also use its shizuku integration to install in the background, which is awesome
Inkscape just gets out of my way. I was using it for a quite particular application of drawing CNC mill plans though, and through that, I got into using it for other graphics stuff!
I didn’t say it was bad. Just that the UX isn’t great.
It’s not perfect, but it’s just miles ahead of anything else on the market in capability!
Desktop: Zotero, RStudio, Thunderbird, Sumatra PDF, Notepad++, NoMacs (image viewer), Espanso (text expander), qBittorrent, Inkscape
Android: FairEmail or K9 Mail, Authenticator Pro, Feeder, F-Droid, Pocket Casts, SD Maid
Multi-platform: Home Assistant, Wireguard, Syncthing, Jellyfin, Kodi, Samba, Firefox
Honorable mentions that don’t have the best UX but are still hugely appreciated for existing: Joplin, QGIS
Runs nicely for me on a Pi 4B
It’s the most customizable, has the most advanced add ons system, syncs well between mobile and PC (though sadly with no tablet app), and it’s not part of the Chrome hegemony. Lately it has become faster and faster!
I still visit posts from search, but I’ve given up most of the logged-in experience (upvoting, commenting, submitting on a weekly basis). 99% of my previous activity was via third party apps on mobile, so I have little incentive to go back and contribute content. I don’t feel like contributing for free to some portal run by a private company. Reddit used to be a steward of their community but now feel they own it. I don’t need to work for them for free
Similar in Southern AZ, but that didn’t stop people!
I have felt this way for a few years now. It doesn’t help that many of the family and friends closest to me are getting older. They definitely can’t read as well as they used to. I have to make sure to word my posts on Facebook and Instagram very carefully and with concise, efficient diction. Any sarcasm or meaning left implied just flies over their heads. It scares me regarding when I get to their age.
I’ve observed how these streaming services engage in borderline elder abuse. They make it extremely easy to sign up, and then to cancel, they require clicking through five different settings pages with tiny buttons and dark patterns. They obscure what each charge is on billing statements, and they are constantly increasing price, merging with each other, which creates confusion. I’ve had to help elder family and friends get out of subscriptions so many times, and each time, I essentially have to audit what they’re paying for. I think the Feds should mandate that every website has a giant red “Cancel subscription” button in the corner. The FTC is working on something like that, but it is unclear what it will look like in the final version.
It’s funny because the radio industry used to have this pay-to-play model. It began to be called “payola” and triggered a huge controversy including congressional investigations and an FCC crackdown. Yet here we are, with the same shit happening again in digital format. This is honestly worse than payola since radio was free and this is not. I don’t like paying to be advertised to. Considering leaving Spotify; there seem to be more and more shenanigans like this popping up, AND their subscription price just increased!
They got their start on HSW, but I believe the podcast division is now separate, owned by iHeart?
I mean, they said Manifest V3 wasn’t supposed to interfere with ad blocking either. Yet here we are. Their power over how people access the web is too great to just trust what they say.
Living in Israel for over a year as a non-Jew, the religious laws really got to me. Not being able to take public transit on Shabbat (particularly the train from the airport). When they cordoned off the leavened bread in the markets for passover. The long holiday season when everything was closed for weeks (though that must be how Jews feel everywhere else in December).