circuitfarmer

A really good bullshit-o-meter.

So many issues with major media, corporate announcements, government announcements, and probably many other things can be solved with a good bullshit-o-meter.

What I really mean is critical thinking. Because there are vacuous ways to calibrate a bullshit-o-meter that lack logic entirely and tie one into some ideological goal. Then you can still claim to have a bullshit-o-meter but lack the ultimate goal of it, but it’s really not a helpful tool at that point. My original meaning is a true, logic-based bullshit-o-meter.

I have not used it since some time in early June.

I have technically logged into my account – but only because I’ve opened Relay Pro. In spite of everything, it appears to still update everything, and the last app patch update message I saw said that they had implemented changes to reduce API usage (this after July 1).

But I haven’t interacted with reddit beyond that, and I don’t plan to. It’s not about anger at reddit anymore either – I actively like Lemmy better. It reminds me of old reddit.

This is the right answer. Any industry is garbage if they can freely exploit the labor of their workers.

2000+ hours in the original KSP. Still play it occasionally. Tried KSP2. When the itch strikes again, I’ll be back in KSP1.

I got one a few years back. Such a unique machine! The CPU is 16-bit iirc, but the rest of the system is set up as 8-bit. And some kind of strange scheme with shared RAM that makes the whole thing ultimately very slow.

I never got too far into it since I didn’t have a disk drive for it. I hear there are kits available now, since the originals are somewhat expensive.

Definitely can be done on a budget. As others mentioned, you do need a license, but study materials are free. The Technician license is the most basic.

Generally there will be an amateur radio club around most areas – I’d do a search for your area. If there is one near you, and especially if they hold physical meetings, just get involved!

An SDR (software defined radio) is likely the cheapest way that you can start listening (not transmitting), and that can be helpful to hear how people communicate. Again, do a search and see if there are radio nets local to your area. The most basic antenna is a long strand of wire!

And finally, just a heads up: ham, not HAM. Contrary to popular belief, it isn’t an acronym for anything.

Some of mine maybe aren’t that niche anymore, but:

• Retro computing: no one needs more than 640k. Maybe no one needs more than 64k. Those old systems were the last time a single programmer could have control over the entire machine at a low level.

• Ham radio: Oftentimes called a dying hobby, but a great foray into electronics in general, and also a pretty nice community (save for a few curmudgeons).

• Analog audio: often thought of as a boutique thing, but really isn’t. Lots of old equipment ready to be restored that can give you really unique auditory experiences.

• Plastic modeling: especially if you start from a kit but add things to it, or if you build from scratch, or hell, even if you just build a kit as intended, there is a huge amount of personal expression and creativity.

I’m not an Apple person, but this makes perfect sense to me. I think it was Steve Jobs himself who talked about the iPod “halo effect”, which was the idea that if they could sell you an iPod because it was cool (and it was), and they made the iPod experience on PC worse than on the Mac (which it was initially), then people were more likely to buy a Mac as their next machine. If they didn’t, they got FOMO, because they already bought the iPod and obviously want the best experience out of it. (That’s an oversimplification and not sure it was Jobs, but the gist is there).

Now the Apple ecosystem is designed so that every Apple product is pretty tightly integrated with every other one. Unless you have some deeper reason to get away from it (privacy concerns, cost, lack of features, customizability, etc), there isn’t a reason at all to leave.

I’d say yes. The situation is complex.

It’s clear that tipping culture is out of control. There are many places asking for 20% tips even when ordering from a counter where the interaction takes about 10 seconds.

Unfortunately there has also been a systematic underpayment of wages which has occurred largely on the back of tips. In some states it is even legal to pay less than minimum wage and supplement that with tips. For that reason, it’s not really an option to simply not tip without being the bad guy.

Certainly the system needs to change, but as of this moment in the US, just assume everything actually costs 20% more and tip.