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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: October 5th, 2023

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  • I wouldn’t really blame the PCP. It’s not as predatory as it sounds at first, especially considering it uses the wording “balloon payment” for one of the options at the end of the term. The horrible value you’d get on a PCP is nearly the same as the depreciation plus interest you’d have on a normal car loan over the same ownership period if you were to sell. Meanwhile traditional leases are far less flexible, often not even offering a buyout option, let alone one at a price guaranteed by contract.

    The bad value is in wanting to drive a new vehicle. There’s practically no upside to buying new over used, even if it’s only 30k miles or so on it.

    For EV’s specifically people also drastically underestimate the battery lifespan based on early gen Nissan Leaf’s and similar early vehicles lacking a true battery thermal management system. There are excellent deals to be had for 3-4yr old EVs.


  • Yes, the entire crater is surrounded by a fence and on private property. It’s not worth the admission price just to see a crater imo. It’s a national landmark, not a national/state park. Unfortunately that designation means very little other than the owner being eligible for some tax breaks so long as they keep it preserved. I find it insane that such a landmark wouldn’t be taken over by the state for preservation.


  • From my social circle at least college seems to be by far the most popular place where couples met eachother. Nearly every couple we knew in college is still together almost a decade later. It’s followed by Hinge, but we only know two couples who met there. We also know two couples who met on discord, so that’s also definitely a good option if you’re already into some hobby which isn’t heavily dominated by one gender.


  • We already have the developer option to allow apps not verified by Google. You can do the 24hr wait now to preemptively enable unverified apps, and then nothing will change whenever they choose to actually start enforcing signatures. I’ve already done it and although a bit annoying it’s far from enough a roadblock for me to get rid of my phone. We need better Linux phones, or banking apps that can actually work on graphene without the constant cat and mouse game of passing play integrity in the Google space. Even if we had a great Linux phone many mobile websites just try to redirect you to their app rather than build a real mobile website, so it would be tedious to use for many functions. Graphene is great, but the number of Android apps that refuse to run without play integrity passing is far too high for me to risk buying a compatible phone and going all in on it. Perhaps the new Motorola partnership will be able to help this in some way, but I won’t believe it until I see it.



  • I just saw this in theater and was very impressed. It’s super ironic that Warner Bros tried using it for a write off considering its message. I also found it quite satisfying knowing that my ticket purchase didn’t go to Warner Bros.

    Hopefully it will have legs in the coming weeks. It’s genuinely great and definitely the closest thing we have to a spiritual successor of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I’m kind of surprised it ever got made in the first place, adults don’t tend to go to animated movies with children’s characters and court battles aren’t exactly prime children’s content. At least in the theater we went to the audience was made up entirely of adults.




  • Wait I’m confused now, if you play a legitimate game online using a switch which has previously had a flash cart used it can be banned? I was under the impression that as long as you didn’t go online it was fully undetectable, allowing you to use legitimate games online as you want without needing to switch between emummc and sysnand. Nintendo probably doesn’t care about the homebrew software in the same way they do piracy, but unfortunately for them that’s all the flash carts can do, hence why from their perspective I say every version is cracked.

    I’m not up to date on switch modchips but last I checked you needed to solder a flex pcb such that it made contact with pads under a BGA chip. As it goes that’s quite intensive rework for a hobbyist. I’m an electrical engineer and use professional BGA rework equipment at work regularly. Our success rate for BGA rework is like 80% for ICs that have been desoldered and resoldered before. Sure you don’t need to remove the chip to get the flex PCB soldered, but the risk of shorting balls and needing to remove it on an expensive piece of hardware is too much for many hobbyists.








  • I don’t use Fairphone, but I am a bit of a mobile network nerd. I’m on US Mobile which is a unique MVNO that allows you to move between any 2 of the 3 US networks as you please. You have to have signal to initiate a network change and sometimes it takes a day, but for premium mobile service they’re great. I mostly just stay on ATT and T-Mobile, but depending on the rural area you visit Verizon and T-Mobile is also a reasonable combination. My point in the comment above is to not discount T-Mobile, their network capacity in cities and suburbs is miles ahead of Verizon and ATT (I’m ignoring UWB since it requires you to be outside and line of sight to a tower, it’s not practical for the vast majority of cell phone usage which occurs in a building).

    The Fairphone is the only modern phone I know of that has limited bands, so you’ll need to use a T-Mobile based MVNO. The best deal on the T-Mobile network is Mint Mobile, providing 1yr of unlimited service for $180 if you port in a number. They’re directly owned by T-Mobile and I used them for several years quite happily before switching to US mobile. Google Fi also occasionally runs promos bringing their plans into the $15/mo range. The only reason I’m not still on them is the requirement to port in a number to get that $15/mo price for a year. I tend to change network every single year to always get the best deal.

    The absolute best phone plan deal recently is the Total Wireless $20/mo 5g BYO plan. Uniquely the price is guaranteed for 5yr and it includes unlimited priority data + 10GB international roaming every month. But it’s on Verizon’s network.


  • Fairphone or not T-Mobile isn’t anything like what it used to be. If you’re in a major city or suburb it’s worth taking a serious look at T-Mobile. I’m on US mobile which is a MVNO that allows you to freely switch between all 3 networks with two simultaneously active at any given time. 90% of the time T-Mobile has far better and faster coverage than either of Verizon or ATT. It used to be that Verizon was by far the best, but their network capacity hasn’t kept pace with T-Mobile’s growth, even if your Verizon plan has priority data (as mine does). This difference shows most when network capacity is limited.

    T-Mobile’s rural coverage isn’t as great as either of Verizon’s or ATT’s, but it’s absolutely good enough for every road trip I’ve done. And when visiting family in rural northern Wisconsin only T-Mobile and ATT have reasonable coverage in their area. You can use a Mint Mobile trial SIM to see for yourself.

    I think Verizon knows this too, all of the cheapest MVNOs have been switching to use Verizon’s network in recent years. The ISP mobile networks you can often get a year of for free also nearly all run on Verizon now. If you’re paying for your service, the Total Wireless $20/mo BYO plan with unlimited priority data and 10GB/mo of international data is the best deal out there by far. Verizon certainly wouldn’t be providing MVNOs with the lowest cut rate pricing if they thought they had the best network.


  • Travel eims are very cheap in China. I’ve never even seen one offering so little data. But I’m amazed you even made it into the country without setting up Alipay/Wechat money. Cash is famously basically useless in China…

    The bigger issue I have at the major fast food chains that although you can order and pay using your Alipay/Wechat, receiving the discount coupons requires a local food number. For pizza hut this means you’re literally paying twice as much as a local for a durian pizza.