• 3 Posts
  • 92 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • People are stupid and easily manipulated, it’s that simple. I’m including you or I in this statement as well. We might happen to be paying more attention to politics, but we’re likely fooled or mislead in other areas of our lives without noticing.

    No one has the bandwidth to pay attention to everything, so naturally some people autopilot on things they feel are too complicated or are uninteresting. When you autopilot then lots of things are taken at face value without critical thought, and without the historical knowledge to easily spot a trend or lie.

    So yeah, were stupid and apathetic when viewed as a large group and that’s unfortunate. Advertising (propaganda) has been fine tuned over the last 70 some years to exploit our weaknesses exceptionally well. Things will have to get really bad and demand the average person’s attention before they will focus it.





  • The issue is they sit in this odd place from a price perspective. I can get an N4000 based stick PC with 4GB RAM and eMMC storage for $140 CAD, or a vastly better performing N95 based mini PC with 8GB RAM, real SSD, and additional outputs for $50 more.

    The stick PC really only makes sense if you need that form factor, or if you’re on a really tight budget. The improvements for $50 are just too much to ignore.


  • Your wishlist sounds almost identical to mine. As frustrating as the limitations of streamers are, they are easy to use. HDMI CEC makes single remote setups possible, easy volume changes, input switching, etc. Apps are vetted so they “just work”.

    As for casting, most platforms support running Miracast or AirPlay receivers. Google is the stickler here that won’t let you run a Google Cast receiver (or at least I haven’t found one) and also doesn’t implement Miracast on Pixel devices. It’s such a shame because I vastly prefer casting the URL to the TV and letting it source the content than mirroring my phone all the time.


  • Yeah, those were on my radar as well. I haven’t yet had a chance to look into what the Linux compatibility is like, but that sounds promising that you were able to do it.

    The big downside I see is that while the power consumption is low, they’re running a really old SoC, usually based on Intel N4000 (launched late 2017). Looking around it seems to have h.265 decode which is the most important one to look out for. It doesn’t support AV1, but that’s mostly streaming services and not that common (I think?). There may be other disadvantages I’m not thinking of at the moment.

    What was the performance like for you?



  • All my current self-hosting is running off an N100 mini-PC. OPNsense, NginX, Home Assistant, Unifi Controller, Docker host, etc. They are fantastic, it just seems a bit overkill for sitting behind the TV and playing Plex/Jellyfin and the occasional web stream in a browser. There’s really not much competition though as all the products below it offer a lot older processors that don’t have very up to date HW decode.




  • We’d need a suitably powerful APU upgrade in order to make running a 1080p screen viable. Most of the reason the Steam Deck performs as well as it does is because games are only rendering at 720p.

    My wishlist for a Deck V2 would be a

    • Higher res screen (if it makes sense as I mentioned above)
    • Higher refresh with VRR (partially handled by thr OLED 90hz but no VRR)
    • Second USB-C port supporting USB4
    • Fingerprint reader
    • QoL improvements like smaller bezel, modern wireless chipset, etc.

    AND a Steam Controller v2 as a companion with the exact same buttons/sticks/touchpads as the Deck.



  • It’s a very slippery slope. Clearly land/business owners, race, gender, etc are not the way.

    Political fluency? A test to see if you’ve been following current events and can answer basic questions? The positives would be a more informed pool of electorates, but it would also substantially diminish the amount of voters, exclude those that have grievances but don’t have time for politics, and the questions could be manipulated by the current government to exclude voters likely to vote for the opposition.

    I also don’t know what the answer is. I’m leaning towards this being a symptom of dysfunction rather than something that needs an easy workaround. If we can actually tackle poverty and bring education up people will be much more likely to vote rationally, but I don’t know how we get there WITH thr current system we have.





  • I feel I should clarify that I don’t hold this position because dogs are dangerous or think it should be harder to have a dog. I hold it because I think our breeding programs are creating a lot of animal suffering.

    From puppy mills where dogs are kept in horrible conditions, to overproduction of animals so that there aren’t enough homes, to propagating breeds that can barely breath so that they have an “adorable” face. Dog breeding is exploitative and re-enforces that dogs are simply a commodity.

    I’m not sure a law making it more difficult to own a dog would have the effect you intend, as there are already too many dogs in need of homes. I think a more palatable middle ground to elimination would be regulation of breeders to ensure that they are not producing more dogs than can be homed.


  • Not the OP, but let me step in. Dog breeds are something we have created as humans, they’re not wild species that need to be preserved and don’t have any effect on ecosystems.

    Dog breeding is largely negative at this point as most breeds have outlived their original use and are now seen as designer pets. We continue to breed them as there is continued demand, but quite often these breeds are so inbred that they have genetic health issues. We also oversupply and don’t fix/neuter enough, meaning there are always unwanted dogs without homes.

    I love dogs, but all of mine have been rescues and I would have no problem with the vast majority of breeds being phased out. There are still some niche cases where dogs are actually used for their breed’s purpose (dog sled, search/rescue, hunting, etc) but no, I don’t think a chihuahua or a pug should exist and would not be sad if breeders stopped producing more.