The ones they’ve installed near us are Siemens and the only reason we even know they exist is we went by often during installation. The cabinets are now hidden behind a high wall. I’m guessing they’re going in all over the place. Strange that I’ve never seen them mentioned in the news anywhere.

SoCal has a huge amount of wind and solar right now. Utility sized battery installations are going in to deal with the times those two aren’t producing.

Gotta love that headline.

It is, but why does that matter?

Damn, I was hoping my Oneplus 6T was worth a couple grand. Nope. Someone has one on Swappa unlocked and in mint condition for $180. A Oneplus 6 is listed on Ebay for $130.

Google is now expecting users to watch ads that are sometimes a full 25% of the viewing time, or slowing access and requiring logins when adblock is being used. And even if you wade through all that, watching Youtube tech and info videos has become a lot like looking at online recipes. The majority of what you find is fluff and filler for only small amounts of useful content.

I used to go to Youtube daily for research and entertainment but now I avoid the site completely whenever possible. It seems we’ve finally reached an enshittification tipping point.

It’s about time.

I’ve been running Mint since 17.x and have only had one upgrade fail in all that time. You’re very unlikely to have a problem, but backup your system just in case!

What are those alternatives? I can’t think of any that are ready for prime time.

Not everyone cares enough to avoid Google. Some of us that want to do so are related to them.

You can stop using all Google products.

That may be true for you, but other people face different realities. When Google implements the sideloading block it will eventually be pushed to everyone who doesn’t use a custom ROM.

The infuriating part of the Google enshittification process is that there is absolutely nothing the user can do about it.

Literally the only thing that motivates Google is profit. Controlling side-loaded apps will almost certainly boost their profits by a infinitesimal fraction of a percent, therefore it will be done. Even if consumer uproar causes Google to back down in the short term, they’ll simply implement this a few months later. Late-stage Capitalism sucks.

Besides the miserable experience unchecked advertisements cause, it is simply not safe to allow those advertisements to load.

A few years ago (before SSDs were common) I noticed unusual hard disk activity when loading a popular link aggregation site. A bit of investigation turned up a Trojan on my system. After removing it and reloading that site, my PC was immediately reinfected. The site owner denied any responsibility and said it was the advertising company’s fault.

The way the Internet operates now means no one is responsible for the content their site provides or the damage they cause. Imagine if restaurant owners were able to deny responsibility for the atmosphere in their restaurants or food poisonings they caused? IMO it’s the same thing.

Advertisers and websites have created the “dark traffic” mentioned here by repeatedly poisoning the public and they deserve the massive loss of revenue their behavior has caused.

2nd this configuration. My firewall rules block all external camera traffic and Frigate (once configured) is superb at detecting people without false alerts. All recordings are stored locally. It is disturbing just how much traffic smart devices try to send to China and Amazon, even when not subscribed to cloud services.

Home Assistant makes everything ridiculously flexible and is configured to turn on camera sirens if someone is detected at night or while my alarm system is armed, and disable sirens and alerts when doors have been opened or the alarm has just been turned off. The open Wireguard ports appear closed to scanners so I’m also reasonably comfortable with network security.

Returned a multi-week Hertz rental a couple of days ago and had to fight with the staff to get to get a written acknowledgement of no damage.

Customers are supposed to just trust Hertz employees will self-report damaging the car after it has been turned in? Absolutely laughable considering how many times rental companies try to screw over their customers.

This is great info and I won’t be renting from Hertz again.

I’d give you 10 to 1 odds that all of these criminals are strident Maga Trump supporters.

Have a couple OP 9pros and they’ll be the last OP devices I buy.

There are severe bugs that OP never fixes and make using the phone for something like navigation unreliable. Battery life can be great one day and terrible the next when not even using the phone. Also OP sells carrier specific hardware. My TMO phones can’t be used at AT&T or Verizon, severely limiting our options. My understanding is unlocked Pixel phones can be used on any carrier.

I really wanted to load Graphene, but even without it I’ll consider a Pixel device.

It is surprising how difficult most camera companies have made it to avoid their subscription services.

Multiple companies that used to offer local rstp streaming have summarily removed support in firmware upgrades without notifying their customers. Even companies that support it (like Foscam) demand developer agreements be signed to get basic camera command information. Tp-link supports rstp but requires an phone app and Internet connection to configure their cameras.

Like you, I will never connect my cameras to the Internet, but we are slowly approaching a time when that by itself will be a cause for police investigation.

Musk did the equivalent of full on grabbing and slowly squeezing that boob and then insisting it was a gesture of respect.

But many of the signs target Elon Musk specifically, and his most famous brand, Tesla, calling the vehicles “Swasticars” and comparing Musk to a Nazi.

Musk; “How many legacy media publications, talk shows, whatever, try to claim that I was a Nazi because of some random hand gesture gesture at a rally where all I said was that my heart goes out to you,”

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” - George Orwell 1984

Impaired driving is also solvable. On-demand breathalyzers, smartphone saliva tests, and eye-tracking sensors are all tools that already exist to stop drunk and high drivers before they even start the ignition. Uber is already testing real-time driver sobriety verification. Why aren’t carmakers racing to put similar tech in every new vehicle?

There’s no fucking way people will buy those cars is why. I rarely drink and will never buy a car that required a saliva test or blowing into a tube before starting. Like it or not, any car that includes that equipment would be DOA and a financial disaster for the car manufacturer.