Is that the first game? Yes, it was great. But the publisher was scummy AF and broke the game up into four parts. Now, granted, each part came with an anime DVD which gave you some of the back story/real world issues around the back story, so they did try to make it worth it. But still, it should have been one game.
cerebralhawks
joined 1 week ago
It's the other way around, it's down to GrapheneOS to support other hardware. They simply choose to focus on Pixels.
You're onto something with the AirTags but you haven't got it quite right. Every Apple device participates in the Find My network, which means any Apple device marked as lost will have its location reported, anonymously, by every other Apple device it can communicate with. This is a good thing, unless you're being stalked via an AirTag placed on your person, but Apple has taken pains to mitigate this issue. One shoe company recently released shoes with AirTag compartments so parents could track their kids, and the placement should mitigate the beeping they can emit. Honestly the AirTags and Find My network do more good than harm, the impact to devices participating in the Find My network is minimal, and if it's your device that's lost, you don't want people opting out so thieves can get away with stealing your stuff.
The open source thing is largely a myth, though. AOSP is what's open source. The version of Android on Pixel phones and Nexus before them was forked from that and bundles a lot of closed source stuff, like Google Play Services, Gmail, and more. But it's close enough to AOSP that devs can target it and it should run on most/all Android forks.
So then Samsung and others take AOSP and they fork it and make their own OS that is based on Android. They are required per licensing to use Android branding if they want Play Store access. There are other rules, like Chrome and/or Google has to be on the main launcher page, Play Services has to be included... if they don't play by the rules, they can still fork Android, they just can't use the name Android... like Fire OS and Switch OS. (It's unclear if modern Switches use any Android code. Before they were released they were rumored to have forked Android. Switches absolutely do not run Android apps, but the OS borrows several cues from Android design language.)
AdAway isn't in the Play Store? That was my ad blocker back in the day... on, like, Jellybean and KitKat.
Of course, I wouldn't be surprised if Google has since banned ad blockers. They threaten their business model after all.
Not actually true, there are still some scam apps on the App Store. As long as they have recurring subscriptions, Apple doesn't care too much. It's the free apps that are just as good, they will bury, even if they have users.
As far as music, I agree. I use Apple Music because it's the best streaming service for my needs and they pay artists better than the other big one. But on iOS you also have Marvis Pro and MusicHarbor. I couldn't get that experience on Android. The actual Apple Music app is great on Android, and it has gotten better, but on iOS I still prefer Marvis, which is a frontend to Music.app.
Yes, my Android phone (Galaxy S10) has a headphone jack and a microSD card reader and a fingerprint reader. And it's a flaghship. But it's a 2019 flagship. (Still does things better than my iPhone 16 Pro Max, which is Apple's flagship from last year, and still their current flagship model. Most notably, the Android keyboard is better.)
Do any new flagship Android phones have headphone jacks? Not that I need one. I'm 100% on board with AirPods. Love them. I own headphones but it's a lesser experience. I have some decent (not great) over the ear Sennheisers (they were around $50, so not audiophile range, probably the brand's entry model) and they're good enough, but the AirPods are a better experience in many ways. But anyway, mid-range Android phones have headphone jacks, but they're underpowered compared to flagships, and Android flagships are underpowered next to iPhones of the same year. So while granted, a mid-range 2025 Android likely outperforms my S10 across the board, I have no reason to upgrade what is essentially my backup phone.
Yes, ironically I just read another article about how Facebook/Meta has gotten around the ATT (App Tracking thing, I forget what the other T stands for) with in-app browsers. The article's point was that all the beef between Apple and Meta is just for show and that they need each other like Apple and Google, Apple and Samsung, et al. So yeah, with you on that.
Yeah, I mean the violence is on another level from your average show.
And that typo/autocorrect is funny. You meant to say parody, I believe, but you said parity — they're not exactly opposites, but kind of mean different things. If something is on parity with something, it's not a parody.
Memo about custom firmware? No. I did see the bit about Google blocking sideloading. True, I don't follow Google/Android news as closely as I follow Apple news due to that being what I use.
That said, I know a fair bit about Android and used to do custom firmware. I know it's never been easy, largely due to the carriers getting involved. I thought Pixels were unlocked though, at least those bought direct. In the early days when they were Verizon exclusive, the carrier bought ones were locked (this was 2016). Custom firmware in the last 5-10 years? I know a lot less about that.
That's true. Where I was, I didn't have access to a physical one, but could have Googled it. Google often sources Dictionary.com which includes a thesaurus, but also gives AI answers.
That said, the AI gives several choices, so it's not choosing anything. Still, point taken.
I read about this earlier on Ars Technica. I was expecting a paywalled link. Was not expecting to find a mention of "No Longer Human." Ars didn't mention that. Or the chat logs. It was a long article but didn't go into the same depth.
So, I've read "No Longer Human." A more recent translation is called "A Shameful Life" and that's a bit more apt, I think, but doesn't have the same ring. It's about a guy who feels less and less like a person, like what he does and feels doesn't matter. It's a wild book, about a double suicide, and the author later killed himself much the same way. There have been several adaptations — none of them very good. None of them quite captured the book. I wonder if it's just unfilmable. Anyway, it's a shame that it's being referenced here, because it's good literature worth considering, and I hate to see it maligned in much the same way as the Doom game was following the Columbine massacre. Relevant or not (guns in that case, suicide in this case), it's a shame art gets associated with tragedy simply by association.
Perhaps the same could be said of AI technology, and it has been. But certainly AI needs better safeguards. According to Ars, when the guy started asking about suicide, ChatGPT said it could not help him — unless he specified he was talking about fictional characters. So he did that (Ars constantly refers to it as a "jailbreak") for a while, and then I guess (and they guess as well) that ChatGPT just assumed that context and stopped requiring him to specify that.
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Been wondering this, or something like this.
I used to be good at Mario 1, but I cannot play it on emulators. It feels like there's a delay. It feels a little like Mario is on ice, much like the ice levels of Mario 2. Mario is running, and I want to jump or stop, but there's a noticeable delay and it makes me feel like my old ass has lost my touch. But playing any modern game, my reflexes are good enough. In a Nintendo to Nintendo comparison, I play Animal Crossing on the Switch, and sure enough, if I'm running and pull back on the stick, my villager skids at exactly the time I want them to. But on that same Switch with the same controller, I can't control Mario in Mario 1 worth a damn. I do just fine in Super Mario Wonder, though.
(Side note, more to do with Animal Crossing than older games, but I've noticed a wired controller, plugged into the Switch dock via USB, with the Switch on the dock, gets more latency than the Switch in handheld mode, which I'm pretty sure uses Bluetooth to connect to its controllers, even if they're physically connected — not 100% sure on that. But for one example, fishing — even the five-star rarity fish — is quite easy in handheld. But, with the wired connection, I mash A as soon as the fish bites, and it still slips my hook. Maybe the latency isn't from the controller to the dock to the Switch, maybe it's from the Switch to the dock to the TV (and speakers since I close my eyes and listen for the sound, which most animal crossers agree is the best way to fish).)