To be fair, that iconic PS1 texture twitch was Ming-boggling to see in action!

I can understand a banking app such as Chime* wanting to obfuscate whatever bugs or potential exploits they’ve come across and patched - to prevent users on older versions from being targeted; but the rest of those examples are utterly bullshit.

I put forward Duolingo as another egregious example of this bullshit:

It’s literally sad that the only hope for EA to become less scummy as a privately held company, than it was as a publicly traded company, is for the Saudi Arabian regime to proactively use them to win over gamers through the digital equivalent of ‘sports-washing’.

It’s depressing to think that we are at a point where EA could be considered the lesser evil in comparison.

Again, I think it’s mostly because it’s iOS - but Brave seems to be the only browser that allows both Picture-in-Picture and background play while also blocking ads.

Both Safari and Firefox display ads, and struggle with PiP.

I’m on iOS so my options are rather limited, but I’ve had decent luck using Brave. Is there anything that the others do that a browser wouldn’t?

Honestly, should send them with AirTags or similar hidden inside and track their progress - would easily get to the bottom of who the culprits are.

Just have the recipients of the shoes return successfully delivered tags in a replay paid envelope for a refund/credit.

I love that bottom image, I hope you don’t object to me yoinking it and using it myself?

An individual with a net worth of “just” $1b can afford to spend upwards of $50m per year on privacy and security, all while continuing to live a lavish lifestyle of excess and see their net worth continue to grow.

That’s more than the annual US household income being spent on a daily basis.

Now consider that the top 10 billionaires have more than 140x that amount.

Yes, they are made of flesh & blood, and are susceptible to all of the same maladies as you or I — but especially post Luigi, they are shoring up their defences to the point that even a motivated individual would have just as much chance of becoming a billionaire as they are to getting to one.

I would hope to be proven wrong, and to see a true working class uprising against them in my lifetime - but alas, I think they are too effective at keeping us arguing against ourselves to ever pose a serious risk to their hegemony.

How the heck did you catch that!?

It completely went over my head until I read your comment, I scrolled back up and boom - there it was .:|:;

Fun fact; even though China and Australia both use Type I plugs - they aren’t actually fully cross-compatible, due to differences in the thickness of the metal prongs.

China’s are thinner, so they hang somewhat loose in Australian outlets - and given they are less likely to have insulation around the plug ends, are a relatively common fire risk.m

On the other hand - Australian plugs don’t commonly fit into Chinese wall sockets due to their girth (giggitty), and often require the use of a power board or travel adapter in order to work.

Type I (in Australia, at least) plugs are partially insulated with in order to prevent that from being an issue.

We are the descendants of the UK after all, our nanny-state is almost as strong as the motherland’s!

Just be aware, LG’s linear compressors (ie. the ones that claim a 10yr warranty) are prone to failure; ours crapped out after ~3 years and was deemed uneconomical to repair.

Thankfully we have pretty strong consumer protections in Australia (and I expect similar, or better in the EU for OP); so we ended up getting a full refund from the retailer which we ended up putting towards a Hitachi model, after way too much research.

Looking forward to when my office moves into a new building; I will then have an hour-ish commute by train where I can whip out my Steam Deck and catch up on my backlog.

Until then, it’s basically just getting whipped out for a couple 15-ish minute sessions most days.

I’m more curious as to what his middle initial J. stands for… d’oh!

Take a photo; check back 30 days later. Rinse and repeat.

Progress can seem slow, that if you look at yourself day-to-day you’ll not notice it.

Scale isn’t the best judge either, because even if you weigh at the same time every day (first thing post BM is good) - your weight can fluctuate due to hydration and quality of sleep.

Consider measuring your waist as an alternative, seeing as that’s what was your initial motivation.

If you aren’t already, add walking to your daily routine - or even consider programs like Couch to 5K or ZombieRun if you want some motivation and a tougher goal. It’s great for your heart health, and will help contribute a small amount of additional burned calories.

Lastly, diet is the most important facet of weight loss. I highly recommend logging everything you eat (at least for the first week or two to get your bearings) using an app like Cronometer.

Are there any region-free 4K blu-ray drives available? I’m asking for a friend.

Smart, specific targeted tariffs paired with grants/incentives to American companies to foster local production of critical goods (think CHIPS Act) can be a good thing, if they are done in such a way that it doesn’t send an entire industry/market into financial shock.

Like, if you want to onboard silicon wafer manufacturing (as a prime example); you would announce a small tariff to start off with, and a clear road-map of it increasing over time - allowing time for companies to build the necessary infrastructure and manufacturing capabilities onshore.

Once the industry has settled and matured, those tariffs could begin to be slowly pared back to ensure that free-market competition continues to keep prices in check.

But this would only work in an actual free-market economy, and not in the oligopoly-in-a-trenchcoat that currently exists in the states.

I’ve still got Twitter installed on my iPhone, despite rarely ever using it in the past and having not even launched it in well over a year.

But out of principle alone, as a form of silent protest I refuse to update it to X.