Windows’s achilles heel is arguably its chief benefit - legacy compatibility and being the de facto platform for applications.

Back when I had a Surface RT, I thought it was awfully neat, ARM-compiled versions of Office, IE, Windows 8.x bits ran well and it was fanless with fine battery life. (although I surely sound weird, I had a Windows Phone back then too and the syncing with IE on both was a nice feature) It’s just they were pushing the Store then and if you jailbroke it, ARM applications were rare.

Apple is a pro at architecture transitions and can steer the whole ship, MS can put Windows on ARM all they want but OEM’s will be reluctant since it’ll be a relatively big risk to sell a “Windows, buuut…” computer and the popular closed-source applications probably won’t bother with ARM for a while

Bingo, I saw an ROG Ally(?) on display at Best Buy the other day and it was sitting on the Windows 11 desktop with a couple applications open like any demo laptop out on the floor - what dumbstruck me is that the scaling was set so the interface was absolutely tiny. Of course someone could have messed with DPI settings but it just looked like an interface for ants!

Windows 8 or 10’s tablet mode would have probably gone a ways towards making it more suited for a handheld but that function is gone.

At least the bottom edge swipe opens the start menu which I found by mistake. Maybe Big Picture mode would help.

nujabes moment :(

That’s incredible, happy to see the old hardware still kicking!

On a similar note, sometime a year ago I spotted a guy using a Q10 at a shopping center in LA. Had a quick chat which was fun.

I read in a couple spots earlier that the new battery is physically too big and the OLED panel won’t transfer either.

We had petitions for everything, Windows Phone, you name it a decade ago. That won’t do jack shit unless it somehow comes with some large sum of money (how much? who knows) for Microsoft or some bean counter decides “hmm, maybe the environment shouldn’t take another for the team” and gets the company to change course before they are canned.

In the meantime, let’s continue to plot our off-ramps.

Please not Siri, it ain’t smart but it does everything I want - the basics and reasonably easily.

I remember Cortana fondly when it was a great blend of Siri and Google Now but naturally it and Windows Phone got left to rot, and made her useless on desktop Windows since they forfeited my pocket.

I tolerated Google Assistant for a bit but ditched Android when Google pushed updates to remove the “okay Google with the screen off” feature from my Moto Z Play and gaslit the internet - stating it was never supported in closed support threads, the chipset didn’t support it and promoted it as a (then new) Pixel 1 feature. I figured Apple wouldn’t remove “Hey Siri” and so far several years in it’s still holding true.

Google removed “Ok Google with the screen off” (made the toggle disappear, replaced with the option to allow its use in apps) on my Moto Z Play via Play Services updates and later advertised it as a Pixel-exclusive feature. (this was when the Pixel 1 was new)

Their support threads were ended curtly with statements of the phone not supporting the feature which I guess was technically true now that they changed it. (but no, the hardware always supported hotwords)

Never got that feature back and I bailed. For the ups and downs, I’m glad Apple doesn’t do that, instead omitting or handicapping new features for older devices. Of course not the best but yeesh, at least I don’t have to worry about “Hey Siri” being pulled to promote the iPhone 20 yet…

Jailbreaking the car to enable the high performance upgrade for free.

I don’t have a problem with the core concept since it can technically be done well (Fortnite, despite it not appealing to me personally) but since everyone wants the “live service” staying power and money without putting in the “live service” effort it’s become a red flag to me to prepare for an unfinished, buggy, likely money-grubbing “game” with a shaky future - case in point, Halo Infinite’s campaign pretty much going nowhere and being Act 1 of what will be pretty much nothing now since all the campaign staff went bye-bye.

These "breakthroughs" are Toyota "Full-Self Driving next year!" fluff and I'll believe it when it's shipped and performing.

I believe this approach to be vulnerable to Sea Lions since "debating" facts with someone not tethered to, or respecting of reality is a lesson in futility since the time/effort wasted is the goal.

Any bets on this Refresh not supporting 8th-gen and below Intel chips except the Surface Studio for “reasons”?

My pet theory is that it's to throw a bone to OEMs. They came out saying "oop, 7th-gen and older Intel chips won't work, guess you'll just need to buy a new PC!" until someone over there noticed that their still-for-sale (at the time the requirements went live), few-thousand-dollar PC (the Surface Studio 2) was a 7th-gen chip so they made eventually an exception just for that one. Because "reasons".

They were beta testing them, EZ

I think it’s an “analysis paralysis” problem. I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out what instance to join while worrying about what was “right” (of course an incorrect question), what “fit” my inclinations/preferences, will it be around in X time, who are the mods, don’t want to centralize on just one instance, until I just bit the bullet.

I’m reminded of how Job’s late-90’s mass simplification of the Apple product line made it easier for consumers to just pick something. (general or pro user? laptop or desktop? boom, done.)

If your car gets stolen it’s probably preferable to not see it again and get insurance since no telling what’s been done to it/in it.

This reminded me of a person online talking about how they didn’t understand why tree-huggers appreciated wind power despite the bird strike numbers - well because climate change itself is a much bigger fish!

[cries in Lime Green]

You've done it now, now I'm catching up on Oglaf!

Now that’s something absurd I want to see in a space exploration game. No preparation of the player, just that dropped right into the galaxy.

Countering this is very make-specific and you can have options ranging from calling in (opt-out) to pulling fuses to messing with dash wiring.

Make/Vehicle-specific forums will likely be a good resource to start with but naturally you'll have to deal with the "you have phone, lul" defeatist idiots anywhere.

Considerations include age (Models with 3G radios are disconnected anyway most likely), trim (maybe only certain trim levels got a cellular radio), and features. (Hotspot, OnStar, an SOS button indicate the presence of such a telematics system)

Man, I remember buying a Linux Format(?) magazine once and breaking out the included 7.10 CD.

Later distros I messed with I remember waiting hours for those few hundred MB to download on my parent’s DSL connection, oh how times have changed!

Netflix’s crackdown affected me (I was the moocher) and I canned Hulu before some price hikes (I was the provider) and put the money towards a VPN.

I spend the computing power converting some media to play on my PS4 (plus finagling with subtitles) but once it’s done it’s done.

I think while the topic is up it’ll be fun mentioning that the Colorado/Canyon does not have a physical headlight control anymore - in favor of defaulting to Auto and touchscreen controls and the project lead(?) claimed that the system was 100% bug-free.

Also later there was a bug with some OTA update for that model that’ll kill the battery.

Anyways, I bought a 4Runner and immediately called to disable its cellular radio. (dubbed DCM in Toyota-land)

Welp, we'll see if it is actually promised and then if they actually follow through.

Really tough question since it’s been a while and I don’t have kids today (man that would suck in the age of TikTok and handing the kid an iPad for a reprieve) but what my parents did was limit computer time to 1 hour in a day until middle school ish so I had to make decisions.

Handhelds had to be downstairs and off at night, and (ideally) one hour before bedtime so no late night shenanigans.

I guess there’s also starting lower tech like flip phones, PDA’s but that’s because I’m more of a nerd and it’ll be my “uphill both ways” equivalent esp. since i’m not ready for unlimited web access and all that entails

When you say "couch" my first thought is a recent-ish Celeron or Pentium Silver fanless laptop. Performance akin to a Core 2 Duo but no fan to get blocked sitting on the couch. Like the Latitude 3210(?)

Laptops that appeal to me are often bottom breathers so it's one thing I miss from my old MB Air.

I have not heard about SAR in a long time, I’m just glad the days of alleged baseball-sized tumors associated with cell phones and facing the phone towards one’s body are over.

Technically no, but standards do dictate that measures to prevent unauthorized use be present so I imagine those legal battles will be around that second part, especially with immobilizers being practically standard for every other manufacturer. Changing the laws will be a tough part, we can't even get reasonable automotive lighting laws on the books or enforced.

So at least one trader, that’s sure informative!

Mostly incorrect, entering the BIOS and having the toggle to switch between S0 and S3 (or, "Linux") sleep does indeed exist but it is hard to identify what models have it (I hear Lenovo's BIOS simulator helps) and it's increasingly being removed in newer models or even removed in updates. Dell has no interest in putting it back and recommends hibernate or just powering off the machine when on-the-go.

I made sure the ThinkPad I own personally had the toggle but my work-issued one does not so it is now a Hibernate-only machine. No setting can help that.

That he was lied to, that opting out would result in a significant delay before he made a decision.

Oh that'd be nice but since no more SMS in Signal I can't see it going back in (unless they reversed course?)

it’s a combination of sharp styling, high features for low cost, “they’re fine NOW” (repeat every five years), prior good experience, thinking that their electric cars are naturally immune to their engine problems but not realizing that they were both borne in the same engineering culture and plain not being aware.

This I wish, but I doubt. I still have my old Garmin GPS and play with the idea of a flip phone but I’ve been spoiled by the smaller things like iMessage not dealing with MMS. It’s an idea I come back to occasionally, but I also think about going back to my Palm with AAA batteries for my PIM needs. Had one in semi-regular-use as recent as 2018!

There have been some experimentation but the best (IMO) option is hitting the SOS button to call and navigating the phone menu to get to a representative, not emergency services and having them disconnect your car. You may need your VIN, you’ll need to confirm that you do not want connected services and it may take a day or so to take effect. Now, my SOS button doesn’t have the green light and while the radio - according to the infotainment - is still powered, it is no longer connected to the network.

Another way if you don’t plan on using the microphone (like for calls) you can pull the DCM fuse but I prefer the above option.

if you have a vehicle with 3G like 2019 and earlier 4Runners, ya good already.

Call in via the car with your VIN to disconnect the radio. You'll have to navigate the phone menu but I did it while waiting for Costco's air pressure machine.

You can also pull the DCM fuse but that'll take the microphone with it.

It'll vary, there's a lot of forums out there from the car-model-specific (Piloteers) to makes (Kia-Forums) to more general ones like Bob is the Oil Guy. But there's a lot of tech ones with cobwebs all over (Windows Central) and many that have disappeared entirely. (1src, webOS Nation/Precentral)

I read about Apple looking to bring the spec up to par, but I suspect it has a higher chance of being a nothing-burger since carriers haven’t bothered with RCS and Google’s implementation is as controlled/proprietary as iMessage so it will be interesting to see how things go forward.