That’s a throwback! I totally forgot about that game!

A job for a real masochist.

I run Fedora in the Valley of Despair.

To save them from this desaster, backups would have been enough.

Failover and service availability are nice, but for this use case not really necessary.

If OOP had had regular backups to their PC and nothing else, it would have at least been pretty easy to rebuild everything on the same cloud provider and if they (understandably) didn’t want to trust AWS again, they’d at least have a basis for rebuilding on another provider’s cloud.

I’ve been using Llamalab Automate a lot over the last few years. It’ proper amazing.

The free version only allows flows with a total of 30 blocks running at the same time, which was enough for me for a very long time. I mostly got the full version because I wanted to support the developer. But now I do use bigger flows too.

It’s very useful for all these little automation tasks that don’t warrant a dedicated app for it.

The only downside of the app is the stupid name that makes it really hard to google anyting in regards to it unless you add “Llamalab” before it.

A locked bootloader works with a trusted chain.

That means:

• There’s a trusted enclave on your phone, usually inside the SoC but sometimes it’s a dedicated chip. This chip has purposely very little access to it. This one contains the root keys for the encryption used on the phone.
• The phone only boots a bootloader verified by the trusted enclave.
• The verified bootloader verifies and only boots a verified system image.

If everything is implemented correctly and there are no bugs that can be exploited (like e.g. on newer Switch 1 models, older ones had a bug that was exploitable), then the only thing you can do is hardware exploits.

For that you could e.g. solder on a chip that hijacks the connection between the trusted enclave and the SoC (e.g. modchip on newer Switch 1 models) or you have to replace parts, e.g. the trusted enclave chip or the SoC (if the trusted enclave is within the SoC).

That’s usually the point where it becomes too costly to be worth it.

With stuff like smartphones there’s literally no choice that allows you to do all smartphone stuff while also keeping control.

Sure you can buy a Pinephone, but that’s not a phone, it’s just an idealistic toy.

If you want a phone that works for 2FA, works with your bank and with your city’s public transport app, then there’s no libre option.

Even a fairphone with /e/ OS isn’t fully libre.

Tbh, Dead Internet Theory applies almost everywhere.

Lemmy might just be far too small for it to work here. (For comparison, measured by activity and monthly active users, Lemmy is smaller than both the Linus Tech Tips form and the Crackberry forum.)

My local hardware store has been selling cheap random “art” like this here for as long as I can remember. It’s copy-pasted low-quality slop since way before AI existed. I don’t see any more or less artistic value in a mass-produced print like that versus an AI generated image.

In that context, I really couldn’t care less whether that slop has been made in 5 minutes in paint by some underpaid intern or in 5 minutes using ChatGPT.

But if you go to an art expo with undisclosed AI “art”… well.

I’m with you, btw.

Thank you!

These two things didn’t exist before I made them. My physiotherapy game console is currently the only one available, and in total the only one that is open source.

There is by now another smartphone keyboard attachment, the Clicks, but there wasn’t when I made my keyboard, and there still isn’t another one for the Fairphone 4 and the Samsung Galaxy A54.

This is it.

You don’t have to tinker anymore, but if you want to, you can do so, so much more that years ago.

I created a handheld physiotherapy game console for sick kids using a Lilygo T-HMI ESP32-S3 board for €17. Performance-wise it’s somewhere between GBA and NDS. I built an OS with an app system where the users can load games from the SD card. It’s got a 3D printed shell and monitors inhalation/physiotherapy using an off-the-shelf air pressure sensor. All of that was doable as a one-man hobby project within a year.

I created a smartphone keyboard attachment. Blackberry spare keyboard, custom self-designed Arduino-compatible PCB, custom firmware, parametarized 3D printed shell. Works like any old USB keyboard and connects to the phone via USB C. I have been using this as a daily driver for the last four years.

All of that can be done on a tight budget as hobby projects next to real work. The resources are just available. No university degree necessary.

Tinkering much easier (and you have more abilities) than ever before!

At that point, were you regular folks though?

That is (one of the) reason(s) why I don’t even consider job offers from a startup.

I have no desire to work under a megalomaniac who thinks he runs Google when he actually has 2 employees.

UAC is the only thing between you and a certain security desaster.

If you can’t remember times before UAC, call yourself happy.

Crazy dedication! Pretty amazing!

The stuff they couldn’t sell the last few times before that.

Btw, he was talking about Life of Brian.

Time to build an alternative Aliexpress client that shows all that right in the search overview.

Depends. Pure LLM, sure, you are right. LLMs are a terrible way to “store” information.

Coupling LLMs with a decent data source on the other hand isn’t such a terrible idea. E.g. answer the question with a google search summarized by LLM can work.

The bigger issue here is (a) when it doesn’t seach but does everything locally and (b) that now the site owners lose traffic without compensation.

The two things aren’t mutually exclusive (even though they should be)