When I found out that Valorant put what amounts to a rootkit on my PC in the name of whatever bullshit anti-cheat service it thinks players should have, I wiped and reloaded from backups. I’m not big on multiplayer shooters, just wanted to play a friendly game with my friend. Now I do research regarding what copy…

My issue with Stray on PC is that the camera drifts. It doesn’t stay where I put it. Sounds like a problem with my input device, right? Except that my trackball doesn’t exhibit that behavior anywhere else. Zero other places, in fact. Just in Stray. Is it a weird interaction with a Logitech M575? I don’t know. I’m not…

I buy a lot of inexpensive Android devices to give away to friends with kids, and to Amazon’s credit, Fire tablets have great screens compared to other budget devices. I will say though, that more-than-2GB RAM is a very notable improvement. I won’t even touch devices with less than 2GB, but the irritation that comes…

Bethesda releases buggy alpha-grade garbage with the expectation that modders will fix everything. Why not skip the middleman and just give the design docs to a promising set of modders along with whatever the current game engine is called and fuck off to count the money they make for the studio. Three years later,…

I spent an amount of money that could’ve paid for a home in the midwestern US trying to find a decent therapist. I don’t believe they exist. On the occasions when one is willing to admit their approach isn’t working, the only thing they really do is refer you to a different therapist. Presumably so you can make…

Chocolatey.org’s choco is an open source solution that supports something over 5,000 applications. It’s been around a lot longer than any of the other Windows package managers and it does have a supported GUI component. I’m surprised it wasn’t mentioned, because at the very least its library is considerably larger…

I’ll give the nod to anything that supports Kodi (i.e. everything that isn’t a Roku) for best sound support, at least insofar as Kodi will pass through everything without exception to a receiver that can deal with whatever input it’s been given, up to and including those 7.2.2 TrueHD audio tracks that source from…

Yeah but then you have to use Roku’s software, which I’ve found to be sluggish even on the fastest models, and disagreeable to viewing locally available content. Not everyone wants to run Plex or Emby  just to play videos they already have. Roku also has pretty poor support for high resolution sound, which is…

Sam’s Club hot dogs are the same $1.50 with a soda, and Sam’s club has more variety in its pizzas. Costco, at least among the locations I’ve visited, only has cheese and pepperoni. Sam’s will usually have four or five topping choices, including one that has actual veggies on it.

I have a genetic condition called Klinefelter’s Syndrome. I’m technically intersexed, albeit in a way that doesn’t make all that much difference to my outward appearance. In my case, I didn’t get the hormone treatments that probably would’ve made me a more masculine person, but I think that in the rush to prevent…

Having recently owned a Garmin smartwatch, I’d like to offer a counterpoint: YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE FONT SIZE ON GARMIN WATCHES.

Having recently owned a Garmin smartwatch, I’d like to offer a counterpoint: YOU CANNOT CHANGE THE FONT SIZE ON…

Cheap is sometimes fine. There are plenty of perfectly competent tablets, smart watches and bluetooth speakers out there. Some people just want a basic TV, find that they can get away with a $200 Chromebook and don’t care that their phone doesn’t have NFC, wireless charging or half a terabyte of internal storage.

Or abandon it completely and use one of the things that already interoperates across all platforms. There’s no reason to talk about or look at the Apple-exclusive thing, because it’s deliberately exclusive. 

Involve decent lighting. Even a shitty $30 Selfie Ring can be the difference between a camera shooting at ISO 2400 and ISO 400. Natural light is the best light, but your pet will seldom be in the best possible lighting conditions naturally. I get that most people aren’t going to break out $2k in studio lights but a che…

The wipes work a lot better and I like being clean. I’m never going back to just TP. 

In addition to using an ad blocker on desktop versions of Youtube, I’ll also put in a good word for the third-party Android app Smart Youtube TV, which is a client that has limited functionality (no ability to Like videos or read comments, for example) and is made for set top boxes, but which completely omits ads. It…

I mean, the sound ISN’T good. Yes , it sounds better than ear buds, a basic tv or laptop speakers, but a single Sonos:1 isn’t even stereo. It’s not noticeably better than an Amazon Echo or a $50 JBL portable speaker, really. I know a lot of people don’t look for that, but it’s so easy to do better, even with just an…

I mean, the sound ISN’T good. Yes , it sounds better than ear buds, a basic tv or laptop speakers, but a single…

Don’t buy these things. They don’t interoperate with other audio components. You’re buying lock in to Sonos hardware. And no, Sonos, speakers don’t sound all that great. If you’re willing to spend $250 on a set of amplified speakers, I absolutely guarantee you can find something that will sound better that you can use…

Don’t buy these things. They don’t interoperate with other audio components. You’re buying lock in to Sonos…

Can we talk about Thinkpad support for a minute? Because it’s amazing. Thinkpads have a warranty that’s valid worldwide. You can have your notebook fixed in Cairo or Prague if need be. In the US, I’ve gotten 12 hour turn around on DEPOT service (literally packing a notebook off at the end of a work day and having it…

Can we talk about Thinkpad support for a minute? Because it’s amazing. Thinkpads have a warranty that’s valid…

RCS uses internet transit with SMS (cell tower control channel signalling) as a fallback. Vastly larger character limits eliminate out of order delivery and larger binary attachments. Not being tied to a hardware ID means I can receive messages on any client device and have a standard set of options for sending and…