pingveno

I just upgraded to the Pixel 8 Pro when the Pixel 5 went out of official support. The screen fingerprint reader works fine. Where it is flawed is that it’s not as quick to unlock from the front. I’m looking forward to the greatly improved support period. Three years was ridiculously short. I know something like GrapheneOS is always an option, but I’m hesitant to do so when I don’t have a backup phone.

The Pixel 8 Pro has been treating me well. Great photos and video, snappy UI, good feature set. And it sounds like I’ll be getting feature drops for the next few years, so that’s nice. The battery life is good. I added on Peak Design’s case and mini tripod, so I can quickly set it up on a surface to take videos or make a video call.

Oh lawd.

Judge, jury, and executioner, apparently.

Giraffic Park

Back when I was doing a weekly shopping trip on my bike with panniers, I tried self-checkout once when the cashiers were busy. Never again. The tall bags just screwed with the sensors too much. Now I’m maybe a bit more inclined to use it because I moved to a house just a quick walk to the store. It can make sense to just dump all of the items on the weighing platform and put them in my backpack and reusable bags later.

Especially anyone who believes that individuals are less free now than they were historically in the United States. Only the ignorant or biased make that claim.

I don’t see any problem with a system to detect drunk driving and bring the car to a stop. There is no right to drive a car while drunk or otherwise impaired. Inventing one by calling upon privacy also ignores that the cops can pull you over and give you a sobriety test if they have reason to anyway. In 2021, over 13,000 people in the US died from drunk drivers. They deserve protection.

Listening to how that video was made was awesome. It’s so simple and obvious when it’s explained to you, even if it’s not particularly obvious on its face.

I just call them good doggos. Is that okay?

Work to live, not live to work.

Oh, Br’er Musk, I don’t care what you do with me, so long as you just don’t throw me in that briar patch over there.

Russia landed on the moon, too. They just had a few more pieces.

And here I am having been introduced to the acronym via WP:POV

I’m just going to not bother giving a fuck, since that’s what they want out of me.

Technically the truth?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKVtlGI1-fM

And looking more broadly, how much of any given system’s death toll should be counted, and in what way. Mao caused massive amounts of death with the Great Leap Forward, which arguably would not have happened under a system that relied less on central management and more on capitalism’s distributed feedback mechanisms. Then there were purges, suppression campaigns, and land reforms that resulted in productivity losses.

But comparing that with a capitalist country that is a liberal democracy is hard. There are a lot of factors involved. Case in point: there was solid growth in China and the USSR. But we can’t make a direct comparison between them and the West. China and the USSR were playing catch up using technologies produced by capitalist countries. Take tractors, which immensely boosted productivity. Those were sourced from the West, at least initially.

They are WASPs for the most part, but the mentality behind WASPs is a dying breed so no one wants to date them anymore.

WASP = White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. It’s a reach, but it’s funny so I’ll give it to them.

I’ve had a positive experience overall. I have had the Pixel 2 and now 5 on Google Fi. It’s nice to have a phone that is close to stock Android. My bone to pick until the Pixel 6 was a short support life at just three years. Now it has security updates until five years, which is less than I would like but much more acceptable. When my phone’s security support life ends in October, I am planning on a new Pixel. I’ll still take a look at my other options, though.

Overall, I’ve been very impressed with the camera, including some very challenging lighting scenes. I have a few photos up on Wikipedia that are just me popping out my cell phone and taking a well framed shot.