there’s literally no reason to buy a smart TV so long as TVs have multiple Hdmi inputs

Stop tempting them. I’m already down to 2 HDMIs on most of the TVs I’ve touched in the last decade. Some 3, one with 4. That’s anything from a cheap 32"Roku to a high end LG LED 70". I expect to find a 1xHDMI soon enough.

Fortnite Save the World (paid game mode) made a lot of vbucks originally, but the high-payout challenges (300 vbucks/day) are only available to players who owned that mode prior to some time in 2020. Buying STW now gives a one time pack of 1500 vbucks. So the alternative, given that the vast majority of players didn’t buy the game, play for free in Bottle Royale. It takes 4 seasons to gain enough free vbucks in battle Royale to have enough to buy a season pass. It’s 1000 for the pass and typically has 300 free vbucks (100 near the bottom, 200 around level 80). So then you’re talking like 40 hours of play per season, with strong encouragement to play daily for an easy +1 level. The actual skins are typically paywalled behind the battle pass.

Then there’s the shop. Buying separate skins are anywhere from like 500 to 2000 vbucks. If it’s a full season, there’s probably an extra 500 vbucks available if you hit level 150 or so. So now like 60 hours every 2-3 months to get the free 500 to accumulate after the battle pass renewal.

That’s not sustainable. It’s not supposed to be. Skins are nowhere near “affordable” with free bucks. They don’t care if it’s your money or your game time that makes the vbucks because it’s time and/or money taken from other games. So what if it’s their limited money? What exactly did you invest in as a kid? All I put it towards was, effectively, entertainment that didn’t last longer as a skin, be it a game, a toy, or candy. Maybe even less, given that fortnite has been running for what, 9 years?

And no, I really don’t give a shit about any complaints about them just being cosmetic skins. They’re kids. I’m sure you had your brand name demands when you were 12. It’s the same shit. Vans are just shoes. Mongoose is just a bicycle. Air jordans are just shoes. JNCO is just pants. Air Forces are just shoes. Louisville slugger is just a bat. Whatever must-have item it was, it didn’t make either of us professionals at the game or sport. Yet, somehow, it still was the most important thing that week.

“Unfortunately, AI models are neither smarter nor more sympathetic than the average 4chan user. They’re about as susceptible to astroturfing operations, too”

I can’t believe this product, modeled after humans, would lie and cheat like humans

One of the proposed ideas in a Discord-based thread was to use OS-level age authentication to prevent you from having to provide IDs to a thousand other parties. One place, one time. So that’s one reason for an OS to need it, in a world hellbent on increasing age restrictions. I don’t know enough about that idea to argue it, though I’m certain it could be spoofed in 0.2 seconds after release.

It sounded like the EU solution is a dedicated, non-identifying birth date tag in their passports.

But what do I know. I assume all age restrictions can be circumvented, so I see no point in all this theater. And it’s theater because it never really seems to truly be about protecting children. At least, to me, I’d be more concerned about SFW manosphere bullshit than NSFW porn when it comes to protecting kids (yes, I’m well aware a great deal of porn is misogynistic, degrading, abusive, etc)

I’m thinking it’s about consistency. 10kts 10% of the time vs average 150kts 100% of the time (the math is a little off but we’re in hypothetical estimates already)

Did they build it though? Sounds like vibe-coding to me

For all my gripes with AI/LLM and stolen valor-type misrepresentation, I’m not going to put too many asterisks on someone’s personal project. Especially when it exposes shady corporate practice. It doesn’t seem like they were professionally hired to create this app. There’s plenty of tinkerers I follow that phone a friend to get a project back on track.

But I have no idea what his day job is, being an AI Strategist

I feel like we’re the only ones that expect “all-knowing information sources” should be more writing seriously than these edgelord-level rizzy chatbots are, and yet, here they are, blatantly proving they are chatbots that should not be blindly trusted as authoritative sources of knowledge.

My closest examples are banded to existing street light poles with some ~12ga stainless hose clamps, maybe 10ft up. Private parking lot security. I’m guessing your example (like the thumbnail?) is the choice for a town police dept or housing dev that can’t attach to street lights

Its not unreasonable for an anti-crime camera manufacturer to expect criminals to paint cameras. It’s a movie trope. But anyway, sure would be nice to see some compilation of attack attempts to see what sticks

I doubt the lenses are glass, which means the solvents in spray paint will be, effectively, impossible to clean off without damaging the lens in the process. I doubt they have a maintenance team with such finesse as opposed to one that just replaces the device, just every other US support service.

I’m not in IT and only have tangential knowledge, but I would think something like corporate internet control would work for this. I know my company has blanket access restrictions with the ability to modify them on an individual basis. But I haven’t the slightest idea how to implement that. I think all of my company device data goes through a tunnel.

I guess I’m out of date. Not sure if the meme outlasted the delays or if it just got buried in the politics. I continue to despise the lack of non-visual sensors to actually give it an advantage over human vision.

100 million Americans are screaming Elon/Tesla is a business to avoid at all costs. 100 million Americans are screaming that EVs are a vehicle type to avoid at all costs. 100 million Americans do not scream, do not post, and do not have any higher opinion about the cars beyond being cool, cheap to fuel, or quiet.

Destination to destination? Stop signs, residential corners, merges, and blind mountain corners? In fog and road spray?

Or leasing

I just learned HGTV has a Jan 7 2026 show called “Neighborhood Watch”. It’s like America’s Funniest Home Videos, but it’s all doorbell/security cameras. User-submitted, I think. I absolutely refuse to believe this was a casual idea from HGTV as they struggle to maintain viewership. There’s no way this isn’t funded by one of these companies, meant to continue making everyone comfortable with constant surveillance and increasing the desire to have constant recording devices to catch these one-off comedic moments.

Tagline: “Everywhere you go, cameras are recording. Your neighbors are watching.”

You didn’t get your SSN converted to SSID with the microchip Moderna mRNA vax?

My progressive-but-detached friends have suddenly noticed how creepy the services are. Not sure if it’s enough to get them to cancel whatever they have, but the combo of “Ring wants constant access” and “Google handed over inaccessible data” has at least gotten them to question their privacy.

Can’t speak for conservatives because I don’t have any of those left in my circle.

My dad rips his name out of junk mail and shreds it. He doesn’t want his name tied to his address, which is ironic in the first place, given that he’s already getting junk mail. He’s been worried about hiding his identity, address, cars, etc from some unknown surveillance entity based around Red Scare beliefs. Still, a few steps short of foil hat types.

Then he went and got cloud-based cameras. He’s clueless about smartphone privacy already. He resembles his friends in his cohort. They protested “leftist government surveillance” and then showed me that they’d will invite mystery surveillance in with the slightest promise of convenience.