I’ve often wondered if the authorities would care about a community run FOSS plate scanner network that publicly advertised the location of all government vehicles. I mean, it’s public data, right? A nice web front end with built in pattern detection shouldn’t be too bad. Plate scanners can be built with Raspberry Pi’s, so it’s fairly cheap commodity hardware. You’d need a good number though. Coupled with additional hardware, you could put them on cars as well I suppose.

Fwiw, this article says the name of the app is Clue. As a dude, I have no need of such an app, but as a security minded individual, will encourage my female friends to use it if needed and hope the developers continue to have security in mind.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has blocked a bill in the state that would have banned law enforcement from enforcing search warrants for menstrual data stored in tracking apps on mobile phones or other electronic devices,

And as a Virginian, I will once again vote against the enemy of security and privacy: Glenn Youngkin.

Once you set it up, it’s fairly low maintenance. I’ve got one setup at my parents house with a cron job set to auto update blocking lists and software. The hardest part is finding the right combo of lists that block everything you don’t want but allow what you do.

The Pi it’s on also has plenty of power for a vpn server as well so I can hop into their network when they have issues or to do data syncing.

And yeah, I’ve brought it up with security and they’re thinking about network level blocking. They don’t like browser plugins that basically need access to inspect content on every single web page you crawl. Who knows what data might leak.

It’s on YouTube, broadcast tv, and I unfortunately can’t run adblockers at my job. At home I’ve got a pihole that works wonders. It’s amazing how horrible things are when I’m not behind it.

Cool, can I stop seeing commercials for it now? My God the media blitz is everywhere!

I think you missed (or ignored I suppose) part of his statement that data caps can reduce overall (across multiple subscribers in an area) used simultaneous bandwidth. People say “I can pull 1Gbit/sec, but I know I’ll hit my cap if I do that perpetually, so I’ll just do short bursts here and there when I need it”. This puts people in the mindset not to push their max data speeds all day/month long. Doing so reduces the possibility that everyone in an area (likely using the same data backbone) will ask for all their speed at the same time. This means that the backbone can be smaller and support a higher number of subscribers.

I completely agree on not having much choice though. And thats really what needs to change in many places.

You used to be able to resell your PC games too, back in the day.

Why can’t PC games also come on discs? The last one I had the option to buy on disc I remember was Skyrim. When I put the disc in, it launched steam, connected my purchase to my account, and steam did the remainder of the install over the network. Turns out, it didn’t really have anything useful on disc.

I’ve had properly stored, professionally pressed, official DVD and CDROM’s suffer bit rot, become in playable and in one case explode into shards in my DVD-ROM drive. And it didn’t take decades, most were <7 years old. Don’t be so sure you have decades.

blasting my cargo into space

Well, that’s one way to put it, ‘eh?

The problem is that people won’t move until their audience there and their audience won’t move until they are there.

And mastodon is a bit less straightforward compared to old Twitter.

I bought this months ago right after update 5. Figured I’d get my $20 out of it and move on… now that I’m over 100hrs, they throw this out and I’m back in there making aqua ducts.

Not to mention they opened it up to modding and custom maps, this update added quite a bit. If you like city building management sims this is a must play. I’ve honestly played more of it than City Skylines. Just struck a chord with me.

There’s insufficient surge or Mtn Dew in this picture, it’s got to be a photoshop.

Does gog have Forbidden West yet?

They don’t have asmany sales, but I’ve definitely scored some good prices on games here and there. They often run 20+% off on first party titles and non-first party gets deep discounts (I scored Rabbids for $4 a while back). I just wish they’d do the equivalent of PS Greatest Hits for like $20.

For some situations a console is nicer than a PC. Solid, consistent, single unit I can just connect to a TV and play. I’ve got a PC and I prefer it, but the average console is cheaper than my PC was and simpler for non-geek family members to boot up and play on a whim.

Enter Nintendo. Crappy 9yo SOC, sure, whatever, here are some fun games that aren’t graphically advanced.

July 2024, just barely outside of 10yrs ago.

I would argue that buying a $10-20 usb Bluetooth adapter is much preferred to giving my info and data and privacy away to Meta. Not to mention the other things you can use it for.

Personally I’m really glad Sony went with Bluetooth over some sort of proprietary tech.

As someone who tossed 1k hrs into PC1, and half that into Planet Zoo, I’m pretty stoked about this announcement. Everyone asked for Planet Waterpark, so now we get both in one package. Hopefully they’ve been able to address some of the pain points of the first one and add in what was learned from Planet Zoo and make a polished result here, but time will tell.

Also, hoping they continue the history of having solid soundtracks!

Most people… I mean, the one I use is just an RSS feed aggregator. But in the age of smartphones, people just get an app from their favorite sources and never check others it seems.

You can (and I have) play PS4 games on PS5.

First thing I did when I got the PS5 was buy a bunch of cheap used PS4 games for it.