gru:Bz
Average millennial living life on the edge (of the Midwest)
Recurring Strangers
So far, I’ve lived most of my life in a small town. My graduating class was about 120 people; it’s definitely one of those communities where everyone knows everyone else. It’s the kind of place where you feel like you’re in a decent sized city for about five minutes and then, next thing you know, you’re completely surrounded by cornfields and it feels like you’re about to star in the reality TV adaptation of Deliverance...
Power-sucking GenAI also set to create mountain of e-waste
The study…indicates potential for rapid growth of e-waste from 2.6 kilotons each year in 2023 to between 400 kilotons and 2.5 million tons each year in 2030, when no waste reduction measures are considered.
AI can do some really amazing things but do its benefits outweigh 2.5 million tons of waste per year?
I Don’t Know Why Women Keep Laughing at Me When I’m Out Driving my Tesla Cybertruck
I was taking a right turn out of a convenience store driveway the other day, waiting for the traffic to go by, and noticed the driver, a female, was apparently laughing hysterically at my truck…Then today, I was at a four-way stop, and a guy in a Nissan Titan/Toyota Tundra or something smiled and then chuckled like: “What a tool.”
Hmmm I can’t think of any reasons someone would mock you for driving a sheet metal polygon that costs as much as a house and can’t survive an automatic car wash 😆
We can Terraform the American West – Casey Handmer’s blog
I like this. Terraform Earth before we terraform Mars.
I’ve had AppleCare on this iPhone for almost a year and haven’t had to use it. I think it’s time to get my money’s worth and stop using a case
The fediverse is getting its own TikTok competitor called Loops
Loops…was developed by Daniel Supernault, who also created the federated Instagram rival Pixelfed. In fact, Loops will run under the Pixelfed project, according to an FAQ on its website.
This looks pretty cool! I registered an account and now I’m just waiting for the welcome email to come through. I wonder how it will hold up to TikTok. I think it’ll be difficult to pull in creators without any way to monetize, but then again look at everyone here who blogs every day just for fun. It might just be crazy enough to work
Haven’t seen a customer all day. I just ordered some lunch so I’m sure I’ll get busy as soon as I sit down to eat. I think this is what they mean by “you have to spend money to make money”
Disposable vapes to be banned in England and Wales from June
Single-use vapes are difficult to recycle and typically end up in landfill, where their batteries can leak harmful waste like battery acid, lithium, and mercury into the environment, the government said.
This is my biggest concern with disposable vapes. I use one daily, so I’m definitely a hypocrite here. One vape store out of dozens near me has a drop box for used ones and I always dump my old ones off there, but I still have to wonder whether or not they’re actually recycling them.
Any time I see bright but subtle gradients in web design it gives me flashbacks of sticking a magnet to an old CRT monitor
A Quarter of Smartphone Owners Are Unimpressed by AI
The biggest motivation for US adult smartphone owners to upgrade their devices is longer battery life (61%), followed by more storage (46%) and better camera features (38%). Just 18% say their main motivator is AI integrations.
AI can do some really cool stuff but I’d much rather have a battery I don’t have to charge three times a day. One that doesn’t go to 85% capacity after a few months, maybe. It totally works in device manufacturer’s favor though. Something with onboard AI is probably going to suck down a lot more power, run hotter and wear out quicker, so you’ll still purchase an upgrade in a year or two. Don’t upgrade because you want to, upgrade because you have to.
Take two: giving Kagi another shot
You ever publish something in the middle of the night when it’s nowhere close to ready?
Yeah, haha me neither 🥴
The amount of claims labeled satire that snopes.com even has to publish really puts the state of big social media into perspective
iOS 18.2 will let everyone set new default phone and messaging apps
…a note on Apple’s developer website states that all users worldwide can set new default apps for calling and messaging in iOS 18.2
But the big stuff, like support for alternative app stores and browser engines, has mostly been confined to the EU.
I wish they’d support other browser engines in the US already. The only thing I miss about Android was that you could actually use Firefox. Like actual Firefox, with extensions. Imagine if Google limited everyone to re-skinned versions of Chrome on every Android device.
We need each other
People, I mean.
I’ve always considered myself a bit of a loner. Definitely an introvert; I love hanging out with friends but I love coming home and decompressing while watching some TV or spinning a few records even more. My nights of staying at the bar until 2am and passing out at a buddy’s house are long behind me.
Recurring Strangers
Starting out on Micro.blog after using regular social media for years is like going through digital detox. At first it’s quiet and feels pointless because you aren’t getting internet points, then next thing you know you’re annoyed that you can’t turn all of that stuff off everywhere else.
I know LLMs hallucinate but Google’s AI is straight up Hallucination as a Service 😆
Mini rant about Meta, staying in touch
It’s annoying that Facebook is the only way for anyone to get in touch with extended family or old friends. Idk of any other platform where literally everyone has an account.
I log into the mobile web version every few weeks and it notifies me of new messages but then it makes me install Messenger to even see who it was. Then I catch up, uninstall it and reinstall it in another month or so.
I wish there was a less shitty platform for staying in touch. Or at least some kind of open protocol that can talk to stuff like Messenger but isn’t tied to any single huge mega corporation.
‘Jersey Shore’ Airs as ‘Macaroni Rascals’ in Japan? | Snopes.com
The Japanese translation of “Jersey Shore” is more nuanced than the meme suggests, but the core of the claim holds up. When the Japanese title, “マカロニ野郎のニュージャージーライフ,” is translated to English using Google Translate, it can be read as, “Macaroni Guy’s New Jersey Life.”
However, when that same title is translated using the Cambridge Dictionary Translator, it reads “Macaroni Bastards' New Jersey Life.”
I love Japan 😆