One of the cofounders of partizle.com, a Lemmy instance primarily for nerds and techies.

Into Python, travel, computers, craft beer, whatever

  • 5 Posts
  • 79 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • Well, that’s always been the case with Skid Row, though it might be debatable which came first – the homeless encampments or the aid agencies. And for that matter, there were Hoovervilles in the Great Depression. In any city in America, there are transients milling around the shelters, which is why there’s so much NIMBYism over developing new shelters.

    But what’s going on in California probably has more to do with the fact that LA and San Francisco tend to be very tolerant of the homeless encampments and provide generous aid, thus inducing demand. The homeless population is soaring across America for various reasons, but California is a desirable place to be homeless: better aid, better climate, softer police, etc.

    Maybe California’s big cities really are more humane and generous, but at this point it’s to the detriment of livability in those places.


  • It sort of depends on where you are, but in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the homeless problem is noticeably worse than almost anywhere else in America. It’s bad.

    An ex of mine lives in a pretty posh part of LA (Crestview). She works constantly and really hard to afford to live there. Now there are people literally shooting heroin on the street outside her home and to take her toddler to play at the park, they’re basically walking around the bodies of people high/sleeping.

    I mean, I’m as anti-drug war as they come, but that’s no way to live and the police really should clear it out. Even in the poorer parts of most other cities, that’s not something you see.











  • I’m tempted to say it’s better, but, unfortunately, in many ways it’s not.

    What Reddit had, most of the time, was semi-canonical communities. There was /r/python, /r/linux, /r/privacy, etc. The diaspora of Lemmy is a shadow of all of that. Surely, there are a dozen or so (at least) /c/python communities on Lemmy, but is there a single one that’s anywhere near as active as the Reddit one? No. Not so far, at least.

    And unfortunately, I can say as an instance admin, the lemmy moderation tools are just flat bad. We had to turn off open registration and enable email verification, not because we would otherwise need it, but the Lemmy moderation tools are 100% reactive and only operate on a 1-by-1 basis. If a spambot signs up 100 fake accounts, I have to go and individually ban each and every one of them. There’s no shift+select, ban.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m glad to be here, and Lemmy’s great, and there’s far less toxicity (so far). All I’m saying is, (1) there’s work to do, (2) don’t gloat.








  • The maximum a phone will ever last is probably ~10 years, because that’s about how often 2g, 3g, lasted. By then it certainly isn’t getting any software updates and on the Android side, security updates won’t even last 5.

    So the maximum lifespan of a phone is, reasonably, 5 years.

    During that time, if you use and abuse the battery, you might go through 2 batteries, which you can have serviced.

    So I’d say it’s more akin to a timing chain that’s a pain in the ass to replace. Most car owners would not try to replace a timing belt, much less a timing chain.


  • As long as they’re reasonably replaceable, I don’t see it as a big issue for longevity. I’d rather have a bigger battery (less plastic casing), wireless charging w/ magsafe, better water resistance, etc.

    If the battery is toast 3 years in, I can just replace it, which I’ve done on other devices (including my last Pixel). It’s not much more inconvenient than taking a car in for an oil change. Besides, on my 18 month old phone, capacity is at 95%. These days batteries often last as long as you’ll need them.

    I see the much bigger longevity issue on the software side. Many phones (especially budget ones) only get 1 major OS upgrade and very infrequent security upgrades.


  • I don’t really see the benefit anymore. My current device lasts ~40 hours on a charge, so I seldom find the need to swap anything out. Even if I did, those little USB battery packs that charge multiple devices are more practical. On a long flight, my wife and I just share one and it works on the Switch and tablet too.

    Sealed devices have way better water resistance, less plastic makes the batteries themselves bigger, and wireless charging (especially with magnets) will be challenging to add to a battery that’s also the back cover.

    I’m sure I’ll be in the minority on this, but, I don’t really have any interest in a removable battery, especially if it involves other compromises on size, capacity, and features.