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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 3rd, 2023

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  • I think people need to stop asking why didn’t people vote for Harris and as why DID people vote for Trump.

    I think everyone on the whole, is completely underestimating the completely apathetic to politics voter. There is a TREMENDOUS section of the population that would sway from Trump if they felt energized to do so. Kamala was not it. Her policies were not it. Her stance alone on Gaza was not enough (but should not be dismissed).

    People voted for trump because they: are a huge supporter, or they felt they had a fatter wallet during his administration. They feel burned by Biden and Kamala is more of the same. Democrats have no one to blame but themselves.

    Biden shouldn’t have even run, no one wanted it. He even said he’d be a transitional president. Then he backed out and Democrats held no primary. Why would any apathetic voter (especially the ones who were unaware Biden dropped out, check google trends) vote for the guy who made their bank accounts smaller if that’s all they care about?

    I voted for Harris but not without reservations. The democrats do nothing to resonate with the left, and continue to distance themselves from leftist policies, which were popular on ballot measures this election.



  • Aim lower.

    It sounds shitty but there’s merit. Think of it like an RPG, where you grind on low level fodder until you have enough confidence to land where you really want. Also, you may find that people who you’ve generally considered “unattractive “ in the past are actually really great because they’re genuinely decent people.

    Bag a few 2 or 3 girls (by your standards) so you feel confident and good enough about yourself that you’re not in a pit of despair.

    I also noticed is that when you really stop trying, that’s when things tend to happen. Like you have to consciously stop trying. People can smell the desperation and effort a mile away. Confidence is sexy because it comes off as effortless.




  • I have Sonos and it is meh. They just issued an apology in the app for how bad their app got, so I can’t really recommend it.

    I keep seeing good reviews about Audio Pro. I don’t know too much about them, but they seem to have the same idea of multi-room audio.

    Self hosting is the big caveat. There’s a lot of great software options, but the hardware can get to be a bit limiting if you don’t wanna play with common protocols like AirPlay or Chromecast.

    Additionally, you could do a Denon or Marantz receiver or Soundbar with multi zone and cover at least 2 spaces wired and add wireless zones via their Heos protocol.

    There’s also HomePod, Alexa, or even Bluetooth speakers like the UE Boom or JBL series that you can daisy chain Bluetooth speakers together. No real soundbar solution with this option. Ironically JBL Soundbars don’t communicate with their Bluetoo speakers.

    Audio Engine makes some fine speakers that support WiFi or Bluetooth and all they need is power.

    Kef has the incredible but pricey LS series of bookshelf and tower speakers. They are independently powered and support all kinds of wireless protocols including AirPlay.

    There are a ton of audio solutions nowadays but a lot of them will still require either a wire somewhere or playing with standardized protocols.

    I too wish there were a more “self hosted” options. It seems like sooner or later some more viable options will come to light though.





  • I have found enthusiast forums and believe it or not YouTube videos to be helpful.

    Now with YouTube reviews, you gotta be a bit discerning. Try to follow personalities who have a lot of experience reviewing or have pretty stringent review measures. For example:

    For any kind of home entertainment information I usually go to Chris Majestic and anyone he works with because he has pretty helpful measurements of how he qualifies products features.

    Reddit has become a wasteland. It’s getting more difficult to find human content on the internet.



  • I’m enjoying Lemmy as a content feed. As an interactive board though not as much. Finding things and rembering where content is can be confusing. Its definitely not as easy or user friendly as other sites/apps. Getting IRL friends to join feels like an impossible task unless they’re pretty interested in tech.

    That said you get what you give and if we want to see more content, we should all interact more.



  • I’m coming across this post after reading an article about how Netflix is bathing in money and now making their options worse for customers, how the most wheel of a Boeing 757 fell off, and a how a country has been so free of criticism for decades that they’re able to commit genocide for over 3 months.

    I’m having a hard time seeing hope in our future. Every company operates solely to extract as much profit as humanly possible (and not as Artificialally Intelligently as possible) without considering for a single moment how a decision they make may effect their relationship with customers or the quality of their product. I know companies are in it to make money, but they used to at least correct decisions in the face of public outcry. (Hell Microsoft did an about face on Xbox One features in 2013 after public outcry)

    But things seem different now. Since the pandemic and the overall regard for human life went up, companies almost feel vindictive and emboldened to do even more to fuck customers over. Its almost like they’re holding a grudge over consumers for considering anything in life over their spending habits from March 2020 - September 2021. After all, the biggest push to “return to normal” was to get the economy back on track. I’ll never forget some asshole on a fox news segment saying “We gotta return to normal people. Yes some people will die, but grandma would sacrifice herself for the economy.” That’s when I lost all hope of things getting better.

    We’ve had the chance many times to change the way we act as a species and potentially make the world better, but somehow we always fail to do so. We’re just fucked.



  • This used to be true, but unfortunately, like USB-C the game has changed completely.

    The downside to standardization is that if you keep the same physical form for multiple iterations, the internals can change. The specs of the source and receiving ends have gone through tons of changes since 2015 and old HDMI 1.4 Cables don’t have the same standards to transmit high speed signals from things like PS5, Xbox, Apple TV etc.

    Additionally because they require programming and HDCP (a verification handshake between the 2 devices it connects) when companies cheap out they may not properly program them.

    That being said, you don’t need spend an arm and a leg, but don’t get shit either. Generally speaking, buy the cheapest version HDMI 2.1 from a reputable brand or vendor. Definitely not from Amazon anymore, a TON of products labeled 2.1 are actually 2.0 or worse, 1.4.