Reminds me of how Germans still have this image of America being full of cowboys with six shooters on their hips.

Fellow 'muricans: if you ever get a visitor from Germany, take them to a Wild West reenactment. They will NEVER forget.

Fair enough. American bread is a step above styrofoam.

I liked San Andreas, but, for me personally, Vice City will always be peak GTA because of the story and atmosphere. Four was the last good GTA and I really liked the “weighty” vehicle handling while V was playable, but notably worse. I’ve had zero real interest in VI, especially with what gaming has become.

Seriously, for that price you could eat real foodlike substances, perhaps even something that was in the ground more recently than it was in a factory.

Gotta disagree with the “no one will pay for it” part of your comment though. People can’t get enough of anything that’s bad for them! Most of them will sit there in their micro plastic shedding clothes, not getting exercise, under a UV light, smoking a cigarette while drinking alcohol and downing Tylenol and Advil by the bottle, while blasting their eyeballs with blue light and huffing VOCs before they ever touch a raddish.

My local library has some large format scanners. I’ve considered using them to do my photo albums. I have the individual photos scanned and backed up, but the layout and margin notes are worth preserving also.

I’ve been driving different routes as much as possible. One day this way, one day that way, once by bike, once by car, once on foot, sometimes making stops, sometimes going nonstop. Yeah, there’s still patterns, but I’m not beholden to them and at this point I know alternative routes as well as a London cab driver and I’ve found cool new parks, restaurants, etc.

Yup, violent crime has been dropping for decades and not an insignificant drop. We did not need mass surveillance, we did not want mass surveillance, nor do we want it now.

That’s why it’s important to go to your city/town council meetings and put the brakes on data centers. Cameras are much less effective if the infrastructure to transmit, process, and store their feeds can’t be built out. Vote out and recall anyone who is supportive. End privatization of utilities so we can yank their electricity too.

“Don’t forget to bring a towel!” - Towlie

I was driving a newer Skoda on vacation last winter and the windshield started fogging up as I was passing through a narrow little village in blowing rain bordering on snow. In my car at home (and probably most of the cars ever made) there are three knobs to control the heat which can be operated by purely tactile means. In this particular car, I had to go through pages of menus with no tactile feedback on the touchscreen while driving. I was only seconds away from having to stick my head out the window and limp it to the next safe stopping spot. I am glad it didn’t happen on the motorway at 140km/h. Who thought this was smart? The only modern car I drove that didn’t suck was a Mazda with their multi-axis joystick and physical climate controls. The touch screen disables at speed and the tactile joystick is a comparative delight. The display sticks out of the top of the dash so when you are looking at it you can still see the road beyond it.

My partner and I test drove a Honda with no volume knob. You have to use the touch screen. Wtf? I am so glad we didn’t buy that car. I now have two base model standard transmission cars, mid-2010s, neither of which suck and both of which are in good condition. Never gonna trade these cars in. Not even for a Bentley!

We’re gonna bring wire rims back in style!

Rebecca Black - Friday

Someone could deploy devices that clone signals they hear and replay them at random to poison all the data. But they definitely should not do that.

Yeah, perhaps they’ll start bundling network play time with the game and we won’t have a choice aside from playing our existing games.

Another 500% and I’ll be recording my ram along with my other retirement assets.

Yeah, I put 96GB of DDR4 in a PC just before prices went wild and my only regret is that I didn’t also do my server. Garage sales have been interesting this summer. Always hoping to find old PCs or TiVo devices so I can grab the hard drives and/or ram.

Yeah, I love that this sort of thing is an option now. I do 80% on my ebike and 90% on my phone. Hopefully that will prolong the life of two of most frequently used gadgets.

True. Starting with a fresh install can be more of a performance boost than buying a new drive. Add them together though and your computer is going to feel like future tech. I’d also just reinstall, unless its a server or a pain to rebuild.

Agreed on the exclusivity thing. Matching apps could be a big benefit. I don’t read across devices (or if I do, it is for different books), but I want to give cross-device syncing a try once I get my Calibre library all fixed up.

Good point on the AMOLED. I actually like the different UI. It keeps me zoned into my book and zoned out of Android.