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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 22nd, 2024

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  • At first glance, this all sounds positive, especially for users without an affinity for AI.

    However, time will tell whether the program will become less appealing if it turns out that the majority of Affinity users are not persuaded to sign up for a Canvas subscription for AI editing.

    Either certain tools and functions will disappear behind a paywall, or compatibility will be restricted by no longer allowing free import and export to certain file formats.



  • Usually I recommend using cobalt.tools for downloading either the video or the audio file. Unfortunately, cobalt.tools isn’t able to download from Youtube at the moment due to restrictions from Youtubes side.

    I found a workaround, albeit it is a bit complicated, but suitable for an occasional download: I installed FreeTube. Each video offers download options. However, if you want a better quality than 360p, it offers to download video and audio separately. Look for the highest quality. Both video and audio file can be merged using VLC player after downloading.

    After selecting the desired file(s) in FreeTube, you deternine where the files are to be saved, and then the download starts. There is no visual confirmation that the file is being downloaded. Eventually it appears on your computer. The download is slow, it takes almost the duration of the video that is to be downloaded.

    After downloading both the video and the audio file, open them in VLC. Follow one of the guides when searching for video audio merge vlc. You can also save the merged file.


  • That’s a Spotify Leak /s

    This reminds me of the old Apple Macbook chargers where the cable was permanently attached to the charger itself. These cables became brittle and discolored from white to yelloy (they looked like they have been in a heavy smokers’ household when exposed to UV light, which is always). When I tried to fix the brittle cables with tape, it got worse and probably due to a chemical reaction between the material of the cable and the sticky glue of the tape they completely disintegrated.

    Your headphones are beyond repair. It looks like they have been exposed to some chemicals. Did you at one point in time clean them with perhaps an aggressive cleaner (toilet/ household cleaner)? It could be possible that some cleaner got inside the cable through a micro-crack in the cables’ insulation and reacted with the copper inside.

    You should replace them. The ooze is probably not healthy.



  • Yes, all these email services want you to pay up for them. I think this is the price tag for privacy.

    I have switched to Mailbox org a couple of years ago. I had a freemail provider before that. Unfortunately, this providers’ data got leaked, and therefore I got pwned, luckily only resulting into a tsunami of spam. The entry-tier with Mailbox is 1 € per month (= 12 € per year) which is compareably cheap in my opinion. Of course, it depends on what features you desire - more features cost more money. They also offer a free trial for 30 days (but it is wise to start the free trial at the begin of a month, as far as I recall).

    The process of switching the email provider took me at least 6 months, where both the old and the new email adress have to exist simulatiously.

    If you need to register quickly to an online service, i can recommend Temp-Mail org. Its free, but you need to have the tab opened for the registration process, as all data (including the free temporary email adress) will be deleted once the tab is closed. I used this service to register with my home instance, because back then I didn’t want to expose my real email adress.





  • This is and was the current workaround. On my old phone I had to install an app for that because they decided that there is an up and down which didn’t allow for a 180° rotation.

    When held upside down the buttons on the side are misaligned to where the fingers and the thumb are placed. Thus, the volume up-and-down buttons are swapped, which is rather unintuitive.

    Before a smartphone holder for my car was handed down to me (I never bothered to buy one for myself) I placed my phone inside the cup holder located at where the shifter is. When the phone needed to be charged, it was not possible to have the phone oriented in the “normal” direction, as the phone would have stood on the charging cable resulting in damaging of the cable. For that reason I made use of the app that allowed me to rotate the phone, so that the charging port would have been on the upper side.


  • A phone with the charging port on the upper side instead of the bottom. This makes using the phone easier when it is being charged. Also, recessed camera lenses. Why do they have to stick out? When placing the phone on a surface, the camera lens cover will get scratches over time. If the phone was just one milimeter thicker, the cameras on the back wouldn’t stick out and one wouldn’t need a phone case, that adds to thickness anyway. It also would be nice if phone manufacturors would still have smaller screen sizes (max. 6") in their portfolio, as it is inconvenient to carry a larger phone in a pocket.


  • Apples eco system does have pretty good safety features. As far as I have heard, Apple is indeed not up to sell user data outside their eco system. However, they collect data from their users and use it for their own purposes. It is always a good advice to go through each setting (of phone as well as laptop) and evaluate if it is needed for functionality (e.g. location services or access for the camera or contacts). Not only will this measurement reduce the amount of (usually) unneccessary data that is being transmitted otherwise, but it will also improve battery life as well.


  • Do you mean iCloud Mail? I assume it is as secure as all the other iCloud services themselves. Personally, I don’t use iCloud (except for the “Find my” feature). But you can set up any third party Email service with the Apple’s Mail app. I use Mailbox.org as email provider and have it set up with the Mail app on my iPhone. It works flawlessly. Third party email providers often come with additional costs (the lowest tier with Mailbox.org was 12 € each year when I switched from a freemail provider a couple of years ago). I don’t know if iCloud Mail is free of charge, other than additional storage space.


  • I think with a sufficient wall-thickness your box would be waterproof. If I were you I would test it first by printing a small box like you described you would, and put a piece of paper with ink writing inside. Then submerge it into water for a few hours. After that, let it dry thoroughly and saw it open to see if the paper inside has gotten wet or the ink writing has been smeared/diluted.



  • HP printers are the avantgarde of enshittification when it comes to gadgets, although the earliest way I can think of selling a product similarly to a subscription is Gillette shavers. They basically sold a handle, and the first set of razor blades were free. After that one had to buy their proprietary and overpriced blades. HP managed to take this principle into the realm of peripheral devices.

    Nowadays other gadgets have been “inspired” by HP in therms of enshittification. For instance, there are headphones that require an app to be set up properly, as the manufactorer can save implementing a physical button and can get tracking data form the user.

    The sticker on the USB port is just another (physical) dark pattern.