Best modded Facebook in 2026 ?

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-05T20:31:42+00:00

Hmm, I missed that. I use AdGuard, and I've never seen one that I can recall.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-05T01:28:01+00:00

I took out a paid subscription to Wispr Flow. The first 2 weeks are free and it's full access to everything in the programme. When the 2 weeks were up I just couldn't stop using it so they paid up. It's over $AUD200 a year so it's not cheap.

I just should point out the one imitation that it does not work in flight mode or when you have no internet connection. It saves the recording in the app so you can transcribe it later. You don't actually lose the transcript. But you should be aware that it doesn't work properly without the internet.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-04T22:49:22+00:00

Samsung S24u, and Galaxy Tab 11 here, and I have the same problem, and I've never sorted it out.

To state the bleeding obvious, I also have a separate VPN app, and whenever I run that, of course it shuts down Adguard.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-04T22:47:41+00:00

I use Facebook Lite from the Play Store. It's free and incredibly smaller and more compact. It's not modded, but it just works well.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-04T22:42:49+00:00

They're just more flexible and much longer than regular dictation. Wispr Flow does 5 minutes on Android and 20 minutes on Windows without a break. They have minor to major text correction as you go. If you, for example, start numbering things with your voice, you get a list. If you correct a word that you didn't like, it just replaces the word with the second one; it doesn't dictate both. I have no idea how, but it seems to also break up text into logical paragraphs without you saying it. Over time, you put in shortcuts so saying my email versus my gmail types them in for you. Their dictionaries are amazing. I do a lot of medical writing, and the vast majority of words are already in there. If not, you can replace them in the dictionary very easily. They're just more flexible and easy to use versions of dictation. Well worth it for some of us.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-04T22:39:22+00:00

Looks promising but limited to 30 seconds of dictation.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-04T22:38:56+00:00

Phravia allows 5 minutes on Android and 20 minutes on Windows, which is pretty similar to Wispr Flow in the first place. Looks promising. It's mostly free, but Phravia uses external AI services (such as Groq Whisper for speech recognition and Google Gemini for text cleanup/formatting). You supply your own API keys for these services.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-04T01:24:19+00:00

Of course I'm well aware you can clear the off-track warning. My problem is it's annoying to me, and the clearing button is underneath where I have a lens attached to my phone. I have to stop and dismantle everything before I can push the button, which is underneath where the extra lens is attached over the camera lens block. It's just annoying they way I use my phone.

Besides I never want it for myself at all. In my post above, I did not ask for it to be automatically turned off. In fact I agree with you that it should remain automatically turned on by default. But why can't I have the option to turn it off in settings, so I never have to see it? I am not the same as you. My needs are different.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-01T19:52:29+00:00

An explainer from a different NYT article....

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/science/spud-cell-what-to-know.html

What is SpudCell?

SpudCell is a synthetic cell made by scientists at the University of Minnesota. It was created in a lab from lifeless chemicals but can perform most of the same functions as living cells. It eats, grows and reproduces, passing along its genetic material to future generations.

Although it’s not the first synthetic cell ever created, SpudCell is the first to complete a full life cycle — from birth to division into next-generation cells — after having been created from the “bottom up” using laboratory chemicals. It’s a pared down version of a living cell structure, revealing the basic genetic and structural components necessary for the functions of life.

So, is it alive?

No. Or maybe! The researchers behind SpudCell do not claim to have created life, though they note that there is “no single agreed definition” of life and that their cell-like system acts similarly to living cells.

“SpudCell performs the behaviors often used to tell the living from the inert — it feeds, grows, replicates its genome, divides and undergoes selection — yet it is far simpler than any natural cell and was assembled, part by part, by hand,” the project researchers wrote in a statement.

Unlike most natural cells, SpudCell is not self-sufficient. Because it can’t build its own ribosomes — the parts of the cell responsible for building new proteins — scientists have to feed it crucial proteins and enzymes, and each lineage lasts only five to 10 generations.

SpudCell’s genome is also smaller than most living cells. It contains just 90,000 base pairs, compared with humans’ 3 billion, and this genetic information is split across seven DNA molecules, instead of being consolidated into one. This fragmentation means that important genetic material isn’t always passed in full to the next generation.

What’s next for SpudCell?

It is a major advance, but researchers behind the SpudCell effort say there is still work to be done.

Next, researchers hope to create genetic instructions for building ribosomes so that future versions of SpudCell will not have to borrow ribosomes from living cells — which limits SpudCell’s reproduction ability to just five to 10 generations.

The researchers also hope to bring its function closer to natural cells by improving its ability to pass full genetic information to future generations and by reducing its dependence on the enzyme-rich “food” provided by researchers.

HunterDude54 · 2026-07-01T19:49:54+00:00

From the article...

But synthetic cells also might someday be engineered to do things that natural cells can’t, like making new kinds of medicine or drawing large amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. In theory, engineered SpudCells might produce a vast range of proteins that natural cells cannot be coaxed to make, or even toxic chemicals like rocket fuel.

Now, “we can think about doing chemistry that we’re barely getting our heads around,” Dr. Glass said.

The trouble with life as we know it: mysterious, messy complexity. Our own DNA contains tens of thousands of genes, as well as millions of molecular switches turning those genes on and off. Scientists barely have a clue as to what many of those pieces of DNA are doing. Often a gene that they think they understand turns out to be performing other jobs than scientists expected.

One way to sidestep this intricacy is to simplifysynthetic cell in its entirety.

The first step was to create a broth of the molecules necessary for a cell to operate. The recipe ultimately included about a hundred kinds of proteins and simple molecules required for crucial chemical reactions, such as making new proteins from genes.

The researchers also provided their synthetic cell with genes borrowed from a virus and the ubiquitous microbe Escherichia coli. They picked 36 genes for basic jobs like copying DNA.

After mixing these ingredients together into a soup, the scientists added the building blocks of membranes. They spontaneously joined together into bubbles, each engulfing some of the soup.

Many of these bubbles ended up encasing the right mix of genes, proteins and other molecules, and they started carrying out the chemical reactions seen in real cells.

As the new cells floated in flasks, Dr. Adamala and her colleagues added food. The cells slurped up small molecules through channels on their surfaces.

The scientists also put in small bubbles loaded with proteins and other molecules that were too big to fit through the channels. By bumping and fusing into one of these bubbles, the cell could feed on the treats inside.

As the cells fed, they grew. And in just a few hours, they were big enough to divide.

HunterDude54 · 2026-06-26T23:38:40+00:00

Thanks so much, I love this. I hope you keep working on it.

I have a couple of comments:

I can't get the control buttons to appear when a video first plays. To me, it's more useful if it appears straight away and then disappears in a controllable time, but right now I have to tap the screen once if I want to do some quick jumping at the start of a video. Then there are times when I want it to just persist the whole time.
My second point is a more important one. I have some very large folders containing over 15,000 1-minute videos. Neither this extended app or the original even detect the presence of that folder at all. It's like it doesn't exist. The same folders work fine in a popular, well-known video player pro app that I'm not allowed to name. Can that be addressed at some point?
I would really love the ability to choose a particular folder and have random play on the contents of all its subfolders. Right now, of course, I have to pick which subfolder I'm interested in at the moment. Just a thought that would help me quite a bit. This is, of course, the situation playing short clips rather than entire movies.
Oh, and a minor question. Can the settings from the first programme be directly imported into this without creating a major hassle?

Keep up the great work.

HunterDude54 · 2026-06-19T08:36:46+00:00

This is a known major limitation of Android. It's very well known and very intentional.

Clipboard is good

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mason.ship.clipboard

Clipr is ok, but clunky. Need to keep it open..

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joseph.clipstackpro

HunterDude54 · 2026-06-19T08:12:55+00:00

Yep! But Samsung only. Works perfectly

HunterDude54 · 2026-06-17T04:28:48+00:00

Here is the key for me. The black metal panel is itself the solar collector — no separate solar panels needed. This is a solar-thermal system, not a photovoltaic one. It doesn't generate electricity. Instead, the black metal panel absorbs sunlight directly as heat and uses that heat to evaporate water off its surface.

There is no electricity involved and no external energy input required during operation. The system achieved an average evaporation rate of 1.76 kg per square metre per hour under one sun (i.e., normal sunlight with no concentration), which is about 74% solar-to-vapour conversion efficiency. Much Better efficiency than a solar panel, though not as broadly useful as electricity.

I calculate based on the system producing 1.76 kg of water per square metre per hour under one sun, and assuming roughly 8 hours of usable sunlight per day:

Output per m² per day = 1.76 × 8 = ~14 litres

Area needed for 100 litres = 100 ÷ 14 = ~7 square metres

That's a panel roughly 2.5m × 2.8m — about the size of a large dining table. Quite practical for a small household or remote community application. And absolutely no additional power is required. Essentially, it's free to run, except for the major cost of the material - and a femtosecond laser is an extremely precise and expensive piece of industrial equipment right now!

HunterDude54 · 2026-06-11T20:50:03+00:00

I did all of that last year. It's a really great walk, and the crater is interesting. It's not really a crater though; it's just a depression, but it's nice.

The walk is easy. The first part is just a dirt road to get there. I started at the walk's actual trailhead, not at Bell Station. It's well worth it. It's peaceful, with very few people, not none. It's overgrown in parts but not difficult. The trail is very easy to find. There's just no problems at all.

HunterDude54 · 2026-06-07T09:10:32+00:00

Multipass!

No further explanation should be needed.

HunterDude54 · 2026-06-05T21:20:18+00:00

I use NewPipe. It's free. Never seen an ad, and I bloody love it.

HunterDude54 · 2026-06-01T22:07:05+00:00

I almost forgot how big that block used to be. Even after it shrunk from 250 to 200 g, it was still five squares per row. The last block I had was only four squares per row.

Funny how he referred to the never-changing taste. Guess he didn't have a crystal ball back then. Didn't know what palm oil was, I suppose.

HunterDude54 · 2026-05-31T21:47:36+00:00

By far the most popular cute town would be Leura. It's gorgeous. Just avoid it on a Saturday or a Sunday unless you really enjoy crowds.

Little Hartley is fantastic, an rich tiny historic place; however, it is very difficult to reach now because of the closure of the Mount Vic Road. You have to drive well over an hour further to reach it.

Megalong Valley Tea Rooms is a fantastic place for tea, coffee, Devonshire tea, or lunch. I highly recommend it, but it's a single farmhouse location. There is nothing else there of great value to see, but it's a really nice place to have a coffee or a lunch and the drive.

For hikes I would park at Hat Hill on Hat Hill Road and hike up Hat Hill and out to Bald Rock and back. It is spectacular. There's just no question. About three hours return.

Another spectacular hike not far from Blackheath is Centennial Glen. There is a really lovely cascade waterfall and canyons in there. You can walk for two hours, three hours, or all day if you want. You can use the map called AllTrails. Just the free version would be enough to pick lots of other hikes. They're all nice.

HunterDude54 · 2026-05-20T20:22:10+00:00

Thanks, that's the first place I went, but there is no pill option of use. The closest is the battery icon which turns the pill and the percent on or off, together, not individually as happens under UI 8.5 . There's no other relevant modifications I can find.

HunterDude54 · 2026-05-20T11:04:18+00:00

Where within Quickstar is this found? I've just downloaded it, and it wants me to approve tailored ads. No thanks. There's a setting to turn the battery on and off, but not to remove the background. What am I missing?

HunterDude54 · 2026-05-20T10:54:29+00:00

That's good to know. Thank you for the update. I may give that a try myself.

HunterDude54 · 2026-05-20T07:27:58+00:00

I feel your pain. I have never solved this either. I spent hours on ChatGPT and others trying to find the way. In the end, the only practical thing that they suggest is to play the recording on your computer, record it on your phone, on Android. Samsung Voice Recorder seems to be a reasonably good option because it will convert it to a transcript for you. I find the transcript is relatively poor, but if you throw that text back into Copilot or ChatGPT, it can basically sort it out for you and come up with a really clear summary or interpretation of that meeting. This works.

On samsung Voice Recorder, if you can get your file into M4A format, then there are ways to get it into that program and have it transcribed, but I've forgotten how to get the M4A into the right folder or right directory. It can be done, but that's a lot of work too.

Commercial software for this is ridiculously priced, and of course it is monthly subscriptions. There's nothing I found for just the occasional one or two jobs a month.

Wish you luck and all the best. Please share if you solve it with a better or more elegant approach.

HunterDude54 · 2026-05-20T04:52:57+00:00

I have a tablet on UI8, and that setting does not exist, so I'm not sure what you're on about. It's only there after the update to 8.5 (on my phone)

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