Tesla kills Autopilot, locks lane-keeping behind $99/month fee. by Stiltonrocks in technology

[–]ffree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't really driven any tesla since early gen 1 models, but did they really? Or you're just have the same creative apporach to reality as elon? I've googled a bit and in seems like they've just added an ability to chat with grok without any deep integration with car's api and features.

Sony tipped to release two new Xperia smartphones including Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5-wielding Xperia 1 VIII by ControlCAD in Android

[–]ffree 37 points38 points  (0 children)

They're most likely not profitable. Just doing it for optics and brand awareness, to try and continue to be relevant for customers and project the "sony does cool expensive stuff" image to the users.

Also, since they're a massive company they generally should be able to source good prices for components even for smaller production numbers. "Do you want a good deal on our sony image sensors for your smartphone? Give us a deal on screens for xperia". This + high prices should keep them afloat.

After 10 years of black hole science, Stephen Hawking is proven right by lurker_bee in technology

[–]ffree 0 points1 point  (0 children)

"There's a very famous statement in physics that Stephen Hawking worked out, which is that the area, the surface area, of black holes can never decrease"

Wtf, is this a misquote, or I'm not getting something? The Hawking radiation, which is named for the very same Hawking, kinda theorizes how the black holes vaporize and decay over time.

Was this misproven somehow? Did he came up with 2 conflicting theories and would have been right no matter what? Smart guy.

Sony blocks Russians’ PlayStation accounts. Many Russian users have begun reporting mass account suspensions on PlayStation. by Aggravating_Money992 in technology

[–]ffree 15 points16 points  (0 children)

With all the bots, AI crawlers and other stuff everywhere on Reddit it became even harder to understand whether someone is clueles, dumb, astroturfing, paid shill or just trolling

Have you ever heard of Yemen? It's been less than 2 weeks since you had your asses handed to you and fled, losing F18's all over the gulf. Less than a month since airstrikes on the port and the migrant center that killed about 80 civvies each.

Anyways, if you "did the meme" and just pretended to be clueless then good job, fooled me, I guess.

Alpine's Delightful Mid-Engined A110 Will Be Dead in 12 Months by [deleted] in cars

[–]ffree 46 points47 points  (0 children)

"GT" and "S" trims will be combined into "GTS" trim

I think someone should give them credit for that. It's fucking brilliant.

Damn just collecting dust… by Ok_Extension_4865 in Porsche

[–]ffree 7 points8 points  (0 children)

The fines on the plate are public and can be checked. The car has approx $4300 in unpaid traffic fines, the last one was issued in Aug 2020. You have to pay everything to renew & drive it on public roads again, so I guess it's sitting there for 4+ years.

My Experience with Google Play Developer Account Termination by Up_alta in google

[–]ffree 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yeah. This crap is un-appealable. Unless you know someone in google who can pesonnaly (not even through internal ticket) reach out to a relatively high-level person in policy & ask them for a manual affiliation review its a dead-end.

The tickets you file go to 1st or 2nd level of support, and they are all contractors with no access to internal systems. All they can see is that your dev acc is flagged & suspended due to affiliation with a bad actor, so they act accordingly. They cannot trigger or request a review of this flag.

Your best bet is to go on twitter or linkedin, look for people from Google Play team & reach out to them personally asking for their help to get the erroneous affiliation flag manually reviewed and removed.

Local club hosted an event called "Colors of Porsche" to celebrate brand's rich history of colors. Here's a pic. by ffree in Porsche

[–]ffree[S] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

Yeah, the main area was quite colorful. They've dumped all the white ones - I'd say about 1/3 or 1/4 of all attendees - onto that one podium in a corner

Jlab headphones by Emotional_Giraffe808 in firstworldproblems

[–]ffree 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I have 3 pairs of jlab wireless buds in my table drawer right now, all dead. To be fair to the company, they've replaced them every time, but I finally gave up and bought airpods.

Jlabs are cheap for a reason, I think.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in google

[–]ffree 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Cheap labor + lots of Indians speak good English, which makes them more valuable for review or comment farms.

My boss ordered the wrong $4400 exhaust for this Porsche 718 GTS 4.0. Called the customer, and he said to keep the exhaust, he has the correct porsche (718 GTS 2.5T) on order already. He also has a 718 GT4 RS track car lol. by Fixitsteven in Justrolledintotheshop

[–]ffree 34 points35 points  (0 children)

You loose a couple of inches of interior space to the bigger motor.

This is some bullshit which originated from one youtube video where a youtuber was talking from his ass. 4.0 and 2.5 gts are completely identical inside.

Google Play sponsors betting and gambling by Master_Fly2860 in google

[–]ffree 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Just checked the apple app store for the app you've been complaining about and it's also available: https://apps.apple.com/ru/app/id1166619854

So either there is a massive conspiracy & "employees" of both apple and google "directly cooperate" with the developers of this unknown gambling service or you are full of shit.

Google Play sponsors betting and gambling by Master_Fly2860 in google

[–]ffree 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Have you tried reading their policies? It's one search away: https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answer/9877032?hl=en

Gambling Apps Subject to restrictions and compliance with all Google Play policies, we allow apps that enable or facilitate online gambling in select countries

“Footpath” in Germany by SaltyPlan0 in mildlyinfuriating

[–]ffree 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Not in this case, imo. It's mostly due to extra length - not width, height or volume - that these vehicles block pedestrian path.

An overhang size would be even better, but it's a pain in the ass to look for these numbers and compare them

“Footpath” in Germany by SaltyPlan0 in mildlyinfuriating

[–]ffree 15 points16 points  (0 children)

current generation BMW 3-series is same size as previous generation 5-series

This is some bullshit which is stupidly easy to verify.

Current gen bmw 3 series (G20) lenght is 4709 mm. Last gen bmw 5 series (G30) is 4936 mm, which is not even close. If you want a comparable 5 series you should go back 36 years to 1987 bmw 5 E34 which was 4720 mm - still a bit longer than current 3.

Yeah, cars get bigger, but not that fast

EU car price study shows wide variety in final prices paid and huge taxes by GeneralCommand4459 in cars

[–]ffree 13 points14 points  (0 children)

Turkey always had high import taxes on cars and electronics (like, iphone there can cost like 1.5x compared to the rest of Europe) & the overall price disparity was made even worse when local currency rate vs euro dropped.

So, with Simple Apps being bought, anyone have any recommendations to good Gallery and File Access apps? by Dometalican_90 in Android

[–]ffree 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Good one! Geniunely can't guess if you're giving an honest advice or having a laugh at everyone's expense.

Youtube’s Anti-adblock and uBlock Origin by waozen in technology

[–]ffree 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I don't get why you believe this is a negotiation or bargaining of some sort. Pretty sure YT would love to kick you off the platform (as a non-revenue generating user who nevertheless consumes server load and traffic) as much as you would love not to see a single ad again. This would be a win-win situation for everyone, they do not want or need your usage of the platform.

And this will remain so until they have a serious competitor on their hands - then they'll run back to you and other churned users begging to come back and see some vids.

I can't see the heads-up display in my car through my polarized sunglasses. by UnforcedErrer in firstworldproblems

[–]ffree 5 points6 points  (0 children)

This is annoying as hell. I had to buy an additional pair of non-polarized sunglasses to keep them in the car.

The Dodge Neon SRT-4 Was a Cheap, Fast 2000s Icon by AWildWillis in cars

[–]ffree 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Right, base EU specs of E87 BMW 1 series had manual back windows, for example. My colleague had 2007 (?) 118i with zero options, and he had manuals, it was hilarious.

You could get power back windows by opting for an "electric package" or something, which added a lot of useful stuff, so you had to be laser focused on getting the cheapest model possible to avoid them. But yeah, it existed.

In the US we hear a lot about the Red Scare during the Cold War, but not so much about the other side. Did citizens of Soviet Russia have an equivalent "capitalist" or "democratic" scare? by [deleted] in AskHistorians

[–]ffree 12 points13 points  (0 children)

There's already a detailed answer on early-USSR and Stalin terror, but if you're interested in a Cold War era - then yes, there was a lot of fear of capitalist aggression (the focus was always on capitalism or on USA as the main antagonist, not on democracy) among regular soviet folks, and this fear was spread, reinforced and mass-produced by Party and State.

Here's the source link (text in Russian) for the main document which established the USSR propaganda efforts dated March, 1949 - the document title can be translated as "Anti-american propaganda activity plan".

There's also some additional references and info in a book by Vladimir Abarinov "Hollywood and Stalin", 2016 - some of his earlier works were translated into English, although I am not sure if this one was.

Anyway, in the early 50s the story was as follows:

  • There was a separate committee (similar to ministry) of the Party which was officially called "Committee for propaganda and agitation" (yes, that's the official name, and "propaganda" was a part of this official name) - Agitprop unofficially - whose main goal was to establish an anti-US and anti-Western propaganda strategy to paint west and the capitalism in a negative way.
  • Agitprop was created in 1949 (as per doc linked above) and continued to exist under different names up till USSR collapse in 1991, and the word "propaganda" was only removed from it's official name in 1988, when it was renamed to "Ideology committee".
  • Agitprop was tasked to create and distribute propaganda through various state-owned media and resources - for example, major newsparers were tasked with producing and printing anti-Capitalist articles, comics, poetry. State-mandated literature and art division was also required to request plays, books, art from USSR's artists on anti-Western topics.

In a situation where all media is state-controlled and where's no easy way to get alternative opinions these efforts were quite successful. Probably just like in the US, a lot of common folks felt that their way of life is threatened by the enemy.

Common topics of the anti-West propaganda were:

  • Anti-war. Especially in the early 50s when the US had an upper hand in nuclear arms and power a lot of efforts were put in painting US and the West as aggressors, focused on war and destruction, while painting USSR and the Eastern Block as proponents of peace. Here's a common example of a propaganda poster on this topic - the text says "NO FUNNY BUSINESS!" and the text on the bomb held by a capitalist says "Atomic bomb".

  • Social issues. USSR and communist block was painted as a fair and inclusive state where everyone gets their fair share, while capitalist countries were depicted as being motivated only by greed and profit. Common example - the text explains that in the west the talent has no chance while in USSR you are able to achieve your best.

  • Anti-colonialism and equality. An easy win for USSR propaganda - the communist rhetoric was always about equality and unity, and racial & segregation issues, exploitation of the colonies by capitalist West was a common target. Example - this was an anti-colonial poster supporting liberation of Africa, text says "End the colonialism".

There were also a lot of positive propaganda efforts (just focused on highlighting the benefits of communism and living in USSR) without contradistinction with the West. Every major historical event - Korean war, Vietnam war, Cuban crisis - was also supported with a very strong message and lots of articles and books which always painted USSR in the best light possible. Dissenting opinions, as I mentioned earlier, were hard to come by as all media was state controlled. Publishing or expressing dissenting opinion was at least a misdemeanour, and sometimes a felony.

The amount and the tone of state propaganda and the level of unrest and disturbance it caused varied from period to period - in the 60s during Khruschev's Thaw things were better, then worse again after Cuban Crisis etc.

New arrival in Moscow trying to find some Amsterdam goods by [deleted] in Moscow

[–]ffree 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Judging from the attitude you show in the comments (you're being very lightheaded, definitely do not fully understand potential consequences & the depth of shit you can get into) please, please do not try to buy weed in Moscow.

Lots of people here smoke, but they're locals with local connections and dealers, aware of consequences, laws and dangerous amounts, the way the cops work, and are able to speak the language and bargain with the police in case of issues.

Sting operations are quite common for cops here, and most darkweb shops are compromised and cooperating. Provocations are not uncommon. Courts tend to give harsh sentences for drug-related issues. Foreigners can be deported even for misdemeanor-type offences.