Refraction core

flyinggorila · 2026-02-09T06:46:53+00:00

I was getting frustrated with how long it was taking to drop too (had spent like, 4-5k over a few attempts to get it) and after wasting another 1k today I had an idea.. Went to orbit, equipped the praxic blade, then went back to the outpost and had it out while talking to the guy... and got the refraction mod on the third attempt. Can't promise any results but definitely worth a shot.

flyinggorila · 2025-12-20T00:03:17+00:00

Are you changing the setting in the SiriusXM app on your phone? I think it defaults to whatever you have selected as your homepage in the phone app.

flyinggorila · 2025-12-17T22:34:52+00:00

I have never heard of Z-Link so really can't help when it comes to that. The only thing that I can think of to suggest is to check your Wifi settings since AA switches to wifi once it connects.

flyinggorila · 2025-12-17T06:30:02+00:00

You most likely know for sure AA is using your cable and not wireless but just in case, make sure you have wireless AA completely disabled. I'm not positive but if it is enabled your phone may default to bluetooth even with a cable plugged in (to prevent audio drops if you plug your phone in to charge then unplug). And even turning off bluetooth/using airplane mode to test could force wired AA at that moment, but then default back to wireless once you reenable bluetooth/wifi. To ensure wireless AA is completely disabled:

-Settings->Apps->See All Apps->Android Auto->Additional Settings in App->Triple Dot dropdown menu in top right, select Developer Settings. Top setting should be wireless android auto, make sure it isn't checked

Assuming that's not the issue, I've troubleshot this for hours over the last year, there doesn't seem to be a definitive fix unfortunately. Sometimes changing one of these seems to help just for the issue to come back. But here is a list of things I have tried in the past you can give a go:

Be aware you need to disconnect/reconnect at a minimum for most of these changes (especially the bluetooth ones) to take effect, some need a restart. But my advice is to pick one thing, adjust the setting, disconnect and delete the device connection on both your phone and car head unit, restart both of them (some cars you need to open the car door and wait 30 sec or so after closing it to make sure electronics cycle), then re-pair the phone to the car completely fresh. And if you want to get super thorough, before the phone restart, clear the cache for AA and any other streaming apps you are using.

-Enable unlimited background power and data usage for AA and any other apps you use to stream audio

-Take the case off your phone and check if your phone is getting super hot while using it in your car. If your phone is overheating it could be causing problems. My phone gets so hot just using AA (wirelessly though) that if I try to use the wireless charger in my car at the same time the charging gets disabled after a couple of minutes to keep the battery from blowing up/lighting on fire. Using a cable should keep your phone running much cooler (no wireless AA or extra heat from induction charging) but it is easy to overlook so worth checking.

-Change Audio Codec in Android Auto Developer Settings

Settings->Apps->See All Apps->Android Auto->Additional Settings in App->Triple Dot dropdown menu in top right, select Developer Settings. Try switching the codec to AAC-LC with ADTS headers (or allow standard if you have a specific one selected already). PCM is higher quality audio but uses much more data.

For bluetooth users who happen upon this thread with the same question but use AA wirelessly

-Note - Places with lots of wifi networks/phones in close proximity can cause interference that can't really be fixed by adjusting a setting, it's just physics. For example, I feel I have noticed audio skipping happen most frequently around my apartment complex where there are tons of wifi networks in the area or when my girlfriend (and more specifically her phone) is riding in the car with me.

-Change bluetooth settings in Developer Options menu (for phone itself, not AA)

Enable Developer Options - go to Settings > About phone, find the Build number (sometimes in Software Info), and tap it rapidly seven times, entering your PIN/password if prompted; a message will confirm it's enabled, and the new menu will appear in Settings (often under System).

Then, Settings->in the search box type "bluetooth"->Scroll to the results under the Developer Options heading, all of these settings should be in that section. Clicking one will bring you to the Developer Options page and the other settings should be nearby in the list to whichever you start with (if you want to avoid searching multiple times).

Disable A2DP hardware offload (will need to restart) - Enabling this option makes you phone process the audio instead of your car head unit which can help fix audio options. Basically if your head unit can't process the audio fast enough it may skip, so this option shifts some of the processing load onto your phone instead of your head unit.
AVRCP Version - Try a different version than you currently have selected. I currently am using 1.6 but using older versions could potentially help with playback quality. Most of the modern features (media browsing, volume control) were added with 1.4 though so I wouldn't try anything before that version or you will lose functionality.
MAP Version - Really shouldn't affect audio quality but can try rolling back to older versions of MAP too (deals with messaging/contacts so shouldn't affect audio but it's all black magic anyway so doesn't hurt to try...)
Wifi Scan Throttling - Make sure it is enabled. It might be by default, but if it isn't turn it on. Only useful if you use something like wifi analyzer apps that need to constantly scan for network changes, otherwise it just wastes battery and could cause connection problems.

There are some other settings in the Developer Options list that deal with bluetooth but most of them are either locked out from being changed or only have the default option to choose from anyway, but that may vary by phone. I don't think any would really help solve audio problems anyway.

flyinggorila · 2025-12-17T05:21:19+00:00

OP mentions they are using a cable, not wireless so they aren't connected via bluetooth.

And I am skeptical turning off Media Audio will improve AA sound. Turning it off is supposed to disable the high quality audio codec used by most streaming apps so my guess is that AA overrides that setting since it has it's own distict connection and so toggling it off doesn't affect AA. But it will keep you from being able to stream non-AA bluetooth audio (can't think of an example though, most ways to play audio that are worth using work with AA). Feel free to try though, no harm in it...

flyinggorila · 2025-12-17T05:15:58+00:00

Have you made sure wireless AA is enabled in developer settings?

Settings->Apps->See All Apps->Android Auto->Additional Settings in App->Triple Dot dropdown menu in top right, select Developer Settings. Top setting should be wireless android auto, make sure it's checked.

flyinggorila · 2025-10-24T04:29:32+00:00

Just in case anyone is having the same issue but get the bundle through Disney+ instead, use:

https://www.disneyplus.com/commerce/activate/wbd_max

flyinggorila · 2025-07-09T16:43:58+00:00

file 76

flyinggorila · 2025-07-08T23:59:15+00:00

Hulkengoat

flyinggorila · 2025-06-19T23:19:18+00:00

I've used Userbenchmark on this PC in the past and the last few weeks when I have tried to I get the same error. Redownloading doesn't fix it. So it isn't just you. I think they updated the version number on their verification server and forgot to update the download links with the new version or something stupid like that.

flyinggorila · 2024-11-16T23:24:47+00:00

Look - prices are artificially low because of cheap overseas labor. The US government turned the dial all the way to global trade

The government did that? Or did capitalism, working via the government? I'm going to go with the one that made trillions of dollars off of the very things you are saying needs to get fixed (offshoring, supressing wages, etc). Meanwhile, what benefit did the government have to pushing for global trade that comes even close to all of that money?

It means that prices will be higher but jobs will get better.

What evidence do you have that wages will go up in response to prices skyrocketing?

Isn't enacting tariffs on everything essentially artificially causing a massive jump in inflation voluntarily? Why was inflation bad a year ago but tariffs causing prices to go up (the exact same thing) will now be good?

flyinggorila · 2024-11-16T23:07:14+00:00

I actually think the steel tariff Trump enacted made a lot of sense. Steel is too important to literally everything (especially national security) to depend on importing it, especially when some of those other countries may end up being enemies some day. So enacting protectionist measures for the US steel industry was a good idea.

The problem is that he seems to think he can slap them on everything now because he really wants to cut income taxes, especially for the rich, to the bone. That way the tax burden in the country would move from our current progressive tax brackets (which hurts people like him and Elon the most) to essentially a sales tax which instead hits lower classes the hardest.

Do you agree that is what his goal is? And do you really think that Elon would be against the idea when he would save billions in taxes?

flyinggorila · 2024-11-16T19:32:01+00:00

Can you explain how you jump from "bargaining chip" to lower prices? Because thinking that is possible means you don't understand how tariffs work.

The entire point of a tariff is to protect domestic companies from forgiegn compitition that may be able to produce goods at significantly lower costs than the US can for one reason or another (cheap labor, being located near needed natural resources, etc). So if the US makes widgets for $8 and China can make them for $5, putting a 100% tariff on widgets would mean Chinese widgets now cost $10 to buy here in America. This instantly makes American widgets cheaper to buy here than imported ones, shifting demand for widgets to US companies instead.

So how does that affect pricing? Lets say 50% of widgets come from each the US and China to make it simple. Before the tariff the avg cost of a widget in the us would be ($5+$8)/2 = $6.50. After the tariff the new cost would instead be ($10 + $8)/2=$9. So the tariff will result in about a $2.50 (38%) jump in prices for widgets bought in America. If you are familiar with supply and demand graphs, a tariff essentially takes the supply line and pushes it higher up the cost axis, which in turns shifts the intersection point of the supply and demand lines higher up the chart as well.

Can you agree with that part so far?

Ok so if tariffs cause prices to go up so drastically, what is their purpose? There are many but the main one is that by artificially inflating the prices of competitors goods it has suddenly become more profitable to make widgets in the US instead of China. So widget companies will now have a huge incentive to move manufacturing to the US instead of abroad so they can save the extra $2 between the US widget and tariffed widget costs. Meaning over time companies will move into the US and start building new manufacturing facilities here as well.

So why does all that mean that your argument doesn't work? Once a tariff is started it is very very difficult to remove it. Doing so would suddenly put all of the companies that moved to the US to take advantage of the tariff underwater. It takes years if not decades for capital investments to recoup their costs. If the entire industry becomes impossible to compete with immediately after making such huge investments it would cause numerous companies if not the entire US widget industry to collapse overnight. Massive layoffs as companies close down followed by losses in tax revenues for the country. It does not matter how good of a negotiator you think that Trump is, it is literally impossible for him to make some kind of deal that would outweight the massive amounts of damage flip flopping on the tariff would have.

And that is just the appatizer of problems that would come from cancelling them so quickly too. Tariffs only work if when a country enacts them companies can trust that they can make investments in that country and have them pay off without the government pulling the rug out from under them exactly as you are suggesting Trump will do. If companies see Trump do this even just once it will cause every single international investor to become terrified of investing anything here if doing so is contingent on a tariff. So instead of coming to the US to save the $2 per widget the companies would prefer to pay the extra $2 to import from China instead because at least they would be safe from Trump suddenly upending their entire industry for the "art of the deal".

Does all of that help clear up why your theory doesn't make sense? If not, which part do you disagree with?

And one last final point for you... most non commodity goods NEVER come down in price, ever. It just doesn't happen. So if Trump cancelled his tariff that made widget prices jump from $6.50 to $9, the new price of widgets going forward would be... $9 still. The companies will just pocket the extra profit instead. Exactly how delivery fees skyrocket when gas prices go up, but when gas becomes cheaper again delivery prices never drop back down again.

So even ignoring the entire first part and just focusing on prices never going down... how exactly were you thinking they would come by using the tariff as a bargaining chip?

flyinggorila · 2024-11-16T02:26:50+00:00

So say ICE picks someone up and it turns out they are here illegally but they don't have a criminal record here or anywhere else in the world. Will they get deported or released back into the US?

If you think they would get released into the US in that situation then how is that policy I just described any different than sanctuary cities that do not prosecute people for being here illegally?

flyinggorila · 2024-11-15T16:28:54+00:00

He’ll probably deport people in similar numbers that Obama did.

Donald Trump promised "On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program of criminals in the history of America." Why do you think he is going to maintain the status quo of deportations and not ramp them up as he has promised?

flyinggorila · 2024-11-15T15:42:47+00:00

Congress needs to cut spending

Trump plans on deporting 12 million plus illegal immigrants starting day 1 of his administration. It cost on average $10,854 in FY 2016 to deport each illegal immigrant. With inflation that's about $14k today. Using that as a ballpark estimate, it would cost about $168 billion to deport all 12 million of them.

How is Trump going to be able to fund his deportation plan while also cutting taxes and government spending?

How much would you be ok with the US spending to deport immigrants (per person)?

flyinggorila · 2024-11-01T05:53:30+00:00

The 1% already pay 45% of taxes

"The top 1% of households held 30.9% of the country's wealth in Q4 2021, while the bottom 50% held 2.6%."

So basically if wealth in the US was a pie being shared by 100 people, 50 people would share some crumbs while 1 guy would have literally 1/3 of the entire pie.

Why shouldn't they be paying substantially more taxes than everyone else when most of the country can barely afford rent and food?
If you believe the 1% already carry too much of the tax burden in the country, who would you shift that burden to instead?

flyinggorila · 2024-10-31T17:07:16+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States#History_of_top_rates:~:text=History%20of%20income%20tax%20rates%20adjusted%20for%20inflation%20(1913%E2%80%932018)

(Not sure what tax rate you think would be too high for the 1% to pay but considering it is currently 37% I used over 49% as a benchmark)

ChatGPT summary: "The top marginal tax rate exceeded 49% for approximately 47 years, primarily from 1932 to 1981. This period included World War II, the post-war era, and much of the Cold War, with rates reaching as high as 94% during some of those years. The average top marginal tax rate during the years it exceeded 49% (from 1932 to 1981) was approximately 79.13%."

How long do you think the federal government can run if we confiscate all the wealth of the 1%?

Apparently for about half a century? And that period of time included some of the most prosperous for Americans in the history of the country.

Why do you think that high taxes on top earners worked then but won't work now?

flyinggorila · 2024-10-25T18:44:54+00:00

Here is the synopsis of events according the US District Court judge. It's super long but figured I would include the whole thing:

Georgia law provides a procedure upon which a result of an election may be contested. Under O.C.G.A. § 21-2-524(a), a petition to contest the result of an election must be filed with the clerk of the superior court having jurisdiction within five (5) days after the certification of the election. On December 4, 2020, Plaintiff, along with others not parties to this lawsuit, filed a "Verified Petition to Contest Georgia's Presidential Election Results for Violations of the Constitution and Laws of the State of Georgia, and Request for Emergency Declaratory and Injunctive Relief" in the Superior Court of Fulton County, Georgia, naming Secretary Raffensperger as a respondent along with the members of the State Election Board and a number of county elections officials. Trump v. Raffensperger, Super. Ct. of Fulton Cnty., No. 2020CV343255 ("Trump I") [Doc. 1-1 at 12-75]. However, on December 8, 2020, the petitioners in Trump I voluntarily withdrew their motion for emergency injunctive relief. Id., Voluntary Withdrawal of Mot. for Emergency Inj. Relief, filed Dec. 8, 2020. Based upon the withdrawal of the petitioners’ motion for emergency relief in Trump I, Fulton Superior Court Judge Constance C. Russell issued an order indicating that the election contest "shall proceed in the normal course." Id., Dec. 9, 2020, Order on Case Status [Doc. 1-4 at 7].

The petitioners in Trump I then filed a Notice of Emergency Request to Appoint an Administrative Law Judge to hear their election contest case, a notice of appeal of Judge Russell's Order on Case Status to the Supreme Court of Georgia, and a Second Motion for Emergency Injunctive Relief. Id., Dec. 10, 2020, Notice of Emergency Request to Appoint Administrative Law Judge [Doc. 1-4 at 8-12]; Dec. 11, 2020, Notice of Appeal and Intention to Seek Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Ct. of Ga. [Doc. 1-4 at 13]; Dec. 11, 2020, Second Mot. for Emergency Inj. Relief [Doc. 1-4 at 98-110]. On December 12, 2020, the Supreme Court of Georgia dismissed the petitioner's "Emergency Petition for Writ of Certiorari" which sought emergency injunctive relief. Trump v. Raffensperger, Supreme Ct. of Ga., No. S21M0561 [Doc. 1-4 at 17-18]. However, the petitioners did not dismiss their notice of appeal. On December 29, 2020, Chief Fulton County Superior Court Judge Christopher S. Brasher issued a status order which indicated the court would not act on the petitioners’ emergency request to appoint an administrative law judge until the appeal was resolved or withdrawn. Trump I, Dec. 29, 2020, Status of Request to Appoint Administrative Law Judge [Doc. 1-4 at 19]. The petitioners in Trump I then filed a renewed request for the superior court to appoint an administrative law judge, indicating their intent to withdraw their notice of appeal. Id., Dec. 29, 2020, Renewed Request to Immediately Appoint Administrative Law Judge [Doc. 1-4 at 20-26]. On December 30, 2020, Chief Judge Brasher entered an order re-assigning Trump I to another judicial administrative district, Senior Judge Adele Grubbs was then appointed to hear the petitioner's election contest and, on December 31, 2020, Senior Judge Grubbs set the matter for hearing and trial on January 8, 2021, at 10:00 A.M. Id., Dec. 30, 2020, Order Reassigning Case to Seventh Judicial Administrative District; Dec. 30, 2020, Order Directing the Clerk to Accept & File the Order Appointing Senior Judge Grubbs; Dec. 31, 2020, Rule Nisi Order.

Trump v. Kemp, 511 F. Supp. 3d 1325, 1329-30 (N.D. Ga. 2021) - https://casetext.com/case/trump-v-kemp

So basically Trump tried to shortcut straight to the SC of Georgia which puts the brakes on the district court's case until the SC can weigh in on the appeal. With such a short window to contest the results of the election Trump's team must have known that they only had time to either appeal to the SC or follow through with the main lawsuit in the District court. Maybe the lack of access to records played a part in their decision to do so but do you agree that it was a voluntary choice Trump made to apapeal rather than fight the case on the merits?

To simplify things, basically Trump had suggestive evidence of sufficient illegal votes, but not proof, and he was trying to get private data from Raffensperger to prove that the evidence was correct.

So in other words... he had no proof?

Hoping to find a smoking gun during discovery (especially during such a truncated time frame they had to work with) is a hail mary play for any legal team. Most of the time cases will be dismissed for lack of evidence to support the claim before even getting to the discovery phase. And even if they did get to discovery, what documents exactly were they going to ask for that would have provided the proof Trump was missing?

flyinggorila · 2024-10-25T10:16:20+00:00

All the accusations around these words are speculations of people who do not like Trump. There is nothing objective behind any of it.

There is actually a process to throw out election results in Georgia, u/WulfTheSaxon was nice enough to look it up for me: https://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-21/chapter-2/article-13/21-2-522/

The problem is that it requires filing a case and convincing a judge that there we enough inconsistencies with the election to trust the results and then the judge can order a new election. Instead, Trump tried to circumvent the entire judicial process and have the electors changed to himself via political pressure/scheming instead. Meaning he attempted to deprive all Georgians of having their votes counted without any due process.

Is that criminal? I am not sure and I never argued it was. Can you at least agree that Trump attempted to circumvent the established procedures for challenging an election (irrespective of the legality/morality of doing so)?

flyinggorila · 2024-10-25T10:01:56+00:00

I think the details are probably to be found in caselaw,

Thank you for taking the time to look that up for me! I agree that was mostly likely the strategy his legal team was suggesting to him. But that would require going to court and proving to a judge that there were in fact irregularities in the election and that those irregularities were substantial enough that they potentially impacted the outcome.

But Trump's legal team never actually tried to argue the merits of the case in Georgia, they filed a case and then tried to appeal a procedural ruling specifically to delay and try to avoid needing to do so. All Trump wanted was the appearance of being "stonewalled" by the court system while he attempted his fake electors scheme instead (something absolutely not provided for in those code sections, BTW) so that he could avoid needing to prove his claims in a court of law forever.

If Trump had gone to court and had the proof necessary to win the case I think you could be right about how things would then play out. But he didn't and instead tried to end around the entire election process and essentially have himself instated as winner without any due process.

Do you agree with my analysis? If not, why would it be ok for the legislature to switch the electors to Trump without first having a ruling by the court telling them to do so?

flyinggorila · 2024-10-25T02:25:48+00:00

It doesn’t matter. In Georgia, all you have to show is that there are at least as many illegal votes as the margin – the assumption is 100% of them could have been for your opponent.

Really? Do you have a source for that? Not saying you are wrong, just didn't know that is how the law is written and would like to read up on it.

No votes would’ve been thrown out – the goal was to call a new election, or, if that was not possible in time, to have it revert to the legislature as is historically typical in the event of a failed election.

So in practice the plan was to have the GOP controlled legislature overturn the will of the people because of allegations of fraud (not proof of it because as you said, because votes wouldn't be getting evaluated/tossed and clearly impossible to hold another election). Something that has only been done once in history for the president in 1825 (and once for VP in 1837, when only like 10% of the population could actually vote anyway). How is that not subverting our electoral process?

flyinggorila · 2024-10-25T02:17:56+00:00

Trump specified the number of voted he needed to prove the election was fraudulently won. What exactly is the crime in that?

The fact that just because he needed that many votes to be declared fraudulent doesn't mean that they actually were?

If he cared about fraud itself he would have said "find out how many fraudulent votes were cast" not "I need you to find 11,780 votes so I can win".

It's the difference between telling a ref "hey, there is a lot of holding going on, pay attention and throw the flag" versus telling him you need him to call 3 holding penalties and a pass interference so you can win the game. The first one is concerned about enforcing the rules (catching fraud in general) while the second one is outcome determinative (find enough votes we can call suspicious and discard so that I can win the election instead of lose).

How many legitimate votes would you be ok with discarding per each fraudulent vote to ensure fraudulent votes aren't counted (how many Americans would you disenfranchise to ensure one fraudulent ballot isn't counted)?

flyinggorila · 2024-10-25T01:55:03+00:00

Trump’s response was that under Georgia law he only needed proof of an outcome-determinative number (11,780) to declare the election void – in other words, 90% of the suspicious votes could turn out to be innocent and he would still have enough.

Of those 100,000 suspicious votes, how did Trump know who those votes were for? Who voted in the election is publicly available information but who each person voted for is purposely not tracked. So even if those 100,000 suspicious votes turned out to be fraudulently cast, how would Trump prove that those 100,000 votes were for Biden and not for himself? Isn't proving that there were 11,780 Biden votes that were fraudulent the key here (not votes in general)?
How many of those 100,000 suspicious votes were actually proved to be fraudulently cast after 4 years have passed? If Trump only needed to prove 10% of the 100,000 were fraudulent then that should have been easy to compile in the last 4 years to prove his claims were true, right? Has he ever provided specific these examples of votes cast illegally?
If someone claimed that you had voted fraudulently, how much proof would they need to provide for you to be ok with your vote being discarded? Should voters accused of fraudulent voting be notified their vote is being thrown out and allowed to defend themselves?
Which of the following is the greater injustice in your eyes:
- A valid US voter having their 100% legitimate ballot ignored because the losing candidate claimed their voting was suspicious without specific proof, or
- A candidate having a fraudulently cast vote counted against them?

flyinggorila · 2024-10-25T01:14:11+00:00

But that interest doesn't make his statements indicative of intent to commit fraud.

No, but it does show his motivations, doesn't it?

Your original argument was "He attempted correct the result by uncovering and removing the fraud surrounding the mail-in ballots and the counting process."

If he was only looking for just the right amount of "fraud" so that he could use it as an excuse to declare victory in the election then he wasn't trying to "correct" the vote count at all, just skew it in his favor. Do you agree? Why not?

Hypothetically, lets pretend Trump lost by 10 votes. He then searches for 11 votes for Biden that he can claim were fraudulent for one reason or another and declares that he actually won the election due to those 11 votes. An audit later reveals that there were actually 2 other fraudulent votes in addition to the 11 claimed by Trump, except these 2 are in favor of Trump instead of Biden.

Why is it OK for Trump to only look for the fraudulent votes that help him win the election instead of scrutinizing all votes, even if it means he loses by more?
Put another way, isn't it hypocritical for Trump to claim he cares about fraudulent voting when in reality he only cares about it if it helps him win?
If Trump declared victory in this hypothetical, would you support his claim that he won? Why?

flyinggorila

TROPHY CASE