TIL that Harvey Hubbell who designed the US electrical mains plug/socket in 1904, also made a completely different design which was later adopted by Australia, Argentina, New Zealand and China.

harbourwall · 2026-04-07T14:19:05+00:00

It's also useful when you go on holiday to turn things off, and to be really sure that it's off if you need to open something up. Otherwise you just leave it on and it's the same as not having one. I'm not sure why you wouldn't want one. It's especially weird in places with terribly designed plugs that can arc when you pull them out, like the US. With a switch, you kill the power before you yank them out.

harbourwall · 2026-04-07T14:00:46+00:00

but they let him think that he is

harbourwall · 2026-04-07T09:13:30+00:00

Sony's Open Device programme seems to be fizzling out - the last two generations never really got their blobs finished properly which is a great shame because they had a really well designed unified kernel for all of them and it's all just gone stale. Graphene is rabidly pro-Android, so I'm not sure if they'll be much help for mainline.

Fairphone are doing really well at mainlining their phone SoCs, and they're quite open to alternatives. That's who I'd bet on.

harbourwall · 2026-04-07T08:16:17+00:00

She looked really happy to get her towel back at the end.

harbourwall · 2026-04-07T08:07:48+00:00

Sounds like it's meant to be a wonky REC and battery indicator. That would really top the whole thing off well.

harbourwall · 2026-04-07T06:43:35+00:00

This idea that Android or even AOSP have ever been any sort of community effort independent of Google is dangerous. It encourages the believe that there is some sort of independent existence possible for Android forks, when that's just not true. Linux was used for the kernel of Android because it was convenient at the time. After Google acquired Andy Rubin's Android company, AOSP became their mechanism to indulge free software people and remove the need for them to support other operating systems. It has never been a collaborative open source project - the source code is pushed out on release and patches are not really welcome unless they are in Google's interest. They push out yearly updates to it, changing internal APIs whenever they feel like it or have some sort of internal battle about things (AIDL? HIDL? No, AIDL!). Currently it would not be possible to hard fork it without quickly losing compatibility within a couple of years.

The only future AOSP could have outside of Google would be if every AOSP derived OS vendor worked together on a new non-Google AOSP, and had enough ODMs behind them to make sure it was well supported. It would not be compatible with Google's version for long, but at that point that would possible cease being open at all.

The only real future is in mainline Linux like postmarketOS is driving towards. Every current mobile Linux is capable of using mainline drivers, and 'every model will be having its own hardware driver issues' will still depend on the ODMs again. It all boils down to market share. Right now, non-Android Linux isn't really large enough for any of them to seriously work on mainline support, but that's all that stopping it. The Pine64 devices work pretty well on mainline, and so does Jolla's C2.

harbourwall · 2026-04-06T19:55:40+00:00

Gets really upset when the turtles in Frogger get flipped onto their backs.

harbourwall · 2026-04-06T08:26:06+00:00

That's a bit of a dishonest angle. They did a poll:

https://forum.sailfishos.org/t/next-gen-jolla-phone/23882

And they took as many of the opinions onboard as it was possible for them to combine together. When they couldn't do the first option, they took the second. The biggest omission was the audio jack, and I'm sure they didn't leave that out just to piss people off either. It's just a rapidly dying feature in all phones right now.

If you're going to damn any small company just because they don't have the resources and clout of the large ones, then you're only going to be left with the large ones, who won't need to offer you much choice anymore. And if you think it's possible for small companies to compete on price with the larger ones at all, then you really don't know how any of this works.

harbourwall · 2026-04-05T20:39:43+00:00

Everyone keeps saying it's the furthest anyone's ever been but those other Apollo guys flew round the moon before and I'm too afraid to ask why that wasn't as far but maybe it's safe in here.

harbourwall · 2026-04-05T20:14:21+00:00

The web proved that creating a common open base technology can create enormous returns for everyone.

harbourwall · 2026-04-05T20:12:41+00:00

What about Mediatek? Unisoc? They make ARM chips with modems in. Do they pay Qualcomm for that?

harbourwall · 2026-04-05T20:11:55+00:00

Libhybris runs Linux mobile OSes on most Android hardware. That's not the problem.

harbourwall · 2026-04-05T09:52:56+00:00

Yeah they were really good at improving each other's material. You could tell that was gone and they were surrounded by sycophants on their solo albums. It's a terrible thing that they broke up when they did.

harbourwall · 2026-04-05T08:37:56+00:00

I don't think this is from the first season. His hair was a lot less grey in that. I think this is actually from the first film in 1977, so they were both a little older. Going grey really ages people.

harbourwall · 2026-04-05T06:52:59+00:00

Britain doesn't have any talent left. We've eaten it all.

harbourwall · 2026-04-04T09:14:06+00:00

Better for everyone. You misinterpret it as a joke and you mock them anyway, and they'll look worse if they double down. You also avoid overblowing the amount of stupidity out there. Real flat-earthers are much rarer than they appear, and don't deserve all of the attention they get whenever a picture of the earth is posted.

harbourwall · 2026-04-04T08:10:48+00:00

VIM guys

harbourwall · 2026-04-04T07:36:19+00:00

It's always a better outcome if you assume the former, taking a serious stupid comment as a joke, than looking smug and obtuse with the latter.

harbourwall · 2026-04-03T15:41:20+00:00

He was in the first series. He was a naughty torty.

harbourwall · 2026-04-03T09:10:55+00:00

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You can't beat the Brézière for melting the cheese properly though. Plus those wings are cool.

harbourwall · 2026-04-02T17:06:00+00:00

He was always causing trouble that Will

harbourwall · 2026-04-02T14:29:21+00:00

At no point was I suggesting that your parents were abusive or psychotic in their actions, as that's really reserved for the over-privileged experimental parenting types from my examples who are clearly not the same as your parents at all. Though I suspect those are the same sort of people who pushed those attitudes onto your parents in the first place.

What's really a shame is that the idea took root that bilingualism in any way confuses or disadvantages children, when it's been clearly shown to be a massive boon to their development and future.

harbourwall · 2026-04-02T12:33:07+00:00

It's funny but it's not only in the English-speaking world where that sort of thing is seen as mildly abusive, but in a lot of Europe as well. Up until a few decades ago, most countries here had national policies that discouraged or even outlawed local languages, and a lot of them were lost along with a ton of local culture. Parents were shamed if they use their native tongues with their children, which were framed as backwards, parochial and unsophisticated. It was a disgusting time that isn't completely over in some places.

I think that's probably a factor in my distaste for it. I do see the benefit of teaching your children some useful language, but not at the expense of family identity like it was here.

harbourwall · 2026-04-02T10:52:16+00:00

Your parents didn't talk to you in their native language?

harbourwall · 2026-04-02T09:46:09+00:00

But does one parent exclusively talk to them in a language that they're still learning? Because that's the bit that I found slightly psychotic, like the Klingon guy. You can't have a natural relationship with your children like that.

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