For my CLI homies, there’s syncedlyrics.

Be advised: several Subsonic servers (including gonic and Navidrome) do not support lyric files unless they’re embedded, and syncedlyrics will only put the lyrics in .lrc files. So getting lyrics in clients can be a two-step process: download the .lrc’s, then run a script to embed them in the song files. I’ve seen a script to do the latter, but I haven’t tried it. I’ll send a patch to gonic to read lrc files, during the Christmas holiday most likely.

I once owned a bunch of WiFi connected devices. One day I inspected my router logs and found out that they were all making calls to a bunch of services that weren’t the vendor - things like Google, and Facebook.

WiFi connected devices require connecting to a router; in most homes, this is going to be one that’s also connected to the internet - most people aren’t going to buy a second router just for their smart home, or set up a disconnected second LAN on their one router. And nearly all of these devices come with an app, which talks to the device through an external service (I’m looking at you, Honeywell, and you, Rainbird). This is a privacy shit-show. WiFi is a terrible option for smart home devices.

ZigBee, well, I haven’t had any luck with it - pairing problems which are certainly just a learning curve in my part and not an issue with the protocol. I chose ZWave myself because I read about the size and range limitations of ZigBee technology, versus ZWave, but honestly I could have gone either way. Back then, there was no appreciable price difference in devices. Most hubs support both, though, and I can’t see why I wouldn’t mix them (other than I need to figure out how to get ZigBee to work).

In any case, low-power BT, ZigBee, or Zwave are all options, whereas I will not allow more WiFi smart devices in my house. I’m stuck with Honeywell and Rainbird, for… reasons… but that’s it. I don’t need to be poking more holes in my LAN security.

Yeah, I kinda figured when the truck convoy started out there you guys had your own problems.

Oh, man. That’d be a book. Or maybe a chapter in an alternate version of Hitchhiker’s.

It always turns out to be the equivalent of a reality show host.

There’s a good chance for another major pandemic, and we’re passing the global warming point of no return.

For better or worse, the US was the biggest player on the planet; now that we’ve fumbled, I think the world is done for. Maybe China could have risen to take the US’s place, but they’re stumbling toward an economic catastrophe, India has their own problems, and Russia is exposed as a bit player. The EU could have been a shining beacon, but they’re struggling with their own rise in fascism. Who else is there? A South American country? They’re barely holding on to their own economies. Canada? Too small - I mean, big country, but not very big population (1/10th of the US). And the US is big enough that when we go down, we’re going to drag a lot of the planet with us. Shit, thanks to Russia and Israel, we’ve been edging into WWIII. Trump’s senile enough to press the button, I have no doubt, and he’ll be completely surrounded by moronic Yes-men this time, with no one to try to talk sense into him. Maybe a relatively quick, fiery end would be better than a painful spiral.

We’re done as a planet. Some creatures will survive, but humans have used up all the readily available low-tech surface resources - oils, coals, metals - so anything that evolves intelligence after us won’t make it past the stone age. And then, the sun will die.

At least we have more solid evidence to the answer to Fermi’s paradox. It’d be a bigger question if we weren’t rushing toward our own extinction.

Bullshit, “there’s nothing left.” Fucking idiots forget what a holocaust can really be.

There won’t be a Gaza, because it’ll be Israel. There won’t be Palestinians anymore. You think the destruction is bad now, you ain’t seen nothing yet. There will now never be a Palestine; any tiny chance was just extinguished.

Sad thing is, it’s the Palestinians in the Middle East who are going to pay for the dumb fuck voters in the US. The ones here will pay, too; only it’ll just be in more blatant bigotry and racism, not flat-out being murdered. And good luck getting their families and friends out; immigration was a huge talking point of the Trump team.

The extermination of the Palestine people is a high price to pay for the shocked Pikachu face that’s coming.

Well, looks like Elon is going to get away with it.

There goes the role of law. Welcome to the next stage of the collapse.

Another wonderful write-up! I’ve been watching this one; thanks for such a detailed review.

Yeah, if Trump doesn’t win. And if Kamala wins, then if he can drag the case out until the next election, there’s a chance she’ll lose the next one and he’ll get a chance at a pardon. If Trump wins, I doubt the Justice department will prosecute.

If Smell-o-Vision was a thing, everyone would think Trump smelled like pine trees and ocean spray, because that’s what he’d pay them to broadcast, or else refuse to allow himself to be broadcast on their networks.

The guy slathers on so much fake tan, he looks like he’s wearing black-face. His only genuine characteristic is his inability to stop the senility from coming out of his mouth.

Good thing Joe isn’t running, huh?

Which made no functional difference, as elections are today and Musk didn’t stop doing the lottery during the case.

What.

Oh. He only ruled that it didn’t violate state gambling laws. Musk can still be tried for violating national election laws.

I’d rather see him in federal prison, anyway. Maybe he’ll do an Epstein there.

That’s composing quite an edifice of unprovable postulation to reverse engineer faith. “A” for effort!

I wonder how many of these were manually written before they created a standard “SovCit” form letter?

I love it. Short, to the point, and unambiguous. A well-crafted communication is art.

Yup. The requirement of “faith” is a sure sign of charlatanism.

It’s a funny thing, when you think about it. If you were truly God, you wouldn’t need to prove it; you could just make it so everyone believes you.

Nicely put!

Reddit at least allowed blocking of trolls, whereas if we want that here, we will need to expend the effort to make that happen.

I don’t so much mind this, at least. It’s just curation, and I’d far rather have it in our hands than the hands of moderators or platform owners. Not that moderation isn’t useful, and hosting admins can still defederate - but giving users the ability to manage their own block lists, at the user, group, and instance levels, makes it less critical to have moderation, and makes moderation a little less prone to abuse.

Completely agree, except that I’d amend that no real conservative politicians exist. I think there are a lot of real conservatives - you named several - but that simply can’t get elected with our current election mechanisms. Primaries need to be eliminated. Progress like adoption of RCV needs to expand. The electoral college needs to be eliminated. If we can make progress in these areas, it’ll let moderate conservatives to regain control of their party. And it’d let people stop arguing and being frustrated with having to vote for the lesser of two evils.

And it’s pretty typical of Dick. He often wrote surreal stuff.

I get what you were asking; I just don’t know how to answer the question. Mind-bending, byzantine stories are a matter of taste, just as gritty grimdark is.

The first time I read Ubik, I was younger and the plot device hadn’t yet been endlessly copied in other books; it wasn’t obvious to me what was going on, and I enjoyed the voyage of discovery, and the novelty of the style. It sounds like you figured it out early, and that reduced your enjoyment of it. You can only experience that once, though, and now when I re-read it knowing how it ends, and what’s happening, I can still recall how great it was the first time, and that makes up for the spoiler effect.

Like most things, there’s a sliding scale. I block two instances (in my client) because of the high noise-to-signal ratio, and a few individuals who I find particularly obnoxious. I’ve never blocked anyone who I thought was trying to have a good-faith argument with me, regardless of their position. But I also don’t feel obligated to stand and listen to the MAGA dipshit shouting obscenities at minorities, either. Is it an echo chamber? No more than me not watching Fox “News”.

Although, Lemmy leans strongly left, and the instances are tankie ones; there isn’t a lot of right-leaning posting IME. I think this is a particularly difficult time for reasonable conservatives because of how their party has been co-opted by fascists. The instances I’m on doesn’t do a lot of defederating, but I know just by virtue of being on Lemmy, I’m getting a left bias.