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Comment Re: You say that like it's a bad thing (Score 1) 165

Do you think there's a world where Apple suddenly offers inexpensive replacement parts for anything? Sometimes the screens on Chromebooks are as low as $30. I'm sure they're third party panels, but they work and return the device to useful life. How likely is it that Apple offers screen replacements under $100, even to institutional buyers?

Comment Re: You say that like it's a bad thing (Score 4, Interesting) 165

That is repairable by the standards of Apple computers, not the standards of open hardware.

My experience dealing with a Chromebook deployment mirrors one of the grandparent commenters: 90% of the problems are broken screens, Screens are quick and easy to replace if you have the part, but screens cost money and you'll never had as many as you'll eventually need. You'll have extra parts for everything else because of the staggering number of broken screens.

I have an occasional side job dealing with PC/laptop/Chromebook repairs at a local weirdo private Christian Academy. Given that the place definitely seems to have a "go pick the stick I'm going to beat you with"-vibe, I suspect there's actually fewer broken systems than I might see from a similar deployment at a public school. Chromebook screens are still the biggest problem. One of the reasons I got this side gig is that an acquaintance saw the number of devices being written off and just assumed their day-to-day IT person couldn't possibly know what they're doing.

Anything else Apple does, unless their screens are indestructible or only cost $20 to replace, isn't going to help with that.

Comment Re:Podcasts are shit - podslop is always the stand (Score 1) 68

Firefox has an extension called Youtube Custom Speed. You can set arbitrary speeds from .05 to 16x in whatever increments you feel like adding. Not that it helps for the dipshits explaining how to type something in a terminal prompt, but it's definitely handy for speeding through laptop disassemblies and the like.

Chrome does appear to have the same thing so it probably works on whatever browser you like.

Comment Re:Podcasts are shit - podslop is always the stand (Score 1) 68

In Pocket Casts, the app I use, there's a playback speed control that can go up to 5x. I usually listen to podcasts at about 3x speed, which feels right to me. I lose a little nuance for audio fiction, but that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make.

16x audio playback speeds are typical for screen readers for visually impaired users. Maybe your wife configured something like that, but they take practice to get used to. I only have some familiarity with those because I used to have a blind co-worker and had to support his setup.

Comment ebikes are dangerous! (Score 1) 244

Speaking as a motorcycle rider, ebikes are dangerous. Not because of the bike but because of the riders. They often don't wear safety gear, they don't follow traffic laws, and many bikes top out at 70-80kph. It took considerable effort to get my Class M. A bike going that fast should require licensing and safety courses and helmet laws. Most people don't realize they can squid out on the road on an ebike just like you will on a motorcycle without proper gear.

Comment No win11. Uh uh, (Score 1) 27

I just installed Fedora 44 on my old Win10 laptop. Because Microsoft made sure this perfectly good laptop with 16gb RAM could not run Win11. And Affinity Suite runs great on wine now. And no obnoxious telemetry tracking. Oh yeah, for games: steam and lutris too.

Yeah yeah yeah, linux linux linux

still, Microsoft is in self-destruct mode.

Comment LocalSend already works with everything (Score 2) 3

I don't know why I should care about limited compatibility for a subset of devices with another subset of devices. There's some of everything in my home. I found a tool called LocalSend years ago that allows me to do mildly obnoxious data transfers between arbitrary devices regardless of platform.

Comment Re:X86 CPUs (Score 1) 329

If you start messing with the accessibility options for text size on MacOS, you quickly wind up with a blurry mess. This is particularly obnoxious if you're looking at a very high resolution display and very noticeable on the menu bar. It's a wonderful example of Apple's one size fits some design priorities.

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