Given my direct experience with using the piss poor Samsung libraries on their TVs and phones, I'm going to say I'm 95% sure it's shoddy firmware that did this. The only place I've worked that had similar products was a company that hired 3 full stack devs and 0 QA to copy and paste their way to completion. I'm pretty sure Samsung has more employees than that.

no, my teeth are permanently stained brown from fluoride exposure as an infant. The plus-side is I've had one cavity in 40 years despite some abysmal dental hygiene.

I had the same thought. I actually keep my Wii plugged in still. Since they stopped releasing updates for the OS it stays jailbroken and I can run my emulators on it. My wii actually gets more use now as an emulator machine than ever it did when it was a platform for shovelware.

I was into mobile gaming before every game was infested with frustrating microtransactions, free-to-play mechanics, or built in ads. Now it seems like everything wants me to pay it money to continue playing or it punishes me with waiting for another turn in 20 minutes. Even Angry Birds retroactively added microtransactions. So few games have an option to buy a full version to disable the "constantly harass you for money feature" that I've given up on the platform. That and most games eat up my battery so I either have to play attached to the wall or I get 30 minutes of playtime before my device dies.

Unfortunately, this monetization of everything has spread to the AAA segment of gaming and I can't even play my $60 game in peace without it also begging me for money. I thought I'd escaped this practice when arcades fell out of favor ... but I guess it was hibernating.

On the plus side: I've been reading books and playing table-top games a lot more lately.

An AI article actually about AI. I can die happy now.

Why are algorithms now being referred to as AI? It's very tiresome correcting the misinformed.

correlation != causation

Poverty also correlates to higher crime rates. I know plenty of majority white neighborhoods I won't step foot in because of the high crime rates. I certainly don't blame the sketchiness of those neighborhoods to the maybe 3 black people living in them.

Driving Manhattan Beach to Santa Monica, I tried many many different routes to avoid the 405. Turns out, none of them were significantly faster. 45 to 75 minutes guaranteed. All Waze and Google maps did was direct me along obnoxious circuitous routes that got me stuck at too many stop signs. Of course, it took me nearly 3 months of trying to reach that conclusion: statistically tracking peak traffic times, determining when traffic was worst on which streets. So imagine if every driver was trying this, which they obviously are.

I certainly wouldn't have been driving at all if there was a metro line that didn't take 2-3 hours to complete the same route. Though to take the metro from Manhattan Beach it's the Green line to the Blue line to the Expo line and then walk or take the bus another half mile to the office. Or it's take the bus to the LAX and then another bus up Sepulveda and then another bus along Wilshire.

Eventually I just decided to ride my bike because it took just as long and I got to ride on the beach every day. LA traffic sucks enough that people would take public transit if it meant you didn't have to drive the freeways. I will certainly use proximity to a metro line to influence the next place I live.

I was wondering why a second language suddenly appeared in the Android IDE. I'm assuming Google will be solely supporting Kotlin soon?

In LA the only time the roads aren't congested is from 8 PM to 6 AM and 11 AM to 2 PM. I routinely work until 8 because I hate waiting for an hour in gridlock to go a mile to the 405. At least once I get there traffic moves a relatively consistent 20 mph.

I suppose I could work from 12 to 8 to work with those hours, except I'm told I'm expected to be in the office at 10. Which leaves ... ... ... 4 AM - 12.

I've gotten so frustrated with it myself that I've opted to ride my bike 26 miles a day (around 4000 miles a year) so I don't have to deal with the traffic. Luckily it's always sunny in southern california.

Actually coming up with maps for my games was an annoyance. Now I don't even have to bother. Grap some data from google, throws some walls up at the border and you're done! Stick it on Steam.

what? my spring-loaded keyboard from the 80s in in vogue again? Sweet. *tries to plug in the serial connector to macbook's usb-c socket* why won't it go in? Goes out to buy the official apple converter (well 3 converters actually) for $80 retail. Plugs in the keyboard and shouts at the sky because assorted keys have stopped working from being in storage for 30 years, the macbook doesn't know what to do with all those F keys, and there's no way to hit the Command button. For sale: retro mechanical keyboard.

Applying for jobs there, I have to offset my requested salary by at least $40k just to account for the astronomical rent. I'm not sure how anybody could afford to live there or how any business could afford to employ there. Every other major metro area on the west coast is significantly cheaper. I only apply to places in Silicon Valley or SF if they offer 100% remote anymore, with the added advantage that they don't have to pay me as much since I don't need $1000 extra every month to pay for my housing.

Every company I've worked for has done this, if only to offset early hyperbolic 1 star reviews (it took 10 seconds to load!). I find it hard to believe this is not widespread behaviour.

don't forget sky-high rent and the worst traffic in the country!