favokus's comments

My problem with Surface is the lack of apps that properly support a stylus. I don't like OneNote for a number of reasons and there are no decent alternatives. Also, from the stories I've heard, QC on Surface Pros is abysmal, as is support from MS.

Uh, I'm confused. The PS4 has been cracked. Jailbreaks exist. And yes, they enable piracy. But like any console that is still being actively supported/updated by the manufacturer, it requires a certain firmware version (or below).

My 200 Euro Thinkpad has a slot for a SIM card, which I use for 3G connectivity. I'm sure a newer one would have LTE, or I might even be able to replace the card in my Thinkpad to get LTE. Also, having internet on a laptop while on the go is fucking awesome (without the fiddlyness of turning on a hotspot).

Man, I've been struggling to integrate my iPad Pro into the rest of my life since I bought it in 2016. I've given up. There were too many things I still needed my Thinkpad with Linux for and it was impossible to properly integrate the iPad into my existing workflows to use practically as a supplemental device. I've bought a Galaxy Tab instead, because Android at least gives me the freedom to (for example) sync folders between the devices without any input from me.

It's particularly frustrating because I love the iPad. Like, it's one of the few devices I really, really, really enjoy in so many ways and I just wish it was better than it actually is. It's maybe the only device I own that I really do love. The Tab is a poor substitute and I really hate using it, but at least it fits with the rest of my tools in a sane way and gives me the freedom to customize it according to my needs.

Also, Notion. Another tool that I love the idea of, but hate the implementation. There are too many restrictions on the data model that make it frustratingly unlike any normal relational database and frustrating to use, and makes me wish somebody would just make a lightweight relational database with a friendly, practical wiki-like UI for building a knowledge base.

I am very privacy focused and I do like this feature. I like it so much that I've cobbled together a bunch of tools to do essentially the same thing without relying on Google. I have a program on my phone that is always running and capturing my location and saving it to gpx files in a specific folder. That folder is synced to my desktop (directly over SyncThing), and I can evaluate the files easily with Python to see where I've been at any given time. I usually don't do anything with the gpx files, but there have been situations where I needed to know how long I was in a particular place over a longer period of time (for work) where it was incredibly useful to have the data.

One thing I've noticed is that Google must obviously do a lot of filtering and correction to the data, because my data is nowhere as clean as I've seen on Gmaps, and I haven't found a way to replicate that in any way. My data is totally sufficient for whenever I've needed it, but it's not perfect. The most I'll do is filter out data that is ridiculously out of bounds from what the data directly before and after say, but I wish there were a better solution (and if there is, I haven't found it yet).

I think one big problem with Google collecting all this data is that you don't own it. You can't choose to use this location data to solve your problems in a way that you'd prefer. Instead, you have to hope that Google has covered your needs for the data and if not, tough luck, you're stuck doing a lot of manual work.

> It's a question I've been struggling with lately. Downvotes reinforce groupthink, that much is subjectively clear. I've considered solutions, and I believe forcing people to reply before they are allowed to downvote would help.

I actually don't see any value in downvotes. It's usually used when people disagree, which obviously leads to silos of thought and suppressing ideas. If somebody is being particularly disruptive and unproductive, then they should be flagged, but otherwise I wish downvotes would be removed from HN. It has no place here.

Especially on HN, where I thought the idea was for people to have reasonable discussions about things, downvotes are frustratingly counter to that. If you disagree with something, it's too easy to just downvote and move on. And people pile on without saying anything. And in the end, nobody learns anything because nobody's actually talking about what's wrong with the comment.

Then again, I get the feeling nobody here actually wants to learn anything from fellow users if they happen to represent different ideas. I guess that's by design?