Funny, I thought Trump’s party had control of all three branches. I didn’t think their opposition had control of any of it.

Nope! It’s definitely a relic! AMD Athlon 3500+? I had a 3200+ once, but I built that rig myself. This has 512MB of RAM. That doesn’t sound right to me. I had 4GB of RAM in mine. My previous computer was a Pentium 3 that had 512MB RAM, but I upped it to 768 (took a 256MB from another computer). Pretty sure 512MB is low for this machine. It’s almost certainly a Windows XP machine. So it’s got a bit more CPU than it needs but not quite enough RAM, at least not for gaming. As a web browsing machine it might be fine?

But also, FireWire! For younger folks, that’s the wide plug next to the USB ports by the 3.5mm jacks. FireWire was commonly used by Apple and was a rival to USB, but many Windows PCs had FireWire as well, it wasn’t exclusive to Mac. My first DVD burner was FireWire, and I had a FireWire hard drive once. IIRC FireWire had two generations and they were faster than USB 1 and USB 2, but they never had an answer to USB 3. Today’s Macs use Thunderbolt, which uses USB-C as the plug, but it’s like 10 times faster than USB 3. 5MBit vs 50? Thunderbolt is awesome. You look at a MacBook with what looks like one USB-C port and laugh, but that port can connect a dock with like two HDMI (4K@60FPS) ports, Ethernet, a bunch of USB ports, memory card slots, and an NVMe SSD you can install inside the dock and it all goes full bore. But like FireWire, Thunderbolt is not Mac exclusive (it’s an Intel technology IIRC). So PCs have it too.

Honestly though, nothing in this pic looks new. Nothing says it wasn’t taken 20 years ago. This girl could be older than me, for all I know. Though when that computer was new, I was a few years older than she appears to be (and I don’t mean how she looks younger than she likely is, I’m sure she’s like 19-20 here, maybe older, look at her eyes).

1. Because if there’s a warrant out for your arrest, you’ve deliberately done something, so you know you’re being looked into. It’s not a lottery. They don’t just issue warrants to random people who have no idea whatsoever that a warrant could be issued for their arrest. A warrant is just a court order to bring you in to face charges. Those charges are based on criminal law. You don’t get warrants for speeding or blowing a red light or a stop sign or, since we’re on the computer, downloading music or movies. You do get notified via the mail (or email) for those kinds of things.

Anyway, a warrant has to be served, and you can’t be charged for evading arrest if they can’t find you. It’s once the warrant has been served — which legally has to be done in person — that if you flee, you are guilty of another crime. Once you are notified, you would typically be arrested right then and there. Depending on the nature of the crime, they may not even restrain you, if you’re willing to get in the back of the car and come quietly. The violent arrests you see are either because of the violent nature of the crime or the criminal (yes, or the cop). But they aren’t the norm.

I’ve noticed when a couple things happen, you get consistency. One, one of the Japanese dub voice actors is in the band (or is the singer). Two, when an anime reuses artists/bands who work well with their brand and the message they’re trying to convey.

Two that do both of these things are Sword Art Online, and Bungo Stray Dogs. I’m less sure who from the Japanese cast is in which bands, but it’s mostly Granrodeo, Screen Mode, and Luck Life doing the openings and endings. And they’re all bangers, though the first ending is a bit weak, comparatively. In a vacuum it’s good. In most series it would stand out, but in Bungo, it feels less special, just because the others are so great. Bungo has ran for five seasons, so you have ten songs, plus the theme sfrom the movie Dead Apple as well (which also wasn’t quite as good — the themes, I mean, not the movie — all of Bungo is excellent).

I can speak more authoritatively about SAO — the Japanese actor for Asuna (the main girl/love interest) is Haruka Tomatsu, and she does a few of the themes. She does the first ending (Yume Sekai, lit. “dream world”), she does the fourth season first opener (Resolution), and she does the second season’s second opening (Courage, the Japanese word being yuuki, which is also the name of the main character in that arc). LiSA did the first opening, and she also opened the third season, and a few others. Eir Aoi and Luna Haruna did the openings/endings in the second half of the first season, and the first half of the second season. The third season brought ASCA and ReoNa into the mix, and the quality has always been top-notch.

As far as quality of the anime, Bungo is like My Hero Academia for (and with) adults. I don’t mean it’s pornographic; it’s not. I mean the characters are mostly adults, and they aren’t high school students (well, aside from a couple of them). SAO is popular with gamers, but women/feminists don’t like its portrayal of women and their use as leverage against the main guy. Others criticise the harem element while not realising the main guy only has eyes for the main girl. Another girl is his sister. Another girl is his girlfriend’s/fiance’s best friend. Another one is his best friend, a woman he considers his equal in combat. Then, invariably, there’s the loli — a middle school girl he used as bait one time and tags along, she’s kind of the group’s little sister. So it’s not a harem, it’s just a friend group that leans heavily toward female.

For something that is more universally loved and has outstanding themes, you want Your Lie in April. And it’s going to do exactly what you think it’s going to do, but you’re going to enjoy the ride, and it’s still gonna break you when it’s over. When we talk about TV shows and “the best ending” comes up, it almost always comes up Six Feet Under. Live-action show that aired on HBO 25 years ago with a rather unique ending that still has people talking. But when anime enters the chat, a lot of people point to Your Lie in April. Because what you know is gonna happen, definitely does happen, but that’s not what breaks you. It’s when the meaning behind the title is explained. And it’s worth it to get to that point.

Can it be used in the US though? That’s always been the sticking point — the carriers have too much power.

I use an iPhone because I don’t like the idea behind Android. All your data to Google to sell to the highest bidder, in exchange for a generations-old phone at the same price as an iPhone.

The dream, for me anyway, for a phone is basically a blank slate I can run whatever I want on it without anyone telling me what I can and can’t run on it. A device I truly own. No, Apple does not provide that. Android has more flexibility when it comes to sideloading, but Google is closing that down as ad blockers threaten their business model. Maybe as they reclaim that missing ad revenue, they will make the next Pixel as powerful as the latest iPhone, and/or drop the price to match what you’re paying in personal information they sell off the back end… but I don’t think they will.

At no point does the article even try to explain what the Friend device (that’s its name) does. A bit of a sharp oversight for a site like Ars.

Nobody calls them out in the comments, maybe because nobody cares? As a self described technologist (that they claim to serve), I’m curious. So it listens to everything said around you, obviously it’s a microphone, a chip, and some storage. I’m guessing it pairs to a phone which does the heavy lifting, since the device will retail for only $129, it doesn’t seem it would have a very powerful chip. So I’m assuming it’s a dumb recorder that pairs with an app over Bluetooth?

What’s funny, though, is the CEO of the tech company says defacing the ads was the point and he wants people talking about his product. I don’t mind talking about it in spite of that; I’m outside the target age range anyway. This is not a product I would consider buying.

There is one comment that stands out in the article’s comments. They’re clearly trying to get Meta or Google to buy it. I don’t know why Google would, though — they already have Android. And Facebook already listens to what you say on phones on both platforms. This sounds like more of an explicit opt-in from users, but neither of those companies cares what you want with regards to privacy. And yet the masses still flock to them.

SPYxFAMILY Season 3 just started. :)

It’s a spy anime with this kid who is as adorable as she is dumb. And we love it. It’s more of a comedy than anything, I think. Kids like it because the adorable little four-year-old saves the day, adults love it because the dumb-as-a-box-of-rocks four-year-old makes adorable faces. We all win.

Who?

Oh… you mean Captain Killy!

1. You got me there. I can probably get a gently used iPhone from a generation or two back and maybe get down to $300, but I dunno about $200. You’re 100% right on that one, and more to the point, mid-range Android isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be. One of the biggest secrets in mobile is that performance has plateaued.

2. You can only block ads OS-wide on Android if you’re rooted. AdAway (and I suppose others like it) edit the HOSTS file which trumps DNS. DNS is what iPhone users use, and what unrooted Android users use. The problem with DNS isn’t that it doesn’t work — it does — it’s that bad actors can tunnel around it. So Google, great example, the app I mean, has its own DNS. They have various reasons but what it boils down to is “we can tunnel around your ad blocker.” They definitely do this on iOS. They probably do it on Android. But editing HOSTS can beat that. And no, I don’t get ads on YouTube, either — but I do not use the app. You can, if you’re on Android and you’re rooted and you have a good HOSTS file. I can block YouTube ads with Safari and uBlock Origin (yeah, we got it now) but it’s just DNS. I will concede that the best way to browse on a phone is Firefox for Android with uBlock Origin. Us iPhone users wish we had that. We don’t. But we can get close. Really, the only ads I see are in the App Store. It’s become a cesspool of shit.

3. I don’t sail on my phone. I’ve tried, a few things don’t work. I have computers for that. I have a good/decent emulator that works good. As far as movies, music, shows, audiobooks, I have a Plex server and my iPhone has no problem accessing that. I bet you could use an Android phone as a Plex server though. Not that I’d want to. But you probably could. Maybe. Like with root? I dunno. But anything on my iPhone (not counting Plex stuff), I can get on your Android phone. And vice-versa. I mean, not to use your Android phone as an example, that’s kinda hostile, I mean if I have an iPhone in one hand and an Android phone in the other, I got no problem getting stuff from one to the other. Either way. Best if they’re on the same WiFi, but I can make one a hotspot in a pinch.

Actually, the first phone to do a lot of things was actually an Android — good and bad! The first fingerprint reader, I think may have been the Motorola Bionic? But it was like an electric razor, it had these things you roll your finger across. It was weird. Not like what we have now. Likewise, I’m pretty sure an Android phone was the first one to pull the headphone jack. It was just because Apple did it right when they brought out the AirPods that people cried foul (rightly so). Memory card? Apple never supported them (they’re too slow), and Android phones famously didn’t support them… I think the Nexus phones? Pixel too. I don’t think any Google-branded phone had a memory card slot.

More expensive does include the foldables, and you can’t say they don’t count because they exist. I wouldn’t count the diamond-crusted Android phones, those are super limited edition. But anyone can go buy a fold or a flip, so they have to be considered. Right now the top iPhone costs $2000 in the US. It’s a 2TB iPhone 17 Pro Max. Android gets higher, albeit with folds, but it does get higher, and the performance isn’t any better.

As far as Samsung specifically: the chip in the Galaxy S25 is faster than the one in the iPhone 16 Pro/Max, but it also loses more power when it throttles for getting too hot. That really only means anything in high-end gaming, though. For day-to-day usage the Samsung will clock higher. It’s only going to get 3-4 years of support though, if that, and they still sell your private information. You can’t even use Samsung Health without agreeing to let them sell your private medical data (whatever you put in it). So no, it can’t do everything an iPhone can do. It can’t keep your medical information private, which is enshrined in law in many countries, but if you agree to let them sell it, that goes out the window. Why would you give that up when you don’t have to?

What about it is better? Honest question, from someone who uses both.

So yeah, on Android you can do a little more with home screen customisation. It used to be a lot more — I can’t believe it took Apple how many years to figure out how to place an icon to the right of or below an open space? It’s closer now, they both steal from each other, but you can do a lot more. My Android phone is partly a cosplay prop: it’s a real-life NookPhone, from Animal Crossing. My icons are huge, they’re the ones from the game, but they open real apps, and they’re in a 3x3 grid. Definitely can’t do that on iOS. But I don’t need that on my daily driver. And many people say — and I’m inclined to agree — that when an app is on both, it’s better on iOS due to fewer hardware configurations to support.

Also, we have Delta, the emulator that backs everything up to, ironically, Google Drive. So I can show you this app on my iPhone. I can also AirDrop you any game I have. Long press, share, AirDrop, find your iPhone, you open it with the same app, you got it now. Super easy. But I can also uninstall the app, it removes all the files and whatnot. I can go into Files, double check all my games are gone. Saves, all of it. Then I reinstall it. Nothing… but as soon as I sign into Google Drive, it re-downloads everything. I just wish the emulator ran on the Mac, too — I’d have cross-device sync. Also, the emulator is Nintendo only, no PlayStation, no Sega, nothing like that.

And then the privacy issue. I think it’s wild so few people care about their private information being sold. Then again, Facebook, TikTok, and others are huge. So I might be the outlier caring about that. But I still do.

I think I remember those terms.

GravityBox was a module/app you could use if you were rooted that had a bunch of cool settings, right?

I haven’t really used much of that stuff since Jellybean, maybe KitKat.

It’s sugar.

And yes, it might be vanilla. Tons of things have vanilla in them that aren’t “vanilla.” Like chocolate chip cookies. Like frosting. It’s not enough to give it a “vanilla” flavour, just enough to give it something. That’s why vanilla is considered boring/default, because in baking, it is.

Now if you’re talking roasted marshmallows, you’re applying heat to sugar — you’re caramelising it. Before you say “I know what fucking caramel tastes like,” I’m just describing the process for what is happening to the sugar, and yes, that is actually how caramel is made. It’s also how a lot of hard candy is made, too, like those little white and red peppermint discs. Those just use mint extract rather than vanilla. Same concept. Heated more (hard ball stage rather than soft ball).

Look at the ingredients though. If vanilla is listed, it’s vanilla. If it’s not, you’re just tasting sugar. If you’re roasting them, you’re tasting caramlised sugar (possibly with some vanilla).

It’s not a secret ingredient. They have to disclose all ingredients. There are no true mystery flavours out there. White/clear Lifesavers? Those are pineapple. Same with white jellybeans. It’s only a mystery to kids, and to those who don’t research.

Pretty obvious why. They want to strike while the iron is hot.

Netflix has nearly the complete attention of preteen and teenage girls between Wednesday and Kpop Demon Hunters. They’re not about to let somebody else take it, because that’s a valuable market. I’m just wondering where all the KPDH merch is at, I need my Rumi plush, and as a guy pushing 50, I don’t care who knows it. My 8-year-old niece loves Mira, but I bet I get more Rumi merch than she gets Mira merch. I will fight that battle. (She also loves Wednesday. And SPYxFAMILY (mostly Anya).)

The danger is, anywhere a male partner might put his mouth, he could also ostensibly put his cock, and if the woman is only trying to be pleasured by a tongue, she has to consider that if she’s exposing herself to anonymous oral, there’s little to stop a man on the other side from penetrating her, either with his cock, or, considering the seat posted in the comments, an object, like say a bottle. And if he can get an arm behind one or both knees, she’s not going anywhere.

With a glory hole for men, I think the danger is minimised. You don’t know whose mouth it is on the other side. Could be a woman, could be a guy. You have no idea what they look like. And I think that’s the point? Now somebody could back up to it (male or female; the latter taking it either way) and I think the excitement for that is also the point. But sex has always been less risky for the one doing the penetrating. The one receiving risks injury and pregnancy (if female and fertile) and I think they have a higher risk of infection if disease comes into play. So it’s naturally safer for men/AMABs. For women, it’s far safer to vet a partner. If they want something anonymous, a better bet for them is to employ someone to help them, someone to do the vetting for them, and have them tied and blindfolded, and have this other person supervise to ensure everything goes their way. If you’re the giver, you’d have to make yourself known to this third party, but it would be a lot more anonymous for you than going to a place with a glory hole. And in a situation like that, you’d both likely be tested for disease/infection before doing any deed. This mitigates most of the risk to the woman/AFAB and allows her/them to relax and enjoy the surprise.

I reject your notion that it’s shameful to be an outlier.

On a completely different topic, everyone is going nuts for the new Taylor Swift album. The Weather Channel even reviewed it. The fucking weather channel. Oh, you think I’m kidding? I would too. Here, look: https://weather.com/news/weather/news/2025-10-06-taylor-swift-life-of-a-showgirl-opalite

Anyway, while I do plan on listening to the Taylor Swift album (I subscribe to Apple Music, so it will cost me nothing extra but ~41 minutes of my time), I’m way more excited about the ReoNa album, “Heart,” dropping today. Or because Japan is like 12 hours ahead of us, it’s probably already out. She’s my second favourite singer right now, behind Enya, who is fairly popular, at least as far as New Age-adjacent performers go (it’s a label she does not agree with, but that’s how people know her), but still seems to be an outlier. She does not do concerts. She hasn’t done an album in 10 years. She literally lives in a castle with modern security systems with her cats. She doesn’t date (has before, doesn’t care for it) and has no children. She’s most likely aroace, though music is her romance, it’s kind of weird saying she may be aromantic. But toward people, definitely. She has a few close friends and some family but no romantic connections to speak of. And she makes music that makes you feel like it’s straight from Heaven. Even if you’re not religious. It sounds straight up otherworldly.

I have no shame in being an outlier, and it’s not just music. Maybe OP thinks everyone should be the same. I’ve never had much interest in that.

That’s exactly what they mean, they just don’t know how to spell it. The person who made the meme, and, judging by the reply you got, the person who posted it.

“Sike” is the phoenetic spelling of “psych.” That is to say, it’s pronounced the same. That is to say, they didn’t know how to spell it, so they sounded it out. And that spelling caught on. It’s not just this one guy, a lot of people can’t spell “psych” or can’t be arsed to learn.

I’m just wondering how they spell “psychologist.” I think they just say “doctor” or “shrink.” I’ve never seen anything like “sikologist.”

For anyone wondering, yes, psych is the word — it was short for “I psyched you out.” Like “I made you think you were gonna get something or that I believed something, but no, I fooled you. Psych!” Psych out.

And now that I type it out, it looks weird… but that’s the word, and it’s an actual word, and we were using it correctly. The people who couldn’t spell it (or couldn’t be arsed) were also using it correctly, they just embarrassed themselves a bit (most people don’t care) when they wrote it out or typed it out.

Honestly curious which branch of religion this comes from. It starts out sounding Christian, but the Indian terms tell me it may be Hinduism? As a westerner I know almost nothing about that religion.

But to answer the question in the context of where I do live and what I do know? Like why do people who believe in God and follow Christ do things that would condemn them in the Afterlife they preach about? Because the fact of the matter is, religion — I suppose, any of them — is seen by the poor as true, the rich as false, and the powerful as useful. That’s not to say it actually is false (or true), it can’t be proven — it just goes to show, those who preach it and say follow this that and the third… they don’t actually believe it.

For example, a lot of religious people here say that it’s a “sin” to be gay, and they cite Scripture to back it. But they secretly look at LGBTQ+ porn. They don’t feel threatened by the threat of eternal damnation they threaten others with. Not because “the rules don’t apply to them.” Because they don’t seriously believe the rules apply to anyone. And, fun fact, most Christians didn’t even care all that much about homosexuality — sure, they thought it was a sin, but one that could be forgiven, and that was between you and the Lord — until insurance companies started denying same-sex couples partner benefits, and they turned to the Church for help. Again, the powerful see religion as useful. The whole reason homosexuality, transgenderism, and all that is even in the public discourse in the west is because insurance companies wanted to collect premiums for a person’s whole life and then deny those benefits to their same-sex partner. And I’m sure a few megachurches got a cut of that blood money to get the ball rolling.

So, money. The pursuit and love of, Jesus was once attributed to say, is the root of all evil.

If you believe in that sort of thing. It really can’t be proven either way. People have tried. Nobody’s succeeded yet. Sure, you got people on both sides with compelling arguments, but there’s no proof. And most people accept that the burden of proof is on the person making the assertion. The problem with that is, with half the world or more believing in some higher power, people asserting that there is no higher power should be responsible for some burden of proof. But they don’t wanna hear that. But at the end of the day, it’s not gonna be proven in our lifetimes. So I just say, try to be a decent person, regardless of the faith you choose.

These should be the only thing going into the collection plate of the church that distributes them.

I have a couple smart nieces. One of them did want LEGO — she wanted a whole LEGO-themed party. I was the only one who bought her an actual LEGO set, not one of the ones aimed specifically at girls (LEGO and Friends, IIRC). Yeah, guess whose she wanted to actually build — and guess who she recruited for help doing it, while all the other sets sat in boxes (dunno if they were ever opened).

Beyond that, I stuck to the “edutainment” aisle. Science-y stuff. Books are another good option, if you can find a fantasy series with light romance (but nothing erotic, obviously). That’s more for older girls though, a six-year-old probably can’t read. That being said, audiobooks are a thing, and if they’re a tablet kid, an Audible/similar gift code might not be a bad idea. They can do a lot worse for themselves with a tablet than having someone read to them.

Also, crafting stuff. Crochet kit, beads, anything that lets her “make” something.