Not seen mentioned yet, but Homeworld (1999).
The transition from the opening cutscene to the game proper scored to Agnus Dei (Adagio for Strings) by Samuel Barber really set the tone for the thing.
I don’t remember much else about the soundtrack, but that one piece stuck with me.
Using the phone as a touchpad has come in handy on a few occasions for me. Also just niceties like having your music on the PC pause automatically if you receive a call.
It should further be pointed out that it’s not even required that one end is a phone. You can connect your laptop to your desktop and share content between them just as easily.
Just this past Friday I had a pile of boxes I had to scan barcodes on. Two barcodes per box.
The issue was the form did nothing when you pressed enter, and required tab to get from the first field to the second (a 2nd tab would start a new row, so it was at least equipped for multiple entries).
Most barcode scanners, if you’re unfamiliar, insert a linefeed character (ASCII 0x0A) after each successful scan.
It took me an unbearably long time to read through the 250 page user guide / programming manual for our barcode scanner to figure out how to change this to tab (0x09). It required no fewer than SIX barcodes to be scanned; enter programming mode / modify suffix / 0 / 9 / validate / save, which were spread across three pages of the manual (fortunately it had links, because also >100 pages apart).
It was worth it in the end, but it would have taken 5 minutes for them to code it to allow enter to switch between fields. This workflow is the only thing this site does, it’s unreasonable to expect people wouldn’t be using a barcode scanner.
I actually typo’d the original (corrected now), my 2nd was an XZP too. And also died of failed USB port.
I looked into how hard repairing it would be, and while parts were mostly available, having to take the entire phone apart (as the USB port assembly was the last piece to come out of the chassis) didn’t thrill me.
Sony mostly pass the camera quality test†, the “fit and finish” test, and ship a relatively clean Android OS.
You also get options to have otherwise-long-forgotten features like 3.5mm headphone jacks and MicroSD slots, and Sony’s waterproofing is second to none for phones that you wouldn’t naturally describe as “ruggedised”.
There are unavoidable issues around pricing (high) and availability (low), but by most of the metrics people would choose to measure phones’ quality, features, performance, etc, they are actually doing a great job with their products (at least now that they also offer a respectable duration of OS updates and support).
If you are looking for it too, they tend to be at the upper end of manufacturers for open-source code and documentation availability: https://developerworld.wpp.developer.sony.com/open-source/aosp-on-xperia-open-devices, though with that said due to the relatively small audience for their products, availability of other people’s custom ROMs will not necessarily be extensive.
I’m on my fourth of their phones (Z2 2014, XZ Premium 2017, 1ii 2020, 1vii 2025), every upgrade time I’ve looked around, and every time I’ve failed to find something I want to own more than another one.
† The caveat here is they’re highly skewed toward operator control; you’re very much expected to participate in the photo-taking process and I’m painfully aware that’s not what most people want these days. Low assistance provided, basically zero “AI” processing, just lots of rope with which to hang yourself. It’ll take beautiful pictures once you get accustomed to it though, whaddaya gonna do?
I made this joke to people who work for AMD. I was a bit shocked that it hadn’t occurred to them :D
That wasn’t my point, even remotely.
It was rather that they likely can’t just ignore this bullshit and carry on doing the right thing, no matter how much they should.
Sadly, as a traded company they would appear to have to at least respond to a “but but but muh shareholders!” argument, no matter the source (or how pathetic it is).
It’s not that they seemingly can’t (rightly) tell them to piss off, but it probably has to be done a lot more carefully.
It always seemed like an amazing way to speed-run repetitive strain injury to me.
Anything that requires that level of precision but offers basically zero range of motion just seems to force unnatural levels of tension in every muscle in your hand and wrist.
The things cause me agonising wrist pain within minutes of use, not something I’ve experienced with any modern (ie, larger than the postage stamp sizes of old) touchpad.
Good riddance.
I got into an argument with someone once about this, when they told me (paraphrasing) “it’s safe to drive listening to music through headphones, because they let outside sound in”.
Yes they indeed might, but - even ignoring delay introduced from digital electronics - you’ve now lost all sense of where that sound is coming from, because you’re listening to the sound of one microphone being played through one speaker.
The human ear really is an incredible thing.
When you’re eating off-brand loose meat, you might well find that it is horse.
Generally, you just need to export the pool with zpool export zfspool1, then import again with zpool import -d /dev/disk/by-id zfspool1.
I believe it should stick after that.
Whether that will apply in its current degrated state I couldn’t say.
While I have a personal general rule against backing electronics on Kickstarter and would likely wait for it to be available at retail, I wouldn’t necessarily immediately discount this one.
It’s probably worth noting - mentioned in Jeff Geerling’s video - they had a MOQ of 1500 on the metal case, which likely forced them to be significantly further through the process than a lot of Kickstarters are at launch.
Indeed, you will note that they carefully chose the moniker “Daily Active Uniques” and not “Daily Active Users”.
I think that speaks volumes, as humans are definitely harder to retain.
I started with an assumption there might have been a when component to that question, but nope, apparently we’re taking about 2025 and not 1995.
Somewhat amazingly though, brand new dot matrix printers - not just new old stock, but newly-manufactured units including modern USB and/or Ethernet interfaces - and even the big cartons of tractor-feed continuous paper are still readily available.
As dot matrix printers have not gone the way of the dodo, also neither have carbonless triplicate forms, which they are uniquely able to print on. Seems that’s still a big selling point for these printers.