TonyOstrich

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's an LSposed/XPosed based app called YouTube Adaway. It also enables background playback.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Any tips for someone who would want to emigrate, but doesn't have any connections? I am an engineer and I have looked at immigration requirements for places like Canada and New Zeeland in the past and it seems like the only real shot I might have is if I work for an international company that has facilities in one of those countries.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

That has been my specific issue with paying for any Google product always. I understand when I am using a product for free that I am not necessarily the customer and that money has to be made off of me or the users more generally somehow. That's "fine" (ish, not really, but that has more to do with issues of security than anything).

However when I pay for a product or service, I want to now be the customer and I want to be in control of my data and have the company cater to me. If, when paying for a Google service, there was some legally relevant things in place that insured I was no longer being tracked and used to generate revenue via third parties I would gladly pay. Probably more than they are charging now, but instead they want to have it both ways which is just not OK with me.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (5 children)

What I find the most hilarious is that on a rooted Android phone there is an app that hooks into the YouTube app and eliminates adds in it. Even when my PC with Firefox and UBlock get temporarily blocked in the battle between Google and ad blockers my phone using the standard app still doesn't have adds.

I don't know something about it is very satisfying to me.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

Are we talking about me specifically or people in general? I'll assume general as I was just relaying a personal anecdote to show that my point/thesis wasn't just a hypothetical as I do know how to get around it in my specific case.

In the general context, that's not a great solution for most people as it is beyond their skill or time set. For the most disadvantaged people just having the ability to have a phone at all and a place to reliably charge it is an issue. There is also the issue is practicality. When I take public transit where I live, the app pulls up a QR code on my phone they gets scanned. I'm not even sure I could fit my laptop screen into the space to scan the QR code if I was emulating Android.

So I guess my thesis here is that systems should be made more accessible and inclusive rather than requiring those in the minority to either have to put more effort in using a workaround to reach functional parity or end up left out all together.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 weeks ago (8 children)

Unfortunately yes, and I would go even a step further and say a smart phone is a basic necessity. More and more companies and even government services are operating on the assumption that everyone has a smart phone. I have encountered various services where if a person didn't have a smart phone they literally can't use it. I even have personal experience with it.

My landlord uses a company for payments that can only be interacted with via an app on a smart phone. There is no web portal option. There is no option to mail a check. There is no option to setup a direct bank transfer. I was essentially strong armed into it since the place itself was (and still is) better than almost anything else I saw and is a reasonable price.

[–] [email protected] 39 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

He's not wrong.....

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago

I'm not convinced the employers know that. At least not the ones that ultimately control hiring. Granted, I'm not CS, I'm in the Mechanical Engineering world and it seems like a similar issue has existed (for possibly different reasons) for the last decade or so. That goes double for the skilled trades that our work heavily relies on. Companies don't want to spend the time and money developing new talent, they just want to find already developed talent.

They may throw some money and lip service at some school or community programs, but they don't really take on the responsibility of insuring a sustainable ecosystem of people in the industry. Like a lot of issues it's the Prisoner's Dilemma. I'm not sure how it is in other parts of the world, butat least in the US, with some rare exceptions, I don't see people and companies changing from being selfish to trying to maximize the benefit for all without changes in policy, and the likelihood of that is well........

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Doing work, solving problems, and failing is often the best way for people to learn. I will damn near get fired before I let management schlep menial busy work onto an intern or tell them look but don't touch. If an intern has to do some kind of mind numbing repetitive task, it won't be anything that I myself haven't already had to an equal amount of or at least will be doing side by side with them. As you said, they are there to learn, not fill a hole management was too cheap or lazy to do. .

It is probably worth while to note that in my industry interns are generally paid pretty well. My internship back in the day paid about double what my job in IT paid when I took it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Shit. You got me there. Carry on I guess.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

A single company shouldn't be able to dictate how the web works.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

My Fairphone 5 had it in Android 13 and my Zenfone 6 had it in Android 12.

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