thirdsun

> The picture showing an explorer dominating a snowy mountain is hilarious

Without any gloves too.

Does it matter in a discussion about convenience?

> Why compare with an old system from the 80s? I got to hear a friend's friend's modern audiophile setup. A dedicated room with Wilson Audio speakers (totally overpriced but amazing), high-end DAC, high-end amp... It was bliss. One of these $50K+ setup but bliss. This is nothing like a laptop, a soundbar or a Sonos.

To be fair you can have a similarly great experience on significantly more affordable setups around 10k.

DAC and amplification above a certain price range is basically good enough to become indistinguishable from one another. The largest part of your budget should go into speakers. And don't underestimate the effects of proper room treatment and correction. Solutions like Dirac Live have made this much more approachable.

Anything above that will provide very marginal gains. There's a lot of costly prestige above that threshold which doesn't always translate into real audible benefits.

So you manage a lossless and a lossy library? That sounds like a lot of work.

My collection is lossless and nearing 2 TB in size. Too large for mobile usage on iOS, where I don't really need that kind of fidelity anyway. However I still don't want to manage a second lossy library and keep them both in sync. Luckily Apple's Music app can be configured to transcode your lossless audio to a lossy format on the fly whenever you sync your collection to your iPhone. That way I can have my whole collection in my pocket without having to manage it.

I finally quit by using e-cigarettes which allow you to reduce the amount of nicotine gradually. Once you're at zero nicotine it's really just a habit that's quite easy to get rid of. One day you will forget your e-cigarette while going out and, surprisingly, it won't matter any longer.

It's important to switch from cigarettes to e-cigarettes exclusively and abruptly though. I have friends who tried to switch slowly and just ended up smoking both.

Once I used e-cigarettes I quit entirely within months. And it felt easy.

If you want a true browser there's always the option to move the current page from the in-app Safari View to the full browser.

In many cases I'd like to stay within the app. Those in-app Safari Webviews allows that. And if it is a website I'd like to browse in my usual, more permanent browsing evironment I always have th eoption to do so.

This two step approach is more useful to me than always opening links in the browser.

> with the same unit meaning something different with each manufacturer and not everyone even uses the same units.

It's even worse. Some manufacturers have a single rough sizing table for an entire product category, like all shirts or pants. They will happily ignore different fittings and styles like slim fit, oversized, loose fit etc.

Pro-tip: Now you could also use iOS' camera app to recognize the text, select it and look it up. I'm not sure if it's faster than the note route but the option is there.

> The trend is pretty clear: our world is going to depend more on computers, not less. You have to prepare for a world where drones have replaced your fighter jets, where every citizen has a smartphone, and where your financial system will collapse without working computers and servers.

That sounds a lot like the present.

Well, at least we know who to blame now.

Well, I'd love it if the GDPR consent prompts were anything like Apple's privacy prompts.

The problem with consent prompts on websites is that they are rarely in compliance with the GDPR.

> Would you ever deny a friend something they wanted to do that you knew wasn’t good for them?

Ahm...yes? A friend isn't characterized by how much they agree with you. It's perfectly valid to say no.

> Safari on iOS has extensions, including Adblock extensions, and has for some time now.

None of them are anywhere close to the quality of uBlock Origin.

It's not just Bandcamp though - DRM-free files are the default in the music industry and they can be bought from various stores, including lossless formats.

See my other comment. The remastered 4K UHD / HDR Arrow release is definitely available if you wanted to get it: http://rarbg.to/torrents.php?imdb=tt0060315

From my experience due to DHT there are actually more seeders than listed on the site. I didn't have any trouble getting even quite obscure films.

You can get pretty much any movie in a variety of encoded and untouched formats - full blurays, reasonably compressed rips, 2160p HDR, 1080p, 720p, you name it. It's all there.

Here's a selection of releases for the movie Django (1966): http://rarbg.to/torrents.php?imdb=tt0060315

In case of HBO Max it's probably because they licensed most of their content to Sky. I'm sure once that agreement runs out we will see HBO Max in Germany. And Sky will be even more worthless to non-sport audiences.

You can buy DRM-free digital and lossless music though. It's only the movie industry that has it backwards.

Sorry, just noticed your reply.

A lot of people consider it a cute gadget before they tried it and regard as essential safety tool once they did. It certainly depends on your use case - in busy cities it's useless since you'll be alerted to cars constantly. However in my area I ride on countless long stretches of road with little to moderate traffic. Cars will surprise you on these kind of roads. Sometimes you don't hear or notice them.

With the Varia radar I'm much more aware of my surroundings. I can take up the middle of the road until a car approaches. I won't be surprised by cars I fail to hear due to strong winds or other noise. I know when it's safe to slalom around obstacles on the street. Or when to do a left turn (I'd still look but I'm not sure if the radar ever missed a car - it's very reliable). These days I'd feel almost naked without my radar.

Plus, don't forget that it's also a very good rear light which you can control from your head unit. Don't underestimate the importance of daytime lights in order to be noticed by cars - that is the single most important measure to avoid accidents on a bike.

I know. My whole collection lives in Apple's music.app - I jsut don't want to rely on their (or anyone else's) streaming service. I use Spotify merely to preview releases I consider buying.

Because there's a lot of niche, obscure music missing from streaming services. People who are into music care about those gaps in the catalogue and they want to own their collection without fear of loosing access to their content due to changing rights, which might happen any day.

While Spotify covers most popular stuff there's a huge amount of music that isn't available on any streaming service. Plus, your content might disappear any day.

I use Spotify for previewing, exploring and making some buying decisions but my actual collection is mine. It's lossless, DRM-free and I plan to have it for ages to come.

You might already be aware but there is a range of alternative music players on iOS that focus on listening to a local music library. Doesn't help with dongles - but may fix your software issues.

Here's a very in-depth showcase of your options: https://barrowclift.me/post/fourth-annual-ios-music-player-s...

For me the killer feature of the desktop music.app is still the option to transcode to a lower bitrate during sync. My lossless music library spans close to 2 TB (and growing) these days. SD cards are very expensive at that kidn of storage - so in contrast to the article sd cards certainly don't provide limitless space.

Anyway. To meet mobile storage requirements I need to transcode it to 256 kbps AAC and I don't want to handle this manually or manage a second lossy library. music.app / iTunes easily does this on the fly during sync.

I'm sure other software / hardare players can do that too - but if it's the same process why would I carry an additional device around? The iPhone is just very convenient for that purpose. Otherwise I really like Sony's Walkman range.

I'd add Garmin's Varia radar as a better (yet more expensive) alternative to a mirror. It's a bike light combined with a radar that will track and display cars coming up behind you on your bike computer (doesn't have to be a Garmin unit since the standard is open to everyone). Many cyclists who tired it (including me) won't ride without one.

It depends. Many major roads have separate bike paths and if they don't there's always the option to use smaller, less travelled side roads but you have to plan your route in that case.

It's certainly not as bleak as you describe.

Searching? I think it's a viable option if you don't know which path leads to the desired seting.

> Every soccer league is on a different provider.

Over here in europe you need multiple providers for the same competition since the rights are split. Champions League football (as in soccer) requires a Sky, DAZN and Amazon Prime subscription if you want to see all matches (of your favorite club). Same thing with most domestic leagues.

> People who need more are likely to also want more in general, and the higher end options satisfy that.

I disagree. The topic comes up repeatedly whenever Apple Silicon is discussed. It’s my impression that for quite a lot of us the base M1 or M2 would be everything we wish for from a pure performance perspective. Yet the limited display output options are the only thing that force us towards the Pro and higher tiers.

It seems like a deliberate limitation and I don’t like this form of product segmentation.

As a data point: I'm european and my next car will have Carplay, no doubt.

On the other hand I currently use a phone holder because my car doesn't support Carplay and nobody in their right mind would get a new car just because of this missing feature. That's why the phone holder is such a popular solution. It's a slow process, but I have no doubt that most people will insist on Carplay / Android Auto whenever it's time to get a new car.

I cycle 200 - 400 Km per week on a road bike, with varying intensity, and yet it's very easy to eat way too much.