Funny you should mention that.

I switched to buckwheat pillows a few years ago and I've been a fan. It's a really interesting texture that you can move and shape really easily, but then when you apply pressure to it, it firms up and holds its shape. So, you get a really supportive pillow that's molded to your head and neck (For reference, I'm a side sleeper). The only downside I've noticed is the filling degrades relatively quickly, and after about a year it loses a lot of its volume and doesn't hold its shape as well, so you'll need to replace it. The bright side is that it's fairly cheap, and entirely biodegradable.

Android has a similar feature. It's called "Lockdown mode" on the shutdown menu. Locks the phone and turns off any biometric unlocks.

This seems like a good time to mention that if you live in the US, there's currently a significant amount of federal money up for grabs to expand the rail network, with an emphasis on high speed rail. See if there are any projects being planned in your state, and make your voice heard so NIMBYs and airline industry cronies don't bully us out of a vastly superior mode of inter-city transit.

Right. Why do I have to submit a retinal scan and 3 forms of ID to watch porn because parents can't be bothered to learn basic computer skills and monitor their own children?

One factor I haven't seen mentioned is that because of rising interest rates, tech companies have had to shift from being focused on growth to actually turning a profit. Because of this, companies are having to shed employees because they over hired in anticipation of that continued growth. People are expensive so that's an "easy" way to try to get the line closer to positive.

This is kind of a rough overview and I'm by no means an expert on economics. Just someone who works in tech and so has been following things closely.

It's rough in the US. Most iPhone users will insist that iMessage is better and refuse to use anything else, and then whine when an android user is in a group chat and none of the features work.

Just wait until climate change kills the vast majority of coffee crops. That'll probably remind people that it's a luxury.

+1 for Jellyfin. It's FOSS, doesn't pollute your media collection with terrible streaming offerings, and doesn't paywall hardware acceleration. Much better option than Plex these days imo.

I find it useful in a lot of ways. I think people try to over apply it though. For example, as a software engineer, I would absolutely not trust AI to write an entire app. However, it's really good at generating "grunt work" code. API requests, unit tests, etc. Things that are well trodden, but change depending on the context.

I also find they're pretty good at explaining and summarizing information. The chat interface is especially useful in this regard because I can ask follow up questions to drill down into something I don't quite understand. Something that wouldn't be possible with a Wikipedia article, for example. For important information, you should obviously check other sources, but you should do that regardless of whether the writer is a human or machine.

Basically, it's good at that it's for: taking a massive compendium of existing information and applying it to the context you give it. It's not a problem solving engine or an artificial being.

Ars Technica seems to really be embracing the fediverse. They have a very active official Mastodon account. https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica

Taking the opportunity to get on my soapbox and remind everyone that free software still requires someone's time and effort to maintain. If you've been using a free app for a while and you and you enjoy it (and you have the means to do so), consider sending a donation to the developers/maintainers! It's a good way to help ensure that the great, free app you enjoy stays great and free.