djdarren

As a recovering Apple user, the hardware really is very, very good.

I have an M2 MacBook Air that is, quite frankly, the fastest computer I've ever used. Running Window in a VM within it gave me the fastest Windows computer I've ever used. I've had it two years and still get all day out of the battery. It can export a two hour AIFF recording of my radio show from Reaper in around 10 seconds. In the two years I've had it there have been perhaps three occasions where I wished I'd opted for a Pro instead.

I also have an iPad mini which is a ridiculously useful little tablet, when used in conjunction with my MacBook.

However, over the past year I've been drawing further away from their ecosystem, to the point that I mostly only use the MacBook to present my radio show because it's fanless so doesn't cause any noise issues when my mic's open. And that's as a direct result of Apple being a trash company run by corporate fuckheads who would sooner capitulate to fascists than actually fucking stand for something.

So yeah, very few of us do actually support them.

Very nice!

We had an apprentice at work a few years ago who had never seen those movies. The first was released the year he was born.

I shrivelled into a corpse as he told me that.

You can already run Graphene entirely without Play Services. You have to install them yourself after you set up. It's just that if you do install them, they're sandboxed.

I'm not an expert by any means, I moved directly to Graphene after 15 years of iPhones without really touching Android in between, so I mostly scrabboed about, found a path that worked and stuck to it.

But the way I use it is with Aurora to install apps from the Play Store. You can use it anonymously, or you can log in to your own Google account.

In terms of other Google services, you can install then, whereby Graphene will run them in a sandbox. You have control over how much data they can have. For me it strikes a happy balance between knowing that I have some semblance of control, but also having the convenience of things like Maps. And Google's camera app is much much better than any of the others I've tried. Which is annoying.

They want to fuck Venezuela but don't have the emotional maturity to ask them out on a date.

Have socialist policies lifted people out of poverty in Venezuela?

Perhaps if the US lifted its sanctions on Venezuela, maybe they'd find out.

🎶 If it's going up your arsehole flare the base If it's going up your arsehole flare the base If it's going up your arse, there's a point it mustn't pass If it's going up your arsehole flare the base 🎶

You don't have to run any Google stuff at all, if you don't want to.

Discovered that Philip Pullman finally published The Rose Field, the final part of the Book of Dust trilogy a week or so back, so have gone back in on La Belle Sauvage to remind myself where we are. I'm determined to be patient and also read The Secret Commonwealth too before going in on the new one.

He also tried to execute him, but yeah, generally cool.

Vin-di-CATION!