simfree (u/simfree) - Readit News

simfree commented on Pixel 10 Phones blog.google/products/pixe... · Posted by u/gotmedium

lostlogin · 4 days ago

I had a list of things I wanted: I have limited space so needed a small form factor. I am on solar and wanted power usage to be low. I wanted 10Gb Ethernet.

It’s on a smart plug, so I can power cycle it remotely.

The hardware is far superior to any Nuc, I have at 4 or 5 of those already, I really like them. MacOS is a struggle, but I think I’ve tamed it.

I wasn’t the one paying.

simfree · 4 days ago

If your not paying, then it really does not matter.

10Gbps equipment is pretty spendy

simfree commented on Pixel 10 Phones blog.google/products/pixe... · Posted by u/gotmedium

lostlogin · 5 days ago

So much this.

I’ve migrated a home server to a Mac mini. It was awful to achieve. Trying to get a machine to boot, connect network shares and start containers was a week long effort. I can do it in Ubuntu in about 10 minutes from a clean install.

So much is disgusting UI options hidden deep some in the (awful) settings app.

But the result is a server that is fast, powerful and using 6-7W per hour, compared to the old Nuc 9 it replaced that used 70W.

It’s just so good. The OS lets it down.

simfree · 5 days ago

The new Intel NUCs are only like a hundred something dollars for an N150 CPU and come with 16 gigs of RAM and a SSD.

Why pay so much more to fight an uphill battle?

Unless you desperately need the hot garbage that is Xcode there isn't much reason to deal with Mac Minis running MacOS as a server. One update and it will suspend and be unwakeable without physical interaction.

simfree commented on Fed up with U.S. health care costs, these Americans moved abroad washingtonpost.com/busine... · Posted by u/littlexsparkee

billy99k · 5 days ago

"The rest of the world just shakes its head at the US healthcare system."

Perhaps on the cost, but the US has the best doctors in the world. If I need major surgery, I know I can get it in a reasonable amount of time. In many other countries in Europe or even Canada, the government gets to decide if I need to get it or not and the wait time could be in years.

Everyone says the elderly in the US will go broke after a single major surgery. My dad is on Medicare with a low-cost supplemental insurance. He's been in multiple hospitals for the last 6 months and short-term care for the last 6 weeks.

He was treated for sepsis twice and got a pacemaker installed (this doesn't include drugs, meals, everything else that comes with his stay). His cost out of pocket? $0.

My elderly relatives have to wait many months to get surgery in Canada. The UK also has a failing healthcare system. The issue is that in times of economic downturns, socialized medicine gets cut.

I don't think I've seen a single example of socialized medicine that doesn't end up with long wait times for major surgeries or the government making health decisions for you.

A better system would be to have no insurance on procedures that are extremely common (where the free market can reduce the costs, like Lasik eye surgery) and only have insurance on ones that aren't so common and won't benefit from the competition.

simfree · 5 days ago

Wait times for healthcare are insane in the states, getting gall stones broken up with ultrasound (lithotripsy) is something that is booking 9 months out in the Pacific Northwest.

Need a CPAP? The mandatory sleep studys slots for 6 months from now are all full, and calling the programs 3 to 7 hours drive away to see if you can get a slot there is the same deal.

At one point I had to call over 50 different medical practices looking for any doctor that could see my partner in a cast from a broken bone. So many lied about having multiple Orthopedic specialists on staff, and the few I found were booking months out. After a month I got lucky finding an appointment free due to a cancellation, but we had the best healthcare possible at the time and full coverage to see nearly all of the Orthopedic specialists licensed in my state.

US Healthcare is a bad joke and only those with the energy to hustle and fight for their healthcare stand a chance of having a reasonable quality of life if you have anything not immediately treatable in urgent care or an ER.

All of the Primary Care Physicians are booked out 5+ months for one of our HMOs, but at least you won't get 5 different bills mailed to you from LabCorp and others for $1 to $5 each months after a blood test with no way to track or pay them online.

simfree commented on T-Mobile claimed selling location data without consent is legal–judges disagree arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/Bender

Lammy · 7 days ago

I am also wondering this since I have a LTE-enabled camera with prepaid data on the Mint MVNO (four capital letters 𝅘𝅥𝅮) running on T-Mobile's network. My Mint account settings has no privacy controls at all, and their privacy policy only mentions “location” in terms of GeoIP while browsing their website and in terms of E911 access if you dial emergency services: https://www.mintmobile.com/privacy-policy/

I found this “Ultra Mobile and Mint Mobile – Policies regarding Geolocation Data” <https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-386591A1.pdf> that mentions third-party sharing, but it's a little dated (2022):

“Describe the arrangements, agreements, and circumstances in which Ultra Mobile and Mint Mobile share subscriber geolocation data with third parties that are not law enforcement.

None. The enhanced 911 process provides subscriber geolocation from the cell phone in the event of a 911 call, but it is not controlled by Ultra or Mint Mobile. Neither Ultra nor Mint Mobile provide geolocation data to any third parties.”

What this doesn't answer, however, is what T-Mobile are doing with Mint customers' location data. I have to assume they're selling everything they can and that's why the MVNO is so cheap compared to the main brand lol

simfree · 6 days ago

Main brand is even cheaper when you have a business account. It's only people with few lines that get railed on postpaid wireless.

simfree commented on Show HN: SentiCall – AI-powered call assistant senticall.app... · Posted by u/huachuang20

simfree · 14 days ago

Question, do you have a version for Android? I see it's not in the Play Store yet, and the APK download link does not work (ditto for MacOS and Windows download links).

simfree commented on What went wrong for Yahoo dfarq.homeip.net/what-wen... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

evanelias · a month ago

An increase in searches isn't necessarily a positive thing. Anecdotally, I've increased the number of Google searches I do simply because it now requires multiple attempts to frame my query in a way that provides the results I'm actually looking for!

simfree · a month ago

A decrease in search quality has damaged trust with the userbase, making crummy, unreliable data sources like LLMs seem much more viable.

simfree commented on TSMC to start building four new plants with 1.4nm technology taipeitimes.com/News/fron... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

ecshafer · a month ago

Why would a free taiwan be necessary? I don’t think there ccp would have any qualms about tsmc continuing operation. A chinese company being the indisputed best at the modt advanced industry in the world is a good thing for them. Assuming a bloodless takeover occurred it would be business as usual.

simfree · a month ago

The whole system that supports TSMC will break down in the event of a war.

You can see this with SMIC and their inability to get modern lithography systems from the only leading edge vendor ASML. Sure, you can create your own vendors to replace such companies, but they are unlikely to ever catch up to the leading edge or even be only a generation or two behind the leading edge despite massive investments.

With non-leading edge equipment & processes you have to make compromises like making much larger chips so you can get the same compute in a low power profile. This drives up the initial cost of every device you make and you run into throughput issues like what Huawei has experienced where they cannot produce enough ships to ship their flagship ship phones at a reasonable price and simultaneously keep them in stock.

Instead you get boutique products that sell out practically immediately because there were so few units that were able to be manufactured.

simfree commented on Giving Up on Element and Matrix.org xn--gckvb8fzb.com/giving-... · Posted by u/upofadown

Takennickname · a month ago

Signal is the worst of them all when it comes to self hosting.

simfree · a month ago

Signal's desktop app is slower to load and has less features than Element Desktop, despite both using the same stack of Electron and Sqlite.

simfree commented on WhatsApp introduces ads in its app nytimes.com/2025/06/16/te... · Posted by u/greenburger

Zak · 2 months ago

Thanks for the insider perspective.

I used Hangouts for a while and had a bunch of contacts on it when it was Android's default SMS app. Many of them were not particularly technical, including one of my parents whom I don't recall telling to use it. If you were using an Android phone, you were probably already logged in to a Google account. iPhone users had to work a little harder for it (install the app and remember the password to the Gmail account they probably already had).

I don't recall the UX on the mobile client having extra complexity over other messaging apps if I didn't go digging in the settings, but it's been a while.

simfree · 2 months ago

I think the concept of a user having an existing Gmail account if they aren't in the Google ecosystem is a bit of hubris.

There are many people I run across who bypassed the whole Gmail and Google Workspace ecosystems and have rolled along merrily with me.com and other email providers.

It's not a given that users will have bothered to register for a Google account unless they grew up in the Bay Area after a certain time period.

Wind back the clock to when Google tried to roll out Hangouts and the Gmail penetration rate was even lower among the non-Android users out there.

simfree commented on Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014) tim.dierks.org/2014/05/se... · Posted by u/Bogdanp

TZubiri · 2 months ago

Microsoft was the bad guy in a movie where you have a war right before aliens invade and you figure out that there's bigger enemies.

FSF hated Microsoft because they released binaries without source code, they were THE enemy, nowadays, you are lucky if you get a binary to study and modify! The standard from any competitive developer is to hide the binary and source behind a server. Try to study and modify that!

simfree · 2 months ago

Flaky, unreliable, not web standards compliant, hosted services suck to deal with.

Who needs to add a CORS header to allow Sentry.io or Cloudflare's metrics to work on this 2014 era SaaS that the developer has wandered away from?