pascalo

Joined 13 years ago

Karma

258

Submissions

101

Member since

Mar 3

[ my public key: https://keybase.io/pascalopitz; my proof: https://keybase.io/pascalopitz/sigs/bT4XzIKEJtlV3UeH11qj-Ih4OO4HbvdYdzrK4pG-YbA ]

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Recent submissions

Comment · 5 years ago

I'm a Linux user on my own hardware and was just put onto win10 at my current gig.

WSL has made this workable, really. Not the nightmare I expected. But the rest of windows still sucks.

As for apple stuff, I used to use Macs for a decade, starting with a colour iMac right down to MBP 2013 ... The platform felt like it got and more in the way. I hated the app store. Firwire transfer from old to new machine also didn't work properly between two OSX versions. Set up took long. Everything was a forced login. The straw that broke the camel's back was shitty support when I came home after closing the brand new laptop to find a cracked glass screen when I opened it up again.

Been using Dell's xps series and Nuc barebones since then, and moving some crucial things like keyPass files onto Google drive. I can spin up a new Dev ready setup in about 15-30mins. Everything works out of the box. Bliss.

Dell btw gave me great support every time I had a hardware issue.

Comment · 5 years ago

Came on here to say it's exactly what I use cycling for. 5 hours on the bike means 5 hours not looking at my phone or laptop. Just turn the legs over and let your mind wander or stare into the landscape (or deal with traffic, which sucks).

Comment · 6 years ago

Me too. The most infuriating bit is the settings that require a login. That should never be needed.

Comment · 6 years ago

Yes please to the API bit. I'm maintaining the "unofficial Sonos controller for Linux" and it'd help a great deal if I didn't have to Wireshark the protocol all the time.

https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-fo...

Comment · 6 years ago

Freeze and shatter? Car jack?

Comment · 6 years ago

For vaccines, the clinical trials are basically customer feedback collection via closed alpha and beta releases, no?

Comment · 7 years ago

I use use a git-like cli binary to sync my google drive (https://github.com/odeke-em/drive). Really like it, and there's no weird background process or automatic syncing going on that's chewing up resources.

Comment · 7 years ago

That shadow of the beast track ... oh man!

Comment · 7 years ago

I think you're spot on with that observation. One reason for me to never ever consider going back to Germany.

Comment · 8 years ago

I seriously wonder how that would work in practice?

"Hey Joey, will you work on the fizzibizzi feature that does xyz?"

I can't, I have other stuff to do?

"What kind of stuff? This feature is the top priority for the whole team?"

I JUST CAN'T TELL YOU OKAY!!!

Comment · 8 years ago

He was a push over on metadata retention, why would it have been different this time? What a joke!

Comment · 8 years ago

I don't think the earlier Sonos models even had a microphone built in?

Comment · 8 years ago

Also, I forgot to say: There is no way I'd put an Amazon alexa or similar device in my home, period. I take a "speaker company" instead any day.

Comment · 8 years ago

I've got lots of Sonos speakers, one in every room of my house. Before Soundcloud was an option I wrote my own SMAPI service to get that going for myself. Then, when I switched from Mac to Linux I created my own client app [1] to control my speakers.

I feel Sonos have really missed a trick by not opening up their API more. Most of the features I had a reverse engineer or check from other libraries. Their own apps have also not exactly gotten better. For example, I _HATE_ the unified search feature, it makes the search slow and sluggish. Controlling the speakers from Spotify directly also never worked glitch-free for me. Other niggles have to do with the grouping features, which are also a tad flaky and sometimes time out or only partially group. Most of all I am annoyed by the frequent updates asked for, without the ability to "pin" the speakers to a version and download a specific version of the client app.

All that said, I love their speakers because they sound good. The old Play 3 and the Amp especially. I feel they should focus their efforts on making the apps snappier and faster, not much more feature rich.

[1] https://github.com/pascalopitz/unoffical-sonos-controller-fo...

Comment · 9 years ago

The really big 2016 blackout in SA also wasn't caused by wind or solar energy, but that doesn't mean that stabilising the network isn't something that won't be required if the energy production develops more towards renewables.