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Cake day: June 6th, 2023

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  • The bootloader of your phone (if locked) is one of the most secure parts. It’s very hard to get into a modern phones bootloader. In contrast, finding an exploit in a running phone is a lot more feasible.

    If a vulnerability was abused to get into your running phone, it will persist until the phone reboots, and the bootloader verifies the core parts of the operating system at startup. In order to persist past a reboot, malware like that would need a vulnerability in the bootloader, or a bypass for its integrity checks.

    Alongside that, any background services (“daemons”) that got stuck or became slow over time are forced to restart. Operating system updates can be applied, and working memory is cleared.

    In general, it’s just good advice to just reboot your phone once in a while. There’s no harm in doing so.


  • It really depends how the release turns out. Eye tracking is often used in social VR games like VRChat, and it can help increase peformance, but that often requires setup. The other “features” are not standard or completely lacking in PC VR, like “headset feedback” or adaptive triggers. These wouldn’t be used in any games even if the hardware/software was capable of it.

    Compared to the Valve Index, the PSVR2 has a higher screen resolution, OLED, no finger tracking (different controllers), and inside-out tracking instead of base station tracking. It looks like a really good option, at a really good price (compared to other “consumer” PC VR headets like the Index). From what I can tell, you’re not really “missing” any major hardware features when using PSVR2 on a PC compared to an Index (depends on implementation, will be obvious at release). Although the lack of eye tracking when the hardware is capable is kind of a bummer.

    Wait this one out for initial reviews, but if those are good, the PSVR2 seems like a very good option for PC VR (Although only “casual”, like playing games, social vr, etc. compared to “competitive” like very high level play at Beat Saber, shooters, etc).

    Do note that this is just looking at PC VR exclusive headsets. “Standalone” headsets like the Meta Quest lineup offer similar VR hardware specs at a similar or lower cost. These come with the downside of having to “stream” from a PC rather than using raw display output (for games not natively supported on the headset). The privacy aspect of standalone headsets needs to be considered too. Most run a version of Android, which comes with just as much (or more) telemetry as an average Android smartphone.

    As for being tethered, you get used to it pretty quickly. The main problem is that the cable is being used, and will break after some time. They are often expensive to replace, like on the Index. With standalone headsets, the cable is often USB-C and a lot cheaper to replace. I don’t know how replacement cables for the PSVR2 are handled.



  • Surprising that Boneworks wasn’t mentioned. The whole game is physics based puzzles, meaning you can either solve them, or stack a couple boxes and jump really high. These types of solutions are encouraged in the game, and there’s a couple puzzles I’ve never even solved because the walls were too low.










  • Most “standard” messaging apps (that includes signal, telegram) use the “OS provided” push service. On Android, they use firebase cloud messaging, a component of google play services.

    Degoogled Android means not having any notifications, unless the app supports UnifiedPush, runs in the background 24/7 (which drains battery), or runs in the background occasionally (which delays notifications).

    If the app runs in the background occasionaly, you can “burden” the people on the other side by being slow to respond.


  • I recommend against using Manjaro, it is poorly maintained and has many downsides compared to something like EndeavourOS (which has a similar goal to manjaro with less downsides).

    If you’re comfortable using a specific package manager, go with a distro that uses that package manager. If you’re already familiar with Mint, something else Debian based might suit your needs.

    If you’re still looking for the distro that’s right for you, make sure to separate your / and /home into different partitions during your next installation. This allows you to switch distros while keeping all your documents and personal files.

    If you’re unsure which distro to try next, https://distrochooser.de/ gives you a set of questions and ranks distros on what would fit best to your needs.