They also have a different "Talk Device" that is specifically meant for people with disabilities and such, which is supposedly free to get once (80€ for replacements), but the page doesn't specify who can order it.

I don't think KOReader handles fixed-size epubs terribly well too, and most of my manga (usually bought on Rakuten Kobo) comes in that format.

For reading English or native language books on non-Android e-readers it's a godsend.

This practice is old enough that it was parodied in "The Golden Calf" in 1931...

And using encryption will only make you more suspicious, and may be a reason to get jail time until the situation is "cleared up" one way or another (e.g. by getting even more jail time).

Only a second phone works, if you can make it seem like a device you're actually using (though also not a silver bullet as e.g. a lot of messenger metadata is available to governments and border control can physically coerce you to log in to your real accounts)

Ethics-wise, hard agree.

Financially speaking, OPPO was right to gut OnePlus all those years ago and streamline their production into selling the same models (with minor tweaks) under the brands that are more known in this or that region. Saves on hardware and software development costs a lot, and once OnePlus was a household brand among the general public it no longer had to appeal to the hacker crowd anyway.

Sad as it is. I bought the One when they were still invite-only and mained it for years, amazing device for the time. Went a bit full circle and using a Nord 3 right now, but I didn't get it because of the brand (just needed a basic secondary smartphone for traveling and got a good deal on it, it's clearly just a generic OPPO brick).

That's just engineering communities in a nutshell...

In my case, I rarely ever go over the Claude/ChatGPT subscription limits, so might as well use those considered-best models. If I had to generate millions of lines of code, maybe I would've used the open models more.

After getting that Kobo I realized that my hyper specific reading needs require a web browser with extension support (in particular support for Yomitan or similar dictionaries; the built-in dictionary functions on e-readers are awful for most non-English languages even with custom dictionaries, and KOReader isn't any better in that regard)

...as writing paper.