I think George Michael’s Freedom hit that mark like three decades ago. Became a huge hit (one of my all-time favorite songs). Still hasn’t changed a thing because the execs don’t care as long as it sells, and they get their money.

Yeah, they did, but the remaining employees won’t dare complain about it so management sees this as a twofer win.

The fact they still haven’t been caught despite all the attention this has gotten so far tells me the shooter knew what they were getting into & was prepared for it. Legally speaking, I think that eliminates a “temporary insanity” defense, but I don’t think it should. Someone despondent over losing a dearly loved one due to the completely arbitrary, cynical, and sometimes outright ghastly “healthcare” system we live under refusing to provide the service they were paid for seems like something that would lead to a temporary insanity that just lasts a very long time.

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Yeah, the Google Minis are hit or miss for us a lot, too. I don’t generally have the keyword activation switched on with my phone, but was going to activate it if need be for this. I’ve got a Bluetooth headset with very good background noise cancellation (according to those I’ve spoken to on the phone), so I’m hoping/assuming that will help it understand me more reliably, and that Assistant activation via its button will obviate the need for turning on keyword activation.

Replying to my own post in case anyone’s following this (still too new to Lemmy to know if that’s a thing - guess I’ll look into it after this).

Apparently, Moto may be working on something that fills this need. The promo video in this article only demonstrates things I think Google Assistant might already be capable of (or maybe slightly more), but the article states what they’re working on involves using apps on your phone to do things rather than just being a microphone and speaker for stuff that actually happens mostly on Google’s servers. Crossing my fingers that includes doing what I want rather than just being focused on buying things as demonstrated in the teaser video.

In the meantime, I’ve stumbled across the fact that Google’s built-in TalkBack feature has support for keyboard shortcuts. This likely means I can use a small handheld Bluetooth game controller along with an app to map the buttons to the appropriate key presses in order to move around the screen, and thus control the Android device without looking at or touching it. That means using Google Assistant to launch the apps, and the controller to actually use it via TalkBack. I’ll likely test this next weekend & report back if anyone’s interested.

ETA: Forgot to mention: remembered that my kid has an iPad required by his school some years ago, but so far as we can see the capabilities are roughly on par with Android so switching platforms doesn’t seem to be the answer.

Or on Android you can use YTDLnis which provides a nice frontend with lots of flexibility as to what is downloaded.

I have a few Google Home Minis, and so far as I know they are the same thing - just rebranded. It’s basically the same thing as Google Assistant built into every Google-approved/equipped (meaning it has their full suite of apps pre-installed) device. They’re just so limited. I know of no way to get them to read Lemmy posts as in my added second example.

I also thought of another use case for what I’m after that might be more universally applicable and easily understood. Imagine someone doing some relatively mindless menial job such as working an assembly line, janitorial work, chauffer - something where your mind is relatively unoccupied, but you’re not free to look at and/or touch your device (whether it be due to practicality, or job rules). While doing that job, I want to be able to have the device read and interact with something of interest to me at that moment (ADHD is a fickle mistress), rather than just relying on podcasts with predefined content. Kind of like having someone next to me doing all the interfacing between me and the device.

(EDIT: minor swipe keyboard corrections.)

Yeah, I wouldn’t just jump in without looking first. If I can’t find a way to do this, then I’m definitely gonna have to take a trip to the nearest Apple Store, though. Thanks very much for the input!

iOS will open your Lemmy client, start reading posts to you aloud, and go into a post of interest upon command without you ever looking at or touching the screen (using my newer example that I added to the OP)? I’m seriously going to have to look into getting an iDevice of some sort if so.

Imagine someone blind who also has Parkinson’s - they can’t see to use Voice Access, and they can’t control their hands well enough to interact with the screen physically in a reliable manner using TalkBack. You can’t actually use those two accessibility features together - they are mutually exclusive in that they require you either be able to see the screen, OR you must be able to interact with it physically as it reads out what you’re touching. Why is there no way to interact entirely verbally?

ETA: please see my added example in OP.

This feels like a bait question to get people to break the new “no politics” rule.

I’d tell you to GFY, but you already have & just don’t realize it yet.

Can we accelerate that timeline? Say to like Jan 20, 2025 (let the kids enjoy one last chance at any snow we might be lucky enough to get)?

The Princess Bride.

You can change your situation all you like, but it’s not going to change who you are (especially as this big brother world enabled by technology makes it virtually impossible to escape your past). If you’ve reached a point where you have virtually nothing left to motivate you to move forward (especially if it has been that way for a long time), then the significant effort it would take to try to save you is unlikely to be worth it (never mind finding anyone who would actually care enough to devote themselves to such a task) - particularly with an outcome that is FAR from certain to be a positive one.

Some people just reach a point of being basically devoid of hope, and therefore pretty much dead inside.

Don’t ask me how I know.

As a backup option, you can give Google Assistant or a Google Home the following commands: “at 10PM, sleep {lightname}” to dim, or “at 6AM, wake {lightname}” to brighten - both work over the space of a half-hour, and for some odd reason that’s not customizable.

There’s a completely free app (no ads, either) that prevents auto-rotate from actually happening unless you want it to. It pops up an icon when your phone wants to rotate, and it you don’t tap it within the timeout (adjustable up to 3 seconds) then the icon goes away and the rotation never happens. It’s highly customizable, and I just can’t live without it since I found it.

Don’t know how you got there. Seems to me they meant when they don’t detect being connected to the cell towers used at home, then they automatically switch off Wi-Fi (and possibly turn it back on when they do detect a connection to those towers).

Yeah, I’m with you on that. I tend to install a ton of interesting apps when I see them, and categorize them into groups (many apps fit multiple groups) so when I’m looking to do something in particular the apps that might fill the need are together to try it with. If those search launchers allowed for adding multiple tags to each app for categorizing and searching, then they’d probably work well enough for me to try.