But as far as I can tell you can't get Apple maps for anything but Apple. One of the very many things I dislike about Apples business model. It's a tightly fenced in system, and they don't share.

Apple iOS have come up with some great innovations but if you want to use them you have to join the Apple club. iTunes was a great idea at the time but available only to Apple hardware, eventually they allowed non-Apple hardware, but iTunes for non-apple was more expensive. Face Time in great innovation again Apple only. Duo, Androids version of Face Time is available on Apple but not the other way around. As mentioned, Google maps is available on Apple, but Apple maps is not available on Android.

For a long time Apple apps had to be created on a Mac with Apple software, it was basically C or C# but Apple had imbedded id code the prevented non-Apple C apps from being uploaded to the store.

Earlier this year Apple did a lot of complaining about being forced to join the rest of the world as far as universal chargers USB C. If Apple's Lightning connector was so much superior why didn't they put any effort into convincing everybody else to switch?

My mobile phone path was Nokia, I had a Nokia smartphone when the iPhone was released, it had GPS, internet connection, 3rd party apps and a touch screen. I stayed with Nokia until the Windows phone came out, I really liked that phone, when that joined Nokia and the DoDo I moved to Android, I currently have a Pixel 6, entirely satisfied.

My experience with BofA, and Wells Fargo is such that I will have no dealing of any sort with either. Totally untrust worthy.
Where I live, NorCal, there seems to be an increasing trend to do nothing for anybody who does not have an account. Specifically, they won't give you change. I had a yard sale recently and had $100 in 20's that I wanted broken down is to smaller denominations, and they wouldn't do it because I don't have an account. Not just one bank, SIX of them, finally had to use a local grocery store I shop at. My bank is a credit union and it is quite some distance from where I live, it wasn't when I opened the account but I moved, and since I'm happy with them I see no need to change.

Faith and religious faith are not the same thing.
I can have faith that my knowledge and experience and research will accomplish what I'm trying to achieve, it might not, then I will research why and try again. No need for mythical entities to interfere or blame or credit.
The one question I always ask to those who say that without a god there would be nothing because something can't magically appear from nothing, from whence came your god. Did your god magically appear, or was it created by a previous god who was created by a previous god ad infinitum. Turtles all the way down.

Enjoy you holidays.

Nice shots. A phone camera is still a camera, and it still takes a good eye and practice and patience.
This is a Monarch caterpillar shot with a pixel 6, no adjustment.

I don't think they are on hi-beam. It's just the result of lazy cheap ass engineering. The headlights seem to be designed more for how well they blend with the design of the vehicle than how well they do the job. There is absolutely zero reason why a headlight beam should shine above horizontal even on hi-beam.
Engineers can design and focus a light beam to hit a 6-foot dish on a spacecraft orbiting Jupiter or micron sized indent on a rapidly rotating disc drive platen, or, as has just happen to me, eye surgery, so why won't they focus a headlight to hit the road 30 feet in front of the car. Many years back I put after market headlights in my car, Cibie( a French company) Z Beams, they were sold as a matched set, L & R , and when properly adjusted even on hi-beam on coming drivers weren't blinded, and the road was well lighted from the centre line across to the curb with no shadow. This was in NZ, I understand they were illegal in the US.
Of course, the current craze of jacked up D*ck Extension trucks don't help matters.

Ah yes, I remember those days well, bugs in my teeth and the wind whistling through my rib cage.

What bugs me most in shows is not so much out of time props, or aircraft in the distance in historical movies etc, it's the bad physics used in CGI.
The car chase in Bullet or The French Connection were great and actually driven, although, living in the SF area the route Steve McQueen drove in impossible, don't know about The French Connection route but I'd guess the same.
The Fast and Furious scenes of car chases and leaping over tall buildings in a single bound are so out of touch with physics that for me it totally destroys the enjoyment. If the story is good and generally well made I can overlook most idiocy, but if the physics are bad that it for me

I use Calibre to manage my Kindle books on my PC. As I don't want to be tied to Kindle in perpetuity, I use Calibre or epubor to strip the drm and convert to epub format. I do this because I don't like the Kindle readers, prefer KOBO, and I want to be able to read a book I have paid for on the device of MY choice. I do not pass around my drm free books to anybody, except immediate family members.

You gotta be part of the Instagram tribe to see it.
I'm getting really tired of this, so much is posted in various places from news to entertainment that are just links to one of the social media tribes. I'm not a member of any of them, no plans on joining as personally they have very little value to me. I have better thing to do than trying to keep up with the latest gossip, and the stuff that is posted that is of interest to me is just drowned out in the stupidity wars that seems to be raging most of the time.

I went to one of her concerts in San Francisco, absolutely one of the best. I have several links saved and often just listen to them while I'm doing other things on the computer.

Repairing an impeller for a deep well pump. The sort of thing I do at where I work

Google Earth, enter your address, zoom in on the roof in 2D and use the measure function, it on the left sidebar, draw a line around the roof and it will give you perimeter and area.

I tried it down the front of my jeans, didn't work there either.

I'm inclined to agree. The current "AI" is just an advanced search and sort algorithm, impressive and a bit scary because people are too easily impressed with this sort of technology.

Actual AI when it arrives, and I think it will, will probably not be created directly by people, the internet with so many advanced specialty systems interconnected will just become self aware. Sort of like SkyNet, or as I'm more inclined to think more Earth Central in Neal Asher's Gridlinked universe. The Quiet War.

Once in Popeyes to get some chicken I did that, the checker had already hit enter so he had to try and figure it out, called his manager over, who must have all of 20 minutes older and after 5 or so minutes, with me giving them a free maths lesson, they arrived at an answer, I asked if it was right, yes said they, it was right, so I got my chicken and my change and $1.50 for the lesson.