Posts by anonanonanonanonanon

The last mile's at risk in our hostile environment. Let’s go the extra mile to fix it

Re: this is a new problem

I was going to post, working in telecoms and utilities back in the nineties, securing copper cables was a constant problem in some areas

Crowning glory of GOV.UK websites updated, sparking frontend upgrades

I was quite impressed I could renew my passport from abroad a few years ago, was actually pretty smooth.

Drowning in code: The ever-growing problem of ever-growing codebases

Re: Telling the computer what you want done •is• programming,

If you don't start with assembly, don't start programming is how I read that,

Tesla Cybertruck gets cyberstuck during off-roading expedition

Re: Why do people keep trying to go off road in those things?

I don't reckon most SUVs sold nowadays ever see so much as a dirt track

US agencies warn made-in-China drones might help Beijing snoop on the world

I used to work with the DJI SDK some years ago, mostly on iOS, it used to ask for every permission it could get (Uhmmm, why do you need microphone access?). They did improve it as the heat turned up on them, but now I think they have discontinued the iOS SDK in favour of android, mostly because I think they're building their own controllers, so who knows what goes on in those.

To be fair, it was prob asking for microphone access for it's broadcast streaming stuff, but it should not have been the default, makes any app built on the SDK look extremely suspicious

Forcing Apple to allow third-party app stores isn't enough

I don't get the whole thing

I get that many people don't like apple devices, they don't like the walled garden.

But why don't they simply, just not get one, who's forcing them to buy it?

Boss such a tyrant you need a job quitting agent? It works in Japan

Re: "maybe I just worked for better companies/managers?"

Yeah, it seems managers will get the credit for being great motivators though

Oh, great. Yet another tech billionaire thinks he can get microblogging right

Instagram is terrible

I'm not a huge user of twitter, but I find Instagram is now pretty much useless, I see like, what, 10 posts from friends, the rest is all sponsored content. If I don't check it for a while, I can scroll a few times then it tells me I'm all caught up, social media my ass

Florida man insists he didn't violate the law by keeping Top Secret docs

Re: What I cannot understand ...

He's on tape admitting he didn't declassify them, while showing them to someone else, who wasn't authorised to view them

The reason his valet is there, is because he and trump coordinated to hide boxes from the Feds

The reason Biden isn't the same situation is that when he was asked to return the papers, he did, all of them

Re: What About The Current Resident?

He's on tape specifically saying he did not declassify them, that he knew he shouldn't be showing them and that the person he was showing them to shouldn't be allowed to see them

Re: Not a flight risk?

It's not like he could go into hiding somewhere though, the guy cannot shut up

Titanic mass grave site to be pillaged for NFTs

Why do they always use singular "The Blockchain"?

They mean "A Blockchain", but I suppose that would screw with all the hype.

Outage-ous: Twitter OKs cannabis ads, then goes up in smoke

Re: decriminalisation

At least here, it generally means an on the spot fine, but no criminal record.

On another angle, where I am, the cbd weed (no/low thc) can be legally sold from anywhere that sells cigarettes, but without trying it or testing it properly, it's pretty indistinguishable from the real deal. This has apparently led to the situation that if caught, you can challenge, meaning the police will be forced to test the weed, the cost of the test is greater than the fine, leaving the police to decide if it's worth it at all and you might escape the fine. I am not a lawyer and have only heard this through the grapevine, it sounds theoretically feasible,

Take the blue pill: Keanu Reeves has had enough of AI baloney

AI doesn't need to write well, just well enough to pass SEO

AI can make the web hell, just churn out good enough copy to get to the top of a google search so as you cannot find anything useful anymore, everything will be like searching for a recipe on the web, where we'll have to scroll down pages and pages to find the small bit of info we want

Find My Kids app is basically AirTags for your offspring

Re: Who on earth buys an Apple Watch?

Since the advent of the mobile phone, I have not worn a watch, and have been pretty untempted by the iWatch even though I'm an Apple fan.

Well, until recently, I have been trying to get into swimming again for fitness, and it looks pretty good for that, but then, I never really liked watches ever and seems a bit pointless to get one just for that. I've also started using apple pay with the iPhone and that's pretty neat, but not sure it would make me wear a watch all the time. Plus I still don't like it only works with my credit card and not my debit

Laser-wielding boffins bend lightning to their will

Wouldn't lightning rods be cheaper?

Surely just installing lightning rods would be saner? I don't know how much a lightning rod costs, or how big an area this laser can cover, but I'm reckoning even installing thousands of lightning rods is going to be cheaper than one of these things

OK, we know iPhones are expensive but... $11 a month for Twitter Blue on iOS?

Subscriptions offer different rates

Apple reduce their percentage to 15% on subscriptions that run for more than a year too. I guess it depends if Twitter lasts a year more.

Google used to do the same, but I see now they offer 15% from the beginning since last year.

Epson zaps lasers into oblivion, in the name of the environment

Re: Can't help feeling it's more a bottom line thing than a green thing...

Yeah, I don't buy it all, this is greenwashing. My laser printer has been faultless for 10 years with only one change of cartridge.

Telecoms networks could provide next-gen GPS services without the need for satellites

Re: Feasible -- probably Useful -- Who knows

Sounds feasible. But does anyone really need it? I can't think of an application where differential GPS wouldn't provide all the accuracy one would need. But that may just mean that I have no idea where accurate position might actually be helpful. Surveying maybe?

Surveying for sure, construction, forensics (traffic accidents) among others I know of, but probably the biggest one that would get telecoms companies on board is AR apps. The others are somewhat specialised.

When you do require that level of accuracy, RTK(or DGPS) frequently doesn't deliver, particularly in built up areas with building reflections, bridges, indoors, also the antenna used by dedicated RTK systems, while it can fit in a dedicated unit, are simply not suitable for inclusion in a phone. But they are getting smaller and cheaper all the time, and it's pretty feasible to construct your own. For our use cases, it would be super handy to be able to say, oh, you don't need any extra equipment, just get this phone and our app.

Re: GPS was intentionally de-tuned

Out of curiosity, I checked out the manual for the GPS12, it was likely getting that accuracy using DGPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS

RTK is an updated version of that

Re: GPS was intentionally de-tuned

AFAIK, this is no longer the case, it was de fuzzed in 2000 according to this : https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/performance/accuracy/

It's quite possible to get cm accuracy using RTK, I work on such a unit for phones, and that is publicly available technology.

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

Headines are too kind

Headline should be, "Elon Musk enacts company wide wage theft policy"

Rent-calculating software biz accused of colluding with 'cartel' of landlords

Endlessly rising rents are one of the main reasons I left the UK, it really looked like some local estate agents were monopolising their local markets, but you also had insane landlords and developers, looking at plans for a one bed flat and thinking, uhm, I could divide the bedroom in 2 and charge double!

I'm in Switzerland now, and the only way the landlords can put up rent is if the interest rates rise or they do major renovations

YouTube loves recommending conservative vids regardless of your beliefs

This study may be bunk, but I find in general the whole idea that "conservative voices are being censored" is absolute crap, They're just trying to play victim. Anyone who gets kicked off the bigger platforms for their "conservative opinion" will never say exactly what that opinion was, it must always remain the general "conservative opinion"

I find it mostly recommends vids with thumbnails of some youtuber making a funny face and pointing at something with a clickbaity title.

Except if I accidentally wath something about guns, then my feed is ll guns, youtube loves guns

Re: Left or right

Yet here you are posting?

You thought you bought software – all you bought was a lie

Re: XCode is free

I think programming on mac for mac/ios apps is possibly one of the easiest platforms to start if you're not a cpp die hard and are willing to give swift a go.

There's tons of built frameworks that are already very good, plus third party code too, it's fairly easy to quickly build a basic app.

Soaring costs, inflation nurturing generation of 'quiet quitters' among under-30s

But everyone if everyone works really hard, they won't all get pay rises and promotions will they?

So what do companies get? Free overtime.

We could fix this, say, someone works extra, doesn't get the promotion, the company has to pay out the unpaid hours.

Although that would make it obvious that they're already breaking employer contracts for not paying them in the first place.

Re: Wrong!!

Work hard so the company will pay you more? That's not how companies work, your higher ups will get the pay rise for motivating you without increasing costs

Ukraine fears 'massive' Russian cyberattacks on power, infrastructure

Re: WTF .... SNAFUFUDBAR

Drivel, go look up Useful Idiot

Florida asks Supreme Court if it's OK to ban content moderation it doesn't like

Re: You can either have Free Speech

I've never really seen a FB advert saying they're a town square.

I would see them more as private malls, or pubs. Supposedly "Public" spaces, but you're free to throw out the annoying gits who hassle everyone and put off the punters

Meta accused of breaking the law by secretly tracking iPhone users

Never use in App browsers

Just don't open links in in app browsers on any app, loads of them do it, if it doesn't let you open links in external browsers, or copy/paste the link, don't use it. We use them only to open links to specific docs on our pages, and you can't navigate away from them. Things like your privacy settings across our services.

Apple also have a dedicated view for authentication flows that should be used instead of WKWebView to log into services.

Meta, Twitter, Apple, Google urged to up encryption game in post-Roe America

Re: in other news: governments require backdoors in encryptions

And the laws regarding who the bad guys are can change from one day to the next, and suddenly half the population are potential suspects

Google promises to adjust search algorithm to favor 'people-first content'

Re: I thought it was just because I'm getting older...

I remember years ago, searching for very specific things would reveal some very in depth info, some finer points would lead me down email chains of engineers discussing the specific problem. Most of the time now, it leads to Stack Overflow, which to be fair, can still be a good resource.

But I noticed finding things like the specifications for file formats have become very hard, I keep finding pages and pages o about the file format, but not the actual specification that would give me the information I need.

I think part of it maybe the specifications are `hidden`, even if open source, or maybe, the sort of sites they are on, don't employ any SEO, or sites that would rather sell you an implementation just have better SEO.

I noticed this especially when I was in a meeting and a guy looked up the exact specification I had been looking for idly for a few weeks, but couldn't find anything useful.

The website it turned up on was very old school, but the specification was there and comprehensively described

Anti-piracy messaging may just encourage more piracy

Re: Gross overestimates don't help either

And what happens if you "buy" from an online service and the online service loses a copyright, or decides they don't want to be the business anymore and memory holes the collection you "bought".

Homes in London under threat as datacenters pull in all the power

Re: We all know why

It looks like it's town center is being regenerated, I only hope they completely demolished the old one

Cheap cellular data list is out: And US doesn't make top 200

Re: How??

I'm also suspicious, Switzerland is at 216, I have unlimited at a pretty reasonable price I thought, but I checked one of their limited plans as maybe that's how they might calculate it?

So the report says 1GB is 7.25 CHF (local currency)

But my provider (Salt) does a plan including 50gb for 24.95 a month, 24.95 / 50 = 0.49 CHF/gb

Checking a PAYG plan, they offer unlimited at 1.99 a day, so they don't even charge per gb

Crypto miners aren't honest about power use – time for a crackdown

Re: So What ?

This is why revolutions happen, I think you secretly want communism

That emoji may not mean what you think it means

Re: Too old and eyesight is too bad

Ha! I keep getting caught out because I nearly always use a colon before giving an example, like so:(example code that annoyingly began with a bracket)

Too old and eyesight is too bad

I simply can't tell the difference between many of the face ones, is it smiling a lot? a slight smile? unhappy/grumpy one? They get used in chat at work on individual comments, generally if I approve of something, I give the thumbs up one, but when someone writes something that makes me unhappy, not terrible, like, "I tried that suggested fix you did and it didn't seem to work", I want to put a little sad face but can't tell which one it is from the little picker menu. If someone has already reacted, I can at least just click one of the existing ones.

I have learned a few more, the little party popper for "Yay, something finally fixed" and The beers one for "Anyone for a beer after work?"

I still generally just use :) and :( in my text messages, but hate the apps that convert them to emojis

A miserable work week spent toiling inside 'the metaverse'

Do they shoot people in WOW? Arrows maybe?

But yeah, terrible analogy, you go into WOW knowing you're getting killed.

Also, I believe WOW messaging, (And pretty much any online game) has protections against harassment

So well done all round on that comment

Dystopian futures

Is it my imagination, or is it that when we see VR in pop culture, it's mostly there to escape from a dystopian reality? Or maybe used as some sort of torture device

Are you getting paid by Meta? I see no other explanation for this post

Coinbase CEO cuts 1,100 jobs, warns of 'crypto winter'

In past crypto winters

Admittedly, I'm no crypto expert, but what the hell does he mean by "Past crypto winters", looking at a graph of bitcoin, I see 1 bubble, currently collapsing.

Maybe there was another around the end of 2017.

Anyway, it seems like a thinly veiled attempt to try to say it's a short term hitch that happened before, but it's not.

Record players make comeback with Ikea, others pitching tricked-out turntables

I Don't think it's just about the Audio Quality

There's many a thread here on the sound quality of vinyl, I'll leave that, I just wanted to add another reason people might buy records. Maybe it's just owning something physical? All the younguns nowadays get everything digitally, they don't "own" any music, just favourite an album.

Vinyls are actually really nice, as physical objects, you get a nice bit of cover art, possible a decent amount of liner notes, you might even get coloured vinyl. You get collectors editions, and if looked after, last an awful long time and can have a good resale value.

I myself use to buy vinyl, I still buy albums, complete ones, from an online place, but digitally. It's usually not that much more to get the record, and you usually get a digital copy with that as well, and I find myself missing just owning the things and holding them in your hands.

Record players are a bit more than dragging a needle over a record

There are quite a few ways a record player can be terrible. Crappy motors lead to wow and flutter, or even incorrect speeds, poor isolation means you won't be able to play records above a certain level due to feedback, crap tonearms lead to poor tracking and skipping. At least the cartridge appears to be replcable.

Your snoozing iOS 15 iPhone may actually be sleeping with one antenna open

2 Minds

Having had my phone pickpocketed, twice, one recovered, one lost, I like the idea of being able to run find my to track it down.

One phone was pinched at a concert, some croat had gone round the packed crowd, grabbing everything they could. I realised quickly enough, alerted security, and thanks to find my, we could tell the scumbag was still in the area. He was caught before he could escape, had a car with a boot full of phones.

Second time, just a couple of guys pulled a distraction on me, bumped into me and lifted the phone. I chased after them but it was too late and too dark. They were smart enough to turn the phone off immediately, but I locked it remotely, several months later, it briefly pinged somewhere in africa, hopefully they never managed to break into it. If find my worked in low power mode, I could have recovered

The sad state of Linux desktop diversity: 21 environments, just 2 designs

Re: So what should a a 21st century UI look like?

I think it's come a long way since then, Just having things like Alexa, Siri etc, existing as mass market devices would support that.

I however, refuse to talk to my devices on principle.

LIDAR in iPhones is not about better photos – it's about the future of low-cost augmented reality

Re: It's a safety feature.

You jest, but that could be really useful for someone who is blind

Re: The use I wish someone would put the iPhone's LIDAR to

There some other nice features in the vision framework for AI analysis of images, including trajectory tracking. Combined with video at up to 120fps, it could have some interesting possibilities. Might go an buy myself a golf ball.