Skip Navigation

InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)S

skuzz

@ skuzz @discuss.tchncs.de

Posts
0
Comments
1381
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • Guess what you cannot turn off for some stupid reason!

    Jump

  • I'm really surprised "shareholders" with any intelligence don't start calling out their investments as liars during earnings calls. Tech companies have done this shit for years. Force features into the "on" position by default, force it back on frequently, force not having an off switch to disable the feature. Then they can tell shareholders that user adoption of new shiny widget F is so popular, millions of users are "using" it. Even though the tech company just has NewThing turned on by force and users are completely unaware it is even on, if they even ever use it.

    Same crap is done with streaming services partnering with cell carriers and cable providers. Falsify user numbers even if the person just gets it for free and never uses it.

    These companies only do this to falsify metrics to make their quarters look good... What if they actually made features users wanted and the user numbers became real?

    Or, here's crazy talk: what if it was illegal to use such tactics to falsify numbers? Gasp.

  • Google will let ‘experienced users’ keep sideloading Android apps, even from unverified developers.

    Jump

  • Good summary right there. Clean up your own house before you start preaching under the guise of user safety, fools.

    So far the only "cleanup" I've seen in the Play Store is removing old apps that haven't been updated in a while but still run just fine, which means things like a physical Bluetooth air quality sensor I have needs the APK sideloaded now. Totally fighting scammers, Google. Totally.

    Wouldn't it be great if these tech companies just dropped the verbal diarrhea filter and just spoke plainly?

    "We're doing this to try and increase revenue by making ourselves a walled garden like Apple, because there isn't really competition anymore, we're greedy, and we lost the plot," is what they should be saying.

  • Google finally released the source code of Android 16 QPR1!

    Jump

  • Real Talk

    Jump

  • I remember it from classic ones, had never seen it on the Switch one. Pretty hilarious.

  • Phone + OS review: Google Pixel 9a and GrapheneOS

    Jump

  • Not sure I completely understand the thought here, apologies. Are you considering just emulating Android for some specific apps that only exist as apps? Seems a probable approach. I suppose extending that, one could even just emulate the apps on a computer at home and remote desktop into the computer from their phone to run them, although that'd be possibly obtuse.

    May I ask what country has apps that require government ID to run on their phone for certain things? That seems a bit dystopian.

  • Phone + OS review: Google Pixel 9a and GrapheneOS

    Jump

  • I don't get why banking apps are such a difficult deal-killer for people. Banks have web sites. But also, what are people doing? Running their bank app to daily transfer money back and forth from/to checking and savings?

  • Phone + OS review: Google Pixel 9a and GrapheneOS

    Jump

  • Have you ever tried running Android apps on Graphene? Most run just fine without Play Services, many even have smaller degoogled versions. Some Play-only apps may have an error dialog here or there, but very few just flat don't work at all. Graphene + Obtainium config to pull apps in from various sources and manage updating them. Maybe a few sideloads. About as zero Google as one can get on a modern smartphone.

  • Is Burying the Trees Killed by Wildfires a Climate Solution? Proponents tout biomass burial to create carbon credits as a win-win-win for the climate, fire-scarred landscapes & emissions offsets

    Jump

  • Burying with diesel-powered digging equipment, I'm sure.

  • Real Talk

    Jump

  • How does one piss off that many birds at once in that game?

  • Google plans secret AI military outpost on tiny island overrun by crabs (Ars Technica)

    Jump

  • So thaaat's the island that SeaQuest DSV traveled to 225 (maybe 218 now) years into the future to find out there were two teens on an island battling it out with video games...

    and it turns out they are the only two humans left on Earth and they're controlling IRL mechs and it ends up being an Adam and Eve situation.

  • How Google Tracks and Scans Everything on Your Android Device

    Jump

  • Many apps have no reason to ever have network access. Block away until you start seeing feedback in the app logs.

  • How Google Tracks and Scans Everything on Your Android Device

    Jump

  • Apps like Android Easter Egg do not need network access. Go from there and hit what needs to be blocked.

  • Elon Musk Announces Plan to Control Climate by Surrounding Earth in Adjustable Satellites

    Jump

  • We need to stop letting supervillains pollute the sky with garbage. As well as a moratorium against satellite quantity, and satellites that serve any purpose outside of science and some communication. (Starlink should be deorbited as well, if for no other reason than the atmospheric pollution created by the short life cycle of those satellites.)

  • Popular Tech Youtuber Enderman loses his YouTube channel after AI error

    Jump

  • Antitrust Google. Fork YouTube as part of it. All existing content must be preserved. Remove YouTube's ability to sell licensed content (cable TV channels, music, on demand). YouTube can then be purchased or spun off as a "YOU Tube" again - content made by people for people. Brand saved, community focused. Monetization heavily regulated (governance or internal governance, but just make it a requirement.)

    Or just let it burn and replace it with something else. Video's just super-expensive to host and provide, probably by design to keep others out of the market.

  • How Google Tracks and Scans Everything on Your Android Device

    Jump

  • No more new hardware beyond Pixel 9 for the foreseeable future though, and Graphene's ODM partner (if it even pans out) will be using Qualcomm chips, which is a US military contractor and not known for good security.

  • How Google Tracks and Scans Everything on Your Android Device

    Jump

  • Rethink actually seems to block Play Services if you choose to configure Rethink a certain way. It is delightful watching Play Services become more and more desperate. Trying other states, other countries, and even other Google devices on your local network in a desperate attempt to get online and shit telemetry back to Google.

    Same can't be said about iOS. Apple routes their 17.x.x.x network and other traffic outside userspace, immune to even full-tunnel VPN. Android networking isn't that capable.

  • Your flight emissions are way higher than carbon calculators suggest

    Jump

  • I dont know how you figure that flying is more efficient than driving.

    Basic physics. Moving hundreds of people in one machine is almost always more efficient than hundreds of people moving in one machine per person.

    https://ourworldindata.org/travel-carbon-footprint

    Then, where you take a petrol car or fly depends on the distance. Flying has a higher carbon footprint for journeys less than 1000 kilometers than a medium-sized car. For longer journeys, flying would actually have a slightly lower carbon footprint per kilometer than driving alone over the same distance.

    In the context of the US, which is giant compared to driving across an EU nation, there'd be no reason to fly a distance less than 621 miles (1000km mentioned above) for the most part, neither from a time or distance perspective, about 8-9 hours driving at expressway speeds. The country is huge. Whenever I've flown, for example, it is at least 1200 miles (1900km) or more.

    Also that ‘if I dont fly on this plane, someone else would’ argument, I hope you realise that its nonsense if you think about it for a second.

    No, it isn't, I didn't say "someone else will." I said the plane is going to fly whether you're in that seat or not, as they're used heavily for cargo transport. Airlines don't just cancel major flight routes just because you're not sitting on the plane, short-term anyway. Longer-term they would reduce flights if there's consistent lack of passengers/cargo. So long-term it would have a more substantial impact, but if someone is mulling over a trip to see their family and fretting over carbon footprint of one person, that airplane will be traveling to that destination with or without that person being onboard.

    The US is a great example of how not to do things, to be clear. Take that 1200 mile trip as an example. Train will take longer than car because Amtrak is so dysfunctional, if you can even get Amtrak to plot a route, or if they even have stops where you want. Car will pollute more than airplane, and take more time than airplane, and you have to plot hotel stays and refueling points, and possibly have enough drivers if you're going to switch off drivers, if your car can even handle such a long trip. So airplane, it often is.

  • Your flight emissions are way higher than carbon calculators suggest

    Jump

  • Wonder how this contradicts the global dimming studies done during 9/11 when all flights over the US were grounded and things became warmer in the absence of contrails.

    Things like this formula are great, and useful for gathering data on how bad a jet might be, but at the same time, this article is doing one of those classic media gambits: Blame the small-income individual.

    Some parts of the world are only easily accessible by aircraft. Likewise, flying commercial is much more efficient than Taylor Swift's private jet zipping all over, and much more efficient than driving. This isn't the 1980s when people rode commuter flights between two cities by airplane for work every day.

    Bob the individual can do nothing to change climate with regards to aircraft, that plane they might buy a ticket on, or not, will still be flying, to ship the cargo in the cargo hold, mail, and other things. Passengers are actually the last-place item on most flights from a revenue generator perspective.

    Making private jets more cost-prohibitive is a good first step. They are exploding in popularity as the world literally burns. On land where land transportation is more viable, nations like the US should embrace trains instead of air. Also, in the US, flying is quickly becoming too expensive for a majority of the population, which means more people will revert to driving thousands of miles, which means net sum pollution will go up.

    How much carbon one seat of hundreds on one plane of tens of thousands takes is inconsequential at this stage, there are much bigger pollution areas to be focusing on.

  • Waymo CEO Says Society Is Ready for One of Its Cars to Kill Someone

    Jump

  • We will make the most complex convoluted contrivances before laying down steel and locomotives. Funny part I always liked about the I, Robot movie. No, we didn't have public transport, everyone just has self-driving cars on roads controlled by a centralized AI.