MilaM

Not sure if this is relevant here, but shiny metal surfaces emit less thermal energy than painted metal surfaces. Learned about this recently while reading about home heating radiators.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermal_radiation#Surface_effe...

I have no knowledge if they have all the raw materials secured for the planned capacity. But at least they are publicly on record thinking about it:

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/volksw...

Programming NXP NTAG21x tags works on most recent iPhones too. Two apps I successfully used are "NFC Tools" and "NFC TagWriter by NXP". You can also associate the tags with Shortcuts and with automations in Home Assistant.

Just guessing, but could it be, that Google is correlating location history with reviews? Would be a good way to weed out fake reviews in many cases.

I agree. I'm torn between the already discounted 14" Pro model and the new MBA. The weight difference is quite considerable, so it's a tough choice if you value portability. I'll have to compare them in the store before I decide.

Considering the shared GPU memory, 8 GB is going to be very limiting going forward. Also, this Mac is very likely going to have the same slower SSD like the recently released 13 inch M2 MBP. This means you have to upgrade the SSD as well, if you care about performance. I would not recommend buying an MBA with base specs.

Files that are stored in iCloud Documents will also not be backed up by Time Machine. Huge mess if you ask me. I therefore don't use iCloud Cloud storage anymore. It's just too complicated to reason about.

Source: https://eclecticlight.co/2022/02/21/can-you-back-up-icloud-d...

It worked for me and I did not have to give Google my phone number to "unlock" the other 2FA options and subsequently app passwords. I used the Yubikey, but I think it should work if you only use TOTP.

Here is how I solved the same problem a couple of weeks ago. If you still have an active session in a browser, you can add a recovery e-mail address to you account security settings. After that I was able to add a Yubikey as a second factor without adding a phone number. This should also work if you want to use TOTP as a 2F instead of a Yubikey.

AFAIK you don't participate in the network when Find My is disabled. Not the best solution, but maybe feasible for devices that are only used at home.

It should not be difficult to differentiate between Union Pay cards issued in Russia vs. China, if there was such a need.

I'm not saying that App Store distribution is useless. But I think vendors should have a choice. If Apple's system is so superior, they have little to worry about.

This is a valid argument. But it's not like devs are completely on their own outside of the App Store. There are at least two other companies that provide payment and licensing services to software vendors like Fastspring or Paddle. I only know these companies as a buyer software licenses. Never had any problems with them. But I can't say how it is to deal with them as a software vendor.

And yet somehow indie devs have managed to sell software for macOS for decades before the invention of the Apple App Store. Only the larger software shops are atually running their own payment and licensing backends. Most use payment providers like Paddle or Fastspring. There are also other distribution channels like SetApp for expample.

One thing that Apple has made very easy for devs are In-App Payments. But I think you can argue if that is such a good thing for Apple's customers.

A more general explanation of the new law can be found here:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/strategy/priorities-2019-2024/euro...

I have used Google Takeout in the past and it seemed to work fine.

But the crucial question is, can you use it after your account was automatically blocked? That's when I would acutally have an urgent need for it.

That is how it works with my operator. Once the eSIM is activated, it's tied to the phone. But I'm not ruling out it's possible to make the QR code "reusable".

Getting a new eSIM is not terribly complicated. But you have to log in, click through some menues, wait for an SMS code and an email to arrive, wait a couple of minutes.

Switching between eSIMs on the same phone is very easy. But migrating the profile to another phone is somewhat complicated in my experience. Nothing you would want to do regularily in my opinion. Essentially you have to disable your old eSIM and create and then provision a new one. Some plans allow you to have multiple SIMs activated at the same time. But usually you have to pay extra for that.

Airalo sounds interesting. I'm a bit suspicious of the offering though after studying their website. No business address, no mention where it's based, privacy policy is not GDRP compliant. Not sure if this is a serious business.

For a lot of less technically inclined folks I think eSIMs would introduce a lot of complexity. Swapping a SIM card is rather straight forward, and I know that for example my mother could easily do it by herself and has done so in the past. I don't think she would be able to swap an eSIM using the customer portal of her operator if it was necessary. I could see this causing a lot of headache for customer support or nearby relatives ;)

Personally, I would also prefer to have the SIM-tray as a backup and for travel. Most prepaid plans in Europe still don't support eSIMs.

Crypto is like casino tokens. Worth a lot inside the casino. Very limited value outside.

I don't doubt that you can pay in Crypto by exchanging BTC against USD. But prices are still denominated in USD and the reciever most likely has to hedge against potential losses due to quickly fluctuating exchange rates.

Adoption as what? To do anything useful with Crypto you still need to change it to a real currency on a bank account.

One way my "smart home" has altered my behaviour is that I have to worry about keeping numerous devices up to date software wise and fix broken configurations occasionally. It's partly my fault because I have used devices from different vendors and ecosytems and tied them together with Home Assistant. It works most of the time but also breaks in sometimes unexpected ways. For example I have to regularly (every four to six weeks) reset my IKEA light bulbs because they start misbehaving by loosing the connection to my server. It has been a fun learning experience, but I would not recommend this kind of setup to someone less technically inclined.

Given these experiences I have a hard time seeing how AI could improve my setup. It would probably just make it more chaotic and even less predictable.

I started to make provisions for this scenario years ago. Paid email from a small but reputable provider, never rely solely on cloud storage for private data, never "buy" media unless it comes without DRM. It's been a tedious process but I think I'm mostly there.

Loosing my Apple account would still be a terrible blow. So many more or less essential services are app only these days. Financial services increasingly rely on phone Apps for authentication. Even some government services require a phone with NFC to use your digital id online. Many daily conveniences like cabs, car and bike rentals and the like are not usable without apps.

I think it's time legislators thought about this problem more thoroughly. Just creating a new account is not an acceptable solution in my opinion.

Because the rules governing SEPA Direct Debits are very consumer friendly, it might be somewhat risky for businesses to use this payment method. To keep fraud at check as a creditor, you have to do some due diligence like checking credit scores or know your customer very well.

From the consumers perspective though, at least where I live, direct debit is regarded as a secure and convenient method for recurring payments. A consumer can revoke a fraudulent payment within 8 weeks. It's as easy as clicking a button in your online banking. If the counterparty can not prove that it was explicitly authorized by the consumer to make SEPA Direct Debits, the payment can be revoked for up to 13 months.

Totally agree. I feel scammed every time I have to change the currency during the payment process. Some time ago, I don't remeber when they changed it, you used to be able to opt-ou of currency exchange permanently per credit card. It was a very well hidden setting and I had to google the deep link every time to find it. Nowadays you have to explicitly disable it for each and every transaction.

I'm pretty sure though that most PayPal customers have no clue about this practice or just don't care.

I have a suggestion for Apple. Maybe they could use this technique in a way that benefits all their customers by finally solving the problem of duplicate image imports in Photos.app. I have a couple of hundred duplicate images in my Library because of problems during local import from my iPhone into Photos.

Adoption of the online ID function has been incredibly slow. I haven't had a need for it yet. Some online banks allow you to open an account using it. You can also file taxes with it. Most applications require a NFC reader of some kind. But there is also an official app for iOS and Android which can be used to read the ID with your smartphone.

There is an online portal where you can read more about it:

https://www.ausweisapp.bund.de/en/ausweisapp2-home/

iPhones with OLED displays do have burn in. Interestingly some part inside the screen assembly seems to try to compensate for the burn in somehow. Check out this repair video on Youtube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46KdDH5tSic

When you change the screen on an iPhone without pairing it correctly, the new screen will have the same burn in patterns as the old one.