srg0

I love the title photo. It really resonates with me. As for the topic of the article, what encorages me personally are two ideas. First, I believe that "me" is not actually something permanent. It cannot be used as a reference. It loses and acquires traits all the time. "Me" from a ten years ago is a different person. Second, we are what we do. So the moment I start doing or pursue something worthwhile, I already enjoy the different "me" and the sense of accomplishment. This immediate positive feedback boosts my self-motivation.

I pity the guy who just paid a ransom 5 minutes before the raid. No bitcoins, and no data, and customer service is not available.

I would be happy if no one could speed under my windows. Difference between 50 kmh and 30 kmh is equivalent to 50% noise reduction (~ -5 dB). And tyre noise becomes dominant just a little over 30 kmh (20 mph).

https://workinggroupnoise.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/leafle...

I like this typo in the article: "*Monkeytpe* won’t let Keen run up the leaderboard". The author is a fsat tpyist.

A bottle of whiskey from a duty free shop can be just as deadly as a knife.

And any battery can be used to start a fire.

Suggestion: add a switch to convert American units (cups, lb, inches) to international units (ml, g, cm) and vice versa.

The original Google algorithm was a clever hack but it relied on web being a hypertext, and links being used contextually.

The algorithm made linking valueable. So instead of writing hypertext people tried to create isolated sites and boost their rank. Remember rel="nofollow"?

Eventually bigger sites took over the small ones.

> I live in europe and basically all mc/visa are actually debit cards.

That's not true. I'd expect that most of the credit cards are MC/Visa, and there are more debit cards in EU than credit cards, and among debit cards there are many debit MC/Visa, but that does mean that "basicall all mc/visa" in Europe are debit cards.

Edit. Found some stats. https://ec.europa.eu/competition/sectors/financial_services/... "Report on the application of Regulation (EU) 2015/751 on interchange fees for card-based payment transactions".

Page 24, Fig. 5 and page 25, Fig. 6. Debit cards in EU in 2016: 78% of the transactions are with domestic schemes, 99.5% of the rest were MC/Visa. Credit cards: 68% used domestic schemes, 94.3% of the rest were MC/Visa. It's not the most recent data, but still proves the point.

In other words, MC/Visa were used a lot both as credit cards, and as debit cards.

I used Avis in Italy many times, and don't remember that it ever were possible to get the car without a credit card. Actually, it's in their FAQ:

https://faq.avisautonoleggio.it/Res-Channeling/Reservation-E...

In short, the translation is: prepaid cards (and only certain types, not Electron/Cirrus/etc) can be used to pay online only, and another card among those accepted (i.e. a credit card) should be presented at the desk.

The UK version of the FAQ tells basically the same:

https://faq.avis.co.uk/1492093922

"PREPAID cards are accepted online however they are not accepted at the counter which means a non-PREPAID card must be shown at the rental station (together with the PREPAID card)"

It's a nice filter, but not a glitch. True glitch should unpredictably damage data or device. The point is to seek aesthetics in malfunction. The generator mentioned in other comments https://snorpey.github.io/jpg-glitch/ looks more authentic.

According to electricityMap, France is importing 3.58GW from Germany right now. And from all other neighbors, except Great Britain.

https://app.electricitymap.org/map

I think it was a conscious design decision to reduce false alarm rate. Assuming that this low cost device can be/become very inaccurate, then the designers had two choices:

1) Report all alarms as detected. Eventually, the device becomes a red LED which users learn to ignore.

2) Report a problem when the device is reasonably sure there is a problem. Green light does not necessarily mean that the air quality is good, but when the LED becomes red, it should be taken seriously.

Yes, indeed, if you click any photo, there is a description which mentions the lens.

LWN is a nice site, but to save you a couple of clicks, this is the original post by Trinity College Dublin:

https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/study-reveals-scale-...

And this is the paper it talks about (PDF):

https://www.scss.tcd.ie/Doug.Leith/Android_privacy_report.pd...

"Key findings from the study:

- With the exception of e/OS, all of the handset manufacturers examined collect a list of all the apps installed on a handset. This is potentially sensitive information since it can reveal user interests, e.g., a mental health app, a Muslim prayer app, a gay dating app, a Republican news app. There is no opt out from this data collection.

- The Xiaomi handset sends details of all the app screens viewed by a user to Xiaomi, including when and how long each app is used. This reveals, for example, the timing and duration of phone calls. The effect is akin to the use of cookies to track people’s activity as they move between web pages. This data appears to be sent outside Europe to Singapore.

- On the Huawei handset the Swiftkey keyboard sends details of app usage over time to Microsoft. This reveals, for example, when a user is writing a text, using the search bar, searching for contacts.

- Samsung, Xiaomi, Realme and Google collect long-lived device identifiers, e.g., the hardware serial number, alongside user-resettable advertising identifiers. This means that when a user resets an advertising identifier the new identifier value can be trivially re-linked back to the same device, potentially undermining the use of user-resettable advertising identifiers.

- Third-party system apps, e.g., from Google, Microsoft, LinkedIn and Facebook, are pre-installed on most of the handsets and silently collect data, with no opt out.

- There may exist a data ecosystem where data collected from a handset by different companies is shared/linked. Notably, the privacy focused e/OS variant of Android was observed to transmit essentially no data."

There are hundreds of vpn services, but as the topic article tells us more and more of them are owned by the same entity. And this same entity tries to obscure this fact. And this same entity under a different name was allegedly "involved in browser hijacking, malicious software bundlers, adware, and other monetization methods" (Crossrider past). This same entity is registered in a country with influential and capable intelligence services, and not particularly known for its privacy laws. And if you google names behind this entity, you'll find mentions of bribery, jail time, gambling industry, and Israeli intelligence. I don't see why you put /s on your post.

You may find links to EU Commission studies on this page, downloadable as PDFs, distributed under CC-BY license.

https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/electrical-engineering/r...

1. Impact assessment study: common chargers of portable devices (December 2019)

PDF: https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-handler?ide...

2. Impact assessment study: unbundling of chargers for mobile phones and similar devices (June 2021) - to identify different regulatory and non-regulatory policy options to achieve unbundling and address the technical pre-conditions and consequences of unbundling

PDF: https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-handler?ide...

3. Technical supporting study: wireless charging technologies used for mobile phones and similar devices (April 2021) - to analyse and update on the status of wireless charging technologies

PDF: https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-handler?ide...

The valuable part of the charger and the cable is not actually plastic. The point is that replaced chargers account for ~ 1_000_000 kg of e-waste per year.

Cable is 30% copper, 24% stainless steel, 16% other non-plastic materials. EPS is 13% copper and copper alloys, 7% aluminium, 6% steel, 37% other non-plastic components.

According to EU studies, 31% of the EPS and cables are incorrectly disposed.

https://op.europa.eu/o/opportal-service/download-handler?ide...

They are not _especially_ bad compare to other waste, but it is the waste that be easily avoided.

I do not know what technique this app used, but in practice apps are more resilient. It has been shown by Telegram which more or less successfully evaded blocking in Russia. I think it's a combination of lower-level network API, traffic obfuscation libraries, push notifications, and hosting some info on public services which cannot be blocked without affecting too many people. But it is just a guess.

Ordinary web sites are quickly blocked and are not accessible without a VPN. Some popular VPN providers are blocked too. The app, once installed, appears to be more resistant to state-level disruption. At least until law enforcement pays a visit to Moscow offices, and then magically Apple and Google side with Putin.

Given an address, the app provides the name of the suggested candidate in the corresponding voting district. The idea is to consolidate votes around only one candidate who does not belong to Putin's party.

In Russia, many potentially popular candidates are not allowed to run, were imprisoned, or otherwise persecuted, and in some cases killed. Those who remained are often spoilers or people you would not willfully vote for. So usually, people unhappy with the regime either did not show up for the election or spread their votes between many unpopular candidates. That is how Putin's party has support from 20-25% of the population according to various polls but commands 75% of the seats in the parliament. This, and election being rigged. So, the idea is to consolidate the votes of the people who are not happy with Putin's regime. If anything, just to send the message. And that's "protest voting".

The list of the candidates to support was published at the last moment to avoid the risk that they will be removed from the election. The app is the main channel to publish this list because it can auto-update and bypass Internet censorship. Normal websites are often inaccessible without a VPN. Google and Apple shut off this channel.

I'll try to argue that most of these don't benefit much from a wearable HUD.

Maps and navigation seem to be good enough when they are handheld or mounted on a vehicle. When you are on foot you're moving slowly so no need to have it always visible. Yes, there's a special case of you're on foot and carrying two heavy bags in both hands, in an unfamiliar place outdoors, and cannot stop, and do not speak local language. Voice navigation should still suffice.

Video instructions. Some of them have to be seen in advance to be able to plan your actions and logistics (e.g. cooking). Some of them teach skills which should be watched multiple times and/or tried multiple times to achieve mastery (e.g. sports and dancing techniques). What kind of instructional video benefits from being seen while doing, in real time? Even origami howtos are usually back and forth, until you _understand_ what you're doing.

Not holding books in your hands. I admit I wanted it on several occasions. My concern is usability. Is it easy to read four hours from a semitransparent surface, is it easy to focus on HUD projections continuously.

Finding stuff in the closet. This is so sci-fi. We'll see level 5 autonomous driving first.

Heart rate (blood sugar, any other vital) monitor. Basically, it's a solved problem and a feature available commercially. You don't need to see heart rate continuously to be warned about an anomaly. Sound alarm works just as well if not better.

Tell the names of people... that's actually a very good use case for AR!

The pitch of how useful AR can be in a professional setting is always about superficial things that are usually non-problems.

Car mechanics can recognize components. It's the easiest part of their trade. And doctors know how organs look like. That's not the kind of information they need. And no heart surgeon would look at getting started tutorial with a patient in front of them. Construction workers would use a proper measurement tool if they need a measurement and their decisions depend on this measurement.

Another assumption about AR which is often wrong is that looking at things is the easiest solution to many problems.

Yes, a cash register worker scans codes all day. No, rotating each and every box to have the code facing you and then moving the head and the upper body to center at the code is not easier than reaching the same code with a hand scanner. Hands are good at reaching things. Neck gets tired. And even a better solution might be transition to RFID, or installing multiple cameras along the belt, or promoting a self service process, none of them require to look at every code.

Loooking at keyboard is not the fastest way to type. Many AR usage scenarios are like suggesting to project key labels on a keyboard through a magic HUD when there are already keyboards with labeled keys and many people using them professionally are blind typists.

Looking at the examples page.

A possible application which is not about completely faking identity, Deep Live Makeup / Deep Live Haircut / Deep Live Dress might be something people will pay money for.

"htmlq: like jq, but for HTML"

"jq is like sed for JSON data"

sed: "While in some ways similar to an editor which permits scripted edits (_such as ed_), sed works by making only one pass over the input(s)"

ed: "ed is a line-oriented text editor".

Software definition through a reference to another software is somewhat confusing. Potential users come from different backgrounds (I had no idea what is jq), and it is not clear what are the defining features of each project. Is jq line oriented? Is htmlq operating in a single pass?

Payout proportional to the track count favors short tracks. The payout proportional to the air time favors longer tracks.

As long as payouts are calculated on an account per account basis, any approach is fair. A TOOL fan will probably listen 5 times fewer tracks than a Ramones fan, but it is OK because every their stream is worth 5 times as much.

Though if they pool track counts (or minutes played) across multiple accounts, then different listening patterns of different accounts will always skew payouts one way or the other. And it is always unfair.

I don't think it works like this: a fixed rate times the number of streams. It is probably the other way round. They get _some_ revenue per user per month, which can be ads or a premium fee (which again can be different, because there are student, dual and family subscriptions, as well as one time promotions). Then they get their cut. The rest is divided between thousands of copyright holders according to some magic formula. Spotify still gets its 30%. As long as their operating cost to serve you is less than 3.33 EUR, they are good.

If you listen 3000 songs and pay 10 EUR, I suppose that will pay out 7/3000=0.002 EUR per song. 5 times the average. If I pay 16 EUR for a family subscription, and we listen 100 tracks, then I suppose our streams will pay out 16*0.7/100 = 0.112 EUR per track. That's crazy good (at least I hope that the artists I listen to get that much from my streams when I don't listen much). My friend listens to Spotify Free. Let's say the ad revenue is 1 EUR per month. 0.30 is the cut. 0.70 goes to the artists. If she listens to 160 tracks, it will be close to the average Spotify pay out. Not much. Better than nothing.

Percentiles are order statistics, they are robust and not sensitive to outliers. This is why sometimes they are very useful. And this is why they do not capture how big the remaining 0.01% of the data are.

Let's take a median, which is also an order statistics. And a sequence of latency measurements: 0.005 s, 0.010 s, 3600 s. Median latency is 0.010 s, and this number does not tell how bad latency can actually be. Mean latency is 1200.05 s, which is more indicative how bad the worst case is.

In other words, percentiles show how often a problem happens (does not happen). Mean values show the impact of the problem.

As a cyclist, I believe that bike lanes do induce demand, but there are some important differences.

A single road can attract travels which begin or end far away from the road. So its effect is felt on a larger territory and further away. A road needs only few exits to be connected to other roads.

Bike lanes are more like capillary network than arteries. A single bike lane is almost useless, because it can serve only travels which begin and end in a narrow strip around the lane (maybe a block away). Two bike lanes which are not connected will be used much less than two connected lanes. Even a single discontinuity of the network can make bike travel unfeasible.

So rather than talking about lanes, we should talk about lane networks and their density. And up until certain density the network won't be used much. Only after reaching that threshold we can talk about effects it may have on city development. Similarly, a car road will not generate induced demand nor attract much traffic if it is missing a bridge across the river.

Let say a bike lane attracts traffic if the starting point and the destination are within w/2 from the lane. Let's assume uniform distribution of potential starting and destination points. Then in a city area A, a bike lane of length L will attract only Lw/A potential commutes (within a strip around the lane). There are two important observations to be made: 1) the induced demand is proportional to the length of the network L, 2) parameter w is probably small, likely ~ 200m, so 1 km of a bike lane will have a smaller and more local effect than 1 km of the road. To cover 1 km² of urban area, the well connected network would have to be a grid with the total density of bike lanes ~ 10 km / km².

Yes, indeed, I was curious to see these data.

Thanks for providing a link.