JoshuaFalken

@JoshuaFalken@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Tom Warren] The PS5 Pro still hasn’t sold out in the US or UK. Looks like the $700 price point will mean this console will be readily available this holiday⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Not sure why people are beating up on @nxn@biglemmowski.win for saying his opinion. Different people value different things.

  I think I can answer your question though. Buying a console is a plug and play experience. Building a PC is not. Not everyone has the time, the patience, or the technical experience required to purchase compatible components, assemble the machine, and install the various software.

  Anyone that’s ever bought a prepared meal has overpaid in comparison to acquiring the ingredients, prepping them, and cooking the dish. It’s worth the price to do so because I sure as hell don’t want to spend time making a bowl of French onion soup.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Boeing offers staff 25% pay hike in bid to avoid strike⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The point I was trying to convey is that companies are run by people and people are corruptable. You’re correct to say there’s no reason to think any specific contact would be violated. It’s folly however, to think companies never take action against a union as a whole or a worker individually.

  Given the recent whistleblowers that have stopped being alive in recent Boeing memory, I don’t think it’s alarmist to suggest they might not be a trustworthy bunch.

  Either way, my apologies for the way I half heartedly wrote something the other day.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Top EU court orders Apple to pay €13 billion tax bill.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Ireland does not give preferential tax treatment to any companies or taxpayers,” stated a spokesperson from the Irish Ministry of Finances.

  I wish the media would eviscerate these people like they used to.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Boeing offers staff 25% pay hike in bid to avoid strike⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hahaha cheers mate for the laugh. Didn’t realize I was wasting my time with you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Boeing offers staff 25% pay hike in bid to avoid strike⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I realize the math is marginally inaccurate - precision wasn’t really the goal of what I wrote. We’re on the same page so far as the disingenuous headline goes.

  Where we disagree I suppose is the contract being binding. You’re right of course, from a legal perspective, a signed contract is an agreement that must be upheld. When I wrote that it was taking Boeing at its word, I was leaning more into a possibility of leadership changing their minds.

  As a hypothetical example:

  Two years down the line the executives decide to ‘review’ the contracts and determine an alternative understanding of the principles of the agreement which leads to them reverting to the previous payscale. Then the union threatens to strike again, legal action might ensue, maybe months go by of back and forth with the corporation dragging their metaphorical feet at every opportunity. Eventually this ends up in court with Boeing being told to quit the shit and pay what they agreed, maybe plus 5% as a ‘pemalty’ for bad faith operation. Finally, the agreed upon payscale resumes with backpay, plus that 5%. Workers aren’t exactly happy, but they aren’t angry anymore. All the while, those extra tens of millions were sitting somewhere, collecting interest for Boeing. By the time it all gets straightened out and they accept a fine, they’ve made an extra few million. At the end of the quarter, or the year, the executives that set out on this path take a generous bonus.

  All I was really getting at by commenting about the contract was that corporate greed exists - in Boeing of all places this is a certainty.

  Giant companies pull these maneuvers all the time at the expense of the people they employ, their own customers, or both. I don’t think most of what I wrote was wrong. Inaccurate maybe? I can live with that.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Boeing offers staff 25% pay hike in bid to avoid strike⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Every time some headline comes out with significant increases, it always turns out to be ‘over x years’.

  This isn’t a 25% raise, it’s taking Boeing at their word they will give 6.25% every year only for the next four. Six percent doesn’t cover the inflated costs of anything anymore, let alone allow for wealth building or retirement saving.

  These people would never strike again if they got a real 25% raise and a guaranteed bump equal to twice the inflation in the years to come. But as always, when the C suite’s horizon is only as far as next quarter, the people are seen merely as an expense - not an investment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No screens before age of two, Swedish health authority tells parents⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Good on you for being opposed to a concept, then taking in the research and adjusting your viewpoint. Not often are people willing - or capable - of this shift in opinion.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No screens before age of two, Swedish health authority tells parents⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not sure how this is fear mongering. It’s common knowledge that increased screen time is detrimental to the mind.

  This is a health office issuing a guideline, not imposing a law to jail parents that don’t follow it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨39% of Americans worry they can’t pay the bills⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Entirely anecdotal, but we’re setting up for a fruit and vegetable garden next season. Having a portion of either with each meal was how we were raised, but doing so from the grocery is pushing our bill up a good $100 a month.

  Overall this isn’t much of a surprise. Since the industrial revolution, the production value of one worker has grown exponentially. Salaries, not so much. A prime side effect of this disparity is the demise of the stay at home parent. The ratio of people this was a reality for vs the ones it wasn’t has entirely inverted. All this in a handful of generations.

  A home garden should be more of a hobby than a requirement.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's largest sodium-ion battery goes into operation - Energy Storage⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I wrote elsewhere about the infrastructure problem, but I’ll sum up a couple things. There’s around 200,000 gas stations in the United States. If there were an equivalent number of chargers around, having a small battery would be fine. Eventually this will be the case, but you highlight an important factor: closed ecosystems. All these chargers should work for any make of EV car.

  As it stands with now, the need for a subscription or specific car or unique payment method is ludicrous. All these chargers should be required to have card readers the same way you can pay at the pump in a gas station. Beyond this, they’d all need to adopt the same charging method so people don’t need a bunch of adapters in their trunk.

  That said, there could be regulations established to require newly built housing, apartment buildings included, to have electric vehicle charging infrastructure - and more than just a few plugs. Grants could be made available for retrofitting existing buildings. If these things came to fruition, we wouldn’t need two hundred thousand charging stations all over the place. It’s not out of the question to install an overnight charging spot for every person that has an electric car - it just costs money.

  Basically every argument I’ve seen against low range electric cars is founded in a charging infrastructure problem. Going to a bigger battery in a larger vehicle has significant and more costly ramifications on other infrastructure. It’s better to aim for smaller, lighter vehicles with infrastructure in mind.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's largest sodium-ion battery goes into operation - Energy Storage⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That obviously isn’t their position. They don’t own the building they live in nor the business they work for.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's largest sodium-ion battery goes into operation - Energy Storage⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The used market is different for EVs than a combustion vehicle. I looked for a BMW i3 a while back and was only finding them halfway across the continent. Maybe that’s because people keep them for longer? Not sure that market has developed enough to know one way or another.

  I understand what you mean about the average person getting it, and while that is important, I think the primary issue is the limited selection of small EVs on the market. As you point out, if foreign vehicles could be acquired without the steep cost, more people would drive them. As it stands, domestic automakers don’t want to make anything but twenty foot long SUVs because of the huge profit margins on them.

  As far as ebikes go, I am definitely on that boat. Don’t have one myself - call me a traditionalist - but I wish more people would consider them. I agree that in higher temperatures, or humidity which I find worse, it’s uncomfortable. Though the benefit of (maybe idealistically) not having a car payment and associated insurance go a long way to making that discomfort palatable.

  Personally, I’ve got a trailer for my bike that I’ve been using to ride 10-15 minutes to the grocery stores and do errands. A time or two I have even gotten some lumber with it from the hardware store. I thought about a specific cargo bike a while back but decided not to have an entire bicycle for that sort of thing. The trailer is smaller anyway.

  The safety factor of riding opposed to driving is the most important factor in my mind. It’s dangerous to ride along the side of a multi lane road. Paint doesn’t stop drivers from crossing into a ‘bike lane’. Even a curb or those plastic bollards are insufficient in my mind. I ride nearly primarily on trails or the type of streets that are small enough not to have any painted lines. For busier routes I use the sidewalk or even the boulevard if there is one.

  The more people getting on the ebike wagon could cause better riding options to be developed in the area. That’s political though. Even if it doesn’t, it’s one more person taking a trip not in a car, making it a tiny bit safer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's largest sodium-ion battery goes into operation - Energy Storage⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t get me wrong, obviously people like yourself make these long ish trips regularly and you’d benefit either from more range or better infrastructure. If, like gas stations, there were two hundred thousand charging stations sprinkled through the country, less range in the car would be less of a concern.

  I know someone from my college days that hung a 100’ cord out her third story window to plug in her little EV. Nissan Leaf or something of that class. Worked like a charm for puttering around town.

  I’m sure the data isn’t perfect, but as far as the averages go, it’s accurate for my driving patterns. Those trips you’re taking nearly double your yearly mileage, so that would certainly change your average. Without them though, you wouldn’t be too far off based on what you’ve described. I’m fortunate that I live near a train line for my regular trips out of town. Not an option for the vast majority unfortunately.

  Another option a couple I know took was a hybrid. Most of the time they don’t use the engine, but when they go see family or what have you, they’ve got the range they need without having to find a charger. Pretty convenient if you ask me.

  Eventually we’ll have charging stations all over, or maybe light rail, and going hundreds of miles in a day without a thought to battery depletion, but I doubt I’ll be around to see it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's largest sodium-ion battery goes into operation - Energy Storage⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  A 300 Mi charge would mean if you can’t charge daily, you would be able to go a couple of days without having to do so.

  Given most trips are less than 3 miles, if you had a 300 mile range vehicle, that’s about three months of average driving, not a couple of days. My point was that people don’t go on long drives the vast majority of time and don’t more than fifty or so miles of range.

  I’ll use Tesla as the example here only because it’s the prominent electric car brand. Directly from them:

  A 120 volt outlet will supply 2 to 3 miles of range per hour of charge. If you charge overnight and drive less than 30 to 40 miles per day, this option should meet your typical charging needs.

  They go one to say you can get a 10x improvement on the miles per hour when charging from a 240v outlet. Even accounting for installation of a new outlet to the garage or side of the house, this would be far cheaper than buying a vehicle with hundreds of miles of range and using a supercharger every other week.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨World's largest sodium-ion battery goes into operation - Energy Storage⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sodium could easily replace lithium in EV applications if people would acknowledge that only 2% of trips are more than 50 miles. Though it’s probably moreso the auto industry’s fault that people have this assumption they need to prepare for a three hundred mile journey on a moments notice.

  If manufacturers were putting out cars that had four figure price tags with double digit ranges, they would become the best selling vehicles within a decade and no one would care if it was sodium, lithium, or sawdust. Of course, there is less profit to be made from smaller vehicles and so the corporations won’t bother.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Republicans are pulling out all the stops to reverse EV adoption⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Electricity isn’t critical?

  In terms of road costs, the vehicle being electric or combustion isn’t particularly relevant in a country where the most popular vehicle crosses the scales above 4,000 pounds.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Republicans are pulling out all the stops to reverse EV adoption⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Who pays for the roads?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USA: The Minimum Wage Should Be $24 per Hour Not $7.25⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re right of course. I suppose in an idealistic world, elections would be publicly funded, with no methods of outside money to take influence over candidates and therefore policy. A utopian dream perhaps.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USA: The Minimum Wage Should Be $24 per Hour Not $7.25⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Tying the minimum wage to inflation is a good strategy. Combined with a method to keep the executive class from exponentially lapping the labourers, you’d have the makings of a nice first world nation.

  The road to getting there isn’t enjoyable though. Just go with the flow, and one day these problems will be irrelevant.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FCC restores net neutrality rules that ban blocking and throttling in 3-2 vote⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I checked the carriers around here and all of them unsurprisingly offer the same thing. 50GB 5G for 50€ that drop to roughly 2G speeds once the limit is reached.

  Almost 20x the cost of your subscription.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fully working 270€ Nest Dropcam will no longer be supported.⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Fantastic, I’ll certainly be making use of that. I’ve never been one for digital reading - I printed out Little Brother and read it that way - but with no DRM how could you complain. I appreciate the link.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fully working 270€ Nest Dropcam will no longer be supported.⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  On your recommendation, I picked up a copy from my library this morning. Only had time for the first chapter, but I’m already liking it. Thank you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fully working 270€ Nest Dropcam will no longer be supported.⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d heard and used both phrases before but didn’t realize they had the same author. Coincidentally, I recently reread one of his books, Little Brother, also by chance of reading about it on a Lemmy comment.

  It’s no surprise the author of that book has these views. I think I’ll read more of his work.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement - Anil Dash⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sounds like my usage is just different to yours. I can’t remember why but I got accustomed to listening to audio at increased speed around a decade ago and slowly cranked it up to the point that now I can follow certain people’s conversations slightly higher than 2x. Only with voices and cadence I’m familiar with though. Any guests on a show can really throw me off.

  The silence trimming aspect is a bit absurd honestly. It makes laughter sound almost all the same and robotic; you have to infer where comedic, dramatic, or thoughtful pauses in the speech are; and if there’s a more rapid fire back and forth in the conversation it can be tricky to follow. Although that last point doesn’t happen with podcasts where all the speakers record separately and it’s edited together to be coherent.

  If you listen to a lot of shows, with hundreds of hours of episodes, it’s worth dialing up as much as you can stand. Then again, if I didn’t have two dozen podcasts with decades of backlog, I sure wouldn’t be listening at auctioneer pace.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple employees outnumbered customers at Vision Pro launch in San Francisco's Union Square⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well sure they could’ve made a larger battery and whatnot else, but it’s not like the Vision Pro is some slightly polished Oculus. The tech allowing for 12ms visual pass though is impressive enough without any of the other things they developed for it.

  While your point about Apple’s tremendous resources has truth to it, I’d argue that even had they committed their entire cash reserve to the development of the AVP, it would still involve more people using the device than just the engineers designing the thing.

  At some point diminishing returns mean you can’t refine much further. I think the regular release of barely improved smartphones is evidence of that. Eventually when the goal of a pair of glasses - or hell, even contact lenses - is reached, this first generation Vision Pro will be one of many milestones we look and wonder how we ever had something so bulky and awkward looking.

  Oh and the point I had made about the secretive development processes was to counter the previous comment regarding Apple ‘not being deep into artificial intelligence’. No one outside of Apple really knows what they’re doing. They’ve been tight lipped about underway ventures since Jobs returned to the company all those years ago.

  As I noticed I’m typing a reply to a several day old comment, I’ll leave a couple quotes Tim Cook made recently:

  As we look ahead, we will continue to invest in… technologies that will shape the future. That includes artificial intelligence, where we continue to spend a tremendous amount of time and effort, and we’re excited to share the details of our ongoing work in that space later this year.

  In terms of generative AI… we have a lot of work going on internally, as I’ve alluded to before. Our M.O., if you will, has always been to do work and then talk about work and not to get out in front of ourselves. And so we’re going to hold that to this as well. But we’ve got some things that we’re incredibly excited about that we’ll be talking about later this year.

  If you read all this, I’m surprised. I’m surprised I bothered to type it out. Cheers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨“Wherever you get your podcasts” is a radical statement - Anil Dash⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  After reading your comment, I checked my Pocket Casts stats page and it looks like between the skipping, variable speed (1.5-2x), and trimmed silence (mad max), I save nearly 20% of listening time with the majority of that being the silence trimming.

  Might be an outlier, but with daily podcast listening, trimming is important enough to keep me on Pocket Casts, even though AntennaPod is attractive given it’s open source nature.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple employees outnumbered customers at Vision Pro launch in San Francisco's Union Square⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Quick recap:

  • new product line
  • machine learning
  • secretive development process
  • unit weight vs competition
  • battery capacities
  • decade old product form factors

  You can’t label any of that subjective and go on to say it’s all about the wow factor. As if there could be anything more subjective.

  Cheers for the laugh though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple employees outnumbered customers at Vision Pro launch in San Francisco's Union Square⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The Vision Pro is literally a new product line that has multiple innovations over current competitors.

  Artificial intelligence is such a buzzword these days it’s tough to determine what your meaning is here. Apple uses machine learning all over the place.

  As far as actual artificial intelligence - machine consciousness akin to a human mind - how would you know? Apple doesn’t make a habit of announcing their ventures before their marketable.

  Without their respective batteries, the weight of the Meta Quest Pro is 522 grams. The Vision Pro is 532.

  The three batteries in the power pack are 3000mah each. Again, not sure if the complaint here is overall capacity, or that the headset is power inefficient. These could be valid if they’d implemented recharging in a worse manner, but it can be charged while in use by either another battery bank or an electrical socket.

  Ignoring the contradiction on Steve Jobs, yes he was persistent in his vision, but he also understood the physical limits of technology. A stylus at the time of the original iPad would not have been a slim, precision tool. Look at the Wacom CTH661 - bit cumbersome if you ask me.

  There are criticisms to be made of the Vision Pro, and certainly of Apple, but you’ve made none of them here.