Nollij
@Nollij@sopuli.xyz
- Comment on Facial recognition error: Customer misidentified by Sainsbury's 2 days ago:
Your math is off, by two decimal places.
- Comment on Substack won't let me in without verifying age, and VPN doesn't work; any ideas? 1 week ago:
There are a number of indicators for where someone is from that might be visible to site operators, far beyond a simple IP address. You could try an incognito window (because cookies), as well as changing your region settings.
Beyond that, try spinning up a VM (VMware has a free version, as do many others). Install a fresh OS on it, always pretending to be in whatever your destination country is. Install the (e.g) UK keyboard, select a UK timezone, etc. Install your VPN right away, before opening a browser.
- Comment on What if you printed all of Wikipedia? 1 week ago:
Why would you even do the calculations based on inkjet printers? Even at a simple glance, inkjet is the wrong solution. While they acknowledge at the end that laser would be the way, that was clearly an afterthought and not calculated into anything.
- Comment on Is OpenAI dead yet? 1 week ago:
I just want to add that the crash will take down the entire economy, not just AI and tech companies.
Simply by subtracting AI companies from the equation, the US is already in a pretty substantial recession. The process of them crashing out will make that even worse.
- Comment on OnePlus update blocks downgrades and custom ROMs by blowing a fuse 1 week ago:
Why would they start with the harder one? Samsung is much better funded, and therefore will be a much more difficult case.
And no, it does not matter that Samsung did it first.
- Comment on RAM Prices Got You Down? Try DDR3. Seriously! 1 week ago:
This is basically the exact scenario that led me to detail that I was only talking about consumer gear. Server gear is a very different beast, with a variety of tradeoffs that I didn’t want to get into. For instance, I’m assuming you can only use Registered RAM.
- Comment on Microsoft Gave FBI BitLocker Encryption Keys, Exposing Privacy Flaw 1 week ago:
Most (US) companies don’t consider the US government to be a significant risk to their business, partly because they’re already subject to it.
They also commonly believe that Microsoft can secure these keys more effectively than they could do so in-house. And they’re probably right.
Now, it’s an entirely different story for any companies not subject to US law.
- Comment on RAM Prices Got You Down? Try DDR3. Seriously! 1 week ago:
The biggest problem with DDR3 is that the last (consumer) boards/CPUs that could use it are really, REALLY old. 5th-gen Intel or AM3 AMD. Which means you’re looking at a full decade old, at the newest. These boards also probably can’t do more than 32GB.
Now, I suppose if you only need 32GB RAM and a CPU that’s pathetic by modern standards, then this is a viable path. But that’s going to be a very small group of people.
- Comment on The $20 USD bill is the new 5$ bill 2 weeks ago:
They introduced the Sacagawea dollar coins a while back with the expectations that people would use them for daily transactions. After an initial brief interest, they quickly fell off. Turns out that people in the US don’t really care to use coins, and used the paper $1 bills at every opportunity.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 weeks ago:
Seems like a hit that combined “make it look like an accident” with “leave no witnesses”
- Comment on Fake moo 2 weeks ago:
Looks like McDonald’s changed their sourcing about 10 years ago. Now they use trimmings as you said; previously they used pink slime.
For the record, I never said (nor implied) that it would be fed to food animals. I was thinking more like dog food
- Comment on Fake moo 2 weeks ago:
McDonald’s gets the very last stage of leftover beef from the carcass. If they don’t buy it, it goes to things like animal feed.
I don’t know how much McDonald’s-grade beef is on a cow, but I’m guessing the real numbers are how much non-McDonald’s beef people are eating, divided by the average weight of cows
- Comment on COVID's "new normal" = safety hysteria, digital dependence and "expert" obedience? 3 weeks ago:
Uh oh, it’s caught in a loop.
- Comment on Do you have to deal with this during your morning commute? 4 weeks ago:
There are many reasons that people would use a particular schedule. Congestion is only one, and not even a big one usually.
A far bigger reason is to be done with it so they can get on with their day, whatever that might be. That way the errand(s) are done and won’t interrupt them or weigh on their minds.
- Comment on Microsoft Office has been renamed to “Microsoft 365 Copilot app” 4 weeks ago:
FWIW, Office (or more accurately, everything that was part of Office) was renamed Microsoft 365 years ago, in 2020. That was long before the AI insanity.
- Comment on Microsoft kills official way to activate windows without internet 5 weeks ago:
You’re asking the wrong question. You should be asking “who is trying to use Windows without any Internet access at all?”
Which is definitely some people/situations. It’s not the standard user-centric use case that Microsoft expects, but it does exist.
- Comment on YSK Tempur Mattresses fail quickly and the warranty is fake 5 weeks ago:
While the AG has a number of options available, most common are civil suits. But even before that, simply having the AG in the middle is putting them on notice that they need to really, REALLY be confident that they are in the right. In most circumstances, they will simply approve your warranty claim to avoid the risk.
When you see headlines of “[state] AG sues XYZ Corp for not honoring warranty claims”, it means there have been a ton of complaints, or a lot of complaints where they still refused. You should never purchase from a company that’s had one of these headlines recently.
- Comment on YSK Tempur Mattresses fail quickly and the warranty is fake 5 weeks ago:
Adding onto this, every state AG regularly pursues companies for not honoring their warranty. It takes some paperwork (usually original purchase receipt, original warranty terms, and your desired resolution), but it’s usually not too bad. Yours might even list it as a common category for your complaint. Probably takes about 20 minutes.
Companies don’t usually fuck around when the AG is watching. You probably aren’t the only one to complain, and too many complaints can lead to a full-blown lawsuit from one of the most capable organizations in the state. The penalties can include your entire company - including parent, children, and sibling companies, being banned from doing business in the state.
- Comment on YSK Tempur Mattresses fail quickly and the warranty is fake 5 weeks ago:
This one is tough. A longer warranty is a way to reassure customers that it’s made better, with the promise that it will be repaired/replaced if it breaks. And if they honor their warranties as promised, it’s probably valid. Warranty claims are expensive, regardless of industry, so they go to great lengths to minimize claims. Whatever the warranty is, you can reasonably be sure that it will last that long, but probably not a second longer. Again, assuming a trustworthy company that will honor the warranty.
Otherwise, anyone can shit in a box and mark it guaranteed. If it’s from Amazon/AliExpress, the company probably won’t even exist in 6 months (but a strangely similar new company will).
The flip side is that an unusually short/weak warranty, below that of its competitors, is almost certainly a shit product. They aren’t even going to pretend it’s up to industry standards.
- Comment on Solder-It-Yourself DDR5: Russian modders pitch the Idea of making their own RAM 5 weeks ago:
There’s still the same key problem - the memory chips have a very low available supply. Increasing the supply requires new semiconductor fabs to be built, which takes a very long time.
Outside of that, I guess it could be described as right-to-repair. If you have a bad stick of RAM, it’s likely that some or all of the chips are still good and could be reused.
- Comment on The dominoes are falling: motherboard sales down 50% as PC enthusiasts are put off by stinking memory prices 1 month ago:
Asus is a significant ODM, supplying boards for brands like HP. I’m not sure what lines/models they make today, but they are a lot bigger than just their consumer lines.
- Comment on Neither do I, Mr. Raccoon 1 month ago:
You’re right, and unfortunately this will be used as an excuse for the next cop convicted of brutally murdering an innocent person to avoid prison.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Little need, but not no need. They need to have a vague path, and something to show for it.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 month ago:
Bitcoin mining doesn’t normally use GPUs. They use dedicated ASICs. Far more effective, and cheaper in every way.
In addition, AI is in the “growth at any cost” phase. There is a TON of investor money to burn, with little need to show future profitability.
- Comment on I was gonna stop cornposting but then I saw this 2 months ago:
The locals call it “cornhenge”
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
I think he’s trying to say there should be more taboo. That there should be a lot more restrictions than just consent.
I’m glad he’s dead.
- Comment on [deleted] 2 months ago:
You’re getting downvoted, but I experienced much of the same. So much misogyny and, looking back on it, toxic masculinity. I vividly remember the bit where they used tape to illustrate “purity” of not having multiple partners.
This would’ve been the late 90s, US Midwest.
- Comment on Take the plea deal 2 months ago:
Amazingly, it was also the kind of thing he could’ve vaporwared away, just by (mostly) following policy. All he had to do was claim (from the beginning) that there are ongoing investigations, agency policy is to not release info about those investigations, and then lie that there are going to be arrests really soon.
- Comment on The rich are ‘renting’ out their idle gold bars for income as prices remain at historic highs 2 months ago:
It seems more like the futures market. The jewelers are “buying” gold at the current price to make things with gold, and they will need to repay the same amount of gold. If the price goes up, the jewelers will be paying more at that time, and the owners make a profit. If the price goes down, the owners lose money (same as if they simply held it)
- Comment on Valve's new hardware will NOT be loss leaders 2 months ago:
The very first line:
A loss leader (also leader) is a pricing strategy where a product is sold at a price below its market cost to stimulate other sales of more profitable goods or services.
So the answer to their question is “Yes, a loss leader needs to lead to something”. I have no idea why you think they have no idea what they’re talking about.