tankplanker
@tankplanker@lemmy.world
- Comment on Billionaires with $1 salaries – and other legal tax dodges the ultrawealthy use to keep their riches 4 days ago:
Often they don’t actually use the cards themselves, paying is the job of an assistant so its more likely to be some sort of company credit card.
Heres Rishi Sunak completely failing to get how contactless works, literately the simplest process to pay for something, you don’t need a PIN or put the card into the machine, you just tap the card reader. Its like hes never paid for anything in his life before.
- Comment on Children in England ‘bombarded’ with online ads for harmful products 5 days ago:
You can add gambling adverts to this, it would be disingenious to suggest kids do not watch football
- Comment on Wi-Fi 7 Marketing is Lying About it's Biggest Feature 1 week ago:
Its not that bad if you go with mikrotik, but their configuration isn’t for everyone as its a long way from say Asus in terms of simplicity.
Their budget 8x10gb is about £220, pretty reasonable for a fully managed switch. Sure its not going to let you max out all 8 ports at the same time with multiple vlans even with the hardware offload, but whose expecting that from a budget switch?
I am never really going to benefit from it fully, not least in the short to medium term. What I will get is the fun from upgrading.
- Comment on Wi-Fi 7 Marketing is Lying About it's Biggest Feature 1 week ago:
Future proofing, at some point I will go 2.5gb sync or higher on my Internet pipe, the connection I think can go 10gb sync with some upgrades to the local exchange.
Also because I can, and almost everything else I own for my back haul already has 10gb ports and the bandwidth to support it including my router and all my switches.
Do I need it? Absolutely not, its just fun to do and the only reason I haven’t done so yet is cost of suitable hardware.
- Comment on Wi-Fi 7 Marketing is Lying About it's Biggest Feature 1 week ago:
Biggest issue with this stuff as almost always is that the average consumer finds this too complicated.
The fact you have to have everything a modern and up to date wifi 7 setup, including all your devices, and make the right decisions over topology pushes it out of reach of anybody but an enthusiast or someone paying for a top tier install.
Excluding people who cannot lay cable between their mesh points because they renting, a wired back haul is always going to be more reliable and consistent. Plus the average consumer gear loses one or more radios to do the back haul.
Biggest thing wifi 7 offers is better coexistence between multiple heavy users on the same access point, assuming everything is wifi 7.
The speed increases are irrelevant to 99% of the population as I can still max out a 1gb synchronous internet link on wifi 6. My current back haul is 2.5gb, if and when I go wifi 7 I am looking at going to 10gb otherwise what’s the point? How many enthusiast level aps come with 10gb back haul?
- Comment on 1 week ago:
He is also tying it to a company (SpaceX) that the US government relies on, so in the event one of the other basket cases drags everything else down he is trying to ensure he will get bailouts. Any sensible and non corrupt government would just require the dead bits cut off, but we know that isn’t what is in place right now.
- Comment on Barnsley rebranded UK’s first ‘tech town’ as US giants join AI push 1 week ago:
“In the latest move in Labour’s drive to inject AI into Britain’s bloodstream, the government has announced four US tech companies – Microsoft, Google, Cisco and Adobe”, ah, a complete scam it is then.
- Comment on All aboard! UK's first rapid-charging battery train launches in London 2 weeks ago:
The fast charging at the platform is the most interesting thing here, three and a half minute top ups are up there for turnaround times. If it proves to not excessively degrade the battery with high number of charges then it makes much longer routes with charging points as and where local infrastructure can support a charging point. Would greatly reduce the cost and disruption to implement proper electrification for routes that would struggle to justify it otherwise.
- Comment on The BBC’s proposal to switch off Freeview is a threat to its universal service | Letter 2 weeks ago:
If you look at the rate its dropping it will be close to zero in eight years.
The people left could almost certainly get by with a 5G (or likely 6G by that point) setup properly, and the extreme edge cases left with sat based internet like Starlink.
- Comment on The BBC’s proposal to switch off Freeview is a threat to its universal service | Letter 2 weeks ago:
Yes, thats clearly a common setup requirement for the majority of people on freeview who don’t have more than 10 Mbps broadband.
There are always edge cases, they are rarely helpful in understanding problems like this as the cost to support them far out weighs the number of people it helps. I would suspect if you means tested this group most would fall outside of qualifying for assistance anyway.
I used to run 3 4k streams plus social media use for 4 adults on what was often 65mbps. You only need a reliable about 5 Mbps for a HD stream for iPlayer, the 10 Mbps more than covers this for the majority of people in this situtation.
- Comment on The BBC’s proposal to switch off Freeview is a threat to its universal service | Letter 2 weeks ago:
Most of the research pushing against the switch off is driven by Arqiva, who runs the transmitters, lol.
I cannot see how in 8 years the vast majority doesn’t have some sort of suitable broadband just to exist let alone replace an old freeview set that will likely need replacing in that time frame anyway.
We are already down to 3% of households now, and less than 50k households that do not get 10mbs+. In eight years we will have fixed almost all of that, and aged out a lot of the older demographic that has worse adoption.
Cost aspect I get and agree with, we should be ensuring people on pension credit and other low income benefits get free broadband anyway, its getting increasingly difficult to interact with Government and Local Services without it.
- Comment on Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube and other content sharing platforms will block New users in the UK starting next week(February 2) 2 weeks ago:
It was planned from the beginningas the real drivers behind the detail of the legislation, the security services, knew people would use VPNs and those have always been the main target.
Its why the legislation was written in the first place. Most people’s identity is already tied to their connection via big tech social media. Its the people who use VPNs they can lose track of.
I would expect this to be a live requirement by the end of the year at the latest.
Just be glad the client side scanning keeps getting rejected thats in the same legislation.
- Comment on Pornhub, YouPorn, and Redtube and other content sharing platforms will block New users in the UK starting next week(February 2) 2 weeks ago:
UK is going to be requiring age verification for VPN access. reclaimthenet.org/uk-house-of-lords-votes-to-exte…
Will this mean all VPNs will comply? Obviously not, but the bigger names will either pull out or comply as we seeing with the bigger porn sites.
The next step after this will be criminalization of using a VPN without age verification.
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
I do not trust them either, not after this.
The apple silicon looks amazing, it would be my choice if I didn’t really dislike Tim Apple, and Apples excessive price gouging with storage and RAM pushing what would be a usable model for my requirements up significantly.
Equipping the base laptop with 256Gb of storage in the current year then charging how much to jump to even 512Gb, which is still pretty small amount, is a piss take.
They are are bad for RAM upgrade pricing, at least the base model has 16Gb. With both storage and RAM being soldered on, you are stuck either using external drives or cloud storage.
Second hand would be my pick, that way Apple do not see a penny of the money.
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
Omarchy
DHH is pretty fucking racist, white replacement theory is right up there with the worst of racist beliefs
I thought I might move there one day. That was then. Now, I wouldn’t dream of it. London is no longer the city I was infatuated with in the late '90s and early 2000s. Chiefly because it’s no longer full of native Brits. In 2000, more than sixty percent of the city were native Brits. By 2024, that had dropped to about a third.
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
Yeah I am pretty certain you are tbh, I think you mixing up uefi certificate updates with root kits that are part of the factory image or other installed bloatware from the manufacturer.
Now if you were talking about vpro or other low level management I could believe it, but thats intel and avoidable…
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
Really? Where you read that?
What I remember it was an app you could uninstall and then you had to clean up the certificate install. It was part of the factory image and would get installed as part of that. Lenovo provided instructions to remove it.
But again, I don’t use factory images or windows.
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
Yeah my countries market for used frameworks is tiny, I would be paying a significant premium if I could find one and likely getting one of the less desirable (to me) older models. I also really want a 16/15" device so its kind of limiting.
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
I dont use factory installed images from anybody, mostly because of this shit. I also dont use windows, not that I would trust a factory installed Linux either
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
I plan on going for a used Lenovo, something with as many generic, replaceable components as possible with as little soldered to the motherboard as I can get away with. I trust the workplace models to be more reliable and supportable long term than anybody else.
That way Lenovo do not see a penny of my money and I will only have a very very small upward impact on used prices due to the volumes of used Lenovos sold.
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
I wouldn’t buy a Dell because I wouldn’t trust the hardware, his position is just the icing. Whole reason I wanted the framework was because I wanted something to last a very long time, I simply do not trust Dell to provide support or parts long term.
The Tim Apple situation hurt, as I really liked the apple silicon for build quality and I had an old Intel Macbook that did indeed last a very long time (still boots even now). However their RAM/Storage pricing for what is an essential amount of storage for me mean even without Timmys boot licking making them a non starter.
I wont buy Nvidia because of their shitty Linux support, Huang being an absolute womble
Lenovo is about as good as you getting for a mainstream brand, and they are ultimately owned by the CCP so meh.
I think with Framework it particularly hurts as at least with Dell or Apple they are quite openly rimming Trump because it will give them competitive advantage and tax cuts while they never really pretended to be for the public good.
WTF do Framework get by supporting Hyperland or Omarchy? Its literary supporting your racist uncle who makes moonshine for half a dozen people when you set yourself up to be an ethical alternative whose current market is more likely to be ethical seeking. Imagine if Oxfam or Doctors without Borders started supporting Trump?
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
I am not expecting my single cancellation to make the slightest difference to their policy, they already made it clear that they are quite happy funding racists when multiple people have challenged them over it, and with one of their larger pots of cash they give out as well.
What I am getting out of is knowing I am not (indirectly) funding racists myself, rather than knowingly funding racists. I do not see it any different from buying products from Musk, if you did it ages ago then fine, but after, thats something else entirely.
- Comment on Dell brings back XPS laptops — ditches the capacitive touch bar, adds 1Hz display option, and upgrades 14 and 16-inch models 5 weeks ago:
I cancelled my framework 16 order because of their “big tent” policy meaning they give funding to Hyperland and Omarchy, I will not give my money to people who fund racists
- Comment on UK university degree no longer ‘passport to social mobility’, says King’s vice-chancellor 1 month ago:
There used to be a cap on uni places, Blair removed that cap. Polys converted in 92 under the Tories.
In theory, there could be more students applying than the cap, and in theory you could end up getting grades another year would have let you get in but not get in year you applied.
I say in theory as you would have had to have pretty fucking awful grades to not get in, I know of people getting in with a mix of Es and Ns during the pre Blair era, and no it wasnt a “soft” course or on a foundation year either.
Obviously I am ignoring subjects like Medicine that still had a cap even after Blairs meddling and have always been extremely tough to get in even with fantastic grades.
The biggest issue he caused by just removing the cap entirely was not ensuring a long lasting funding model, you cannot double the number of students and not cause runway increases in costs that ultimately have to be footed by the tax payer.
- Comment on The Rise Of Fake Casio Scientific Calculators 1 month ago:
The fact that you can and should enter a sequence of buttons to get a QR code to verify if your casio is in fact a casio is wild
- Comment on Makes perfect sense 1 month ago:
May be they couldn’t have kids because, i don’t know, being entirely different species, so they adopted.
- Comment on Total War: Warhammer 40,000 wants to be "the seminal Warhammer 40K game," says its devs, who sell me in just 8 words: "You can customize the fingers on Space Marines!" plus Gamestar article 2 months ago:
You can say that about a lot of authoritarian settings, most obvious example is a hardcore of Homelander fans, despite Homelander being a figure of fun and scorn in the Boys. There will always be people who either lack the critical thinking skills or willfully ignore ample evidence.
- Comment on Typeframe 2 months ago:
I have always loved the concept of computers like this one.
I have a picocalc on order but I am aware I am unlikely to make such a restricted use platform work for me day to day.
I also have a GPD MicroPC 2, its just about perfect for me for actual travel usage as its just a small PC.
However I like the fact its based on a PI as it has a wide range of options for expansion and a large base of support to take it further if you need it to.
- Comment on Rich People Are Becoming Less Willing to Help With the World’s Problems 2 months ago:
So they don’t pay a penny towards those costs? For the median? As thats a lot of people.
As its entirely wrapped in the tax already accounted for in that net income with the UK tax payer.
I wasn’t expecting it to be the whole difference but I do know those that have to pay in the US pay a significant chunk of change.
- Comment on Rich People Are Becoming Less Willing to Help With the World’s Problems 2 months ago:
Are you accounting for everything that’s included in UK taxation such as health care and state pension?