dgriffith

@dgriffith@aussie.zone

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The AUKUS Submarine Deal is Dead. The US can’t provide the submarines. The UK can neither make up for the shortfall nor co-develop such a submarine in a reasonable timeframe⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  " Read 16h ago "

  • France
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How do I get started designing and making and/or acquiring my own pcb?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Have a look at EasyEDA. Browser UI, schematic and PCB design, linked to JLCPCB for ridiculously easy board creation, and if you take care to use components they have in stock, you can also do fully populated boards ready to go.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imagine not being able to shower, because AI slop generator machines need that water!⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Apparently closed loop systems are not good cheap enough

  There I fixed that for you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨First Australian-made orbital rocket crashes shortly after takeoff⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Engine start, hold down clamps released, cleared the launch tower (juuust), I give this rocket launch 3.5/10, definite room for improvement.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨South Australia Government considers requiring developers to build bigger garages. The cost will be paid by home buyers. Whether they have a car or not.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  An old Falcon Ute is overkill.

  A Renault tinyVan is acceptable and much more suitable to the task than your average tradie BlingMobile.

  Falcon utes are getting harder to find these days as well.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta, YouTube, TikTok and Snapchat are running ads and events saying their services are safe for children⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Their algorithms are not safe for children. Self-reinforcing rabbit holes that easily drift to topics that can cause developing personalities to believe that the torrent of AI slop, drama-for-clicks, general propaganda (see: the ads mentioned), and blatant manipulation of our monkey-brain base instincts is what the world is actually about.

  Hell, there’s a good case to be made that they’re not safe for adults too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Space Is Actually Warm!⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Having said that , there is about a thousand watts per square metre of insolation coming in from the Sun on the exterior of the craft, just like there is here on the ground on Earth.

  I guess the Apollo designers figured it was easier to insulate and heat the cabin than absorb heat and then try and cool it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We should be able to legally have a different name just for work for better work/life separation⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  A guy I used to work with went by the nickname of “Womble”, his name was actually Raymond.

  One day I was poking through work orders in our system and discovered that it officially knew him as “Womble <last name>” and there was no sign of Raymond in there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We're Not Innovating, We’re Just Forgetting Slower⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  “VCR” could have meant either VHS or Betamax to a consumer in the early '80s.

  At least VHS specifies a particular standard, and “player” in that context has a loose connection with record player, or tape player , being the thing you play your purchased records / tapes / videos on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Detection of fire ants in Queensland 800km from closest infestation sparks fury over gaps in eradication funding⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “How did this happen?”

  Well let’s see, they were found at a 100 percent FIFO coal mine that ships ridiculous quantities of equipment, materials, and food from all across Australia and the world on a daily basis, and 600 people are shuffled to and from Brisbane every week via the local airport.

  I wonder how those ants ended up there, it’s a complete mystery.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Americans Can’t Buy the World’s Best Electric Car⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  They also iterate very quickly.

  First car design - “functional” is being polite about it.

  Fifteen years later when they are on their tenth revision - pretty damn good.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Americans Can’t Buy the World’s Best Electric Car⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve test driven a few BYD models here in Australia. 50 thousand dollarydoos for an electric car that goes 400+km, can power your house in a blackout, has all the normal electric car performance (6 seconds to 100kmhr) and is chock full of user comforts and safety features.

  There are a LOT of these getting around in Brisbane, and for good reason. I didn’t get one this time round, but by the time the lease expires on my Volvo EX30 in 4 years, I’ll be looking pretty hard at BYD. Especially if they get their new solid state batteries going by then.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Fear of 'being cringe' blamed for lack of dancing on nightclub dance floors⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Exactly. Every person worries that they are one shaky phone video away from internet mockery.

  It worked out ok for this guy but only by a stroke of internet luck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨South Australia Government considers requiring developers to build bigger garages. The cost will be paid by home buyers. Whether they have a car or not.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “Buuuuut I need my RANGER ULTRAMAX PRO LAND BARGE TITANIUM EDITION to carry all my toooools!” - every young tradie ever.

  Meanwhile old painters are still getting around in falcon utes just fine.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Simple Wikiclaudia: Chrome extension that finds a simple.wikipedia.org version of any wiki article. If one exists, click to open it; otherwise, it uses Claude or ChatGPT to simplify it.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Why?

  Because people should be looking to expand their knowledge by getting into the details. By handwaving those details away with an AI summary that may or may not actually summarise the article correctly, people lose the opportunity to learn.

  If your attention span or cognitive capacity can’t get you through a basic Wikipedia article you need to work on that, for your own betterment.

  If you’re reading an article and you’re lost in the weeds you should be taking a step back to simpler concepts in Wikipedia (or elsewhere) first. Don’t trust a LLM to make a coherent summary about a topic you can’t understand, because you won’t be able to tell if it’s feeding you bullshit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Powerful US lobby groups urge tariff retaliation against Australia’s ‘socialised medicine’⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  That’s right - the Australian government has bulk purchasing power and that’s a big motivator for pharmaceutical companies. When companies get their medications on the PBS sales in Australia skyrocket.

  There are some very expensive drugs on the PBS simply because it makes financial sense from a cost of care perspective for the government to do so.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Australian influencers warned after several accounts inadvertently promote illegal offshore bookmakers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  “Inadvertently”

  Riiiiiiiight.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Zero-day: Bluetooth gap turns millions of headphones into listening stations⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s BLE - Bluetooth Low Energy.

  Basically devices with BLE can listen for a wake-up command and turn on, similar to the “magic packet” of wake on Ethernet.

  It also means that most devices with BLE end up flat within a month. I had a speaker with BLE and had to deliberately download a much older version of the Android partner app to turn it off, as they dropped the option to do so in later versions for “convenience”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Geologists doubt Earth has the amount of copper needed to develop the entire world⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Perhaps it’s time to start researching alternative materials.

  Plenty of metals floating around in space. Just need to go and get them.

  Only need to capture one decent sized metalliferous asteroid from a near earth orbit and we’d be set for a century or two.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK how to unclog a toilet⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Australian here.

  Step 1: design your damn toilets so they do not clog.

  Step 2: there is no step 2.

  Seriously, half a century of toilet use here in Aus and I’ve never caused - or discovered even - a blocked toilet at home.

  Clearly the fact that I can buy a toilet plunger from the local hardware store indicates that this can happen here. But it seems that every American household has a toilet plunger and poop knife on standby and many articles are devoted to what clogs, and how to unclog, American toilets.

  There are better designs out there guys, maybe you should look into using them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Top Ways Inkjet-Printed Sensors are Changing Tech⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This kind of reliability is huge for prosthetic limbs, fitness trackers, and robotic arms, where precision and durability are non-negotiable.

  Thanks, AI slop! Sensors that have been durability tested for a few hundred cycles will be perfect for prosthetic devices that can do that in half a day of office work, or fitness trackers that can do that in five minutes, or in robotic arms that can perform that kind of movement in 60 seconds! I’m going to use them in my next safety critical robotics project for sure!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GOP sneaks decade-long AI regulation ban into spending bill - Ars Technica⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  "automated decision systems "

  “IF X THEN Y” satisfies this description.

  Soooo basically just take the handbrake off practically every chunk of software ever written then?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows Is Adding AI Agents That Can Change Your Settings⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s much more fun to just half-ass a new control panel with only a few features, and then hide the old, fully-functional control panel.

  Bonus points if you can then begrudgingly finally show the old, useful, control panel when a user clicks 6 layers deep in the new panel.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Wuh-wuh-wuh”, using pronunciation similar to the start of “wow” or “woman”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can local LLMs be as useful and insightful as those widely available?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Why do people do X, when in my opinion if you disregard the two top reasons for doing X, it’s pointless? Prove to me that it would be better!?”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sydney woman who sold a cartoon cat T-shirt told to pay US$100,000 in Grumpy Cat copyright case | Australia news | The Guardian⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Default judgement”, meaning nobody turned up to plead their case in whatever court and jurisdiction this was in.

  So this woman sold 1 shirt, someone else sold 275,000, someone else sold 1200 coffee mugs, and so on and so forth until Grumpy Cat Enterprises™ gets the shits and goes to court with a case against multiple plaintiffs. Then in the absence of any defense all the alleged guilty parties get slapped with a default USD100K.

  Which means very fucking little if the judgement is in East Texas and you’re in South East Asia as it’s going to be pretty tough to collect, but it might mean something if you live in Australia.

  Being a civil matter, it’s pretty unlikely to go any further than being a note in a file somewhere, I’m not even sure if this could get on to Australian credit reports.

  But the single sale of a shirt just before all this happened sounds extremely suspicious, like a fishing expedition to get enough people to make it worthwhile to go to court.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Slate, a no-nonsense EV pickup for $20k⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But I need my land barge to potentially carry 9000 pounds and 6 people for at least 400 miles without a break, even if I can barely manage to satisfy one of those criteria once a year. Otherwise it’s a miserable failure that must be mocked.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Australia here, I have a 100GB plan with unlimited calls Australia-wide for AUD40 a month. With the current miserable exchange rate with the US, that’s about USD25/mo.

  And any unused data rolls over each month so now I have (checks)… 4.22TB of data available, because I have a dual-sim phone and my work sim does all the heavy data usage.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A weird phrase is plaguing scientific papers – and we traced it back to a glitch in AI training data⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thankfully, science will inevitably sus those papers out eventually, as it always does,

  In the future, all search engines will have an option to ignore any results from 2022-20xx, the era of AI slop.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dear Big Tech, Stop Shoving AI Into Operating Systems⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Ohhhh, that tired old OS was using AI 1.6. We’ve been offering the new OS -now with AI 1.8 - for 7 solid weeks now! We recommend you upgrade now, as we’re shutting down AI 1.6 on Tuesday.”