Ross_audio
@Ross_audio@lemmy.world
- Comment on They stole my voice with AI | Jeff Geerling 1 month ago:
Incorrect
- Comment on Make this thread look like it's your first day on the internet 2 months ago:
*Holds up Spork"
- Comment on Framework won’t be just a laptop company anymore 6 months ago:
VLC
Exceptions are possible. Money isn’t everything for everyone.
- Comment on Royal Mint to stop making overseas coins after 700 years 7 months ago:
“On 31 December 2009, rather than being fully privatised, the mint ceased to be an executive agency and its assets were vested in a limited company, Royal Mint Ltd. The owner of the new company became The Royal Mint trading fund, which itself continued to be owned by HM Treasury. As its sole shareholder, the mint pays an annual dividend of £4 million to the Treasury, with the remaining profits being reinvested into the mint.[58] In 2015, Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne announced a £20 billion privatisation drive to raise funds, with the Royal Mint being up for sale alongside other institutions including the Met Office and Companies House.[55]”
“Then in 2016, the mint announced plans for Royal Mint Gold (RMG), a digital gold currency that uses blockchain to trade and invest in gold. Operated by CME Group, the technology is to be[out of date?] created by technology companies AlphaPoint and BitGo.[69]”
Bring it back into public ownership. It’s been partially privatised and the vultures are extracting what they can.
It’s not completely nonsensical for the government to lose a small margy on making currency. It’s useful and the harder it is to counterfeit the better.
But both “New Labour” and the Conservatives have a lot to answer for when it comes to our national assets being lost.
- Comment on Fake stamps circulating in the UK are originating from China, lawmaker says 7 months ago:
It would also negate the point of the legislation that means they have to accept stamps in the first place.
You should not have to visit a post office in person or online to post a letter.
There are letter boxes in walking distance. If you’ve bought a book of stamps everything you need is in your desk.
That’s the system we have and it would never be designed by a business that way. But it’s a business that’s taken on that system alongside the I infrastructure for it.
If you genuinely depend on the post accessibility to it is important. It could be modernised but it was working before, modernisation and cost saving are not the same thing.
- Comment on Why do Americans measure everything in cups? 7 months ago:
Fl. Oz are actually nothing to do with weight. They are volume.
For each fluid oz. use 30 ml
It’s only approximate but the official measurements for nutrition actually do it in the US so it’s not a real unit anyway anymore.
- Comment on Fake stamps circulating in the UK are originating from China, lawmaker says 7 months ago:
Stamps no longer have a face value. They are 1st or second class.
As they put up the price each year it’s becoming common to buy stamps before the price rise and sell them after.
The margin on the last rise was ~13% on 2nd class stamps, 8% on first class stamps.
13% has been roughly the average every year since 2005.
So you can absolutely buy stamps at less than “face value”. Someone who bought them 4 years ago could easily give you a 20% discount and still make a profit.
As stamps are not allowed to expire (or have to be replaced if they do) this is a safe investment.
Royal mail have encouraged this to inflate sales in the short term and are suffering from those valid stamps still being available now with no further revenue.
Taking the face value off stamps is what’s caused this problem.
There was never an investment opportunity in buying a 90p stamp that was still worth 90p postage years later.
But buying 1000 2nd class stamps that are always worth 2nd class postage has been an inflation beating purchase.
- Comment on Fake stamps circulating in the UK are originating from China, lawmaker says 7 months ago:
Or they go close to bust and get renationalised.
If Labour are smart about it they’ll keep the USO in place and when it’s shown the business isn’t profitable take the assets back into public hands at a reasonable price.
The key problem with the new stamps is there’s no way for someone to check the validity themselves.
It’s also just a barcode, so a fake stamp that gets used with that barcode first doesn’t get stopped and the legitimate one does.
- Comment on Are you turned on? 7 months ago:
So to disappoint. This is a shopped title.
But the real thing isn’t much different.
discogs.com/…/16531551-Lil-Richard-And-His-Polka-…
Anyway, here’s the title track.
- Comment on Are you turned on? 7 months ago:
So to disappoint. This is a shopped title.
But the real thing isn’t much different.
discogs.com/…/16531551-Lil-Richard-And-His-Polka-…
Anyway, here’s the title track.
- Comment on "Permission is Hereby Granted" -- MIT License text becomes viral “sad girl” piano ballad generated by AI 7 months ago:
There are sandwich artists and sanitation engineers. Everyone knows they get paid like crap.
Unfortunately “prompt engineers” seem to be getting paid small fortunes when their job is essentially using a massive amount of computing power to commit various levels of intellectual property theft they hope no one will notice.
- Comment on Don't forget! 7 months ago:
Once out of curiosity.
It’s usually an ad ridden article with AI vomit to make it really long that eventually tells you there’s a point update in iOS.
- Comment on [deleted] 8 months ago:
During setup there is a keyboard shortcut to get to command prompt.
Then a command you can use.
Then the machine restarts and you can setup without a Microsoft account.
- Comment on I've noticed my boomer parents using Instagram and tik tok. I can't tell you how excited I am for them to kill those platforms like they did facebook. 8 months ago:
Wrong way to approach it.
Parents, start using the word wrong.
Any time you kid does something cool you might have done as a kid. “Awesome, that’s so boomer.”
If they can’t do their homework. “You’re such a boomer.”
It drives kids up the wall when parents use slang right, but when you use it wrong it’s even more infuriating.
- Comment on Why Charging Your Gadgets Over 80% Is Such a Bad Idea | iFixit News 8 months ago:
The EU and Nokia are at the forefront of what you’re asking for.
Ultimately the more appetite for sustainability the better and the less custom sent to companies which are not actually sustainable the better.
Fairphone isn’t a sustainable company it’s pretending to be one and taking market share from more reputable companies.
- Comment on Why Charging Your Gadgets Over 80% Is Such a Bad Idea | iFixit News 8 months ago:
They’ve probably lost to the competition already.
Nokia are more sustainable and offer more options for a lower price.
Fairphone are a virtue signalling brand at best now and a hypocritical one at that.
Anyone with a fairphone 4 might have made an honest mistake, a 5 or later and they’re just gullible.
- Comment on The Fairphone 5 is less about what comes in the box and more about what you get over the years 8 months ago:
A Nokia.
5 years of security updates. Cheap. Repairability commitment.
Headphone Jack Dual SIM
Very good camera.
- Comment on 8 months ago:
Yes, but magnetic flux causes radio waves and there isn’t a guarantee these will turn into heat in the space you are heating.
- Comment on The Fairphone 5 is less about what comes in the box and more about what you get over the years 8 months ago:
Making a modular phone is complicated.
If they can’t deal with complicated things they should shut up shop and get out of the way so someone genuinely ethical can take their market share.
To be clear, if they only failed to produce a phone with a headphone jack I’d be happy to just not buy it.
The fact they went on to produce electronic trash in making Bluetooth earbuds means it’s clear they’ve reached the enshittification point and are just out to make money from their user base now like every other manufacturer.
- Comment on Why Charging Your Gadgets Over 80% Is Such a Bad Idea | iFixit News 8 months ago:
The hypocrisy of encouraging waste while pretending to be against that is what I’m calling out.
They’re hypocrites and the worse they do the better a competitor for the ethical market can rise.
To be honest I’d just buy a Nokia. They’re more committed to actually producing a sustainable product at volume.
- Comment on Why Charging Your Gadgets Over 80% Is Such a Bad Idea | iFixit News 8 months ago:
Making up theories that don’t match reality.
Is talking to you worth any time at all?
All dongles break, especially the fairphone ones.
They are initially unnecessary to manufacture, then become unnecessary waste.
- Comment on The Fairphone 5 is less about what comes in the box and more about what you get over the years 8 months ago:
I’d prefer a smaller phone too but my main problem is fairphone ditched the headphones jack.
Then sold Bluetooth earbuds.
They don’t care about electronic waste, they want their customers to throw away wired headphones and buy earbuds with batteries and wireless.
- Comment on The Fairphone 5 is less about what comes in the box and more about what you get over the years 8 months ago:
No headphone jack means fairphone now encourage Bluetooth earbuds and electronic waste.
They’re dead to me.
- Comment on Why Charging Your Gadgets Over 80% Is Such a Bad Idea | iFixit News 8 months ago:
Adapters are more electric thrash.
- Comment on Why Charging Your Gadgets Over 80% Is Such a Bad Idea | iFixit News 8 months ago:
I strongly disagree.
I have yet to buy a phone without a headphone jack.
I’ve got earphones that are 17 years old and sound great. An audio jack in the car that connects way faster than Bluetooth. A hifi older than me.
The amount of electrical waste and incompatibilities caused by ditching a universal standard is not small.
- Comment on Why Charging Your Gadgets Over 80% Is Such a Bad Idea | iFixit News 8 months ago:
If anyone is living a life where they might not spontaneously “leave their charger” they’ve given up or have young children they have to be responsible for.
On weekdays I know what I’m doing from when I leave my house until work ends. I might have plans after that, I might not. But I’m not going to short charge my phone because I usually go home after work in case I don’t.
A phone battery should last as long as I might stay awake, that way I don’t have to think about it.
People generally underestimate the mental effort of tiny decisions and micromanaging things.
In general the most freeing thing someone can do to is ensure their future self doesn’t have to think about something.
Anyone micromanaging their phone battery is micro-damaging their mental health.
- Comment on Why Charging Your Gadgets Over 80% Is Such a Bad Idea | iFixit News 8 months ago:
Which has consequences. Spontaneously staying out if you didn’t decide to charge to 100% the night before and running out of battery.
It’s not “on demand” it’s “in stock ready for dispatch.”
I don’t want to have to order a day ahead to get a non-degraded battery.
- Comment on Wayfair lays off 13% of its workforce weeks after telling employees to work harder 9 months ago:
Wayfair has not been traded significantly by pension funds because it has not been a significant stock for long enough.
There may be some index linked investments which have pulled in Wayfair stock, but those will be treated as a whole and will be designed to be less risky.
It is a bad thing when stock value can be manipulated upwards by layoffs. It’s usually a sign the company is doing worse than they expected, their growth has reached a limit, so logically their long term forecasts should decrease.
But the market recognises their short term balance sheet has just seen an improvement and the short term money moves in. Ready for the ultimate buy out of a company that’s reached the peak of growth, so the main owners are ready to sell to a larger company.
Hopefully at an inflated market rate because short term decisions are being made to make the company look better to an algorithm.
- Comment on Wayfair lays off 13% of its workforce weeks after telling employees to work harder 9 months ago:
I’d suggest you look into that a bit closer.
Some investments are pensions, but generally they are buying solely on metrics. It’s also worth noting they’re focused on the long term. Pension funds line bonds, indexes and long term stocks.
The money moving quickly and affecting value day to day, week to week, even quarter to quarter is the rich trying to extract a quick buck.
Pension funds are increasingly likely to be holding the bag on a company that the short termists have eviscerated these days.
If you really care about pensions you’d be in favour of massive market reforms to slow trading and promote companies long term health.
- Comment on Cursed 32 Gig NVMe drive? 10 months ago:
As someone who has performed data recovery on optane systems. No, just no.
There’s larger slow mechanical storage.
Faster flash and xpoint storage
RAM.
Any device can use a level up to cache and appear faster.
But RAM caching is generally better handled by the OS itself.
Flash coaching isn’t an awful idea except when it goes wrong your back to “safety remove disk” being absolutely vital. So the OS needs to be aware and cutting power at the wrong time can kill your install.
Every update says “so not turn off your computer” for a reason but the actual redundancy we now have is leagues better than 10 years ago
God forbid one component in an optane chain becomes unreliable.
Ultimately everything needs to run in RAM. Everything needs persistent storage. A non-standard middle step between persistent and volatile memory is best avoided.
Xpoint was an interesting experiment but CXL replaced it. Ultimately the choice for data centres is to support more RAM. The additional RAM replacing the optane cache while the waits to be written is more compatible and predictable.
You can now have terrabytes of RAM and if you rarely boot and have redundant systems. There’s need for the middle step.
The cost of memory and SSD per gigabyte as a cache matters. But RAM error correction and other protocols give even more advantages to avoiding optane.