fubarx
@fubarx@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Why don't low birth-rate countries make immigration to their country easier? 20 hours ago:
I talked to Japanese colleagues about this a lot. The issue isn’t just plain old xenophobia. In a lot of cultures, when someone gets married, there are considerations about marrying ‘the right kind’ for the family. As silly as that might sound to U.S. ‘melting pot’ ears, these could be tribal, economic, linguistic, geographic, class, education, age, gender, and yes, race.
In traditional settings, the elders have to bless that marriage, welcome the person, and ideally have the families mesh together and be on the same page.
Inviting foreigners with vastly different backgrounds on almost all those axes, it’s a pretty tall order to ask everyone to change those attitudes. And saying one family should close their eyes and do it for the sake of the country while their neighbors hold out for a ‘suitable’ match is going to be tough. The demographic ‘time bomb’ has been a known issue since the 80s and people are still resistant to change.
At some point, though, realities catch up.
My bet would be it would take a generational turnover and a few years of popular sitcoms normalizing it.
- Comment on Lindroid is an Android app that lets you run Linux in a container, with support for hardware-acceleration - Liliputing 3 days ago:
- Comment on NASA selects SpaceX to build deorbit vehicle for International Space Station 3 days ago:
They leave the Boeing and Soyuz up there, then when it’s time, gas 'em up and have them act as controlled thrusters. Everything burns up in the atmosphere. All problems solved.
Saves them $800M and change.
- Comment on A group of R1 jailbreakers found a massive security flaw in Rabbit’s code 4 days ago:
Many years ago, folks figured out how to crack firmware and find embedded keys. Since then, there have been many technological advances, like secure enclaves, private/public key workflows, attestation systems, etc. to avoid this exact thing.
Hopefully, the Rabbit folks spec’d a hardware TPM or secure-enclave as part of their design, otherwise no amount of firmware updating or key rotation will help.
There’s a well-established industry of Android crackers and this sort of beating will keep happening until morale improves.
- Comment on Welcome to the fediverse: Your guide to Mastodon, Threads, Bluesky, and more 4 days ago:
Was just listening to the latest episode of Dot Social podcast where there was a discussion with CEO of Ghost (alternative to Substack). They’re integrating ActivityPub into the platform, but where they’re going with it is that you can use your Fediverse ID instead of email to sign up.
Once they have that worked out, any likes or comments automatically migrate back to the fediverse. Replies back to replies also show up in your timeline and your followers can see them. This makes discovery pretty effortless. They can also use the stats to keep track of engagement across all fediverse services.
It also means turning one-way streams like RSS (podcasting), email services, and commenting services into common two-way communities.
You’re now going beyond just catching up to existing services and doing things just not possible in closed silos. Real “Aha!” moment.
- Comment on VW will invest up to $5 billion in Rivian as part of new EV joint venture 5 days ago:
Have never met EV drivers more pissed-off at their car’s software than VW owners. Hopefully, this will inject something more functional back into VWs.
- Comment on Automation 6 days ago:
Someone should build a little AI app that scrapes a job listing, then takes a resume and rewrites it in subtle ways to perfectly match the job description.
Let your AI duke it out with their AI.
- Comment on Academia to Industry 6 days ago:
NFTs will keep their value forever…
- Comment on The return of pneumatic tubes 1 week ago:
Some Costcos still have them. Used to send checks and cash to the back office once they hit a limit. Guessing not so much any more.
- Comment on ‘It’s the perfect place’: London Underground hosts tests for ‘quantum compass’ that could replace GPS 1 week ago:
Phones have had accelerometer/gyros for a while now. Problem with pinpointing one’s location is how to get a starting fix and how to deal with drift and loss of signal.
The way devices have dealt with it is to periodically confirm and baseline with a satellite fix.
If this method does away with all that, it could remove the reliance on overhead signals and those trying to jam them in hostile zones.
Pretty cool. Lots of potential.
- Comment on Slightly less than two drinks = positive effect on programming ability. Who's joining? 1 month ago:
“Ancient Persians reportedly debated big decisions twice: once drunk and once sober.”
- Comment on Former teen models accuse magician David Copperfield of misconduct 1 month ago:
In 1991, Look of the Year was hosted by real-estate mogul Donald Trump at the Plaza Hotel in New York, which he owned. Former US President Trump and Copperfied were among the 10 judges.
Talk about burying the lede.
- Comment on Dangerous? Signal Blasts Google Effort to Use AI to Scan for Scam Phone Calls 1 month ago:
One of the things they glided around was whether a lot of this on-device stuff needs a special processor chip with AI+security to work?
The Pixel phones (especially newer ones) made by Google have them, but the vast majority of Android phones don’t.
So either these features only work on latest Google phones (which will piss off licensees and partners), or they’re using plain old CPU/GPUs to do this sort of detection, in which case it will be sniffable by malicious third-parties.
And let’s not forget that if the phone can listen to your conversation to detect malicious intent, any country can legally compel Google to provide them with the data by claiming it is part of a law-enforcement investigation.
Things are going to get spicy in Android-land.
- Comment on I made a 3D printed mechanical digital clock 1 month ago:
Outstanding!
Watching it, my first thought was if it could also be used as s display for a large calculator? Guessing the computation part would require electronics, but then again, there used to be geared tabletop calculators.
Very nice work.
- Comment on Apple introduces M4 chip 1 month ago:
The iPad Pro screen looks pretty good, but don’t need all that processing power to just watch videos and browse websites.
Was really hoping they would upgrade the iPad Mini.
- Comment on Biologists Find Mutated and Genetically Distinct Strains of Multi-Drug Resistant Bacterium on ISS 1 month ago:
Immortal Super Space Bugs!
- Comment on Tesla to lay off everyone working on Superchargers, new vehicles 1 month ago:
Notice that I said Electrify America. A lot of the Tesla charging stations did have room, mainly because the software routes people to available stations.
Non-Tesla car companies are making matters worse by piling onto EA and giving away 2-3 years of free L2/L3 charging. That creates incentive to just go there. Many people don’t have Teslas, nor can they charge at home. Those all go to EA and create 2 hour wait times.
The Tesla charging experience is one of their key advantages. However, that’s going to change once they open it up to all cars, which they are. OTOH, Musk is reportered to have fired the whole charging station team, so maybe it won’t happen.
Replaceable batteries swapped in 5m makes for a good user experience. Nothing we’ve said here changes that fact.
- Comment on Rabbit R1 is Just an Android App 1 month ago:
Big whoop. MediaTek eval kits offer either Linux or Android AOSP. Why is this news?
- Comment on Tesla to lay off everyone working on Superchargers, new vehicles 1 month ago:
I would love for a Nio style battery swap to make it to the U.S. It just makes sense.
And for those saying they don’t want some janky battery that’s been through a bunch of cycles. If you have battery swap and access to a station, there’s not a lot of incentive to charge at home since the swap stations do it. The max battery life for most EVs is around 10 years. After that, a total replacement is $$$. With the swap system, you have a moderately used battery forever. If it doesn’t hold charge well, just go back to the swap station and get another one.
I just got back from a trip to Southern California. Every Electrify America L3 station was busy and had a waiting line. Someone said it was normal and many stations were busy until 3-4am. Turns out anyone living in an apartment or condo highrise had to charge at these stations. It used up 2-3 hours of their day just to charge up. Everyone in line said they hated it and many said they regretted getting EVs.
A swap station would do brisk business and roll them in and out in 5m.
- Comment on I lost mine 1 month ago:
Dozens of Archeology PhD theses will be written about these a thousand years from now.
- Comment on I am the thing that goes *thump* 'Fuck!' in the night 2 months ago:
Could rent that place to medical schools to teach their students how to treat twisted ankles.
- Comment on You can now buy a flame-throwing robot dog for under $10,000 2 months ago:
Fire-extinguisher robot dogs in 3, 2, …
- Comment on Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. As electricity prices go negative, the Golden State is struggling to offload a glut of solar power 2 months ago:
California could provide credits for people to install in-home batteries. That could level out the wild swings in supply and demand, while letting people enjoy continuous, cheap power.
Add a car charger transformer and a lot of EV demand on the grid can be handled by in-home batteries.
- Comment on Biden urged to ban China-made electric vehicles from the US 2 months ago:
I saw a review of the $11K BYD car. Part of the way they had reduced costs was by having the company’s own divisions make and sell a lot of the parts, like the motors, battery packs, transmission, headlights, infotainment, etc.
The divisions also sold to other car makers, but they obviously charged less for their own internal brands.
The U.S. AND European car makers are essentially systems integrators, buying parts from vendors like Denso, Magna, Continental, Bosch, etc. then assembling them together.
I imagine it would be impossible for car makers using this model to reduce costs below a certain level. They would have to completely redo their business models.
- Comment on Bluesky's Moderation Architecture | Bluesky 3 months ago:
Haven’t gone through the whole spec, but based on interviews with the CEO, the main advantages are the ability for users to move easily from one node to another without losing anything, and better moderation tools.
Since at the moment there’s only one BSKY server out there, it’ll be hard to verify the first claim.
On the content moderation part, Mike Masnick of TechDirt who is deep into the moderation weeds made it sound like their system is pretty well thought out.
But ultimately, adoption will come down to the community and where they land.
- Comment on FCC Denies Starlink Low-Orbit Bid for Lower Latency 3 months ago:
The ISS is planned to deorbit in 2031: nasa.gov/faqs-the-international-space-station-tra…
Wonder if the FCC ruling will change after it comes down?
That’s still a lot of satellites floating around that can get in the way. And it doesn’t even include the other LEO providers like Project Kuiper spooling up.
- Comment on What Do People Think of Apple's Vision Pro Headsets? 3 months ago:
The immersive media experience is the killer feature right now. The whole browsing websites and pinning work stuff up in space is a novelty that will wear off. Predict everyone will go back to using their physical multi-monitor setups.
3D videos, apps, and games that take advantage of immersion will push the envelope.
- Comment on Ubicloud wants to build an open source alternative to AWS | TechCrunch 3 months ago:
Most of cloud service provider revenue comes from basic services, like storage and basic compute. But
vendors like AWS, Microsoft, and Oracle figured out a long time ago the smaller, niche services are what differentiates them and makes the services sticky. If you need just a Linux instance, it’s easy to provision it using Terraform or Pulumi and jump to the cheapest lowest-common-provider.
But with services like IOT, AI/ML, business forecasting, robotics, etc. Once you tie your business to those services, it’s a lot harder to leave.
- Comment on Rakuten launches cloud storage with unlimited file transfers, targets businesses and individuals, with free 10GB storage 4 months ago:
Speedrunning Dropbox, box.com, …
- Comment on Kids Online Safety Act gains enough supporters to pass the Senate 4 months ago: