blackbeans

@blackbeans@lemmy.zip

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GrapheneOS refuses to comply with new age verification laws for operating systems — group says it will never require personal information⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  Depends on your angle. The Pixel is a good phone and the OS works well, but it is a Google device. A growing minority wants to avoid investing in US big corp, or in anything US related in general given the current political situation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bring Back the Burned CD— They’re a love language. And a reminder of the hope we once had.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s weird though. Pencils were never a good way to transport tape. It was also investigated that only certain Japanese pencils fit as these are bigger. In my memory we always used a BIC ballpoint pen which fits perfectly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bring Back the Burned CD— They’re a love language. And a reminder of the hope we once had.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree with your point. However that’s not what the article is about. It’s about the social and aesthetically engaging aspects that come with physical media compared to the utilitarian services where music is presented like “tap water”, and the sense of indifference that’s created through abundance, hurting the artists financially.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bring Back the Burned CD— They’re a love language. And a reminder of the hope we once had.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That authors’ view is explained in the article.

  Unlike a burned CD from a friend, there’s no social contract that compels me to sit with something new, and take the time to better understand it. There’s very little on Spotify that will compel me to dive into the catalogue of a new-to-me artist, then seek them out when they go on tour.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Firefox 149 adds built-in free VPN with 50GB monthly data⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Usable addition, and the fact that it is only in-browser is actually a merit in some cases. Firefox gets a lot of hate but is way more privacy centric out of the box compared to Chrome. AI is only opt-in and you can literally customize the entire browser using about:config. Mozilla also maintains the only real competing web engine (not considering Apple’s locked in ecosystem) and they are the reason browsers are open source these days.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Firefox 149 adds built-in free VPN with 50GB monthly data⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  The free option is limited to a certain amount of GB. Mozilla can upsell an unlimited version in the future. Likely the reason they don’t do that right from the start, is that their VPN network is completely new and it’s hard to judge the network capacity needed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Spotify playing ads for paid subscribers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Confirmed by Spotify that it was a bug and has now been solved. It only applied to Basic users. Basic is the slightly cheaper version of Premium which doesn’t include audio books.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Asus Co-CEO: MacBook Neo Is a 'Shock' to the PC Industry⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The law is there solely to ensure the customer always has the option to buy the product without a charger, in order to fight waste. It doesn’t restrict manufacturers from offering the product including charger as well.

  For consumers it doesn’t matter. Capitalism is capitalism. If the price of the laptop + charger is not attractive, consumers can buy a competing product. Arguably buying an Apple on a budget is a controversial choice anyway, as the ecosystem costs (software, cloud services, accessories) are generally higher compared to OS with an open hardware architecture.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Windows 12 release date in 2026 possible, with AI features that may force CPU upgrades⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  To be honest offline Office 2016 is a solid product and the desktop software is still more snappy and capable then the online counterparts. If you don’t need collaboration and online integration there’s little reason to go subscription based. I can understand that small companies make that decision. After all it is just a tool and not a goal in itself.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Teams’ invasive Wi‑Fi tracking sparks backlash as users say Microsoft crossed a line — “There must be a team at Microsoft tasked with making Teams worse”⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  So basically the same every Android phone does. Google had done this kind of tracking since 2007

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New sodium ion battery stores twice the energy and desalinates seawater⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Exactly this, there’s a huge market for energy storage, where cost, power and cycle life matter way more than size and weight. And Na-ion can be produced in countries that do not have access to lithium mines, making transport less of an issue and countries more self-sustaining.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨GrapheneOS - break free from Google and Apple⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Weird reaction though, how many phone suppliers with an open bootloader and documented architecture are there really? If Fairphone doesn’t live up to their standards, I’m sure they can cooperate as a team instead of clinging to a big tech US monopolist that can make their lives hard at any moment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The web’s clipboard, and how it stores data of different types⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Png is the right choice as it is lossless. Jpg works well for photos but it’s not designed for abstract depictions such as the lines, panes and texts in applications and web sites. Meaning artifacts become noticeable with smaller jpg file sizes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨New nickel-iron battery charges in seconds, survives 12,000 cycles⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Article says 47 Wh/kg. Thats around a third of LFP cells. But the power density is way higher. Meaning it can do enormous peak currents.

  For grid energy storage, energy density is not the most important factor, but the power density is a great plus. It means these cells can rapidly charge or discharge in the grid, offering flexibility to buffer in any way that is required. And the cycle life is also way higher.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Spotify says its best developers haven't written a line of code since December, thanks to AI⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This, the Shuffle function should play every song exactly once, just in a random order. This is what cd players have been supporting since the late '80s.

  It is a very simple algorithm but Spotify turned it into something complex that barely works. By default, in large playlists, it will heavily prioritize some songs while others are almost never heard. People have complained about this for years and there is an option in the settings for it now, although I am not yet sure if that setting really disables all of the “smart” algorithms Spotify has associated with shuffle.