TWeaK
@TWeaK@lemm.ee
- Comment on How much did it cost to create a 10 foot long bike lane 4 weeks ago:
Nah it would have cost the city the same regardless, you’re just talking about how much the civils business pays its workers.
Most likely this would have been part of a larger project of installing cycle lanes in various places. But it still would have been expensive, civil contractors are notorious.
- Comment on ‘The tyranny of apps’: those without smartphones are unfairly penalised, say campaigners 5 weeks ago:
The main thing this article is talking about is supermarkets in the UK that lock all their sale offers behind the loyalty card. Until about a year or two ago, you could go in and buy things on sale or buy one get one free or whatever offer, and then use (or don’t use) your loyalty card on top (to collect/spend points), but now you don’t get any discounts if you don’t have a loyalty card.
The article/campaigners are spinning this up into something about smartphones, because that’s how most people use these loyalty schemes now, but they still have the old style cards so that’s a bit of a red herring. The real issue is the way they’re tying their standard offers to the loyalty program, and making it more difficult for consumers not to get caught out paying full price.
- Comment on Cool Dog 5 weeks ago:
Ologies is one of my favourites. The host Alie Ward is always so enthusiastic, and the guests always seem to genuinely enjoy being on her show far more than others.
- Comment on ‘The tyranny of apps’: those without smartphones are unfairly penalised, say campaigners 5 weeks ago:
You don’t need an app to use a loyalty card…
But yes I am against supermarkets that only provide discounts if you use their loyalty program, which in turn allows them to track your purchases. Especially since many items are priced with the discount as the “fair” price and the full price is really just a money grab.
- Comment on Cool Dog 1 month ago:
I think this may have been on the Ologies podcast recently, the dog was too excited and playful for a police dog, but that was perfect for poop sniffing.
Ologies with Alie Ward: Eco-Odorology (SCIENCE-SNIFFING DOGS) with Kayla Fratt
Episode webpage: www.stitcher.com
Media file: pdst.fm/e/dts.podtrac.com/…/default.mp3?aid=rss_f…
- Comment on Surprise! Nintendo Tracked Down Alleged Switch Pirate in Arizona via Reddit Posts and Repair Orders 4 months ago:
I still have one that isn’t paywalled (gratis) but I don’t think it’s had any new games in a while. I hardly ever play on it though and haven’t kept up much.
- Comment on Palworld Developer Reveals The Pokémon Patents Nintendo Claims It's Violating 4 months ago:
Looking it up, Palworld was announced in 2021, but not released (under early access) until 2024. However they were apparently designing the game back in 2020, if not earlier.
- Comment on GitHub projects targeted with malicious commits to frame researcher 4 months ago:
When accessed by BleepingComputer, however, the link returned a 404 (Not Found), and according to several others who tried to access the URL, no content ever existed at the location from the beginning.
This really doesn’t mean anything, it’s not unheard of for malicious actors to not set up their C&C servers until later on. This has actually been exploited by law enforcement in other cases also, they simply registered the domain themselves and took control away ahead of the attacker.
There’s a risk with setting up the C&C that it could be traced back to the attackers. By not setting it up until it’s needed you avoid that risk until it becomes necessary.
- Comment on Palworld Developer Reveals The Pokémon Patents Nintendo Claims It's Violating 4 months ago:
Obviously this depends on the exact details of the patents, which are all in Japanese, as well as the specifics of Japanese patent laws.
However, patents only last for 20 years, and they are undermined by public disclosure before filing. The first Pokemon game came out more than 20 years ago. However^2 not all of the features in the patents were present in the original games. All 3 patents were first filed in 2021, well after many of these features were established.
The first patent is about aiming something and entering into a fight mode. This wasn’t in the original game. Aiming at enemies and entering a fight mode almost certainly existed before Pokemon (Final Fantasy perhaps). Furthermore, Palworld doesn’t really have a fight mode - it isn’t a turn based game but real time. Throwing a sphere is just one way to start a “battle” but there is no mode change between “explore” and “battle” modes because they are functionally the same in Palworld. Pokemon Go and Pokemon Let’s Go Pikachu/Eevee, which were all around in 2018, would seem to amount to public disclosure that undermines this patent.
The second patent has more detail about catching Pokemon outside of battles. This might have some elements of Palworld gameplay in it. However, again we have prior art that predates the patent.
The third patent is about riding characters. This has certainly existed in other games before Pokemon and before this patent. Off the top of my head, World of Warcraft had you riding mounts, Final Fantasy had you riding Chocobos, and Mega Man let you ride Rush.
However the big issue with all of these is that these challenges are always better off done before the patent is granted. With the patents established it is a massive uphill struggle trying to get them withdrawn. Given that each charge is only for $33,000, so about $100,000 total, I expect a settlement will be reached instead of going on this fight.
- Comment on Surprise! Nintendo Tracked Down Alleged Switch Pirate in Arizona via Reddit Posts and Repair Orders 4 months ago:
Yeah I read this article on another post, I’m not sure that’s the whole story.
From what I remember, he was running a few “shops”. These don’t actually sell games, but they can be accessed by a piece of homebrew software on the switch, and then you connect to the “shop” to download games directly to the device - this was done instead of manually copying install files to the SD card, installing, and then deleting the original files to save space; or instead of installing over USB. The shops were much easier, not least because removing the SD card to copy games from a PC required a reboot, and rebooting an OG hacked Switch could be kind of a pain.
I think the “sales” he did were actually just donations that got you early access to titles that weren’t widely available yet. However, it’s generally when you start taking money for these things that the shit hits the fan and the hammer comes down.
- Comment on wild seals 4 months ago:
- Comment on wild seals 5 months ago:
- Comment on xkcd #2992: UK Coal 5 months ago:
Except that the UK taxed all its locally produced coal so much that it was cheaper to import more dirty coal from China than use fresh, relatively clean coal excavated from Wales. If a power station wanted to use Chinese coal, they only had to pay import duty. But if they wanted to use cleaner Welsh coal they had to pay taxes on the extraction, refinement and then the same export tax they levied everywhere else. Welsh coal was some of the highest quality in the world, but it was exported and more toxic stuff burned locally because that was more profitable.