Patch
@Patch@feddit.uk
- Comment on Password manager by Amazon 1 day ago:
How the fuck do you know my PIN number?!
- Comment on It's rude to show AI output to people 1 day ago:
If only the biggest problem was messages starting “I asked ChatGPT and this is what it said:”
A far bigger problem is people using AI to draft text and then posting it as their own. On social media like this, I can’t count the number of comments I’ve encountered midway through an otherwise normal discussion thread, and only clocked 2 paragraphs in that I’m reading a chat bot’s response. I feel like I’ve had time and braincells stolen from me in the deception for the moments spent reading and attempting to derive meaning from it.
And just this week I received an application from someone wanting work in my office which was very clearly
- Comment on Password manager by Amazon 1 day ago:
Unfortunately it’s a combination lock, and the code is written on a post-it stuck on the front of the drawer.
- Comment on Symbian: The forgotten FOSS phone OS 3 days ago:
Don’t forget Tizen too; MeeGo’s other bastard offspring.
I think Tizen is still around?
- Comment on Rightwing campaigners claim there is covert deal to return Parthenon marbles 1 week ago:
Last time I heard a deal talked about in serious terms (which was some years ago), I believe the plan was for a “permanent loan” to Greece in exchange for a rotating selection of loans in return. Greece has a pretty impressive collection of ancient artifacts, and it would give British museum-goers a chance to see them.
- Comment on Honda successfully launched and landed its own reusable rocket 4 weeks ago:
Arianespace has fallen behind, but they’re not out of the picture. They’re still by far the largest competitor to SpaceX, and they’re aiming for their 7th generation Ariane to be a reusable design.
Arianespace is an Airbus and Safran subsidiary, so it’s not like they don’t have the engineering oomph behind them.
- Comment on Temperatures surpass 29C as UK heads for heatwave 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, but it’s a dry heat.
- Comment on Government 'quietly drops' fight for tougher anti-protest laws used to arrest climate activist Greta Thunberg 4 weeks ago:
Worth noting that these were changes implemented by the previous Tory government. The new Labour government was more or less happy to leave it to ride, but now it’s been successfully challenged in court they’re happy to let it fall by the wayside.
- Comment on Matrix.org is Introducing Premium Accounts 4 weeks ago:
Sure, but that applies to the UK too. London has a higher cost of living than Los Angeles; averages being averages, this is weighed against lots of cheaper places to live (with massive unemployment and stagnated economics).
- Comment on Matrix.org is Introducing Premium Accounts 4 weeks ago:
Cost of living in the UK is about 20% lower than the US, including housing costs. But the average salary is about half of the US salary. So you can see that that doesn’t really cover it.
- Comment on Matrix.org is Introducing Premium Accounts 4 weeks ago:
Just looked on that link for the UK. The average is listed as £63k, which is $85k.
So you’re not exactly disproving the point that that type of high salary is a US thing.
- Comment on How Do I Prepare My Phone for a Protest? 5 weeks ago:
Ask a non-protesting friend or family member to take it with them about their daily routine?
I’m sure my mum would be happy to look after my phone for a day if it meant getting one over on three authorities. And if anyone asks, I’m just a good son who likes to hang out with his mum.
- Comment on Rough sleeping to be decriminalised after 200 years 5 weeks ago:
Yep. It’s to distinguish it from other forms of homelessness, such as “sofa surfing” (where someone moves from one friend or family member to another for short periods without having a fixed address of their own), people temporarily living in homeless shelters/boarding houses, people living in places which aren’t really accommodation (such as their place of work), and “statutory homelessness” (a broader legal definition which includes a few things which might not seem like homelessness, such as people who are at serious risk of violence in their homes).
- Comment on New fuel cell could enable electric aviation 1 month ago:
The real competitor for green aviation isn’t hydrogen, it’s bio-fuel. Bio-kerosene, bio-gas and bio-ethanol all have useful roles in aviation, and are essentially carbon neutral over their lifecycle. Zero carbon at the proverbial tailpipe is a lot less important when that tailpipe is at 30,000 feet.
- Comment on Who owns the press? 1 month ago:
A lot of quality small local newspapers doing an amazing job are financially struggling. It’s very sad.
Sadly not as many as you’d think. The overwhelming majority of local newspapers were owned by a handful of national companies. The three biggest are Reach (owner of the Mirror and the Express, amongst others), Newsquest and National World, who between them own 65% of all local papers. Another 15% are owned by the next two biggest companies (Trindle and Archant). Only 20% of local papers are owned by smaller companies, and most of those aren’t independent, they’re just smaller companies than the big 5.
Anyone lucky enough to still have a genuine independent local paper with at least passable quality should cherish the fuck out of it.
- Comment on Forced E-Waste PCs And The Case Of Windows 11’s Trusted Platform 1 month ago:
ReactOS is a very fun project, but anyone expecting it to be a real useable OS is absolutely mad. It’s been going for almost 30 years, and they’re almost at the point of binary compatibility with Windows Server 2003…
- Comment on X.com blocks access to Ekrem Imamoglu, leader of Turkish opposition 2 months ago:
You’ve pretty much just described ActivityPub and the Fediverse.
Anyone can spin up their own instance. You can self host on a machine in your house, or with any cloud provider. You can broadcast messages in Twitter-style or Reddit-style format. Anyone can navigate to your web address and see your messages. Anyone who federates with you can see it on their website. FOSS Android apps are available.
You can’t force anyone to actually read your messages of course, but that’s a different matter.
- Comment on People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies 2 months ago:
Turing made a strategic blunder when formulating the Turing Test by assuming that everyone was as smart as he was.
- Comment on Tesla odometer uses “predictive algorithms” to void warranty, lawsuit claims 2 months ago:
I wonder how sophisticated this fraud is? They could have it rush to 50k, and then “catch up” by running more slowly for the next few 10s of thousands to cover the tracks.
- Comment on Vets tell BBC they are under 'consistent pressure' to make money 2 months ago:
I’ve just discovered that the vets in my town are owned by Mars Inc.
You know, of “Mars Bars” fame.
Who knew?
- Comment on UK creating ‘murder prediction’ tool to identify people most likely to kill. 3 months ago:
maybe turn the three sisters
Two of the three precogs were boys, by the way.
- Comment on Approving US-made cars would make UK roads less safe 3 months ago:
Even the US he ce why Vauxhall exists.
Not to detract from your point (because you’re completely correct), but just an FYI that Vauxhall/Opel has been European owned for some time now. General Motors sold it to Peugeot back in 2017, and it’s now part of Stellantis.
Ford had (and still has) essentially the same arrangement, only in their case they use the same brand. Ford Europe and Ford USA are pretty much entirely separate companies, owned by the same parent; hence why their European car lineup looks mostly nothing like their US lineup.
- Comment on Mailfence email 3 months ago:
That’s encryption in a nutshell. A message is encrypted until it reaches its destination, and then by necessity is unencrypted in order to read it. Once your recipient has the unencrypted message, you don’t have any control over what happens to it.
Fundamentally, if you don’t trust the recipient (or their system provider), no amount of encryption will protect your message.
- Comment on Final Fantasy 9 Remake Seemingly Teased by Square Enix 3 months ago:
FFIX is my favourite FF game (yeah, fight me on it), which means this news is either very good or very bad depending on how the remake ends up.
- Comment on “It Wouldn’t Be Surprising If, in Two Years’ Time, There Was a Film Made Completely Through AI”: Says Hayao Miyazaki’s Own Son 3 months ago:
trying to tell us that in a couple years we’ll have a full-on AI film
To be fair, he never said it would be any good.
- Comment on The Signal and the noise: Why the messaging app is great for privacy but not for war plans. 3 months ago:
We need a US Community on Revolt too not just Lemmy
Never heard of it before.
What’s the elevator pitch?
- Comment on Nintendo delays Switch 2 preorders over tariff concerns 3 months ago:
There’s a direct quote from the company.
According to a statement sent to The Verge by Eddie Garcia on behalf of Nintendo, it says preorders will no longer begin on April 9th:
“Pre-orders for Nintendo Switch 2 in the U.S. will not start April 9, 2025 in order to assess the potential impact of tariffs and evolving market conditions. Nintendo will update timing at a later date. The launch date of June 5, 2025 is unchanged.”
I’m also in Europe.
- Comment on Nintendo delays Switch 2 preorders over tariff concerns 3 months ago:
They’re definitely creatively stale, but they’re also undeniably good at what they do. They have by far the best selling console of the last generation, and are the only console company to consistently post healthy profits on their operation.
Is it a bit naff that their next generation of games will almost certainly be yet another Zelda, yet another Mario, yet another Pokémon? Absolutely. But if their next Zelda game is yet another best-selling critically acclaimed success, who are we to say that they’ve got the wrong approach?
- Comment on Mozilla Thunderbird Challenges Gmail With Its Own Email Service 3 months ago:
Depends what you’re after. I’m a Thunderbird user, but if user friendliness is the aim then Geary is quite good.
- Comment on Network Rail to set up property company to deliver 40,000 homes 3 months ago:
Both Network Rail and LCR have already been working in this space for a long time; this is more about increasing the scale than about doing something new.
Reading is an interesting example; all those big towers and blocks that have sprung up around the station in the last decade? The vast majority are on what was previously railway land.