sparky
@sparky@lemmy.federate.cc
Lead administrator of federate.cc and its services. Please don’t DM me for support with federate.cc, make a post in /c/meta instead.
Originally from Fort Lauderdale 🇺🇸, lived many years in Vienna 🇦🇹, now living in Setúbal 🇵🇹. Software engineer specialized in Apple platforms. 🌎
- Comment on Spotify to raise prices in September 4 days ago:
Friendly reminder that your “legally acquired” library of FLAC files never raises its subscription prices!
- Comment on AOL will end dial-up internet service in September, 34 years after it's debut — AOL Shield Browser and AOL Dialer software will be shuttered on the same day 4 days ago:
Understanding this joke makes me feel old.
- Comment on Nvidia plans to boost presence in Israel with multibillion-dollar tech campus in north 2 weeks ago:
Silicon Valley person here. There is a relatively developed tech sector there, with a growing startup scene in Tel-Aviv. So not a horrible place to have an office (from purely talent reasons, setting ethics aside). But not necessarily fantastic either. There are bigger and more developed tech scenes in other countries. The Netherlands, Germany and Austria in particular have a lot of high tech semiconductor manufacturing companies which would be logical for a company like NVIDIA.
- Comment on Age verification and the enshitification of streaming will help reduce the decline in computer literacy in under 18s 2 weeks ago:
The phrase “IRQ in use” is still enough to give me nightmares.
- Comment on Apple sues YouTuber for alleged iOS 26 trade-secret theft 3 weeks ago:
Former Apple employee here, hardware is almost never let off campus but software alone can be. För example software engineers working on iOS, like this guy, would probably have development builds installed on their personal devices. It’s allowed but you’re obviously not supposed to let anyone else see or use the new features.
- Comment on The Commodore 64 Ultimate computer is the company's first hardware release in over 30 years — pre-orders start at $299 4 weeks ago:
Lmfao, what a scale!
- Comment on Elon Musk Promises Grok in Tesla Vehicles By Next Week… as the New Grok 4 Blames “Anti-White Hate” on “Jews” 4 weeks ago:
Yea, that’s actually a more accurate way to phrase it. Ask it to generate something with Hitler and it’ll happily oblige, ask it to generate something supporting trans rights and it’ll block you.
- Comment on The Commodore 64 Ultimate computer is the company's first hardware release in over 30 years — pre-orders start at $299 4 weeks ago:
It’s an extremely niche product, to be fair. The general public was never going to buy it, and diehards will buy it at a premium price. When you consider the small manufacturing runs they’re probably planning, the price seems less ridiculous IMO.
I wouldn’t pay $300 for it, so I don’t claim it’s a “good value”, but I can understand from a mathematics of manufacturing standpoint why the price is something like that.
- Comment on Elon Musk Promises Grok in Tesla Vehicles By Next Week… as the New Grok 4 Blames “Anti-White Hate” on “Jews” 4 weeks ago:
What guardrails? Grok was intentionally designed without any. Don’t believe me? Go on the website and ask if to generate something awful - it’ll happily comply. Really disgusting way to handle AI.
- Comment on Ubisoft EULA demanding consumers destroy delisted games adds fuel to Stop Killing Games movement 5 weeks ago:
Can’t delete a torrent. Just saying. Keep seeding, Lemmings!
- Comment on Old gamers don't understand what mobile gaming has become 1 month ago:
yes, but mobile games now are literally casinos, with research going into making them as addictive as possible to maximise in app purchase and advertisement revenue
source: worked in ad tech for several years, specifically in the mobile gaming industry and cost/ad optimisation. a job I regret ever taking and which feels very scummy in retrospect.
- Comment on Tesla's European car sales nosedive for fifth month as customers switch to Chinese EVs 1 month ago:
I uh… you sure about that dictator thing? xi jinping enters the chat
- Comment on Slrpnk instance is down till mid July; they might relaunch their server on piefed. 2 months ago:
Is it run out of a private residence? How could it happen if it’s in a real data center…?
- Comment on Xitter Pause Encrypted DMs. 2 months ago:
As it happens, you shouldn’t trust Lemmy DMs either, as they’re not encrypted and can be read by instance administrators. So don’t use them to say anything that you wouldn’t be okay making public.
- Comment on Telegram and xAI agreed a one-year deal to distribute Grok; Telegram will get $300M in cash and equity from xAI and 50% of subscription revenue 2 months ago:
Well it’s gonna learn to post crypto spam ads and swastikas then. Which come to think of it… might be the point
- Comment on Telegram and xAI agreed a one-year deal to distribute Grok; Telegram will get $300M in cash and equity from xAI and 50% of subscription revenue 2 months ago:
So you’re telling me that Grok is so bad that they have to pay developers to integrate it? How backwards. People are willing to pay for Grok’s competitors.
- Comment on xAI to pay Telegram $300M to integrate Grok into the chat app | TechCrunch 2 months ago:
So you’re telling me that Grok is so bad that they have to pay developers to integrate it? How backwards. People are willing to pay for Grok’s competitors.
- Comment on Russia to enforce location tracking app on all foreigners in Moscow 2 months ago:
That’s kinda my point. Even if Russia tries to order them to make it available, they can’t do so except to Russian users, which defeats the purpose.
- Comment on Russia to enforce location tracking app on all foreigners in Moscow 2 months ago:
Seems like the app stores could derail this by simply not approving the app outside of Russia, which would fall outside of Russia’s jurisdiction to do anything about.
- Comment on Every Sex scene and Nudity from All Leisure Suit Larry Games 2 months ago:
Wow, the YouTube account was straight up banned
- Comment on Don’t watermark your legal PDFs with purple dragons in suits - Ars Technica 3 months ago:
Motion for summary dismissal, brought to you by Mountain Dew
- Comment on If you’re in the market for a $1,900 color E Ink monitor, one of them exists now - Ars Technica 3 months ago:
I’m no optometrist, but I would love to hear the opinion of one.
- Comment on If you’re in the market for a $1,900 color E Ink monitor, one of them exists now - Ars Technica 3 months ago:
Not whoosh, my comment makes sense even if you get the inverted unit joke. So uh, uno reverse card whoosh?
- Comment on If you’re in the market for a $1,900 color E Ink monitor, one of them exists now - Ars Technica 3 months ago:
If the answer matters then your use case isn’t this monitor’s use case. If you spend all day in Excel, or an IDE, something like that, then it could be awesome for eye strain reduction.
- Comment on If you’re in the market for a $1,900 color E Ink monitor, one of them exists now - Ars Technica 3 months ago:
Not necessarily just corporations, but certainly text-based workflows. I can see this being great if your day job is writing code, working on spreadsheets, editing documents, etc. In those use cases, framerate hardly matters. Would be great for reducing eye strain.
- Comment on EU fines Apple $568m for deterring third-party payment methods on App Store 3 months ago:
Well, they used to sell one, right? Windows Phone used to be a thing. As I recall though, it was equally locked down with an app store as the sole distribution method.
- Comment on EU fines Apple $568m for deterring third-party payment methods on App Store 3 months ago:
Yes but I don’t believe consoles are a target of the DMA or this investigation. While would be nice if consoles were opened up and forced to allow side loading and alternative stores, I think there’s an argument that they’re single purpose appliances - a PlayStation is sold to you with the intention of it being a gaming box and not much else.
A smartphone or tablet though is at this point a general purpose computer, and it’s reasonable to expect to have the same freedoms and open environment that you would on a PC.
- Comment on Airbnb will now show users the total cost of their stay right away 3 months ago:
Laughs in European
- Comment on Google has illegal advertising monopoly, judge rules 3 months ago:
Well, that’s what I mean by “not really”, as opposed to “not at all”. It’s a single as placement - searching in the App Store. One result. That’s it.
They used to have a real advertising business but shut it down some years ago, it was called iAd.
- Comment on Google has illegal advertising monopoly, judge rules 3 months ago:
Apple doesn’t really have an advertising business. You can criticize them for many things, but it’s hard to fault them for a market they don’t operate in.