variaatio

@variaatio@sopuli.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Multiple nations enact mysterious export controls on quantum computers⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  30 years away from it (reduced from the original 100 years they provided only 5 years ago)

  More like estimates on this are completely unreliable. As in that 100 years could have as well been 1000 years. It was pretty much “until an unpredictable technological paradigm shift happens”. “100 years in future” is “when we have warp drives and star gates” of estimates. Pretty “when we have advanced to next level of advancement and technology, whenever it happens. 100 years should be good minimum of this not being taken as an actual year number estimate”.

  30 years is “we see maybe a potential path to this via hypothetical developments of technology in horizon”. It’s the classical “Fusion is always 30 years away”. Until one time it isn’t, but that 30 year loop can go on indefinitely, if the hypothetical don’t turn to reality. Since you know we thought “maybe that will work, once we put out mind in to it”. Oh it didn’t, on to chasing next path.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Facebook and Instagram’s “pay or consent” ad model violates the DMA, says the EU⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Main issue comes from GDPR. When one uses the consent basis for collecting and using information it has to be a free choice. Thus one can’t offer “Pay us and we collect less information about you”. Hence “pay or consent” is blatantly illegal. Showing ads in generic? You don’t need consent. That consent is “I vote with my browser address bar”. Thing just is nobody anymore wants to use non tracked ads…

  So in this case DMA 5(2) is just basically re-enforcement and emphasis of previous GDPR principle. from verge

  “exercise their right to freely consent to the combination of their personal data.”

  from the regulation

  2. The gatekeeper shall not do any of the following:
     (a) process, for the purpose of providing online advertising services, personal data of end users using services of third parties that make use of core platform services of the gatekeeper;
     (b) combine personal data from the relevant core platform service with personal data from any further core platform services or from any other services provided by the gatekeeper or with personal data from third-party services;
     © cross-use personal data from the relevant core platform service in other services provided separately by the gatekeeper, including other core platform services, and vice versa; and
     (d) sign in end users to other services of the gatekeeper in order to combine personal data,

  unless the end user has been presented with the specific choice and has given consent within the meaning of Article 4, point (11), and Article 7 of Regulation (EU) 2016/679.

  surprise 2016/679 is… GDPR. So yeah it’s new violation, but pretty much it is “Gatekeepers are under extra additional scrutiny for GDPR stuff. You violate, we can violate you for both GDPR and DMA violation, plus with some extra rules and explicity for DMA”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How Quickly Do Large Language Models Learn Unexpected Skills?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That is just its core function doing its thing transforming inputs to outputs based on learned pattern matching.

  It may not have been trained on translation explicitly, but it very much has been trained on these are matching stuff via its training material. Since you know what its training set most likely contained… dictionaries. Which is as good as asking it to learn translation. Another stuff most likely in training data: language course books, with matching translated sentences in them. Again well you didnt explicitly tell it to learn to translate, but in practice the training data selection did it for you.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Electric scooter company Bird files for bankruptcy⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Road or cycleway. Pedestrian only sidewalk is not place for bicycles or scooters due to their greater speed.

  There is combined cycleway and walkways, but there the point is those are wider than mere sidewalks, so there is room for cycles and scooters to safely overtake pedestrians.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SpaceX blasts FCC as it refuses to reinstate Starlink’s $886 million grant⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Also not only would they need more satellites, but satellites more densely in any area with multitude of customers. Which eventually hits RF interference saturation.

  Radio signal has only so much bandwidth in certain amount of frequency band. Infact being high up and far away makes it worse. Since more receivers hit the beam of the satellite transmission. One would have to acquire more radio bands, but we’ll unused global satellite transmission bands don’t grow in trees.

  Tighter transmitters and better filtering receivers can help, but usually at great expense and in the end eventually one hits a limit of “can’t cheat laws of physics”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SpaceX blasts FCC as it refuses to reinstate Starlink’s $886 million grant⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well he never won in the first place. This is the original final decision of him winning. What was “won” previously was SpaceX getting short listed as one of the companies to be seriously considered for award. Then followed the actual final full decision checks and SpaceX failed to meet criterion for the subsidy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨SpaceX blasts FCC as it refuses to reinstate Starlink’s $886 million grant⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  However this isn’t about your anecdotal experience. This is about what level of service they can guarantee as minimum and overall to meet the conditions of the subsidiary.

  I would also note this isn’t reinstatement. FCC refused to give them the subsidiary in the first place with this decision. What they are trying to spin as reneg on previous decision is them making the short list of companies to be considered. Well getting short listed is not same as being selected fully.

  They passed the criterion for the short list check, but the final authorization and selection included more and more through checking on the promises of companies to meet criterion and SpaceX failed the more through final round of scrutiny before being awarded the subsidiary.

  Government having awarded bad money previously isn’t fized by following up bad awards with more bad awards. SpaceX exactly failed since previously money was handed out too losely and FCC has tightened the scrutiny on subsidiary awards to not follow up bad money with more bad money.

  Nobody is prevented from buying Starlink, thus just means Starlink isn’t getting subsidized with tax payer money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Even the Tesla Cybertruck's Brake Lights Don't Make Sense⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Specially in say foggy conditions and little bit distance. At which point you won’t clearly maybe differentiate individual elements and more like that’s the rear and “block of light in middle, left and right”. At which point it all little blending one might infact be under impression “the light intensity lowered at the rear, huh, not braking then, did they have they parking break dragging they released or something… ohhhjj shuiiiiiit no it is braking hard”.

  My two cents from here north of Europe and land of snow, rain, fog and occasional white out conditions.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Youtube's Anti-adblock is illegal in the EU⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well many advlockers can be clever enough to load the asset, but then just drop it. As in yeah the ad image got downloaded to browser, but then the page content got edited to drop the display of the add or turn it to not shown asset in css.

  This is age old battle. Site owners go you must do X or no media. However then ad blocker just goes “sure we do that, bit then we just ghost the ad to the user”.

  Some script needs to be loaded, that would display the ad? All the parts of the script get executed and… then CSS intervention just ghosts the ad that should be playing and so on.

  Since the browser and extension are in ultimate control. As said the actual add video might be technically “playing” in the back ground going through motions, but it’s a no show, no audio player… ergo in practice the ad was blocked, while technically completely executed.

  Hence why they want to scan for the software, since only way they can be sure ad will be shown is by verifying a known adhering to showing the ad software stack.

  Well EU says that is not allowed, because privacy. Ergo the adblocker prevention is playing a losing battle. Whatever they do on the “make sure ad is shown” side, adblocker maker will just implement counter move.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Musk considers removing X platform from Europe over EU law - Insider⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Don’t threaten us with good time, Elon.

  Also no way he is going through. He is way too much in financial hole to give up European market. Like Google or Meta, sure they have the financial standing to maybe pull such move and survive.

  Xitter? They need every visitor and account they can have globally to even think about staying viable.

  Empty bluster and pointless empty bluster, since EU would just go “fine. Our continental economy or prosperity doesn’t depend on your social media company. Social media isn’t a critical industry, so we are just fine with you leaving. Plus there is 10 others like you anyway”.

  You can’t threaten people with something that doesn’t damage them and heck might be seen as benefit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Smartphone sales down 22 percent in Q2, the worst performance in a decade⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  already enacted, vote went through in July. However the “come to force” of the whole regulation is 2025 and the replaceable battery mandate come to force date is 2027. However I would assume stuff starts going with replaceable battery 2025-2026, since by 2027 it’s illegal to not have that for on sale item. So one would transition year or two early to have ones retail and supply chains empty of the old non-replaceable stuff to avoid having unsold stock or get hit with punishment for being caught selling non regulation items. So you want the replaceable battery products designed and in production before 2027.

  Also one key I would point out, that is often left out. It doesn’t only cover phones. It covers pretty much all battery powered electronics. SO lots of those other small electronic gadget with built in Li-ions will start sprouting battery covers or possibly moving back to their old power of choice banks of AAs

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Smartphone sales down 22 percent in Q2, the worst performance in a decade⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Also I would add inflation went up, prices jumped. Meaning not so much free spending cash any more. People might have previously had the cash to update phone, just for sake of update even without it being necessary. Now days? People have way more important things they have to spend more money on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If you resold Taylor Swift Eras Tour tickets, the IRS is watching — A new rule from the IRS is punishing those who resold tickets for more than $600 in profit with a tax penalty⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well as per article yes, but 600$ is the reporting limit. If Ticketmaster, stubhub and so on has a reseller account with sales income of more than 600$ per year, they have to file it to IRS. Whether its single sale or thousands of separate small sales doesn’t matter.

  Completely normal tax procedure. Pretty much all big such platforms of various fields stock exchanges, commodity markets etc. have such obligation ledges on them for avoidance of tax evasion.

  Nor as second note is anyone being “punished”. Punishing is what happens on breaking law. This is business taxes, you make profits selling stuff, income taxes start applying. Normal cost of doing business in society for the services society provides (national military keeps the Mongol horde from wrecking your business and so on, transport atluthority builds roads to run business trucks on so the music tour entourage can get to the arena, so one can sell tickets to that conce for profit and son on).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Unity apologises.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Ahemm as I understand the previously license did have a “we don’t change this license on you” clause, which they removed shortly before this change. As I understand there is atleast possibility, that some existing customer developers might upon being pressed take unity to court over “you said you wouldn’t change the license fundamentally without our consent, we had a deal”.

  What the exact language of that clause and would it hold in court challenge, I don’t know. Just heard one interviewed developer say something to affect of “hey they did have we don’t change the deal clause, which they sneak removed on pretty recent license update”.

  I atleast as business would not agree to deal of “yeah we have a deal, except this deal allows us to change the deal however we want”.

  It might mean having to do time limited or project limited deals, since on otherhand no provider would agree to “we have no room to change deal ever”. I would atleast in case of say game development expect clause for example “any fundamental license change must have 2 year announcement time for existing customer.” Such clauses are very common in “on-going basis contracts and deals”. Heck international treaties use such clauses “If you want to leave this treaty, you must give other treaty parties 1/2/3/5 year notice and for the duration of that notice period you are still bound by the treaty”.

  So I would guess: If this ends ugly, there will be lawsuits over was the license change contractually legal, were the possibble change notices clear enough upon the main change being in itself legal and for example was some jurisdictions fair and good behavior clauses of just contract law itself violated. Was enough notice time given etc.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨X revokes paid blue check from United Auto Workers after strike called⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I would also add… the part count hasn’t actually dropped overall maybe as much as people might think. Since… seats are parts, head rests are parts, doors are parts, windows are part, body panels are parts, suspension springs are parts. The mechanical drive train part count sure has gone down. There was many many valves and springs in engine and so on. However mostly the overall assembly line is still the same. The final assembly line doesn’t care “are we putting in fuel tank or battery pack”, “is the motor here electric or combustion one”, “oh these fuel lines are electric instead of fluid, well still pretty thick and stiff lines to run, wrangle in there you dastardly high voltage wire as thick as my thumb”.

  People often forget most of the car… is the car, not it’s drivetrain. Drivetrain is there to move around the car, the cabin. Lot of effort and parts go in the cabin and it is often what sells the car, not the drivetrain. Many a car sale is decided on “hey honey, try these seats, these are really comfortable”. Instead on “is the 0-60 7.2 seconds or 5.3 seconds”. Can you fit the baby stroller in the back boot and so on sells cars. None of that changes, even though the mechanical drive train is completely different.

  All the upholstery and final assembly department is still exactly same. Except the fuel tank and engine reverse weight. The electric motor weights less than the engine block, but that electric fuel tank sure has gained weight over the empty liquid one.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨X revokes paid blue check from United Auto Workers after strike called⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Heck it is say for example straight up the plan in Europe. Since say for example there is no getting away from IG Metal for all German makers. Since IG metal literally covers pretty much whole industrial manufacturing and so on.

  So they just immediately went “IG Metal, workers of the company, now don’t go doing anything rash… we have retraining program planned”.

  Remember this was what Herbet Diess of VW got in trouble in part. Though his main fall was the mismanagement of Cariad and software delay resulting. Which caused the cardinal sin of any big legacy car CEO… Announced launch and delivery dates were not kept. Out he goes unceremoniously.

  I found it funny how some were going “The CEO is talking truth to power, the need to cut workers, don’t you understand”. You don’t do that in place like Germany. You can’t get away from IG Metall. They can make CEO’s life living hell, if “employee-employer” relations are not at least on tolerable stance. Even the comments were from union side of caliber CEO seems to be dumb and doesn’t understand how things are done here in Germany.

  Work force is the main asset. Meaning retrain. Combustion engine labs will be soon instead studying most efficient heat pump setups, most efficient electric motor windings and most importantly Battery pack and cell optimization. The casting plant, that cast engine blocks. Congratulations you are still casting “engine blocks”, only now these new engine blocks are called “electric drive unit housings”. Assembly people are moved from assembled double clutch gearboxes and engine valve trains to assembling electric drive units and battery packs. So on and so on. The gear cutters who cut transmissions, well we still need reduction gearings and say differentials and so on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨X revokes paid blue check from United Auto Workers after strike called⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh no, unions wanting to expand the sectors industry they cover? How suprising. 😃

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨X revokes paid blue check from United Auto Workers after strike called⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Ahemmm just pure “they be crafty”… Like did UAW keep their twitter X account just so they thought “Will Elon be stupid enough to revoke us”. Since it is clear sign of anti-union behavior by CEO of a car company by concrete act and well car company CEO can’t exactly do that with atleast potentially getting in trouble. It won’t suffice alone, but combine it with other actions by Tesla and UAW can argue “Tesla as company all the way to the CEO shows a consistent pattern of anti-union activity of actively hindering our union drives. That is supposed to be illegal”.

  Atleast I think UAW doesn’t mind at all the publicity, this will cause for them “Automaker CEO revoked us, since all business is too conglomerized to too few hands and control way too much of the business”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨AI chatbots were tasked to run a tech company. They built software in under seven minutes — for less than $1.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  half the time hallucinating something crazy in the in the mix.

  Another funny: Yeah, it’s perfect we just need to solve this small problem of it hallucinating.

  Ahemm… solving halloconating is the “no it actually has to understand what it is doing” part aka the actual intelligence. The actually big and hard problem. The actual understanding of what it is asked to do and what solutions to that ask are sane, rational and workable. Understanding the problem and understanding the answer, excluding wrong answers. Actual analysis, understanding and intelligence.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sweden is testing a semi-truck trailer covered in 100 square meters of solar panels⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah. the one good use I see is reefer trailers. Since some times they have to sit long times, with still the coolers running to keep the cargo within demanded thermal limits to keep the cold cycle uninterrupted.

  Most cooling is obviously needed when it is hot… so in summer and thus sung light time. So the panels would probably nicely run the coolers instead of having a fuel burning generator keeping the coolers going.

  During winter, when there is no light. Well it’s probably cold enough ambient the reefer isn’t using lot of cooling anyway.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A high-speed rail line in California is chugging along towards 2030 debut⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh wow! In only 6.5 years

  Then again look it this way… Once the lining has been built it will serve California for centuries, just as the original built rail corridors have. The rail tech might change, but the cleared out suitably shallow contoured corridor remains. For centuries.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Foxconn's promise to invest $10 billion in Wisconsin is now a distant memory | It's now selling two mostly empty buildings in the state.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Actually yes. Though not the business owners really. Instead it was society and strategic planners. It is matter of supply security, not of profit maximization. Which is why incentives and penalties were involved.

  Also presumably lacking the cheapest of cheap labor, production automation would be increased. In low cost production countries like China, they don’t always use hordes of cheap labour due to not being able to automate. Rather it is cheaper to use lot of wage slaves operating manual machines, than to pay for the more expensive specialized automated production machinery. Specially on short term. On long term the automated machines probably amortize themselves and then start to make gains over the wage slaving, but well that takes time and one thing quarter report stock market capitalism hates is having to wait for anything. They will take less profits overall over decade, if they can get more profits this quarter or this year.

  Is it rational? Well no obviously rational business expecting to be around for decade would take the long term bigger profits. However companies are not managed by rational machines, but instead by these things called CEOs. CEOs, despite their claims, are often anything but rational. CEO’s with personal motives, CEO’s with emotional quirks, CEO’s with inbuilt expectations, CEO’s with in-built assumptions, often wrong assumptions, CEO’s with incentive packages that often are not really that thought through. Stock holders looking to incentivize short time stock gain over long term business profitability.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The German Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament has ditched X (Twitter) in favour of open-source decentralised Mastodon⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well checking it up they don’t actually have their own instance. Instead they arranged an account on the social.bund.de instance, which is run by the German Federal Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information (BfDI) for purpose of offering official accounts to german governmental entities.

  What makes it still “less likely something bad is right next to them” is exactly, that only government official and officials can get accounts on that instance and is for official use only. So thus it’s a sterile controlled instance.

  I’m sure they could have also spun their own instance, but well bund.de service was already running one anyway so just hop on that band wagon.

  I think this will become a more common thing. Governments run a national “official business” instance, where there is only official communications accounts of various government bodies and goverment officers (The official account of the office of the Presidency of the country, the official account of the Prime minister of the country and so on).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Netflix says people just kind of rolled over and accepted the password sharing crackdown⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh you aren’t getting it for free. You just pay for it to T-mobile, instead of directly to Netflix. Never yet heard of a company, that offers actual freebies. You just pay for it in the price of the other thing you are paying them for.

  Buy glasses, get second pair for free… … … you pay price of two for one pair and aren’t just very well aware how cheap eye glasses are to make these days.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla Identified As Most Recalled Car Brand, Mercedes & Toyota Least⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes… but would Tesla be so open about “yeah this update was about a safety flaw in the cars control software”. Since that is what OP was saying on my reading. Yeah the OTA might fix the things, but all you might get from unscrupulous car maker is “we did feature improvements on the drive train algorhitmics”. Said improvement being “we removed feature called critical bug from the software”. However the last part they wouldn’t tell you. Well now they have to. Since the Recall is not about the database really or the name. It is about the underlying law and regulation, that demands car makers to notify safety authorities upon finding a safety flaw or issue with their vehicle and to not lie about it. Withholding such discovery under recall laws is illegal and to make a point companies have been punished under that statute. So not like it is a solution looking for problem. Oh there was a problem. It is only natural. No maker wants to admit bad stuff about their product, if they can avoid it. However safety recall notice regulations says “own up immediately upon finding an issue or face penalties.”

  Again this isn’t about “Tesla bad”. Since most of the “you hid safety flaws” is the big old legacy conglomerates. However for this system to work no one is above the law. Everyone has to own up to their safety issues, including Tesla. Might they also be equally open without the law? Well we would need alternate universe to find out. Since Tesla has operated all it’s existence under safety notice laws. So we don’t know how they would behave, if they had a choice. Given example of legacy auto… probably not so well. big business gonna big business.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tesla Identified As Most Recalled Car Brand, Mercedes & Toyota Least⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Then again Tesla has caused new safety issues with the easy updating. Though it isn’t really about the update method, but their software culture. Some of the recalls are about bugs that weren’t on the original factory software. Rather Tesla created need for safety recall by sending over OTA update, that had bug or misbehaviour on the new update software. Then causing them to have to update, the update with now recall flagged OTA to fix the safety issue they created by uploading flawed software update to the car.

  Which I would assume won’t happen with others, since they test the software to death before deploying it. Since it’s a service visit. So it’s far cheaper to spend extra couple million on software testing, than finance yet another round of service visits to update with fix a flawed software update.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon And Apple Fined $218 Million For Elbowing Out Small Retailers In Spain⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Amazon is a retailer, they can choose to sell or not sell whomever’s goods they want to.

  Amazon is also platform operator. This is about Amazon being the direct seller on the selling platform operated by this company called Amazon vs third party seller selling Apple products on the platform operated by this company called Amazon.

  Meaning stuff like Amazon placing their own direct sell offer higher on results or as said how prominently they featured advertising by their party sellers.

  This is the danger of trying to operate both as the retailer and as the platform operator on same market place. Competition authority will very carefully scrutinise ones operating of the market platform on benefit of ones retail sales.

  Direct single party retail webshops don’t have this problem. Neither do pure marketplace platform, where they just run the marketplace and don’t offer any first party product sales.

  They could choose to not do third party sellers and be pure first party retailer. However then their selection would be smaller. Since third party sellers cover much of the niches not lucrative enough for amazon itself to cover. Then Amazon wouldn’t be the “buy everything” store, which would also hurt their retail business. Since the default move wouldn’t be “well lets first look on amazon, they have everything there”.

  Amazon is trying to have their cake and eat it too. Competition authority is saying “hold on there now, you either eat it or keep it. No cheating and double dipping.”