Zak

Zak , 1 day ago

There was a recent related discussion on Hacker News and the top comment discusses why this sort of solution is not likely to be the best fit for smaller organizations. In short, doing it well requires time and effort from someone technically sophisticated, who must do more than the bare minimum for good results, as you just learned.

Even then, it’s likely to be less reliable than solutions hosted by big corporations and when there’s a problem, it’s your problem. I don’t want to discourage you, but understand what you’re committing to and make sure you have adequate buy-in in your organization.

Zak , 7 days ago

I’m confused by why they would do this, and at the same time, why not for private text messages.

I’m in favor of encrypting as much communication as possible, but I don’t think many of Discord’s users were complaining that their voice chart wasn’t secure. I’d expect more of them to care about text chart, which is less effort to spy on.

Zak , 10 days ago

Threads is for whoever Meta can sell it to, and I think it was pretty far along in its development before they actually committed to ActivityPub support.

Zak , 10 days ago

The fact that it’s been out for a year and federation is still only half-implemented suggests to me the decision to add it was pretty late in the development process, even if it was early in the marketing process.

Zak , 13 days ago

What I want from a battery soldering iron is a field-replaceable 18650 in the handle, not Webserial.

Zak , 13 days ago

I would accept a bit of an awkward balance for being self-contained.

Zak , 13 days ago

Assuming the M12 CP1.5 battery pack, it’s probably three 18650s. Specifically, it’s probably three LG HB series 18650s, which handle high burst loads well, but hold only 1500 mAh. A single Sony VTC6 holds 2/3 the energy of one of those packs. Wait… why am I speculating? Youtubers tear down power tool battery packs on video all the time, and someone did that one. They’re Samsung 15Ms, which are a little worse than HBs.

Anyway, short runtimes are fine for most field repairs, which is the whole point of something entirely self-contained. Spare batteries can extend it indefinitely, but a battery soldering iron is probably not what I’d pick for extended soldering sessions.

Zak , 13 days ago

I would not want multiple cells for reasons of ergonomics and convenience.

I probably don’t need 100W for most field soldering. 60 is plenty, and temperature-controlled soldering irons usually don’t need to pull high current continuously. It would need 60W for maybe 10 seconds when powered on, and when heating something large. The rest of the time, it takes relatively little power to keep the tip hot.

What I’m describing is, of course not the right tool for production soldering. It’s for field work.

Zak , 12 days ago

That’s similar to the iFixit iron, as is the less expensive Pinecil.

Those are probably the best options currently available, but I want something more compact and self-contained.

Zak , 11 days ago

Having used a butane iron before, I don’t think it would. They don’t have the temperature control modern digital irons can, and they’re forbidden on flights.

Zak , 14 days ago

As a practical point, saying it in English will almost certainly communicate what you need to communicate. Almost everyone who makes international calls will recognize that you’re speaking English even if they don’t understand what you’re saying, which suggests that the Russian or Korean speaking person they’re trying to reach is not at that number.

Zak , 14 days ago

Apps on F-Droid are not using proprietary Google APIs and won’t be affected.

Zak , 15 days ago

The whole tech world saw Microsoft Palladium as a nightmare scenario, but was quiet ten years later when Apple and Google did the same thing to our phones. That was a mistake.

Zak , 14 days ago

We had several years of Android that mostly wasn’t. Now it’s hard work to get Android that isn’t.

Zak , 13 days ago

Since 2014, but Android had already been out for six years at that point.

Zak , 16 days ago

A quick image search finds this warning label on ammunition saying to store it in a cool, dry place.

Zak , 18 days ago

SMS/MMS has really low file size limits, and iPhones may downscale a little more aggressively than required.

Just pick an internet based messaging service. I like Signal, but they all work.

Zak , 18 days ago

RCS from what I can tell still has some significant limitations, like the version common on Android having some Google proprietary extensions it’s not clear if other vendors will fully support. I’d still recommend something like Signal to most people, though RCS improves the experience for those not using that.

Zak , 18 days ago

I’d hope that’s not terribly hard when the people in question are married to each other.

Zak , 17 days ago

So many people asking me to have my wife do something different on her end. Beloved, she is on iPhone because she doesn’t want to do anything “weird.”

Assuming using a third-party messaging app is “weird”, then she can’t send you video with acceptable quality. That’s how it is.

She can’t fix that. You can’t fix that. None of the readers here can fix that unless they work at Apple. This may improve in the future when Apple adopts RCS, but there’s a lot that real-world implementations of RCS do that isn’t in the standard, so the full details of interoperability are uncertain until we see it in the wild.

Now, why can’t I get iMessage on my android phone?

Because Apple doesn’t want you to. Apple wants situations like this one to pressure people to buy iPhones because that’s apparently easier for some people than agreeing on a messaging app.

Zak , 16 days ago

I haven’t been following the RCS story closely. My impression is it’s a standard core on which each provider can tack on nonstandard extensions, and somehow carriers are involved even though it’s internet-based. It sounds like people who won’t adopt third-party internet messaging apps are going to continue to have a bad time.

Zak , 18 days ago

HMD also doesn’t provide any mechanism for unlocking the bootloader

This is the part that’s inexcusable.

Zak , 18 days ago

I suspect bad faith any time a company doesn’t do it the Pixel way (dev settings and fastboot unlock).

Zak , 21 days ago

Yes. It allows then to avoid ultimate responsibility for moderation policy decisions.

Zak , 21 days ago

It was hit with a DDOS for an extended period of time. I suspect the attackers were successful in substantially hampering adoption of Lemmy as a whole.

Zak , 21 days ago

There are some loud voices in the fediverse who don’t want it to be very welcoming. Here are a couple examples:

Threads defederation - what could onboard people to the fediverse faster than a giant platform run by Facebook joining? Yes, I hate Facebook as much as everyone else here, but they’re making an offramp for their users and half the fediverse wants to close that off?

Overbearing enforcement of norms - yes, it’s good if people put alt text on their images and content warnings on stuff lots of people find upsetting. It’s harmful to hassle people about it until they leave.

I think people who a small network with strong social norms are better off on servers that are selective about what they federate with to ensure stricter adherence to the preferences of their users. One of the great things about federated systems is that users can pick a place that’s run in a way that works for them.

Zak , 21 days ago

You should not trust them.

I don’t think a Mastodon server attempting to attract a mainstream audience should block them though, at least not at this point. We have a chance to welcome millions of people who wouldn’t have even heard of the fediverse otherwise.

Zak , 21 days ago

Threads users are much more likely to interact with other microblog software like Mastodon than with Lemmy. It might be possible to post from Threads to Lemmy now by tagging a community much like Mastodon, but I have never seen it done. Lemmy.world does not block threads.net.

Zak , 23 days ago

They have marketing budgets.

Zak , 24 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

One of the better credit card rewards is a small percentage cash back, so literally free money. Money is fungible though, so any discounts on things you were going to buy anyway are effectively the same thing.

Zak , 25 days ago

That’s most of it. ActivityPub also makes it possible to know who is subscribed. It’s very hard to count how many people are subscribed to an RSS feed.

Zak , 25 days ago (edited 24 days ago)

They’re making requests at unknown intervals, often many times per day. Each IP address might represent multiple unique users, or one user might have multiple IPs.

Zak , 25 days ago

Yes, it’s possible to get a rough estimate with some technical work, but AP makes it easy for anyone.

Zak , 26 days ago

I’m pretty satisfied with my 4a. Are there any downgrades between the two generations?

Zak , 26 days ago

Needs more headphone jack.

Zak , 1 month ago

It is radically public. It’s designed to broadcast your content to hundreds of other peoples’ computers running all manner of different software which might then rebroadcast it to yet more. The whole architecture is oriented toward spreading things far and wide, and what tools exist to restrict the audience or retract content already shared are little more than polite suggestions.

That’s not a flaw, but people using it should understand how it works so they don’t run into surprises.

Zak , 1 month ago

That’s not the only way to dim an LED, just the cheapest. Variable current power regulators are the premium option.

A screw-in LED bulb combines LEDs and power regulating electronics. Some of them handle the variable input voltage a household dimmer provides gracefully, but that’s more expensive.

Zak , 1 month ago

That’s true. Describing current regulation as the premium option was an oversimplification. For household lighting, it’s usually the premium option.

Zak , 1 month ago

I think you’re looking for !nms, but it doesn’t seem like it’s very active anymore.

Zak , 1 month ago

could potentially lose certification of the entire android ecosystem

Certification by whom?

The Netflix app is older (2011) than Safetynet (2014?). Google probably didn’t need to provide remote attestation, but making non-Google Android unusable for most people is good for their bottom line.

Zak , 1 month ago

What would have happened if Google never created an attestation system for Android? Would Netflix give up such a large market?

Netflix can downgrade Chinese phones that aren’t common in the west and third-party ROMs because those represent a tiny fraction of their potential customer base. I doubt they’d be inclined to do so for all of Android.

Zak , 1 month ago

It’s one thing to place limits on a few Chinese phones that have low market share outside China (Netflix is not available inside China), but only offering low-quality streams on the world’s most popular smartphone OS would surely have a significant impact on subscription numbers. Netflix may have even signed contracts with content providers requiring them to meet certain DRM standards.

I believe the situation would be different if Google hadn’t built a remote attestation system for Android. Netflix might have had to renegotiate a contract or two, but underserving a huge fraction of the market isn’t viable long-term.

Zak , 1 month ago

Musk: starts allowing Nazi shit on Xitter

Advertiisers: Hey, we don’t like Nazi shit. We might stop advertising if that keeps happening.

Musk: Go fuck yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is.

Advertisers: stop doing business with the guy who told them to go fuck themselves

Zak , 1 month ago

They gave one of those to fucking Henry Kissinger. It clearly doesn’t mean what you think it means, if it has any meaning at all.

Zak , 1 month ago (edited 1 month ago)

Telegram isn’t open source, so I don’t think you’re going to find forks of it.

I stand corrected. Telegram’s client is open source (GPL) and what OP is asking for is reasonable.

Zak , 1 month ago

exposing myself to vulnerability

Everyone’s security and convenience/feature needs are different of course. There is often a tradeoff. The way I see it, I wouldn’t give up having admin access on my PC for security, so why would I give it up on my phone?

Zak , 1 month ago

The benefit to longevity from limiting battery charge even a little bit is pretty substantial. I recommend it to most people with the technical ability to do it.