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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 26th, 2023

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  • I work in IT as PM, you’re pretty close.

    Modern technology is glued together NOT random shit that somehow works.

    Everything created has been built with a purpose, that’s why it’s not random. However, the longer you go on, the more rigid the architecture becomes, so you start creating workarounds, as doing otherwise takes too much time which you don’t have, because you have a dozen of other more important tasks at hand.

    When you glue those solutions together, they work because they’ve been built to work in a specific use case. But it also becomes more convoluted every time, so you really need to dig to fix something you didn’t account for.

    Then it becomes so rigid and so convoluted that to fix some issues properly, you’d have to rebuild everything, starting from architecture. And if you can’t make more workarounds to satisfy the demand? You do start all over again.


  • Mind you, there are two types of under screen fingerprint sensors: optical and ultrasonic.

    Optical blasts the finger with light and forms a 2d scan. It’s pretty slow and arguably worse than conventional (capacitive) scanner on the back of the phone.

    Ultrasonic, however, because it uses sound waves, maps a 3d scan. It is significantly faster than conventional scanner, and it also doesn’t care about your fingers being wet.

    Ultrasonic sensor only requires a quick tap to unlock the phone. It’s actually really convenient to use, I like those. I’d take the capacitive sensor over optical one, though.


  • I look into those regularly. Those are credible sources that are often used by our scientists, but you have to be very careful with statistics during war periods.

    What do you think the majority of people hear when asked, “Do you support actions of Russian military in Ukraine?”. They hear, “Are you a traitor?” and answer accordingly. The majority (4 out of 5, I believe, if not more) refuse to answer at all. So, it’s not exactly representative.

    What we look at instead is questions that are not this direct. Such as “Do you think Russia should continue or start peace talks?”. The majority (58%) is for peace talks. This number has increased since September 2022 by 10%, whilst the number of pro-war people decreased from 44% to 34%. Their quality also changed. For “absolutely should start peace talks” went from 21% (out of all votes) up to 26%, whilst for “absolutely should continue military actions” went from 29% down to 21%.

    The longer things continue, the less support Russia’s government has. That’s what can be said for certain. The other conclusion we can derive is that war isn’t popular.

    Edit: Oh, and the youth, 67% of the youth (18-24) is for peace talks, 23% pro-war. 65% for ages 25-39, only 25% pro-war.

    The vast majority of pro-war people are elderly. Can you guess who also watches the TV the most? And who the TV is controlled by?

    For the full picture, I’ll also add “they started it, so it’s their responsibility, we had no choice in it” This phrase explains the whole mentality of Russians very well.



  • They’re crap. People will be and are looking for ways to evade restrictions.

    Right now, they’re only limiting speed with certain providers in certain locations. There are at least three ways that I know of to avoid it.

    The thing is, I don’t know how far they’ll take it. Blocking YouTube is a major political risk. Practically, everybody uses it for one reason or another. So, unlike their “special military operation,” this (as mercantile as it sounds) will potentially have a bigger impact on everybody’s lives. But you really can never be sure with our mafia-in-charge anymore.






  • Finance management major here, I’d argue that governments aren’t inherently inefficient.

    On a local level, government organisations are essentially the same as non-profits. The only difference is in who they are accountable to. Even KPI are pretty much the same.

    The inefficiency of a government in contrast to the free market is in its inability to adjust to people’s needs quickly on a global scale. Imagine a company that has to sell a little bit of everything and then some. What kind of resource does it need to have to fully satisfy the demand? It’s practically impossible to make a vertically integrated system that would do this amount of research, let alone organize all the production and supply chains. It doesn’t matter if it’s a government or an entity. They all will drown in beurocracy, except the government is usually stricter as they tend to play it safe.

    Hence, it’s really a non-issue if a government takes control over parts of the market. And because they can’t facilitate it all, they take over socially significant parts of it, like municipality governance, military, and healthcare.

    Also, you (the person reading, not the person I’m responding to) should never be mistaken in thinking that the free market is perfectly efficient. It isn’t. Creating points of inefficiency drives a lot of revenue. Think purposefully limiting demand to drive prices up. This is what’s happening with insulin in the US, for example. If you have perfectly inelastic demands, you can make your product infinitely expensive.




  • I was interested in VR for a very long time. Recently, I got to actually try it out.

    I primarily view Apple Vision Pro as a proof of concept type of device. Sales being limited both in quantity and territorially indicate that. It has brought 3 major improvements to the table, compared to other headsets:

    1. Quality of passthrough
    2. User interface
    3. Display quality

    When you think about it, however, it’s not that much to make it an obvious choice over other devices.

    Passthough is needed for navigating through space. It does not help with productivity as your vision would be focused on the interface and not the environment. Remember warping on Quest 3? Much less noticeable than on videos for the exact same reason.

    There is no buts with the user interface and display. They are simply great, best that there is.

    Now, for the part that makes Vision Pro from a great productivity device on paper into a “dev kit available to masses” (I like that description, it does feel that way a lot, ty Ghostalmedia)

    Eye strain is a major issue. It is very difficult to use the device for more than a couple of hours without getting tired. This goes for all of the VR headsets out there. I guess you can get used to it over time, though.

    Limited usability. Quest 2/3, Pico 4, Valve Index, they all do things you wish Vision Pro could. Primarily usage of physical controllers. Imagine sculpturing without controllers because I can’t. Hand tracking is just not up to par.

    Battery solution is another issue. Not being able to swap what is otherwise a Power Bank without disabling the device and being unable to use any other battery than Apple’s own is at the very least annoying. Not exactly an issue if you’re too tired by the time it runs out.

    Finally, the VR space itself is unfortunately not mature enough. There’s a lot of work still to be done. Even when talking games, despite some amazing titles like Half-life Alyx, the vast majority where controls wouldn’t make you dizzy are all pretty much like arcade mini-games, where you either teleport from point to point or not move at all. Developers simply have yet to figure out an organic way of user navigating through virtual space. (Doesn’t mean they aren’t fun, though)

    Overall, I believe Vision Pro isn’t really a mass consumer product, but it did do a lot by bringing more attention to VR as a whole, as well as pointing out additional user-cases for the technology. Because of Vision Pro, Meta started paying more attention to details, which ultimately will benefit the consumer (in fact, it already has yeilded results).



  • Regular Galaxy S22 256Gb

    Was choosing between S22, Pixels, and Nothing Phone. Ultimately, I went with the former because I happened to accumulate Tab S8 as well as Galaxy Buds 2. If not for those, probably would’ve saved a buck with first Nothing.

    Pros: Easy cloud sync, good processor, nice materials, could be found for a very affordable price, and rest of the features that come with premium phones

    Cons: No headphone jack, no SD card slot, some bloat you can’t remove, battery

    Would’ve probably still rocked my Poco F1 if it didn’t get obliterated by a 0.5m drop onto a quartz floor. It never fully recovered from it.


  • In my experience, the longer you type, the faster you get at typing.

    That’s like getting into the rhythm. If you do it a little and then stop, then you never become proficient as you never got into that flow.

    Try learning a guitar by pulling a few strings a day. Try learning to read in a different language by reading a few letters each time. Try running by taking a few steps.

    Doesn’t it sound ridiculous?

    Have you ever tried learning a different language? You don’t become proficient by reading one sentence, then stopping and then another one. You do it by struggling through many, and the more you do it, the faster you learn.

    Note, I’m not writing this because “boohoo, bad parenting.” It’s the first essay, who cares. (although her being 13 does make me raise a brow. I’d expect it with a 7 y.o., but 13? w/e, you do you). I just think you have a misunderstanding in how learning core-level skills work. Continuous repetition is the key.

    Another glaring example is how toddlers learn languages. In a span of a couple of years, they are capable of learning a language to native level with absolutely no prior knowledge, just by listening and trying to repeat the sounds day in and day out. Just think about it.


  • Some windows-specific professional software that cannot run on Linux.

    Also, work-related stuff. I may be able to make a custom setup of Linux if I try hard enough, but when it comes to dealing with servers and VPNs it’s a bit beyond me. Not to mention the time it takes to figure it out and set up.

    Although, the more I hear about subscriptions from Microsoft the more I want to switch.