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Alterlife

990 karma · joined April 8, 2009

He who seeks that which cannot be found must look within himself for further guidance (or look harder).

http://alterlife.org/

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Alterlife··on Voice.ai Stole Open-Source Code, Banned Developer Who Informed Them About This
I feel like you're trivializing a complex issue.

Developers have the right to say how they want their code to be used in the same way that authors have the right to say how their books can be used.

The code in a public repository doesn't have to be "free" for developers any more than publically downloadable piece of software has to be "free" for end-users.

For example, Microsoft offers a freely downloadable windows iso which people are not allowed to use use without a license.

Alterlife··on W3M Rocks
I'd recomend qutebrowser. It's not exactly what you're looking for out of the box, but it is very customisable. There's a learning curve but once you're used to it, no need to ever reach out for the mouse.
Alterlife··on CalyxOS releases test builds for Fairphone 4, OnePlus 8T, and OnePlus 9
This has been going on for atleast a year.

There's a long video from Techlore which presents the CalyxOS side of the picture and places the blame with GrapheneOS leadership: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx7CZ-2Bajg .

Alterlife··on Covid-19 may have killed nearly 3M in India, far more than official counts show
As an Indian living in India, I've heard some of these stories:

a. They are asked to get admitted "for observation because they are at high risk". If they ask to leave, the doctors ask them to sign a very scary sounding wavier disclaiming the hospital of responsibility for their death.

b. There apparently this one lab that will return a positive covid test if the docs ask them to and they get a cut of what the patient pays.

It needs to be said that I don't know if any of these are true.

Alterlife··on Google introduces $50 4G smartphone
Let's rewrite this article in a sentence or two:

"Reliance Jio will soon start selling an Android phone which they have called Jiophone next, and it will cost Rs. 3500... probably."

This is total spam. The title has nothing to do with the content of the article... The phone isn't introduced by Google, it's introduced by:

> Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, doing business as Jio

and guess what, the article is total speculation:

> As far as the pricing is concerned, JioPhone could be priced as low as INR 3499.

Emphasis on 'could be' added by me. It isn't released yet and apparently the author is just guessing what it could cost... based on what?

Besides, how is it surprising that this is subsidized? This device is network locked and handicapped.

Jio phones are totally handicapped. They don't even allow users to open a wifi hotspot because that would compete with their wireless routers. Maybe that's what they are 'collaborating with google' on.

This isn't news it's an advertisement.

Alterlife··on Call centre staff to be monitored via webcam for home-working ‘infractions’
> making sure people don't need to call.

Almost every IVR I have ever used makes me believe business invest in making sure people can't call or at least have a very hard time reaching a human.

Alterlife··on Hackers used zerodays to infect Windows, iOS, and Android users
> Edge

I think that's OP's point. Edge uses chromium.

Alterlife··on Code Age vs. Time to Recall
It isn't technical debt any more if you can default on it.

It's stable? It's fast? It works? No bugs have been reported on it for years?

Regardless of how I 'feel' about that piece of code, I objectively should _not_ touch it.

Alterlife··on ‘YouTube recommendations are toxic,’ says dev who worked on the algorithm (2019)
I hide the front page and recommendations with ublock rules and go directly to the 'subscriptions' page instead.

It's the only way to see new videos from creators I care about.

Alterlife··on WhiteHat Jr’s founder files $2.6M defamation suit against critic
This is a lot worse than it looks.

https://twitter.com/whiteHatSnr/status/1330455721897443329/p...

Shame on Whitehatjr and on Byju's. This is outright fraud.

Alterlife··on Old Laptops as Secondary Monitors
Or... if your old laptop doesn't boot up, you can (apparently) pull out the laptops display panel, attach it to a control board and use just the display independently.

This DIY perks video was eye opening for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfirQC99xPc .

Alterlife··on Maruti Suzuki won over India’s car market with Japanese innovation
To add another perspective, I purchased a Maruti car in India about 4 years ago. On paper every variant from the lowest to the top has an 'optional' version with airbags.

In practice, the waiting period for any variant with safety features other than the top speced would be "over 6 months, no gaurentees". ie: as a customer, I was forced to buy the top end variant -- with alloy wheels, chrome trim and all sorts of other crap which I did not care about because I wanted the safety features.

I think that maruti is using safety features as a way to upsell customers who care about safety. The difference isn't a "marginal cost". For some models, the difference is 30% the cost of the car.

Alterlife··on U.S. bans WeChat, TikTok, citing national security reasons
Is there really such a difference? Older people tend find excuses to accuse younger people of being inferior. We're older people now. Perhaps we should be careful not to fall into that trap.
Alterlife··on Bangalore has 12M residents and only 385 Covid-19 cases
I'm in a smaller town in TN. Lockdown was respected, but people have all but forgotten about it now. 9/10 people on the street are no longer wearing masks.

I would be surprised if we don't see an uptick soon.

Alterlife··on What I wish I knew about React
Does this article qualify as 'hate' though? The author acknolwdges that he's new to react and is simply pointing out two things that he found challenging.

Nothing surprising. Infact, I don't understand why the article is so highly upvoted.

Alterlife··on Food is free if you know where to look
Seriously though if somebody else posted your secret mushroom spot on the map, it wasn't a secret to start with.
Alterlife··on Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
Truecaller is one of those "it just works" apps. It is completely transparent to the user. You can use it as a dialer to make and receive calls.

A lot of people don't understand that it's silently uploading their contact lists, personal information and call behavior off to the internet.

The customer service agent in the article from truecaller is correct about the usefulness of the app. A friend of mine was able to track down the owner of a fraudulent dishwasher service center in Bangalore because of truecaller. The photo and name of the owner in the app attached to the business mobile number.

Alterlife··on Betrayed by an app she had never heard of
This article focuses on the problems that truecaller poses for 'non-users". As a non-user of truecaller in India myself, I find myself in the minority. It seems I get none of the benefits (improved spam filtering, the chance to see who is calling me), and in the 'prisoners dilemma' sense, it appears I would loose nothing by installing it, because they already have my contact information.

However, this is only half the picture.

If you install truecaller on Android, you're handing over ALL your personal information to them. The list of permissions they ask for is ridiculous. They ask for access to your sms messages, call log, contacts, file system, location, microphone, camera, everything. They also show you advertisements wherever possible.

Alterlife··on Music Hijacks Our Perception of Time (2014)
As /r/showerthoughts once put it:

Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time.

Alterlife··on Show HN: Should you buy a house and rent it out?
That makes no sense.

By your logic, Uber drivers should be criminals.

Alterlife··on Instagram hides Like counts in leaked design prototype
It would be interesting to know the outcome the other way round: still use the numbers and the upvotes in the back end, but hide the up one count from everyone including the poster.

My guess would be a higher quality discussion, but a less addictive ui.

Alterlife··on Mass Production of iPhones to Start in India
In some ways, every third-world country in the world SHOULD do this. I say this as an Indian iPhone user.

iPhones are a luxury product. A tax on imported high end electronics is a tax on the well-off. Not only that, it's the best kind - a tax that an end-user can choose whether or not they want to pay.

Alterlife··on Mass Production of iPhones to Start in India
> a 64 GB iPhone X is currently selling for around 1100 dollars.

That isn't right. The iPhone X costs (just under) 1,00,000 INR retail in India, which is over 1400 usd.

This includes taxes.

For reference: https://www.flipkart.com/mobiles/apple~brand/pr?sid=tyy,4io&

Alterlife··on Jeff Bezos has confirmed Amazon’s growth is slowing
There's definitely a problem with fake or badly made goods on Amazon India. Scanning through some of the phone reviews a significant percentage of reviews will be talking about having received refurbished goods.

I bought my iphone from Flipkart (another online retailer in India) because there were multiple reports that Apple will sometimes not honor the warranty for iphones purchased from Amazon

Alterlife··on Google Cloud CEO says that he’s borrowing from the Oracle playbook
Based on the article, they're not trying to entice technologists with this particular move. They want to go after 'traditional industries' -- Oracle's customers.
Alterlife··on When Microsoft's eBook store closes, your books disappear too
You're getting down-voted, but I agree with you on this particular point.

The vendor is providing a full refund to customers including an additional $25 credit for customers who used the annotation service.

DRM is an annoying customer unfriendly solution to a problem that I'm not convinced exists... but people have been given full access to these books for a while. They've been able to read them from date of purchase until now. Some of them are probably finished reading the books and I'm sure "more than a few people" have exported their books to open formats.

Microsoft has handled this as gracefully as it could, all things told.

Alterlife··on A16Z is re-registering as a financial advisor, renouncing its status as a VC
As a side note, I generally like reading, but I cannot for the life of me pay attention this circus of an article. The animations give me motion sickness.

I see comments here which indicate there may be something worth reading in there, but my brain is screaming at me to ignore it. The whole thing feels like an advertisement.

Perhaps it's because suits are making a corporate comeback.

Alterlife··on Apple iPhone SE Available on Apple Store Again
That makes me feel a lot better. Thank you.
Alterlife··on YC Interviews in India
You have to put both terms in together to be able to compare them in the same scale:

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=IN-KA&...

Alterlife··on YC Interviews in India
I live here too. I like the 'new' name, it has grown on me. I think it's endearing and friendly -- like a petname. "Namma Bengaluru" vs stiff-upper-lip British Bangalore.

Putting my personal opinion aside, it's definitely not catching on: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=Bengaluru,bangalo...

I still call it Bangalore in any formal setting.

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