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NeoVeles

105 karma · joined April 20, 2021

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NeoVeles··on Backyard approaching lighting at Adelaide Airport
You can put that movie straight in the pool room.
NeoVeles··on Backyard approaching lighting at Adelaide Airport
I would not have picked there of all places but the quiet nights there would make for a good background of silence to emphasise the flights.

Have you considered Davenport? :D No flights but endless shipping going on.

NeoVeles··on Backyard approaching lighting at Adelaide Airport
Seeing as the businesses in the south end have practically died over the last few years - they can redevelop there rather than the park lands. ;)

The park lands and the botanical gardens are an absolute treasure that should be preserved. Dont turn the place into another Melbourne or Sydney.

NeoVeles··on Aldi brand Grocery prices in Germany chain expected to jump 20-50% on Monday
I used to work for a supplier for Aldi Aus. They used to treat suppliers really well while they were in the growing stage. Once growth slowed they relied on the manufacturer to take up more of the pricing slack.

It is all about price and nothing else, never once where they really concerned about quality of the product. If they could have products cheaper than Coles/Woolworths they would do it regardless of how many short cuts where taken to get there. Thus you could have something like yogurt that was $1 cheaper but tasted like glue.

No price shock but you would definitely notice the quality issue once you got home.

Funnily enough Aldi aus did a study a few years back and noted that people will cut food costs before they cut entertainment. It was aimed at Coles and Woolworths to highlight that when things get rough they would flock to Aldi. Looking at their shelves recently, provided the supply chain is still running ok, it might have been true.

NeoVeles··on Bizarre space circle captured in unprecedented detail
The daily routine until you get sick and die - that is true but there is something special in that in that it is just the way we are. Why should we expect anything more?
NeoVeles··on Bizarre space circle captured in unprecedented detail
Another way to see it is that while we are so small and irrelevant - enjoy the fact that we are irrelevant and yet we get all this.

Add to this the scale of time - just remember that in 500 million years after all evidence of us is long, long, LONG gone that the clouds will still form and the waves will still crash on the shore.

That we are here and potentially meaningless isn't something to fear, it is something to cherish.

NeoVeles··on Bizarre space circle captured in unprecedented detail
Too me it isn't terrifying - it is exhilarating and liberating. We are just some crazy thing that happened - enjoy it regardless of what it all is.
NeoVeles··on A 2030 Self-Driving Car Bet
I like that people are seeing this as 8 years from now when the original bet was from 2003. That there is still a reasonable chance that this could happen by 2030 and by that point was predicted 27 years in advanced. It will just add to the Carmack myth if it goes well.

Personally I'm not sure we will see it but there is nothing that jumps out and says that it is impossible at the same time. 8 years ago I would have said it was a no brainer that we would be there, nowadays not so much. It feels like with a lot of things, the last 10% takes 90% of the time.

I have no candle in the game and am an arm chair speculator at best, but it is fun to wonder.

Let just agree to reconvene on this in 8 years time. It isn't that far away.

NeoVeles··on Two new ways of extracting lithium from brine
There are four stages of identifying and use of a resource.

Theoretical quantity - That would be the 20ppm as you said. Based on knowledge and estimates.

Identified reserves - How much of this stuff do we actually know about and is in a suffciently enough pooled location. This would be less than the 20ppm - how much less is a different question.

Technically available - How much of the known resource could we actually extract? It is ok if we know about it but if it is 10KM below a lake, could we get to it?

The most important stage after those three - Economic availability. Can we actually afford it and have people pay for it?

The argument from absurdity I use on this one is that there is effectively near infinite clean energy in the form of hydrogen in the sun. No one owns it - now go get it! The technical and economic scale ruins the argument a fair bit.

I'm not even arguing against lithium here, it seems to be more output restricted than resource limited. The two elements in batteries I worry about is Cobalt and Nickle - they could become the weakness. That said it does look like some folks are working on some neat alternatives in that space.

NeoVeles··on Ukraine is a major producer of neon gas, critical for lasers used in chipmaking
Although it is still an issue. While the resource is everywhere, the technology for extraction is still in a specific vulnerable position.

Once we have the extraction capabilities elsewhere - then is is a non-issue. The turn around time on that? I have no idea. It could be days, months or years.

NeoVeles··on Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
His nickname was 'Mr Cloud' for a good reason. Finally got what he wanted.
NeoVeles··on Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
The Nvidia thing is funny to me. I have never had any issues with them on Linux - NOW that said - my hardware is typically about 5 years behind so all the kinks have been ironed out.

Being the computer scrap man I am and using nothing but hand-me-downs and things I find people throwing out. It has worked out well for me from a compatibility point of view. ;)

NeoVeles··on Windows 11 Pro will soon require a Microsoft Account during initial setup
They have also said they would implement a rating system of how well proton will run various games. From 'Perfect' all the way down to 'unplayable'.

I think it was their quiet way of saying they couldn't meet the standard they set, at least, not yet.

NeoVeles··on Outdoor cats are using $500 Starlink satellite dishes as self-heating beds
Tesla has dog mode. Starlink has cat mode.
NeoVeles··on I made my first web0 website today. It's so cool it just works
I like the way you think here. Less is more. Using less allows the rest to do more.

"When you speak, it is silent. When you are silent, it speaks" - Zen Koan

NeoVeles··on Ubisoft deleted account with hundreds of dollars’ worth of games for inactivity
In that sense, Steam is not tied to a single hardware platform. They are a bit more platform agnostic and that means they can keep moving with the times. Steam doesn't require a custom steam PC using proprietary hardware.

A good example of these online store going down would be the Wii and Wii U/3DS stores. The Wii store is already gone - it lasted 13 years.

The Wii U/3DS stores will no longer accept any payments starting 18th January 2022 as a first step towards shutting the services down. Wii U is 9 years old, 3DS is 10 years old.

Only yesterday a friend of mine fired up his Xbox 360. While the online system is still running it is a question of how long until MS will simply drop the entire thing even if it is a very minor thing to run.

NeoVeles··on The new dot com bubble is online advertising (2019)
There is the book on this called 'Subprime Attention Crisis' by Tim Hwang that tries to argue this point.

It is only partially successful in its goals of saying the sky is falling.

The overall message I came away with was that online advertising has some serious issues that need addressing - but they aren't anything that cannot be solved.

If there is a bubble then I suspect it isn't anywhere near as big as it is made out to be and that any "crash" will be more of a slow correction than the bottom suddenly dropping out.

NeoVeles··on The predecessor to Google Earth was clumsy, yet powerful
In technology, one step is innovation, two steps ahead is a martyr. This is a great example.
NeoVeles··on Australia’s trash bin-raiding cockatoos
Years back when I lived in South Morang, they would go house to house digging through the rubbish bins. Even if you put bricks on the lids, they would team up to topple them off and get the lid open.

Nowadays I live a little further south, we have clouds of screaming Cockies every morning. I wouldn't dare feed them for fear they would bring the entire hoard.

They are cool birds bu very... independent if you will.

NeoVeles··on GM has signed an agreement to extract lithium from beneath the Salton Sea
Normally I would be against a proposal like this. However looking at the history and state of the Salton sea - we cannot make it any worse. This looks like a win-win situation.
NeoVeles··on Voice clone of Anthony Bourdain prompts synthetic media ethics questions
"Once men turned their thinking over to machines in the hope that this would set them free. But that only permitted other men with machines to enslave them." - Frank Herbert (Dune)
NeoVeles··on Massachusetts health notifications app installed without users’ knowledge
I think it baffles me that there is enthusiasts that will defend either side as an absolute. I mean I get it, people tend to fall into tribal thinking. But sometime you have to take a step back and remember that these are just gadgets.

Personally, I run Android. It is an OS. It is ok. Not great not bad. I don't really care what other people run, I just hope it doesn't treat them to poorly.

NeoVeles··on EA hacked and source code stolen
This is something that a lot of folks seem to not understand. Usually when there is a leak of proprietary software, most others developers that are working on similar programs (both open and closed) will try to distance themselves from any potential contamination. Having identical code or abnormally similar code turn up in another project is essentially guaranteed grounds for a law suit.
NeoVeles··on iOS 15 Humane
The 286 was a little before my time, although I did spend a lot of time in the early 90's hacking on a 8086. It is always amazing to me that even in the 80's, Unix used to be considered an astoundingly heavy handed OS. Now with it legacy mostly living on via Linux, it is considered the light weight alternative. Funny the path these things take.
NeoVeles··on iOS 15 Humane
This is why I ended up moving over to Linux many years back. I had run it on an off since about 1998 but about 5 years back there, I had blown away my install of Windows and for reason in particular I simply never reinstalled it.

It is just one of those things were very rarely I realize that I am running (by ratio) a fairly rare OS as just a daily desktop. To that, don't try and force your self onto Linux, eventually you may just sit with it and never go back to Windows. If you do, that's fine if that works for you. If you stay on Linux, cool power to you.

Happy hacking!

NeoVeles··on Wikipedia is swimming in money–why is it begging people to donate?
The thing that gets me is the Archive.org only has approximately $20 million USD of revenue and they run a system that is much more data intensive. The wayback machine alone is a data crunching monster and it is done for a small fraction of WMF.
NeoVeles··on China lands rover on Mars
I am usually up to date on these sorts of things and this is the first I have heard of it.

That said, absolutely amazing to see happen! Here is hoping that it lasts long past the design date like the others tend to do.

NeoVeles··on Eleven Ways of Smelling a Tree (2020)
At the very top of the article is the 'listen to this Story'. Do give it a try - it the podcast episode recording.

Their podcast is one of the highlights of my week as they go into a very wide variety of subjects, everyone of them special in their own way.

NeoVeles··on The Hotdog web browser and browser engine
Exactly. It allows a lower bar for entry for new players. Thinking of things like KaiOS.
NeoVeles··on The Hotdog web browser and browser engine
This is something I had been pondering. Rather than making a new 'standard' based on a new technology and thus expanding the standards base with complexity, we can go the other way.

Make a specification based on old tried and tested tech. Thinking something like a set HTML/CSS specs that can be implemented fairly easily. It is a spec that is essentially something a website can be built to knowing that end browsers/users can anticipate being able to render. It doesn't need anything new to be added into current browsers but it is simply enough that others can built their browser too.

A vague standard I figured would be that a single person should be able to implement the full spec from the ground up in about one years full time work. If done in a group in a free/open manner it could theoretically be done quicker. That said there is the old joke. Two programmers can do in two months what one programmer can do in one month.