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fizwidget

126 karma · joined June 13, 2017

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fizwidget··on Make your first edit to OpenStreetMap
I hope the author reconsiders recommending JOSM to beginners. iD, StreetComplete, MapComplete…almost anything except JOSM would have been a better starting point.
fizwidget··on iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max
I don’t think you need to be taking “expert” photos to want some optical zoom.

I wish they’d put a zoom lens instead of a wide angle on the standard iPhone, but alas, you need a Pro for that.

fizwidget··on Hang on to Your Firefox
People say this, but seeing ads is very rare for me with AdGuard on Safari. I’ve no doubt that it’s technically less comprehensive than the best Firefox ad blockers, but in practice it feels more than “good enough” for me.

I imagine others feel the same?

fizwidget··on CoMaps integration with the wider FLOSS ecosystem
Unless you’re already familiar with it, OsmAnd’s interface is a complex and confusing mess. It does not “just work”.

CoMaps (and Organic Maps) aim to be much easier to use.

fizwidget··on Suica, Japan's First IC Transit Card
I was in Japan last year. iPhone version was super easy and worked flawlessly for me.
fizwidget··on Decompiling a Nintendo 64 game in 84 days
I think the backlash isn’t necessarily against the decomp itself, but rather the sloppy/buggy PC ports that often come from it.

In my mind using an LLM to assist with decompiling is fine, as the output is provably correct. It either compiles to the original binary or it doesn’t.

Turning that into a playable PC game with controls that feel good, etc, is a different story. That requires human taste & judgement.

fizwidget··on Why travellers are obsessed with foreign supermarkets
Similar story in Sydney, Australia. No shortage of Indian, Chinese, Korean, etc, grocery stores. Always fun to explore them and try something new.
fizwidget··on Safari Technology Preview 248 Released
In iOS at least, it tells you in Settings > Safari > Extensions. E.g. if I tap into one of the AdGuard ones I see:

“"AdGuard — General" does not have permission to read or transmit content from any web pages.”

Ones that have more permissions will say so.

fizwidget··on PlayStation can delete all your digital games after 3 years of inactivity (EU)
The timing surely is due to Sony’s recent announcement that they’re retiring physical media.
fizwidget··on CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps
To be fair there are examples of freeform text tags in OpenStreetMap already, e.g. “description”.
fizwidget··on CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps
Affiliate links being included in the app, despite community objections? The lead dev using donations to pay for holidays? Those are a couple that come to mind.
fizwidget··on CoMaps – FOSS Offline Maps
Unless I’m mistaken they both ultimately use OpenStreetMap data. So, effectively the same coverage of trails.

AllTrails has its whole review system sitting on top of course.

fizwidget··on It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
The discussion is not just about online multiplayer games though, it’s about games in general. There is no good reason why buying a singleplayer offline game need be a “service”.
fizwidget··on It's not about physical vs. digital games, it's about ownership
They said “can”, not “has”. Given that it’s a closed platform that Sony has complete control over, they certainly can do it.

You can doubt that they will, but that’s just hope rather than a legal or technical guarantee.

fizwidget··on Loupe – A iOS app that raises awareness about what native apps can see
It’s not quite that detailed but iOS’s builtin “app privacy report” does give a fair amount of info, including a list of domains accessed.
fizwidget··on Loupe – A iOS app that raises awareness about what native apps can see
Because 99% of apps would request it & not function without it, desensitising users into blindly accepting it. Most apps do have a legitimate reason for accessing the internet, so a binary yes/no wouldn’t achieve much anyway.

I just don’t think it’s an effective way of solving the problem.

fizwidget··on There are no instances in ATProto
This blog does a great job of explaining the architecture. In practice though I’d thought the “problem” was that Bluesky (the corporation) runs the main app and hosts almost all of the user data.

So at the protocol level it’s decentralised, but in practice the system is still very centralised (in terms of who controls it).

Not saying this is necessarily Bluesky’s fault, but it’s how things have played out so far right?

fizwidget··on Stop the Apple Music app from launching
I still use smart playlists in Apple Music. Your comment seems to imply they removed that functionality?
fizwidget··on Framework Laptop 13 Pro
Even on an iPhone you can back up your library to Google Photos or other services. You just can’t do so directly through Apple’s Photos app.
fizwidget··on Native Instant Space Switching on macOS
In my experience iOS 26.4 did largely fix it btw. Update if you haven’t already.
fizwidget··on DRAM pricing is killing the hobbyist SBC market
What? Apple support their phones for a very long time. I got 8 years out of my previous iPhone.
fizwidget··on Fix the iOS keyboard before the timer hits zero or I'm switching back to Android
You can assign the action button to run a shortcut, which opens up thousands of possibilities for what it can do.
fizwidget··on Bugs Apple loves
Surely that’s by design? If stopping the alarm was “easy”, a half-awake person could accidentally stop it rather than snooze it.
fizwidget··on Can You Disable Spotlight and Siri in macOS Tahoe?
It opens the door to tech-illiterate users being tricked into disabling security features, doesn’t it? Not saying I agree with it but I imagine that’s the motivation.
fizwidget··on iCloud Photos Downloader
No, I’ve downloaded the entire library to a new Mac. It worked fine.
fizwidget··on iCloud Photos Downloader
That doesn’t sound right. My photo library is larger than my iPhone’s storage yet downloads fine on my Mac. Just need to make sure “optimise storage” is enabled on the iPhone and disabled on the Mac.

Once everything’s downloaded on the Mac, you can either export through the Apple Photos menu or just copy the “originals” directly from the Photos bundle.

fizwidget··on Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban
The ban is being enacted by the Australian Labor Party, which the Murdoch media is certainly not friendly with. If it ends up favouring Murdoch, it won’t have been deliberate.
fizwidget··on I am stepping down as the CEO of Mastodon
When I opened Discord recently a popup appeared explaining how to earn “Orbs” and trade them for rewards. I’d say that’s pretty consistent with “capitalist hellscape”.
fizwidget··on I'm spoiled by Apple Silicon but still love Framework
“Less than a minute” is going to feel horribly slow to people that are used to instant-resume and not having to think about shutdown vs. sleep.

You might be okay with it, but I suspect most consumers today won’t be.

fizwidget··on Maps.me co-founder tries to close down Organic Maps open-source fork
By “this app” I assume you’re referring to Maps.me.

I can recommend Organic Maps. It has none of those crypto shenanigans and is a great offline OSM-based app.

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