mastre_

I am a runner and when I go for runs I don't take my phone with me. I have a Garmin watch that has music storage (which I also use for podcasts & audiobooks) and some basic navigation/mapping functionality (which I've never used). I run semi-long distances, up to and above a half marathon for training runs, and never really felt like I needed my phone. I guess it would be useful for emergencies, and when I ride my roadbike I do have it with me, but that's primarily because riding is more dangerous. The main thing I miss on my runs w/o a phone is snapping a pic every now and then. I would not use it for anything else as I don't make any stops (I run non-stop), and quite often I don't even wear headphones as I like to enjoy the sounds around me.

I suggest you guys try it. And yes, that includes if you don't run/jog, _try_ that as well, phone or not.

A bit out of the loop on this, anyone know Carmack's stance on this? Seems like a huge step in the direction of what we afraid of when Fb acquired Oculus.

> The hives might be a shellfish allergy.

I considered this too, but never had problems eating shellfish. Tho it's possible that in higher quantities the allergens from shellfish were indeed the cause.

Def the supplement, it was the Glucosamine.

A bit over decade ago when I started running (& cycling) hardcore I had some knee pain and started taking Glucosamine & Chondroitin supplements for it. It seemed to work, maybe it was placebo effect, but regardless I was "sold" on it. A year or so later I started getting hives all over my body. I was (and am) quite healthy, and coupled with the fact that I'm not really allergic to anything this took me by surprise. It got bad enough that I had allergy panels done, which unfortunately came back with allergies to all sorts of things and the docs put me on anti-allergy medication (Zyrtec, along with stronger Rx only stuff). I was quite discouraged, esp when the docs told me that one can become allergic to anything at any point in one's life, and I was slowly starting to accept it. The Zyrtec seemed to help, not 100%, and I didn't seem to have to take it regularly, so it wasn't the end of the world. Then, at one point I took a 10 day trip and didn't take my supplements with me. The hives went away. Thru the process of elimination I traced it down to the Glucosamine & Chondroitin supplement. It's probably been a decade since I've been back to my normal, non-allergic self. I still take Glucosamine & Chondroitin supplements for a period of time at a time, but am keenly aware of not letting things build up to toxic levels after this lesson learned.

At the very least it's a really cool talking point and way to lead into crypto, esp. when talking to kids about it. And some cool dice ;)

I feel like this effort is more for people who commute/ride from point A to point B as you said; another way to put it is, it is more for people who are _not_ actively training. If/when I'm training with power I don't much care about mapping, I know the routes I will take, lots of times in a park and/or around a natural feature of some sort (like a lake). It's only when trying to discover a new route that I would even consider using something like this -- but honestly, not even then. I usually plan a new route ahead of time, and can even preload it into my cycling computer. And do some exploring as well. I just did this yesterday, as a matter of fact, and it's awesome. Again, this is not when you're trying to get to your job on time, where routing based on traffic is what's needed.

Note: some bike computers also have built-in mapping, something I find useful on my Garmin Edge 530 is the breadcrumb feature which allows me to explore new territory to my heart's content and not worry about getting lost as I can just turn around at any point and follow the breadcrumbs on the map.

Note 2: I don't even have my phone out, it's always in my under-seat bag. Cycling computers are great, battery lasts forever (well in excess of 10 hours of riding with the computer on), visible in all lighting conditions, show a plethora of data at the same time (I have 8 live metrics shown at once), and are mounted in such a way that if you fall they likely won't get damaged, because a) they're unlikely to take a direct hit, and b) aren't big & heavy like a $1k iPhone 11 Pro Max with lots of glass that can shatter.

Jumping in here because of a pet peeve, since we're discussing "in the US" things. It blows my mind how people have fallen for the trick of not having sales tax included in discussed prices, and continue to exclude it as if magically someone else is going to pay it, or you don't have to work for that money. On expensive things like cars, it's a large chunk of change. Yes, it varies from state (and sometimes city) to state, but it should at the very least be discussed. That $16k Honda Fit in Los Angeles is going to cost you an additional $1520 in sales tax, real money that you really need to work for and be willing to part with to drive said Fit. If $16k is a problem to pay, that additional $1.5k in sales tax should be a concern to you as well. This is basically meant to mentally trick you into visualizing a lower price, and thinking "oh yea, that money goes to the state, not the merchant" as if, again, somehow that isn't real money _you_ have to part with. It's dishonest and can push some people into making bad financial decisions by treating the deal as if it's ~10% cheaper.

It would be great if we could start discussing real prices, maybe agree on an average sales tax rate which can be used in most discussions, with the understanding that it will vary a bit for you. Or maybe just add a 10% flat sales tax estimate, so that at least you know that most of the time you can expect to pay slightly _less_ than the discussed price, versus the unpleasant surprise of thousand(s) of additional $.

> no full technical specs

Blows my mind that this is an actual issue. It just doesn't make sense that _this_ would be an issue, yet it totally is. Oftentimes you don't even know for sure what's included with a product and you have to sift thru the comments (reviews & Q&As) to figure out if what you think is included is indeed included as there is no clear indication in the listing. Very low quality in this regard. eBay, OTOH, is very specific because sellers vying for your attention want to make sure you know exactly what you're buying.

If eBay offered something which tightly integrated 2-Day Delivery, they could become a legit competitor on the non-media services side.

Fascinating, thanks! I knew most of these points in some fashion, but wasn't tying them together in such a coherent view.

Yes, and this is why you couldn't update the network. Still, much like how various compression algos have "levels," this standard could be more open in this regard, adding new networks (sort of what others above refer to as versions) and the image could just specify which network it uses. Maybe have a central repo from where the decoder could pull a network it doesn't have (i.e. I make a site and encode all 1k images on it using my own network, pull the network to your browser once so you can decode all 1k images). And even support a special mode where the image explicitly includes the network to be used for decoding it along with image data (could make sense for a very large images, as well as for specialized/demonstrational/test purposes).

All in all, a very interesting idea.

Isn't that weird? My group is similarly all over the map like that. One of my friends has been traveling the world non-stop for years now, it's interesting to see all of the places he's been to (although now he's been to most countries multiple times). I'm into software too; a couple of my friends who use it are too, but some of the others aren't.

> but I like the history of where I've been

This is kinda the deep down reason I still use it. I sort of passively compete with the friends that use it, especially when I'm traveling, since I get to check into a ton of new stuff. The list of friends that use it is _very_ static. It's been the same group for _years_ now, w/o a single new person (and I don't think anyone's dropped). We're not close friends either. All in all, it's a fascinating experience in that regard.

There are almost no badges in the new app, useless coins (at least if you could upgrade your badges with them as back in the day).. I fail to see how it's the same "fun" as it ever was. I have a few friends that still use it religiously, one day I plan on thinking deeply about what these people have in common because on the surface they seem rather random -- some are technologists, some aren't; all of them are 30+.

I think there is a _lot_ to be done in the field. As with anything these days it would most likely require a large effort with sizable investment, but I think it's an area that's grossly overlooked.

One could argue that, despite still being called "phones," their primary purpose is not making phone calls anymore. I personally use my device for making phone calls less than 1% of the time I use it (and this includes talk time).

> They pride themselves in craftsmanship.

Used to. These days, not so much. And they're misfiring quite a bit. For example, the new X3 xDrive30e gets a measly 18 miles of electric range (EPA; real-world likely less). All of that added complexity and weight for very little benefit (in 2020 -- 10 years ago it would have been alright). No 3er manuals in the US anymore. Have you seen the rear of the new 3er which looks like Lexus IS? Have you seen what the 5er looks like, heck even in M5 guise? And so on, and so on.

Sry, I used to be a BMW guy and that touched (touches?) a nerve. They had the right formula when the i3 originally came out, and then someone at the top decided to effectively kill the program and most of their top EV engineers left. They would have been way ahead of where they are today, and of most of their competition, had they not intentionally shot themselves in the foot.

With that logo, it's a done deal, I'll never buy their product again. BMW was something you could identify with.

> When did they start charging for parking at the casinos on the strip?

Years ago, sadly. And it's not just that it's no longer free, it's actually creating more traffic. The whole Vegas experience is non-trivially worse for it.

As another data point, an rpi 3B+ 1.3 is only 38.40 BogoMIPS as reported by lscpu:

  pi@raspberrypi:~ $ lscpu
  Architecture:        armv7l
  Byte Order:          Little Endian
  CPU(s):              4
  On-line CPU(s) list: 0-3
  Thread(s) per core:  1
  Core(s) per socket:  4
  Socket(s):           1
  Vendor ID:           ARM
  Model:               4
  Model name:          Cortex-A53
  Stepping:            r0p4
  CPU max MHz:         1400.0000
  CPU min MHz:         600.0000
  BogoMIPS:            38.40
  Flags:               half thumb fastmult vfp edsp neon vfpv3 tls vfpv4 idiva idivt vfpd32 lpae evtstrm crc32

How so? We have two long range Model 3s which have 140+ kWh capacity in total (70kWh/car, conservatively). Even if you'd only allow 50% of that to be used for powering one's house (you don't want to run large batteries all the way down, or charge them to 100%, often, if you care about long-term capacity), each car could provide 35 kWh, or the equivalent capacity of ~3 PowerWalls. The proper electrical interfaces and monitoring needs to be engineered, but there isn't any good reason not to do this. Seems like such a waste. Even if you could only use 20kWh, that's still be a huge win. In states such as Florida (and, now, California) where power outages are frequent, this would be a godsend.

> This reads to me that you were pretty much harassed to tip.

I was, but he did save my ass and it was very late and I was tired, so I was honest with myself and realized I would pay for his service. And I understand, he needs to eat too. Just a crappy situation all around. I'm gonna take taxis from now, if no public transport is avail. My fav would be something like ZipCar if possible, like renting the car equivalent of a Bird.

> The solution is actually pretty easy: require a pairing procedure that can't be done remotely. For example, the Nest app on a phone could display a QR code with is public key fingerprint, which you show to a camera, and the camera will only send video to phones it's been paired with. That would pretty much completely eliminate this failure mode.

This is how Tesla pairs a new phone to work as a key -- you need to have one of the two RFID key cards that come with the car present, and be inside the car with the new phone. You pair _that particular device_ and then authorize it with the RFID card. Simply having the login to the app/account is not enough, and from the car itself you can always remove a paired phone.

A key for a car frames the problem in much clearer terms and Tesla engineered a secure solution. It is unfortunate this isn't done for other things where security is equally important.

I literally got asked what I will tip by my Lyft driver, and was reminded multiple times during the trip about the tip. Now, I understand, and I did tip, but I did not enjoy the experience. This is after I got stringed along by a no show for almost 30 min (at 11:30 PM), someone who had no intention to show. The aggressive tip dude that took me basically told me that my fare was "too short" and nobody wants to take it, but how he's such a good guy and doesn't play that game and that's why I should tip him well. He also gave me some insight into how they game it -- they adapt (as they should) to whatever changes Lyft makes and find a way to game it; my first driver, the no show guy, used me and my time as part of his gaming the system to get a better fare. I ended up wasting 30 minutes of my life waiting for somebody that was never going to show; I was tired and 30 minutes of extra sleep that night would have been great.

This was a few months ago from LAX to Venice. Last year ('18) was the last good year of ride sharing from LAX, 2-3 years ago it was actually great, I literally remember thinking how well the services work, how useful and pleasant they are for the customer, from the timeliness, to the cars, to the drivers and convos. Then in all went downhill, quick. Right now I loathe using UberLyft.

I too wish you could side-load, and the reasons for which you can't aren't 100% noble, but I do appreciate the side-effect of improved security. Side-loading from phone to phone would be a hacker's wet dream.

You do. We got MRIs on disc at UCLA Santa Monica, free of charge. It's pretty standard.

How did you find out they're laying down fiber? I'm wondering if there's a resource to check, and if there is any way to indicate interest other than the "give us your email and we'll notify you" form most providers have. I live less than a mile from a large apartment building that has fiber, yet my single family home development doesn't have it.

70 bits? That's a ton. I'm at:

  17.62 Chrome 75.0.x normal (non-incognito)
  16.62 Chrome 75.0.x incognito
  15.62 FF 68.0.1 (Private doesn't seem to make a diff, I get the same score)

Seems like in Chrome, at least, the most offending (most unique) "characteristic" is HTTP_ACCEPT Headers, which looks something like

  text/html, */*; q=0.01 gzip, deflate, br en-US,en;q=0.9,fr-FR;q=0.8,f...

If there is a good way to control this (FF does a much better job -- could be tied to plugins and such tho), one could further reduce the number of identifying bits.

Chrome seems to do better (less unique) in both Hash of canvas fingerprint and Hash of WebGL fingerprint. I've summarized the main differences I see below, seems like combining the best of Chrome w/ the best of FF would result in even better privacy:

https://i.imgur.com/QQQ6R85.png

Edit: I think Chrome's HTTP_ACCEPT Headers is like that because I've installed/enabled many languages in it for l10n testing. I'm removing them now, which should make Chrome get a better score than FF.

While I agree with you, I don't know why exactly I agree you. Allow me to explain. The "real you," the "genuine" you, is nothing more than some random, arbitrary (for the most part) stuff you got from genes and the environment surrounding you (as in, it's effect on you) and, to usually a lesser extent, some of the life choices you've made. Now, it is you in the sense that you've lived with it for your whole life (some could say, put up with it, depending on your luck of the draw and what you think//how you feel about it).

I think the real you is really your mind. Our minds are so special, and on such a higher level, that the physical manifestation is very simplistic in comparison. To illustrate: we seem to look down on those who do as this woman did, but if someone was, say, a burn victim with 1st-degree burns all over their body including the face, we wouldn't think twice about using technology to improve their lives this way (btw, anyone know if this used in any such capacity?).

I'm providing some food for thought as I am challenging my own initial knee-jerk reaction which is "this is horrible, what have we become?" If there's one thing I learned about human behavior, it is that there is usually a whole lot more than what meets they eye (pun semi-intended) going on.

Not related to Bliz but would be interested to get your take, if there is one, on Disgaea 5.

Developers used to building apps find it much more efficient to build that way and, to an extent, it is. I've had developers straight up refuse to build "legacy" pages, and I understand their reasoning. Sometimes that is the reason, when another is not apparent.

You would think that SSR could take care of the problem and not require one to build twice. Most of these frameworks are very opinionated, if they cared about doing the right thing I don't think it would be hard to extend their opinions to make it so that content is tagged in ways that allow the framework to automatically generate the multiple views needed for graceful degradation.