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warning26

4,000 karma · joined July 3, 2016

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warning26··on Judge denies HP's plea to throw out all-in-one printer lockdown lawsuit
OP wanted to be able to print in B/W mode when out of color ink. Ostensibly, the tracking dots' purpose was to stop currency counterfeiting, so they were only ever added on color printers (not B/W ones).

Therefore, not being able to display the dots shouldn't be an obstacle to the printer operating in B/W mode, as it would effectively be a B/W printer in that case. The more likely explanation is simply that HP wants to sell more overpriced color ink.

Interestingly, the Reality Winner documents were actually in color: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:NSA_Report_on_Russia_Spea...

warning26··on Judge denies HP's plea to throw out all-in-one printer lockdown lawsuit
According to that article, the tracking dots only apply for color printers/printouts, so they wouldn’t apply in GP’s scenario (out of color ink).
warning26··on The elite's war on remote work has nothing to do with productivity
I feel like often article-writers miss the fact of people like your boss: some people just legitimately like being in an office and there's no conspiracy to speak of.

As someone who likes being in an office, I personally feel that everyone becoming permanent WFH basement gremlins is a bad thing overall. Human contact is a good thing, and my observations of people who are 100% WFH is that they almost never interact with anyone outside of their household.

warning26··on macOS Sonoma Sandbox Security
I'm sure this will make the user experience even worse. It seems we've the wrong lessons from Windows Vista's constant "Cancel/Allow" prompts.
warning26··on Web Environment Integrity has no standing at W3C; understanding new W3C work
I like the idea of spinning Chrome out, but how would that work in practice?

Seems like making a browser isn’t profitable at all, and so the hypothetical Chrome Browser Corporation would probably quickly turn to evil tracking schemes as well.

warning26··on California allows robo-taxis to expand and emergency responders aren't happy
Agreed — this seems like a fundamentally solvable problem with enforcement of existing laws.
warning26··on US Supreme Court needs more scrutiny, not less
Sure, but that ignores how the process is actually working in practice. The number of successful Supreme Court impeachments (only 1, over the course of more than 100 years) should tell you that the system as-is isn’t working.
warning26··on US Supreme Court needs more scrutiny, not less
Really this should be a bipartisan issue. Lifetime appointments are a perfect fit for ethics violations.
warning26··on Japan prefectures drift away from posting disaster warnings on X
The Twitter API changes seem to have no real reasoning behind them whatsoever, except "well maybe we could squeeze more money out of the developers", which isn't likely to result in sympathetic attitudes.

In contrast, one could argue that Apple's API changes are generally intended to achieve some actual purpose (refactoring, better security, etc.) Of course, whether or not they succeed at that is a separate debate entirely.

warning26··on If you travel to China, be aware of an exit ban
The US State Department also warns about this:

> "Reconsider travel to Mainland China due to the arbitrary enforcement of local laws, including in relation to exit bans, and the risk of wrongful detentions."

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/traveladvisories/...

warning26··on Fear of AI just killed a useful tool
> counted word occurrences and presented statistics about them. I don't think you even need fair use for this, because this is something you obviously are allowed to do, without any permissions

You're pretty much describing exactly what an LLM "learns" about text. I agree that it should obviously fall under fair use, but as the author of this article found out, there are quite a few who (very vocally) disagree.

warning26··on What PWA Can Do Today
For a great example of an almost-native feeling PWA, I definitely recommend giving Voyager (Lemmy client) a try:

https://vger.app/

warning26··on SF cops, firefighters vent prior to big vote on driverless car expansion
Yup; the fact that humans can't be expected to be ready to intervene at a moment's notice is a well-known problem in human factors engineering.

GP's assertion that Tesla's strategy is good is consequently laughable.

warning26··on SF cops, firefighters vent prior to big vote on driverless car expansion
Or, the Tesla simply just plows into a barrier at highway speeds, which also solves the problem! Progress!
warning26··on Meta blocking news links in Canada
That's like demanding that Rand McNally pay a fee to each city they print onto their maps. Or demanding that World Book Encyclopedia pay a royalty fee to every entity they write an article about.

Noting that something exists and including it in reference material should by no means incur royalties.

warning26··on Meta blocking news links in Canada
Then ban that, don't ban linking.
warning26··on Food rations in communist Poland, early 1980s
Don't worry, random internet commenters have assured me that it's only because literally every country who tried communism didn't do it correctly.

If we try again, it'll definitely lead to a utopia.

warning26··on Why We'll Stay Remote
Making up excuses instead of telling the truth is an issue with everything CEOs tend to say.

They never tell you the real reason for anything. During the various tech layoffs, I honestly wished CEOs would just lean into the "I am doing this because I'm greedy and I want more money" angle instead of trying to pretend they had to do it due to some phony line reasoning.

warning26··on CEOs’ pay climbed before layoffs at tech giants like Alphabet and Microsoft
And after he became CEO, he has presided over exactly zero successful Google products!
warning26··on Why We'll Stay Remote
It's good to see them adopting a stance instead of weird half-measures.

Remote vs in-office tends to get wrapped up in all kinds of narratives: it's a thrilling tale of the Evil Corporatocracy vs the Common Man, or perhaps it's the Future of Work, or even a dark conspiracy driven by Big Real Estate.

The fact is, it all comes down to personal preference: some people like WFH and some prefer in-office. It's best that companies pick one and stick with it, so people can work in whichever environment they prefer.

warning26··on The Google Inbox email successor is finally ready for Android
Sadly Shortwave pretty much ruined their desktop product, turning it into a two-pane Outlook wannabe.

It's unfortunate, because for a brief moment I had Inbox back.

warning26··on Was the Tesla logo deliberately designed to look like a push-dagger? [twiXXer]
I'm still convinced it's the Japan Postal Symbol:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_postal_mark

warning26··on Linux surpasses the Mac among Steam gamers
I think this applies to every operating system -- most people don't "choose" operating systems, they just use whatever came installed on the device.
warning26··on Companies with good ESG scores pollute as much as low-rated rivals
As you note, the politicization of it makes it difficult to point out the flaws without people assuming you like hate the environment or something. The problem is, like any score, it's easily gamed. That's how we get companies like ExxonMobil having great ESG scores.

The Atlantic had a great article about it:

"When you invest in an ESG fund, you may think you’re buying into a highly curated selection of positive-outlier companies. In reality, it will often look similar to an ordinary market-wide index fund. The 10 biggest holdings in the S&P 500 ESG index include Big Tech companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Alphabet; big banks such as JPMorgan Chase; and, incredibly, ExxonMobil."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/05/esg-woke-i...

warning26··on Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
Some people do and some people don’t. It seems to me it’s largely a matter of personal preference.

I worked from home before the pandemic, hated it, and vowed to never do it again. Then the pandemic happened.

warning26··on Damaging results of mandated return to the office: it’s worse than we thought
> “staggering 76% of employees stand ready to jump ship if their companies decide to pull the plug on flexible work schedules”

People always say this, but I’d bet that the vast majority of those 76% would begrudgingly go in if it was demanded. Talk is cheap, as they say.

warning26··on Ice core scientists in East Greenland reach bedrock
Exactly. People often get lost in this "we must save the planet" argument, but realistically, the planet is gonna be fine.

Preventing climate change is about saving humanity, not the planet.

warning26··on Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t
> Well - I'm not blaming the user, but that's how it's on any federated service.

There it is! It’s absolutely fixable, and pretending it’s some defect inherent to federation is just lazy. If you want to see federated content discovery done right, I’d say the best right now is Lemmy — it’s trivial to see all posts across all instances, sorted by votes, or even other algorithms.

warning26··on Mastodon is easy and fun except when it isn’t
I think the biggest problem is the Mastodon devs (and community's) complete aversion to doing anything other than blaming the user for any flaws.

Onboarding didn't make sense? Well that's just because you're stupid, you have email don't you?

Difficulty discovering people to follow? Well that's just because you're using it wrong and if you were good at it you'd already know who to follow.

warning26··on EU opens Microsoft antitrust investigation into Teams bundling
I agree that some of their tactics were questionable, but they were up against IE, and Microsoft's bundling of it.

Would you rather everyone still be using IE? Because that's exactly what would have happened otherwise.

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