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Comment Re:825GB? (Score 3, Interesting) 12

825GB because it's a really nasty way of the whole GB/GiB thing.

The PS5 (original) has 6 128GiB chips for 768GiB total storage. Normally, such an SSD would be called 768GB, hiding things like bad blocks and data tables in the difference. When you buy an SSD like that, that's where the difference goes.

So if you buy a 250GB SSD, you can be sure it has 256GiB of NAND flash inside, but appear with 250,000,000,000 bytes of storage. The difference holds the bad blocks, spare blocks, and data tables.

If you haven't figured it out, 768GiB is about 824.9GB so its even rounded up to 825GB. And your actual storage WILL be less, because that's not accounting for again, bad blocks, spare blocks, and data tables.

Most SSDs would be listed as 768GB, 760GB if they had the same configuration.

The 1TB PS5s would have 8 chips of 128GIB for a real 1TiB of storage, but rounded down to 1TB because that excess is used elsewhere.

Comment Re:Not going to work (Score 4, Insightful) 85

It's nothing like that.

They want to have the narrative that "leftists are violent!!!" because they killed Charlie Kirk. Never mind the other deaths like January 6, George Floyd, etc.

Never mind the fact that when the right spews hate, they claim censorship when platforms start to remove their posts.

The whole point is to say the left needs to be censored and everything. Ever notice how many people are being cancelled because of their less than complimentary comments about Charlie Kirk?

Double standards and all - if it's your speech been censored, then cry free speech. If it's someone you don't like, censor away!

They want Steam, Discord, etc. to start deplatforming all those leftists.

It's gotten so far that some Republicans are trying to back away because they realize that those laws being used to censor "the left" could easily be used to censor them for the exact same reason. The big fun being to see how the Supreme Court will allow the censorship but then twist themselves into knots trying to deny the same rights if a (D) gets to be President.

Comment Re:Meanwhile... (Score 1) 41

"pro-life" just refers to people who believe every baby conceived should be carried to term. Once they're born, most pro-lifers do not care about that person anymore. That's the only justification I can see in forcing women to carry babies to term, but opposing things like gun control, vaccine mandates, and other things that might help prolong the life of said people they brought into the world.

Want to have fun? Ask them when they stop caring - the will proudly say life is precious, etc, but ask them when they stop caring - why they aren't supporting gun control and trying to fix things like school shootings, etc.

Comment Re:No mention of latitude (Score 1) 179

If you live nearer the equator then daylight savings is a nuisance, however if you live nearer the poles then daylight savings is great. Hence the polarised view on the issue. Where I live there is nearly 6 hours more sun light in summer than in winter each day.

At the poles it's even more useless. In the winter, the sun rises around 7AM and sets around 4PM, and in the summer, it rises around 4AM and sets around 9PM (standard time). Daylight savings means it rises at 5AM and sets at 10PM. It's pretty useless to have it since it's still rising pretty damn early and setting right when one should be getting to bed.

It's only a real boon if you're the mid-lattitudes where you may only have 4-6 extra hours of sun a day so the sun still sets in the evening and rises at a decent time.

Comment Re:Not just vaccination (Score 3, Insightful) 84

It would seem that there is a general anti-science movement in place in the US that is becoming stronger, vaccinations is one part of it, attacks on climate science is another. Couple that with the onslaught on education, and universities in particular, and all I can see is a gradual decline in the ability of the US to compete when it comes to science.

The US is simply following the path of other great civilizations, from the Islamic to Catholicism. Both were at the top of what we call STEM today - both excelled at mathematics and science and were the leaders in both.

Of course, you probably wouldn't associate either with the forefront of science and mathematics today, and the wonder was always how did they go from the leaders to where they are now.

The US might simply be the canary in the coal mine of where western civilization will lead and end up following Islam and Catholicism.

Comment Re:"exploit chains that cost millions of dollars.. (Score 5, Interesting) 39

Some companies don't sell you the information. They actually make you buy access to the exploit.

Think companies like Cellebrite - their most advanced hacks cost millions per use - you provide them with the details on how to get at the victim (e.g., phone number) and they deploy their attack on that phone and provide a gateway to access it.

They also sell a box you can use to break in via the USB port, and they charge anywhere from $100K to a million dollars to break into one unit - you buy the license to break into one phone.

They're not selling their exploit chain to anyone - they're keeping it a secret and selling you the effects of that for millions of dollars. Once it's sold it's worthless because like a secret once you tell someone else, it's likely to leak out.

Comment Re:Dumb (Score 1) 31

My Organization was a Microsoft shop with a corporate Zoom account. One team was using Slack. That was until Teams came around for "free". The Zoom account was closed, and the team using Slack was told to stop. In our Org, the damage is done. But unbundling can avoid such market damage in future Orgs.

API access might do the opposite. A lot of what locks organizations is the history. My previous company used Slack AND Teams. The engineering teams all used Slack, the corporate side used Teams. An attempt was made to switch to Teams, with a company helping out with the migration - a lot of data had to be moved from Slack to Teams. In the end, it was cancelled because the migration would've taken a couple of weeks and there just was no time window that made it possible.

Microsoft opening up API access wasn't a nicety to satisfy the EU, I think Microsoft sees it as a way to help companies migrate, likely to Teams. The migration companies have tools that let them get the data from Slack and then upload it to Teams, but it's a manual process. Microsoft making API access open suddenly can make the migration process easier and quicker and instead of taking two weeks, it might take a week instead.

Of course, you can also argue it allows going the other way - away from Teams. But Microsoft could make it so it's easy to import data into Teams, but the APIs to retrieve that data are more complex.

Heck, my current company is trying to roll out their own Teams competitor and has been slowly including users in. I don't think it's going very well since beyond the initial set up, I haven't been able to log into the server since. And there's still the history problem.

Comment Re:Interesting...but.... (Score 1) 41

It does seem like a royal pain in the backside to go to all that trouble. I guess it is modeled after the thieves who break into people's houses and steal the copper wires and pipe.

Except going through so many intermediaries has the same problem as it does in legitimate life - everyone wants their cut. Stolen phones have to get sent to China which costs money, the people doing the programming and disassembly want their cut and in the end the margins get thinner and thinner.

If you think the App Store fees are bad, everyone taking their cut rapidly shrinks the pot for a stolen phone. And if you're travellingn with a phone that isn't worth a whole lot it just starts to get thin on the ground. Sure if you steal a new iPhone 17 or something it's worth a lot and worth it, but someone who might be dealing with an iPhone 14 isn't worth a whole lot (the one before Apple moved to USB-C).

Comment Re:I don't understand (Score 1) 66

I'm a huge fan of WFH and don't have much good to say about RTO.

But what I don't understand is this whole business about ignoring work attendance policies and simply not being fired, just like what would happen if you if flat out defied other major employer policies, and expecting to get away with it, or allowing employees to get away with flat out defiance.

Fire the motherfuckers. What's the hold up? If all the big employers had any balls and stuck to their guns, people would fall in line rather quickly. Sure, you might lose some and it would maybe hurt for a very short period, but not long enough to matter, and I think it would be better than all this continued drama over the issue.

The holdup is driving away the people you don't want to drive away. The people generally not being in the office are likely your star performers - they know you need them more than they need you (even in this economy)

Also, firing is generally considered an excessive remedy - the person is still putting out good work and getting work done, the only crime being committed is he isn't keeping his office chair warm.

You will find with every RTO mandate that it starts off good, then maybe in 6 months everyone starts drifting off again. If you demand and check, sure you'll drag everyone back in the office, but then it's not like they're going to be highlly productive - they'll likely end up doing a lot of "collaborating" than "working" (i.e., shooting the breeze and having chats about sports and anythingn else but work).

And enforcing it by firing is also along the lines of "the beatings will continue until morale improves" and shows you care about butts in seats than actual productivity.

Comment Re:The only reason the number is 95% (Score 1) 64

Actually we do. Many PFAS compounds have been studied and most of them have been found to be harmful at levels above a few 10s of Parts-Per-Trillion in animal testing. This is what really started this entire thing in the first place - the recognition that there is a harmful level, and the general levels in many people is above this level.

Nevermind the fact that the industry itself knew it was a problem decades ago. And they covered it up when regulators started sniffing around by modifying the chemicals to be slightly different, calling it a new name, and calling it good because the levels of the original chemical fell below the limit. Meanwhile the new chemical they use has the same effects, but because it's new, it wasn't regulated. They even did it again after the new chemical started getting regulated.

The reason they are a problem for humans is because they mimic fatty acids in composition so your body takes it up assuming it's a fatty acid. But they are "forever chemicals" because they are really inert, so your body tries to react those PFAS in order to do some biological function and it fails because they are inert. Sure your cells can try another molecule that fits and if it's a normal fatty acid great, body function continues, but now you have this fake inert molecule that's just doing nothing other than jamming up cellular functions

Veritassium did a nice video on this - https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Comment Re:Tech illiterate (Score 0) 77

If you actually give a damn about security, encourage whistleblowers and journalists to get yubikeys and generate PGP keys and communicate that way. Encrypt e-mails.

You do realize that doing this makes you a bigger target right? Sending encrypted emails back and forth is evidence a lot of governments use to determine nefarious intentions. And this has been true for decades, which is why journalists don't use PGP/GPG or other encryption system - it makes them a bigger target. Especially if they're filing reports from regimes that aren't so free with the press.

Anyhow the problem here is Proton suspending the accounts of some journalists - the whole reason why they use Proton was to avoid situations like this because it was supposed to provide secure email services. A government being able to shut down your email account was the whole antithesis to why Proton exists.

Comment Re:Well (Score 4, Interesting) 23

Yeah, but humans generally don't make up fake citations, because those things are easily fact checked. If you want to make up a quote from someone, you would typically find a work they did and then choose one that most likely might contain the fake quote, especially if ti's a more obscure work so it's much harder to verify.

But attributing something to a movie that doesn't exist? Not likely something a human would do., Maybe quoting an obscure thing that someone might have a difficult time getting and verifying, but that would be a very real citation.

Comment Re: Pirating isn't why movies are losing customers (Score 1) 71

What theatres should do is offer a discount card that encourages concession sales.

Like if you buy two tickets, you get one free small popcorn. This is cheap, and because you bought two tickets, you probably brought a friend. Well now the friend will want popcorn so they'll want to buy some. And you'll want drinks because the popcorn will make both of you thirsty. Oh, how about besides that free popcorn, you get 10% off concessions to sweeten the deal?

The goal being to encourage sales of concessions where you otherwise might not have them. Someone buys two tickets, decides concessions are two expensive and that's it. Zero revenue. But hey, if we give you a free small popcorn and 10% off, suddenly you might get the sale more more popcorn and drinks. So for the cost of a few tens of cents for popcorn, you made dollars because that pair of people would want more popcorn and drinks.

If you buy bigger groups of tickets, even better - offer more free stuff. Buy 4 tickets, get a hot dog and popcorn for free, and now everyone of your friends gets 20% off. Now you'd probably buy a drink, and the friends you're with will want a popcorn, and maybe a hot food item as well.

Basically the goal is to encourage sales of concessions which make the theatre money to people who otherwise wouldn't buy them. Offering free food to a card holder is one that costs little but encourages everyone to buy more.

Even a family pack - buy a ticket for a family (3, 4, 5 people or more) and all kids get free popcorn and everyone gets 15% off concessions. Well now the parents will have to buy a drink for the kids, and if they're doing that, they may as well get something as well.

Comment Re: Pirating isn't why movies are losing customers (Score 2) 71

Depends how long it's been out, that 80% is usually for the first week or two then it flip flops to the theaters advantage also depends on the studio and the arrangement.

New releases are usually 100% to studio/distributor for at least 2 weeks. Big name releases can often go for a month at 100%. Theatre makes 0% for new releases. Then it drops to 80% or so.

But you have to realize traffic at 100% is often way higher, so even though the theatre may make a couple of bucks at 80%, far fewer people are seeing the movie a couple of weeks in. It's why if you look at movie listings, a lot of movies start dropping off after a couple of weeks and it takes a really big hit like Top Gun Maverick, Barbie, Oppenheimer that have staying power for a movie theatre to get much revenue from ticket sales. Most movies disappear from theatres after a month - they head straight into second run.

And a lot of studios determine the ticket price because they're getting it all.

Comment Re:Maybe (Score 3, Interesting) 92

Unlikely. What happens is colleges will just lay off staff and cut unprofitable programs.

The big decline in applicants is from international students - no doubt because someone decided to go after foreigners, and foreigners pay a LOT more money. That money funds the school operations.

Cut back on those increased fees and get stuck with domestic students - well, they don't pay as much money and now there's a shortfall. Couple that with again a certain administration's cutback of grants and such, and there will be deficits.

All that happens now is cutbacks to programs - those research grants were often what attracted professors to a certain college and without those, well, the college can't replace those grants and likely the stipend the professor gets so professor pay goes down. Staffing gets cut, etc.

Chances are prices will go up to try to stem the losses from lack of international students and lack of research grants, layoffs, and other fun things.

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