As an engineer, I’m not really an activist or anything, but I’ll be living under a bridge before I accept a job at a “defense” company that makes weapons, of which there seem to be many these days. And yes, I have this statement (with slightly different wording) as a note to recruiters in my linkedin profile.

Good to know I’m not the only one taking a stance on this.

According to the research published by Hackmosphere, […]

I cannot find a link to the original research, anybody has the link to the original research?

Some of Apple’s struggles in AI have stemmed from deeply ingrained company values—for example, its militant stance on user privacy, which has made it difficult for the company to gain access to large quantities of data for training models and to verify whether AI features are working on devices.

So, Apple is behind in the AI race at least partly because they’re trying to do it more responsibly and more respecting of their users. I don’t really like Apple, but I guess I’m starting to like them more… a bit more. tiny bit. but still.

You raise good points, but even if Apple was able to take some hit on the profit margin, and was able to find cheap-ish labor in the US (minimum wage likely higher than $7.25/hr though), the biggest issue in my opinion is that all the component the iPhone is made of are still imported and affected by tariffs, and making them in the US might be outright impossible for some, based on current manufacturing capabilities, or very expensive for the ones that can be made in US.

Nice to know I’m not the only one that dislikes autocorrect on phones, and autocomplete / autoindent (and also auto close parentheses and quotes for me) when coding

Few years ago at work, people were using them to clean electronics after soldering, etc. but once, they did it on a board with a MEMS device, a gyroscope and accelerometer chip. Took them a while to figure out while none of them worked until they narrowed it down to the ultrasonic cleaner…

Signal is better for privacy than whatsapp, and of course whatsapp is owned by meta and it leaks some … metadata to them (pun intended), but as for their end to end encryption, it actually uses the same exact scheme as signal, so even if you’re forced to use it, it’s still not that bad. Way better than telegram, for example (avoid telegram).

Using Signal or other secure messaging apps should be normalized, not reserved for people who are at risk, else the simple fact that you use it raises suspicions. Not sure if this argument is enough to convince your friends … maybe just tell them you like it better due to some feature it has?

While I’m a fan of GrapheneOS, I think it could still be considered “tied to Google” both due to it being based on Android, and also because it only runs on Google Pixel phones. Graphene focuses more on security, then on privacy, but not so much on reducing our dependency on Google’s software and/or hardware.

If the competitors developed a highly wanted feature before you, either you were already in the process of developing it, can do so quickly (and let’s say it’s not patented or other legal issues), or if not, it’s better IMHO to spend time to do it better then your competitor, or to come up with some even more compelling feature, to regain the lead. Of course, they’ll try to do the same and so on.

So, more like:

CEO: competitor X just released Y, how can we make something better to get ahead? how quickly can we get that?

CTO: hold my beer

(actual dialogue irl might be a bit different 😄)

First, while everyone thinks the CEO is the boss, they aren’t. They are hired and fired by the Board of Directors. The Board has a strategic objective for the company and has tasked the CEO with making that strategy reality

Unless the CEO also sits on the board of directors … but at least they won’t be making the decision unilaterally.

Yep, that’s what I gather as well. I just wish we didn’t have to choose, and could get both

I had heard they had rewritten it in go and got a lot more performant, not sure what else they have done. I don’t care much about the politics as long as it’s still open source (is it?).

That said, I’m a happy nextcloud user and I don’t see a reason to switch (after moving both data and db onto SSDs it’s much faster, so maybe php wasn’t the bottleneck).

Are they still developing it? At this point I had assumed it was either abandoned, or otherwise never going to become a full browser, nor be used in any full browser (e.g. firefox). The tech is really cool, and Rust being a safe language by design would likely mean a much safer browser, and also really fast. Would love to see it become a real browser, not sure how much hope to hold.

Ah man… I just installed graphene to try it … (turns around and runs)

.

Seriously though, would be nice if they could get along and share code and efforts, I’d love to try a graphene-hardened OS with sandboxed microg (instead of gsf) and datura firewall :) Maybe even have the option to have microg in one profile and google play in another. One can dream

Well they better figure it out real quick, now that they finally woke up. Better late than never.

Do your roommates and other tenants enjoy living with bed bugs? Because either they were there already, or if they came with you, they’ll eventually spread to them as well.

Assuming they don’t enjoy living with bed bugs, maybe work together with them to find then and exterminate them, including asking to allow pest control to check their place.

If they think as bed bugs as cute pets and don’t want to get rid of them, then seriously think about leaving. Maybe check your rental contract for a way out, e.g. if landlord not getting rid of bed bugs is a breach of contract or something (again IANAL, chech with people who know how this works).

Edit: based on your edit than you don’t care about legal consequences… then yeah, if your roommates don’t cooperate, then just leave. I’d still look for a legal way to exit the contract, if there’s one, but that’s me.

Bed bugs are good at hiding. If there’s one, either it hitched a ride with you or someone else, or there’s more hiding nearby. Look all around the mattress, sofas, etc. maybe ask the pest control guy for a thorough inspection.

As far as leaving… well, depends on your rental contract whether you’re (legally) allowed to leave at a moment’s notice. Also, once again, you’d still have to take a lot of care inspecting and/or sanitizing your belonging, or getting rid of them.

On the positive side, bed bugs are annoying but they don’t transmit diseases like e.g. mosquitos or ticks.

Source:

• https://www.cdc.gov/bed-bugs/about/index.html
• https://www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/bedbugs-infestation

The problem is, if there’s bed bugs and you go somewhere else, it’s very likely they’ll attach to your belonging and hitch a hike to your new place… Best would be have the landlord take care of the issue, it is their responsibility after all.

If the landlord doesn’t cooperate, maybe you can tell them you’ll call pest control yourself and deduct the amount from the rent you owe… no idea how well that would go legally speaking, but maybe it’ll allow you some negotiating leverage. (obligatory IANAL)

You’re right, I thought I remembered that article giving actual figures but instead it just handwavily says they didn’t sell many.

So, here is one that actually quotes a number, 3% of the whole iPhone lineup: https://www.macrumors.com/2022/04/21/iphone-13-mini-unpopular-march-quarter/

And another: https://www.cultofmac.com/news/iphone-13-mini-makes-up-a-tiny-percentage-of-apple-sales

And another, this one says 5% for some reason: https://www.notebookcheck.net/iPhone-13-Mini-sales-continue-to-disappoint-as-rumors-claim-the-iPhone-14-Mini-may-be-axed.593194.0.html

Either way 3% - 5% is a small number for Apple (or Samsung, or…) which might not justify making a small phone, but in absolute numbers, thats actually a lot of people! A smaller manufacturer should definitely be able to profitably fill this niche…

Yeah, sounds like they improved quite a bit, I might consider it, thanks! Still, lack of 5G means not so future proof