[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 27 points 3 weeks ago

Electric vehicles aren't helping with the transition to electric vehicles. Cars are more expensive than ever. If one has a choice between an annoyingly necessary vehicle that can get them to and from work and take care of long trips, or something that costs the same (or more) and can't even get you halfway across the state on a single charge, which would one with a limited budget pick?

I have some friends that tried to take the plunge with EV. They bought one used, so some age on the traction pack. Cold-ass winter came along, the car doesn't do active thermal management of the pack. They could barely make it 24 miles between towns. Their next car will be a hybrid. Until EVs are priced similar and behave similar to ICE cars, it's going to be a slow roll to convert people.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 26 points 1 month ago

You'll take your overpriced medicine from your out of network pharmacy and you'll like it. At the fake markup price. And good luck getting that ultrasound, they're going to code the billing wrong so instead of it being $40 it's $1000. That's freedom talking.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 1 month ago

They should have taken the harder route. Something like requiring all software that uses algorithms to manipulate their users to share their algorithms with an auditing body, or to provide a manipulation-free environment otherwise. Every time a change is made, that change must go through the auditing body. Of course Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Google would have a hissy fit, so such a thing would never fly. Or just ban algorithms that manipulate users.

An outright ban of a particular piece of software sets a terrible precedent in an increasing Orwellian future. They didn't even ban Kaspersky when Russia attacked Ukraine, they just all said, "you probably shouldn't trust this, but keep using it if you want" and that's software that has full access to a computer at a very low level.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 22 points 1 month ago

(Sarcasm) Don't insult the west by lumping the US in with sane respectable nations. (/Sarcasm) The US is a third world country with some lipstick on at this point. We keep hoping to turn things around and put us back on course but. Damn is it exhausting.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 2 months ago

About damn time. They should have never been allowed to grow so big in so many markets to become the only player. They're literally mentally crippling a generation of youngs that now don't know how technology works. I remember a young coworker at a technology company a while back remarking, upon finding another coworker's Android phone, "Oh wait, this is Android? Well, we're going to need a hacker to figure out how to use that thing," and he sat it back down, defeated. Wat.

https://www.theverge.com/22684730/students-file-folder-directory-structure-education-gen-z

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 19 points 2 months ago

It is one of the annoying side-effects of capitalism. Many companies start in a good place with quality setting them apart from others, and they then experience natural organic growth. Then they go public, go through some merger/takeovers, the original owners are either forced out, retire, or die, and at that point, the focus is shareholder profits and not what got them there.

Their lack of QA eventually catches up with them, people die, bad things happen. They'll up their quality, hire QA engineers again, claim they are doing the best for quality for a few quarters until the public eye is off them. Then they'll just start cutting quality back again.

Publicly traded companies eventually never care about quality, or safety, or human lives. It is in their nature.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 3 months ago

It was hilariously reading the presser on NBCComcrap talking about how 10G DOCSIS development is progressing and they could almost hit 10Gbps in labs on the downlink but uplink would only be a few hundred megabits tops. Like, none of those numbers are worth selling a marketing brand of "10G". Real fiber Internet can hit it, my provider offers 10Gbps/10Gbps. That could be called "10G" - if we continued to conflate speed with generations like Comcrap tried to do.

I really wish the FCC would step up and slap all these companies perpetuating these weird lie terms the last half a decade.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 3 months ago

It can't have faster charging because it lacks the space to dissipate the thermal energy to stop it from catching on fire. If it did support 45W on paper, it would still charge slower to prevent thermal runaway. The "Ultra" models have thermal cooling systems that rival laptop computers just short of active cooling fans.

It can't have UWB because it's too small for the 30,000 antennae they have to jam in the phone. 4x for cellular, then GPS, WiFi, Bluetooth, Wireless charging, NFC, and on and on.

These phones, especially Samsung, jam so much technology in such a small package. We're brushing up against the laws of physics.

And lets not even talk about then also expecting good cellular reception when on your lower cellular bands. Take 700MHz for example, an ideal 1/2 wavelength antenna would have to be 21cm/8.2in tall, so they have to use fractional wavelengths that further degrade performance potential, again, due to physics. (While still also supporting the fractional wavelengths of 30 other bands.) The plus and ultra models at least have space to approach more usable antennae for better reception. The tiny phones (and watches) don't really have a chance.

Now, Google's software feature nonsense, and the way handset manufacturers manipulate price for a few cents worth of storage increase are both downright criminal. However, the telephoto lens thing again goes back to space and reality. Telephoto cameras take up a ton of space. Look at a teardown of the S22 Ultra to see how big the camera modules are.

That's actually an annoying point I recently observed though. The S24 ultra has a lower resolution 10x camera than either the S22 Ultra or S23 Ultra. I think they're trying to make up the difference with "AI" instead of real sensor/glass. Maybe it'll get rid of the camera rattle though.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 21 points 3 months ago

I’m FUCKING sick of being told that the issue is what I eat

Not just that.

  • we're at fault for pollution (the Italian guy playing the native american trash on road commercial from the 70s which was really an ad campaign to deflect from industrial polluters)
  • we're at fault for poisoning our water (trisodium phosphate was removed from all home dish/laundry soaps rendering the machines less effective, while industrial/restaurant industry, the larger users, still use it to this day)
  • we're at fault for watering lawns when industrial agriculture consumes 97% of the water in areas of the US where it makes no sense to grow crops (yes, lawns in environments where they are not natural make no sense, but when you look at the scale and they use a fraction of the remaining 3% that also includes businesses that aren't agriculture, and homes...)
  • we're at fault for bags at stores (why don't they offer reusable tubs as part of being a customer? no, let's start a war between plastic/paper/reusable bags and get the customers infighting)
  • we're at fault for not buying $70,000 electric cars to reduce our carbon footprint (even though replacing something that exists with something new causes a bigger carbon footprint, and grid collapse would immediately occur)
  • we're at fault for pollution, smog days because we drive to work when the rich employers claw back working from home and public transport (in the US at least) is hampered by the same people that want us to buy those over-priced cars instead of removing the need for them
  • we're at fault for the carbon we generate by flying (specifically a US issue) even though there are not options connecting large swaths of the US that make any sense (Amtrak is overpriced, semi-unreliable on some routes, and can add days onto a trip, if you can even get to the last mile by train; Greyhound is trying to enshittify themselves by making bus terminals hard to access; driving is conceptually a bigger carbon creator than flying for longer distances; driving an electric car is too slow with the addition of limited range and charge times and lack of charge stations on a cross-country trip)

Those in power (of the media, of business, of government) make sure to make us feel like everything that is out of our control and broken is our fault, and we should feel responsible for it. This is by design, keeping us feeling bad and infighting amongst ourselves makes us lose sight of the real problem: those very same people pulling the puppet strings.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 31 points 3 months ago

NHS is just suffering from decades of destruction at the hand of the UK's version of US Republicans. They want it destroyed and continue to whittle away at to make perceptions such as this the norm, until they can fully destroy it.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 25 points 6 months ago

Those that caused the switchover to Flint River water that resulted in the disaster surfacing definitely should be drawn and quartered, no question. Snyder and his city managers put all this nonsense in motion and should be charged with crimes against humanity.

However, it's also a systemic, deeper problem in the US. Flint's pipes didn't suddenly become terrible overnight. The entire water system was in disrepair for decades. The only reason it didn't surface sooner was they were regulating the water going through it to hold the demons at bay. Even when it was working, pre-disaster, the water was safe to drink, but horrible from a drinking water perspective.

The whole system was a giant leaking piece of junk that basically kept working due to positive pressure pushing contaminants out of the leaks, and the pH level being maintained so the old pipes wouldn't start leeching into the water. That a GM engine plant had to switch water sources because the water was damaging the engine construction is just mind-blowing. Human bodies are vastly more delicate than engines.

Flint's not the only one either, many American cities with aging water infrastructure that wasn't properly maintained all have/had similar problems.

We are such a short-sighted country that seems to so quickly forget that our infrastructure requires constant maintenance and updates. I really think the generation that got to live among all the New Deal and post WWII infrastructure just thought they lived in a magic time where all this stuff just exists forever, rather than realizing it takes stewardship to keep things "the way they are". Now, we on the back end, reap the rewards of everything falling apart at the same time, faster than we can fix it.

[-] skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de 22 points 7 months ago

Just a really weird loud subsect. They're so loud now because they finally realize they're the minority and they don't like it. So they throw tantrums like children because their lifestyle is a commitment to low education and blind faith in a corrupt version of reality and a misinterpretation of their own faith.

Sadly, the Internet (troll farms, social media, etc.) has enabled easy access to loudness, to make it seem like they speak for everyone, when they don't.

There are plenty of Americans that are Christian and not apeshit. There are also plenty of Americans that are neither Christian, nor apeshit. These two groups just don't go around screaming about it all day because they're normal, sane, properly educated people.

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skuzz

joined 11 months ago