Accidental Tech Podcast615: A Mildly Brisk Walk
https://atp.fm/615
@caseyliss’s adventures in sports piracy, @siracusa’s loss of apes, and @marcoarment’s visions of pores.
sayrer@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment it's worth it to make the app under the default limit (currently 200MB, does go up) so people install it on cellular. going over that has big effects on install rates.
Hdsheena@sayrer @atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment can they install it but then later update/use some other mechanism to install a bunch more stuff later? I live on the edge of my pixel 5 storage limit and would DEFINITELY choose a smaller version of an app if it had a competitor!
@Hdsheena @atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment I think it really depends on the app. I have a Pixel 6A as well as an iPhone, and there is a Storage settings panel that tells you where the space is going.
Overcast has a pretty good “Manage Storage" settings screen, because you don't want your podcast player economizing storage before you get on a long flight or something. So, it depends. Sorry for the unsatisfying answer.
Ric Santos@sayrer came here to say that...
Mathew Schaffer@atpfm @caseyliss Hilariously, the way to pronounce that streaming service is “Da Zone”
Alex@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment I think another big contributor to app size is that companies don't split out their apps based on their offerings either. It's "one app per company".
Tesla has a whole suite of functionality for their battery and solar offerings that somebody with just the car will never see.
SaaS companies with B2C and B2B offerings also frequently use the same app for both. The B2C customers get a lot less functionality, but both groups have to download the same app.
rowdy26@atpfm for all the ‘nerd’ flexing Marco perpetuates, he now admits a total lack of NFT knowledge??
Also, one doesn’t need to be a bitcoin advocate to acknowledge cash, both physical and electronic versions, are scammed/stolen on a monumental scale every year throughout the world…carrying on like it’s unique to crypto is kinda silly.
Casey Liss@rowdy26 Yes but cash is a touch harder to steal, as it requires physical presence.
Steve Wilkinson (cgWerks)@caseyliss @rowdy26 True, but there are ways to make the crypto harder to steal than cash, even with physical presence. It does take more learning effort, though.
That is a legit Achilles' heel to Bitcoin or any kind of self-sovereignty over these kind of things.
I think in the future, we'll see similar kinds of banking services for people who don't want to learn, or want the bank's protection. But, then similar downsides, too.
@caseyliss this is soooooo not true…
jramskov
RJ Trumbley@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment In addition to Europe, DAZN has the streaming rights for Sunday ticket in Canada.
Christian Kent 𝘊𝘒 :＼﹥@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment Overtime feedback:
Do I regularly use Services? Yes yesterday I used the Convert Image service to turn a HEIC into JPEG so that Gmail wouldn’t hate it
But my favourite & rarely used one is a Quartz filter I made myself, that takes a PDF and compresses all the bitmaps as hard as possible, with no change in the dimensions. A bit like the “Reduce File Size” default one, but I call mine “Reduce File Size Even More”
Adeiko@atpfm @caseyliss I’m not sure how big of a fan you are, but using something like NFLBite.com (a ‘fell off the truck’ solution) might make your problem easier to solve. Just casting to the tv from any computer usually works perfect
@Adeiko I am explicitly trying to avoid this because I found it way too janky. 😆
Odin@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment I wonder how Chromebooks would be affected if Google actually had to spin off Chrome
Marcos Huerta@atpfm @siracusa I wonder if the Siri LLM thing is harder than we think. You can’t really train a model on just human -> siri pairs. It would just be part of the rest of the tokens. Maybe they have to put it in context window and creating a giant prompt with every siri-speakable command template is too big? Especially if they are trying a local model.
The prompts we’ve seen in OS X are comical: begging the LLM to do what they want. Without the right prompt, it wouldn’t know whatever the meta-siri language is.
Dr. Calhoun PhD@siracusa @marcoarment @atpfm @caseyliss I don't have any vr gear but isn't this app vr concerts? https://www.amazevr.com/vrconcerts
Aaron “Abolish ICE” Madlon-Kay@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment RE: Overtime
#Emacs, of course, has smart comment (re-)wrapping built in:
M-x fill-paragraph, by default bound to M-q (and frequently replaced by mode-specific implementations, so M-q is the preferred invocation)
But Emacs isn't an IDE! → Yes it is now that LSP is a thing
But I don't work in Emacs! → Speaking of services, I have an "Edit in Emacs" macOS service for you:
https://github.com/amake/dotfiles/tree/e22b2da8afc53f710badd047a15c2d9c2229819c/services/Library/Services/Edit%20in%20Emacs.workflow/Contents
@atpfm Hmm, I suppose this can be for audience benefit then, but I keep hoping you three will drop some biases enough to be prepared for the future.
Sorry about your loss, John, but NEVER put private key (a.k.a. seed phrase) into something online, including online devices (unless it is smaller amounts, and you need 'hot wallet' access).
This is why hardware wallets exist (which it sounds like John realizes, but many don't). Hot/cold wallet & seed phrase protection is core knowledge!
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@atpfm Note: I'm going to refer to Bitcoin from here on out... because as Michael Saylor says, 'There is no second best.' There are many reasons for this. If you don't understand why, you're essentially a day-trader. (You might get rich, or wrecked. Be warned!)
re: money - Money **is** a representative thing. That is the whole point.
It doesn't have intrinsic value. That paper in your pocket with a president face doesn't have intrinsic value either.
This is Money 101 ...
@atpfm You guys are embarrassing yourselves with quips about 'nothing' and 'worthless' etc.
Markets are what establish value. This is the whole cup of water by a spring vs in the desert thing. Bitcoin has value because it is valued for its properties and purchasing power. Period!
It could lose that, just like the piece of paper with president face in your pocket (cf. Weimar Germany or Lebanon). I suppose you could at least start a camp fire with cash... so maybe you win there.
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@atpfm Yes, there are many protections associated with fiat (gov't declared money) and the fiat ecosystem.
These are good, until you realize the cost (even in the best one, USD) has been losing 1/2 your purchasing power every 7 to 20 years. This is why you have to invest, to stay ahead of inflation. And, even then, you're not coming out unless you're subtracting the inflation from your gain.
Almost everyone, but the best investors, are losing ground.
Is that worth FDIC?
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@atpfm Then there are all the costs associated with the system, including millions of lives lost around the world protecting the fiat system.
All the wealth transfer going on (cf. Cantillion effect). All the corruption/empowerment controlling the money printer affords. (Imagine how hard endless wars would be if gov'ts had to tax in real money to keep warring, instead of just print it up?)
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@atpfm I went to my first Bitcoin conference a few months back. What might surprise most not familiar with the Bitcoin community, is that education (on basics like wallets), most of the talks were humanitarian in nature... changing the world for the better.
Of course we get excited when our buying power goes up (it's amazing how this turns people from spenders to savers).
Bitcoin is primarily a social movement. It isn't going anywhere. It is just a matter of when you decide to get on board.
Andrew Kerr@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment “Hey Siri, let’s watch Family Guy.” “If you think it could be serious, ask me to call emergency services or someone you trust.” It might have been more helpful if Siri suggested other shows to watch instead of making what sounds like a rude value judgement.
Janne Ojaniemi@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment oldie but goodie, and relevant:
Quark and Odo discuss NFTs and Crypto Currency
DavidSchaub@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment
While John is perfectly correct that "High Power Mode" is really just faster fan profile, the secondary power consequences are (all of these are basically the same):
- Apple has advised High Power Mode users to use larger power bricks.
- Being able to avoid thermal throttling means consuming more power over time.
- Running faster longer means a smaller power supply might not power the laptop AND charge the battery as quickly.
Diggory@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment Services are amazing (until the security department of Apple decides that they are too dangerous...)
Back in (checks source code) 2010 I wrote an Obj-C service bundle which allowed the user to select text in any app of the form "a:b" and invoke it with the keyboard shortcut [Command Shift | (pipe)]. It replaced the selected text with an HTML tagged version of 'b' with the tag 'a'
e.g. 'strong:Rick Astley' would become '<strong>Rick Astley</strong>'
I was writing a lot of HTML by hand at that point....
More complex tags had special cases.
I still think that there's something missing from the WIMP/GUI UI that Automator / Workflow / OpenDoc has not yet to quite get quite right in terms of power vs/ease
@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment I use my Mac Mini essentially to have the family’s iCloud data stored locally to be able to back it up using Time Machine and Backblaze. I have the user accounts on an external drive. I don’t understand why Apple doesn’t offer a cloud backup service or at least allow users to sync iCloud Drive to an external disk.
Nathan King@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment RE: Siri. As a lead dev at a large company, I have zero doubt the engineering minds at Apple could create a competitive, if not market-leading voice assistant. Most delivery failures are due to a visionless Product Owner or poorly structured/resourced team.
@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment hello hello. The ATP code for aura frames doesn’t work when UK is selected for the site region in the top right hand corner. Is this meant to be the case, only US? No problem if not, just didn’t know if it was a bug or international.
John Siracusa@liambarber We will try to find out, but in the meantime, maybe try asking Aura. https://auraframes.com/contact
@liambarber Aura has confirmed that the code is US-only. Sorry about that.
@siracusa no problem. I still put ATP in the ‘where did you hear about us’ bit, regardless. Consider it a Christmas gift 😄
outadoc 
@atpfm I don't see why Android could not work as an independent entity, funded by a coalition of phone manufacturers, which all benefit from having a standardized strong competitor to Apple's OS.
Granted, there are many ways it could fail (for example if Samsung doesn't play ball), but I think this structure already exists for similar industries?
Google for sure brings good things to Android, speaking as an Android dev, but I think Google having the Pixel fragilizes its future in some ways.
Sören@atpfm @caseyliss @siracusa @marcoarment you cannot force “performance core only”, but you *can* move processes to e-core-only, or vice versa (in some cases) move background processes to a mix of p- and e-cores.
Quoting from https://ss64.com/mac/taskpolicy.html
> Promote pid #64 to run on both E and P cores:
$ taskpolicy -B -p 64
> Demote pid #64 to run only on E cores:
$ taskpolicy -b -p 64
More discussion at https://eclecticlight.co/2022/01/24/how-you-cant-promote-threads-on-an-m1/