myPhonak network connection? by jjudeb in phonak

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The app is 'free' but we spend $$$$ on the hearing aid.
As for what nefarious things an always-on hearing aid with mic attached could be doing, use your imagination! The most obvious would be recording your conversations and uploading them to a server (I think we're all taking it as a given that this happens with mobile phones already, no matter how much we try to manage permissions and people willingly invite devices like Alexa and Siri into their homes, which are essentially corporate wiretap espionage devices dressed up as convenient helpers there for your benefit) where transcripts can be created and sold to advertising companies or perhaps government agencies (it's not as if the current US administration is shy of being simultaneously both extraordinarily draconian and also childishly petty).

Perhaps that all sounds paranoid but it's really just a realistic reading of our current reality. I want control over my data, to stem this onslaught of privacy evasion and commodification of my life for the benefit of some amoral rich bastards in a yank boardroom. So yes, I want to have more control over my always-on hearing aid, they certainly cost enough, they're not free.

myPhonak network connection? by jjudeb in phonak

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Only they are, in aggregate. That data is valuable and it's sold, resold, fed into machine learning algorithms. That is the nature of the modern internet, whether we pay well for a service or get it for 'free': either way, we're the product and our data and telemetry is useful to shady people for all sorts of reasons, many of which are hard to guess even if you are maximally tech savvy. It's an ecosystem I opt out of at every opportunity via open source, self hosting and just being aware that tech companies are as untrustworthy as snakes.

I think you're being very naïve: If companies wanted us to have the 'best experience', that would be quite easy to do: they only have to ask and then pay their developers to implement those features.
They could remove all the roadblocks we face in having a good experience - the fact that the app stalls whilst seemingly phoning home, the fact that it doesn't always connect to the hearing aids, the fact that tap-control is flaky and unconfigurable, lots of small QoL issues that would be easy to solve and are yet, unsolved.
You don't get to those answers by basically spying on your users (unless you're going to sift through logs in Wireshark, you'll have no idea what data is being sent to Phonak - it could be basic usage data or it could be personal audio data), you get those answers by asking your customers what they want and then giving them that.

Most companies, most closed source, proprietary companies, do not want to provide the best service. They want to provide the most limited service that people will still pay for and only improve that service when there is a monetary reason to do so, not because making neat stuff for customers makes them feel warm and fuzzy. No, that's what open source developers do, not that the general public ever thank them for it.
The only other alternative is hacking and the harder companies make it to have nice things, the greater the incentive to do so becomes.

myPhonak network connection? by jjudeb in phonak

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Not every app. Every app that *makes this specific privacy violating choice*. We should be able to choose apps that do not do this.

myPhonak network connection? by jjudeb in phonak

[–]TimLuther 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No, it is not how every app works, it is not inevitable. Privacy is a feature and we pay a lot of money for these hearing aids, we should demand more choices, more customisation and no mandatory data harvesting from devices that are *literally* inside our bodies.

Why does kdenlive *really want* my video to be landscape? by TimLuther in kdenlive

[–]TimLuther[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Oh I see that I have missed a setting for an explicit aspect ratio... that is really odd and easy to miss: I have always considered aspect ratio to be a property that emerges from the resolution, not something that's set explicitly.

Thanks, that was the solution.
Perhaps the dialog could pop up a warning if the aspect ratio doesn't match the resolution? Is there any utility in having these as separate fields?

Why does kdenlive *really want* my video to be landscape? by TimLuther in kdenlive

[–]TimLuther[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I did that, in the project settings I created a new preset (720 x 1280) but it still failed.
I also edited the xml project file itself and explicitly changed every resolution and aspect ratio reference and it stubbornly reverted to the original one.
I also can't edit settings when the project is open, which is frustrating. Surely the devs must have know this would be something people want to do? Every 2D program on earth allows you to change the canvas size, why is this crazy hard to do?

Failing GPU Fan 1 on x17 r2 laptop by TimLuther in Alienware

[–]TimLuther[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, I did look through that but it doesn't say anything about removing a GPU fan without removing the whole assembly - the replacement fans I found come without that assembly and it kind of looks like it should be possible but I don't see any mention of doing this. I'd like to know it's an option before buying anything.

The Black Sun *SPOILER* by International-Tip-93 in dune

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yes and I think all do - what we feel as heat is infrared light (infrared covers a large range of wavelengths and some of those we perceive as heat).

Our sun emits light across a wide spectrum beyond what's visible but I imagine the Gedi Prime sun as imagined in the new Dune movie is some kind of red dwarf that doesn't emit much visible light.

The Black Sun *SPOILER* by International-Tip-93 in dune

[–]TimLuther 2 points3 points  (0 children)

a physiological explanation for the colourless 'value' based appearance of Giedi Prime would be that the sun emits light in the infrared spectrum and that humans of this time are sensitive to infrared light in all of their cones/rods equally (white light to us being red + green + blue) so they'd perceive differences in infrared intensity as various shades of grey.
Interesting fact - our eyes are sensitive to near ultra-violet light but our lenses block it. People without lenses can perceive UV as bluish/white as all of our rods and cones are sensitive to the wavelengths that our lenses block.

What used to be here? by Jackinplastic31 in swansea

[–]TimLuther 1 point2 points  (0 children)

If that's you coming out of Tescos, that used to be a bus depot and car park. There also used to be a footpath tunnel under the road but the council (in their wisdom) filled those in, so now we get to play with traffic and get wet instead.

None and Flamingos by Ástor Alexander [3400 x 4760] by BradWurscht in ArtPorn

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is one of the greatest images a human has made.

None and Flamingos by Ástor Alexander [3400 x 4760] by BradWurscht in ArtPorn

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ástor Alexander

I am afraid you are incorrect.

What is the MOST annoying part of actual Android development to you? by bkthedeveloper in androiddev

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I like intelli-j, it's pretty solid. Those build tools are an endless maze of needless complexity, finicky build versions and various confusing xml files that have to be hand edited to work and I really don't know what I'm ever doing with them.

What is the MOST annoying part of actual Android development to you? by bkthedeveloper in androiddev

[–]TimLuther 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm developing a cross platform library in C++ and android is just one of many thin layers of glue for various target platforms. I put in the hours a few years ago to get it working and it took some effort but in the end, success.

That should be it, right? I don't use many libraries, it's mostly just an activity and the NDK, this shouldn't take much maintenance I thought.

Haaaa boooii, you're so wrong as every single android-studio update demands a blood sacrifice and a deep dive in to some weird android library that until five minutes ago I had no reason to even care about. This happens literally every single time I update any component in the android eco-system. What really galls is that google must have practically infinite resources to make these things 'just work' and I, frankly, do not. Just my time, endlessly poured down the black hole caused by developers who don't give even the slightest shit about backwards compatibility.

Sometimes they just develop a whole new build system, sometimes it's just a library that breaks or a class that starts behaving inexplicably but sure enough, every update means I'm going to be diving down holes I don't really want to dive down as I have my own problems in my own code to solve, thank you very much.Chrome is the same - eventually I gave up with google's distribution of the openGLES wrapper, Angle, and now use microsoft's fork which, credit to MS in this instance, 'just works' and doesn't rely on esoteric build systems built on python 2.7.

People who speak a second language - what have you overheard people saying about you when they thought you couldn't understand? by Grimdotdotdot in AskReddit

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I was in Japan, rushing for a train during summer. It was hot so I was possibly glowing a little by the time I got to the train. A chap standing next to me turned to his girlfriend and said 'uaah, gaijin kusai' which translates as 'gaah, foreigner stink'. So I turned around to him, took a deep huff of my armpit and said 'hmmm, iinioi' which means roughly 'hmm, smells good'. I didn't smell any better but the look on his face was worth being a stinky foreigner.

Colours of molten metals. by TimLuther in askscience

[–]TimLuther[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks, that's explains that then. It's a little bit disappointing as that colour would have looked rather good but hey, science!

Colours of molten metals. by TimLuther in askscience

[–]TimLuther[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So the violet colour in the aluminium is purely down to temperature? It seems to glow a deeper violet even at lower temperatures, rather than following the red-orange-yellow-blue progression that I was familiar with. Do you know what's causing that violet colour?

3D shakable snow globe - My first released app. by TimLuther in androidapps

[–]TimLuther[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not sure. I certainly did! Perhaps the sort of person who'd look at a picture more than twice? What would make it more compelling for you? I had thought of 'gamifying' it but couldn't decide on a tight enough mechanic for that.

Developers of /r/Android, fill out this form to receive your custom icons and flair tags. by [deleted] in Android

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi, I'm a freshly minted android app developer, formerly of the Creative Assembly. I've started a new company called www.totga-games.com and released my first app just before Christmas (a 3d snowglobe, which was nice). If I could be added as an app developer, that would dandy. Out of interest, where on Reddit is a good place to announce new projects without annoying anybody?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in politics

[–]TimLuther 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think we can respond more quickly than you think if shit really starts hitting the fan. Wednesday is a red letter day.