brianjo

The BBC is advising staff to remove TikTok from work phones

brianjo

March 2023

The amount of control these companies have on what gets fed to individuals in mind boggling. Just because personal data isn't being sent to China (yeah, right...) doesn't mean they can't control what types of videos and images are being sent out to the different demographics. By adjusting these algorithms, they can easily change people's moods and behaviors in not so subtle ways.

It's bad enough that companies in our country can do this, but even worse when a country that is trying to take down our country is able to sneak into our society and see what we are watching and sharing and experiment with feeding different programming to see how people react to it. Never in the history of society has this level of control been available.

Leaked iPhone 15 Pro images back up solid state button rumor

brianjo

March 2023

If implemented the way the trackpad works on the MacBook, it should be fine. The force touch Trackpad actually is BETTER and more consistent than the mechanical trackpad. If you didn't know, you probably wouldn't know that it's not a real switch. The only downside is that it doesn't work with gloves on.

For a phone in your pocket, replacing the mechanical switch means it's less likely to have accidental volume changes, but you need bare hands (or compatible gloves) to operate the volume.

For the mute switch though, the argument of going to a button vs a physical switch is hard to come up with a user argument that it's in any way better. Cheaper and more waterproof? Maybe. But from a user standpoint, being able to quickly physically flip a switch and have a clear indicator if you look at it vs a button. Even if it requires a long press for the button, you can't quickly look at the phone and see the status. If something on the display need to light up to indicate mute mode, well, now you need to light up the display when you may not want to put your phone into mute.

2022 iPad Pro M2 review: Six months later, powerful and still stale

brianjo

March 2023

There are relatively few things that the iPad pro can do BETTER than a Macbook. Yes, it's trying to be a replacement, but in just about every scenario, it's a huge step backwards in productivity if you choose that as your primary device.

Generally speaking, iPads are data CONSUMPTION devices and are excellent at that. For creation devices, they are amazing companions to your primary computer. It's cool to be able to pull out your MacBook and set the iPad ext to it as a second display with touch screen, or being able to pull out the iPad alone to show things to clients, but again, I always seem to gravitate back to the Mac as the day to day use device, as many times as I've tried to make the iPad my primary. It's just a step backwards.

TSMC managers think Americans don't work hard enough

brianjo

February 2023

chadbag said:

For as fat and lazy as Americans have become, the adjusted per capital GDP (based on PPP - purchasing power parity) in the US is still higher than in Taiwan.

And that is including all the fat and lazy ones. Which the TMSC managers don’t believe exist in Taiwan.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita

Per capita numbers is an average and takes into account many different things. The USA at $75K vs Taiwan at 69.5K is a relatively close number. But, if you look at poverty levels between the two countries, Taiwan has less than 1% poverty, whereas the US is over 10%. Different distribution system.

The fact is, in the US, many people don't want to work. They feel working is beneath them. In Taiwan, it's considered an honor to work and be successful. In the US, we can get away with it for now because the US currently has more money. However, the percentage of global wealth in the US has been on a pretty steady decline for the last couple of decades. Eventually, that well will run dry and not working will not longer be an option.