Ember's recent activity
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Comment on What long book series is worth its page count? in ~books
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Comment on The iPhones 16 in ~tech
Ember LinkThe facile take is that Apple has run out of hardware ideas and now just adds a new button to the iPhone each year — Action button last year, Camera Control this year, maybe they’ll finally add those green/red phone call buttons next year. But that’s underestimating just how radical it is for Apple, in the iPhone’s 18th annual hardware iteration, to add a hardware button dedicated to a single application.
After over a week using several iPhone 16 review units, my summary of Camera Control is that it takes a while to get used to — I feel like I’m still getting used to it — but it already feels like something I wouldn’t want to do without. It’s a great idea, and a bold one.
Also, none of the Apple Intelligence features currently in iOS 18.1 are game-changing. The Clean Up feature in Photos is pretty good, and when it doesn’t produce good results, you can simply revert to the original. The AI-generated summaries of messages, notifications, and emails in Mail are at times apt, but at others not so much. I haven’t tried the Rewrite tool because I’m, let’s face it, pretty confident in my own writing ability. But, after my own final editing pass, I ran this entire review through the Proofread feature, and it correctly flagged seven mistakes I missed, and an eighth that I had marked, but had forgotten to fix. Most of its suggestions that I have chosen to ignore were, by the book, legitimate.
Type to Siri is definitely cool, but I don’t see why we couldn’t have had that feature since 2010. I have actually used the new “Product Knowledge” feature, where Siri draws upon knowledge from Apple’s own support documentation, while writing this review. It’s great. But maybe Apple’s support website should have had better search years ago?
These are all good features. But let’s say you never heard of LLMs or ChatGPT. And instead, at WWDC this year, without any overarching “Apple Intelligence” marketing umbrella, Apple had simply announced features like a new cool-looking Siri interface, typing rather than talking to Siri, being able to remove unwanted background objects from photos, a “proofreading” feature for the standard text system that extends and improves the years-old but (IMO) kinda lame grammar-checking feature on MacOS, and brings it to iOS too? Those would seem like totally normal features Apple might add this year. But not tentpole features. These Apple Intelligence features strike me as nothing more than the sort of nice little improvements Apple makes across its OSes every year.
I might be underselling how impossible the Clean Up feature would be without generative AI. I am very likely underselling how valuable the new writing tools might prove to people trying to write in a second language, or who simply aren’t capable of expressing themselves well in their first language. But like I said, they’re all good features. I just don’t see them as combining to form the collective tentpole that Apple is marketing “Apple Intelligence” as. I get it that from Apple’s perspective, engineering-wise, it’s like adding an entire platform to the existing OS. It’s a massive engineering effort and the on-device execution constraints are onerous. But from a user’s perspective, they’re just ... features. When’s the last year Apple has not added cool new features along the scope of these?
If not for the AI hype wave the industry is currently caught in, this emphasis on which features are part of “Apple Intelligence” would seem as strange as Apple emphasizing, in advertisements, which apps are now built using SwiftUI.
Every phone on the market will soon be able to generate impersonal saccharine passages of text and uncanny-valley images via LLMs. Only Apple has the talent and passion to create something as innovative and genuinely useful as Camera Control.
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The iPhones 16
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Comment on Yarn, React, and Udemy. Help requested. in ~comp
Ember LinkI’m on mobile so can’t confirm, but it’s possible web-vitals removed ReportHandler or renamed it. You could look through their changelog for breaking changes....I’m on mobile so can’t confirm, but it’s possible web-vitals removed ReportHandler or renamed it. You could look through their changelog for breaking changes.
https://github.com/GoogleChrome/web-vitals/blob/main/CHANGELOG.md
Then you could either downgrade that library or fix the breaking changes.
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Comment on Heat death of the internet in ~tech
Ember LinkA lot of this is less depressing if you use the Internet as a tool instead a source of life. Watching a YouTube trailer, enjoying an online magazine or social media site, online streaming...A lot of this is less depressing if you use the Internet as a tool instead a source of life.
- Watching a YouTube trailer, enjoying an online magazine or social media site, online streaming services:
- These are all modern Internet luxuries for entertainment. What about using word-of-mouth from your friends to judge which movie to see? Reading real print magazines or books over lunch? Getting DVDs from the library?
- Coworkers using ChatGPT to produce garbage:
- Hold them responsible. Just like the old days when normal human coworkers were being lazy, if someone's producing bad work, then it's their fault. Don't take the fall for them.
- Recipes filled with ads, useless search results, getting mistaken for an American:
- Do more stuff locally. In your neighborhood, town, city. Get a cookbook from the library, ask a friend for their favorite recipe. Spend more time talking to real people, learning from experience and advice.
- (Admittedly, Wikipedia is hard to beat.)
- Airbnb and Uber being terrible:
- We all knew these companies were just propped up by VC cash. It was never going to last, and hotels & taxis haven't died off.
We don't need the Internet to live happily.
- Watching a YouTube trailer, enjoying an online magazine or social media site, online streaming services:
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Comment on VR gaming is reawakening my enthusiasm for games in ~games
Ember LinkHalf Life: Alyx is an awesome game that will always be a highlight in gaming for me. It’s such an incredible opportunity to experience truly immersive gameplay; so many other games and graphics...Half Life: Alyx is an awesome game that will always be a highlight in gaming for me. It’s such an incredible opportunity to experience truly immersive gameplay; so many other games and graphics cards and hardware companies claim to sell immersive experiences, but Alyx is the only thing that’s come close. The visceral churn in your stomach when a headcrab jumps at you or a fully armored soldier charges with murderous intent… it’s an instinct that no 2D game can trigger.
Sadly I think it’ll be unique in the gaming industry for a while. Nobody makes games like Valve, and it feels like no one’s trying either. Maybe that’s just pessimism, but I don’t expect another experience like Alyx for a while.
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Comment on Zendaya-Palooza box office weekend pushes ‘Dune: Part Two’ to $700M WW; ‘Godzilla x Kong’ to half billion as Legendary Warner pics count $1.2B WW in ~movies
Ember Link ParentWhy? Why does this have to be a rule? Stories aren’t a computer program written to be executed and return a single output. There’s nothing sacred about the pages of a novel. Why should we deny...A movie adaptation of a book should attempt to change as little as possible to make the original story work for film. If you wanted to tell a different story, then tell a completely different story.
Why?
Why does this have to be a rule? Stories aren’t a computer program written to be executed and return a single output. There’s nothing sacred about the pages of a novel.
Why should we deny generations of storytelling techniques, where narratives are retold and altered to suite the audience and the medium and recounter’s tastes? Like musicians before the digital age, performing variations and creative interpretations instead of getting trapped in a Spotify definitive MP3.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tildes
Ember Link ParentI know old forum etiquette was “no necro posting” but I’ve enjoyed it here on tildes. Usually the revival has something new to add and isn’t spam. Also tildes is good about collapsing what you’ve...I know old forum etiquette was “no necro posting” but I’ve enjoyed it here on tildes. Usually the revival has something new to add and isn’t spam. Also tildes is good about collapsing what you’ve already read and highlight what you haven’t.
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Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tildes
Ember Link ParentYup tildes is perfect for my post-Reddit needs. It’s more in-depth and slower, so I can spend 15min on the site and feel just as “caught up” as hours of Reddit browsing would take.Yup tildes is perfect for my post-Reddit needs. It’s more in-depth and slower, so I can spend 15min on the site and feel just as “caught up” as hours of Reddit browsing would take.
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Comment on I just switched to an iPhone, what should I do to make the most of this change? in ~tech
Ember Link ParentThis point is pretty important. To expand on that point, here's specifics on what permissions to expect: Notifications Most apps will ask for push notifications. There's also Time Sensitive...When I first switched, I often denied app permission requests for random things. I’d recommend not doing that. It can severely hamper the usability and as a new user, it’s not always obvious how/where to re-enable the permission.
This point is pretty important. To expand on that point, here's specifics on what permissions to expect:
- Notifications
- Most apps will ask for push notifications.
- There's also Time Sensitive Notifications which are obvious by their name; you can separately allow or disallow those.
- And a few apps have Critical Notifications, which will go off even if your phone is muted (e.g. the Home app has this for things like water sensors, for if your house is flooding).
- Contacts
- Some apps ask for this but I usually don't allow it unless it makes sense to me.
- e.g. Venmo can use your contacts to suggest people to pay, but I don't really feel like trusting them with my contact list.
- Photos
- Some apps ask for this.
- You can grant "Limited Access" or "Private Access" to avoid sharing all your photos with each app.
- Bluetooth
- Pretty core permission, like notifications, apps will ask if they have any external device features at all. A similar permission they'll ask for is "Local Network".
- Camera & Microphone
- pretty self-explanatory
- Calendar
- Rarely asked for.
- You can grant apps "Add Events Only" so they can write to your calendar without full access.
- Health
- Very situational. You can permission individual health categories by app; e.g. you can grant sleep data to a sleep tracking app, calorie data to food apps, etc. It's nice to have these permissions/integrations enabled so all your health data gets saved into one place.
- Motion & Fitness
- Rare but some map/car apps use it to determine if you're walking or driving.
- Location Services
- Lots of apps will ask for this permission but be careful granting it.
- "While Using" will not allow the app to track you when the app is closed. This is a good compromise to me.
- "When Shared" will let you choose to share your location every time the app asks for it. Decent if you rarely use the app and want to be re-asked again.
- There's also a "Precise Location" toggle for each app. If the app doesn't need to know your exact address at the moment, you can just share a general location.
- "Always" means the app can always wake up and track your location. Apple is pretty stingy about this level of permission for good reason: apps can't immediately ask for this permission, and they have to provide a good explanation when they do. Apps will first ask for "When Shared" permissions and then only later can they ask for upgraded "Always" permissions. iPhone will also periodically confirm this with you, with a popup showing a map of where the app has tracked your location recently, to make sure you're OK with it. Don't be alarmed by this popup because sometimes you want "Always" for a few things like weather, driving, or a stargazing app I use called Sky Guide.
- Finally, there's a "track your activity" permission that apps can request, to get permission to track you across multiple websites and devices. You can completely disable these prompts by toggling off "Allow Apps to Request to Track".
And you can always review all these categories in Settings -> Privacy & Security, or Settings -> Notifications.
- Notifications
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Comment on I just switched to an iPhone, what should I do to make the most of this change? in ~tech
Ember (edited )LinkTips on various settings: By default, iPhone ends a phone call if you press the lock button. You can prevent this in Settings -> Accessibility -> Touch -> Prevent Lock to End Call. The easiest way...Tips on various settings:
- By default, iPhone ends a phone call if you press the lock button. You can prevent this in Settings -> Accessibility -> Touch -> Prevent Lock to End Call.
- The easiest way to start a screen recording is via the control center. You can customize it in Settings -> Control Center. My custom buttons are: Low Power Mode, Flashlight, Screen Recording, Apple TV Remote.
- By default, other people can do a lot of stuff on your Lock Screen without your passcode. I’ve turned most of the toggles off in Settings -> Face ID & Passcode, under the heading Allow Access When Locked. Only ones I have turned on is Lock Screen Widgets, Live Activities, and Return Missed Calls.
- In that same screen, I’ve also turned on Erase Data. I have backups enabled, so if someone is really attempting to get into my phone, I’m fine with it getting erased.
- Also in that same screen, I have Stolen Device Protection turned on. It’s a relatively new security feature. And I have Face ID with a Mask turned off unless I’m in a situation needing a mask.
- Live Activities are really neat but giving permission is a bit strange. The first time an app launches a live activity, it’ll appear in your Lock Screen along with a prompt asking if you’re ok with that app starting an activity. Press Allow to let it continue.
- iPhone will periodically check if you’re OK with apps having full location permissions. For example, if you have a weather widget, it probably needs a lot of location permission or else it’ll stop working. I’ve had less tech savvy family members just hit disallow when iPhone checks in about location and then wonder why their weather stopped updating.
- iPhone will ding a text message again after a few minutes if you don’t pick your phone after the first time. It can mislead you as to how many texts you’ve received. I leave it on because I'm aware of this feature, but if it annoys you, it can be turned off in Settings -> Messages -> Notifications -> Customize Notifications -> Repeat Alerts.
- You can have keyboard in multiple languages, so that autocorrect doesn’t get trained wrong. Settings -> General -> Keyboard -> Keyboards. Especially if you’re doing something like Duolingo, it helps to have the other language’s keyboard set up so you can get help with accents, etc. Switch using the globe icon in the keyboard.
- If you’re using iCloud, go through all the toggles in {Your Name} -> iCloud -> Apps Using iCloud -> Show All, and make sure everything’s on. I’ve had phones default to some stuff being off, and then it’s not getting properly synced.
- in {Your Name} -> Contact Key Verification, you can toggle on a new feature. Once it’s enabled, you can manually verify contacts in-person. You and your contact can get checkmarks next to each other’s names for enhanced security. Look up the whole process online if you’re interested.
- I tend to leave auto-brightness turned on because it's good enough for my daily use. However, if I manually change the brightness for a moment, it can take a while for auto-brightness to take over again. You can skip this waiting period by toggling auto-brightness off and then on again, in Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Auto-Brightness.
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Comment on Not every student needs Algebra 2. UC should be flexible on math requirement. in ~science
Ember Link ParentI think it was similar for me. I spent so long in basic math mentally dismissing f(x) as just a synonym for y. It took science classes using other inputs besides x plus matrices with g(x), h(x),...I think it was similar for me. I spent so long in basic math mentally dismissing
f(x)as just a synonym fory. It took science classes using other inputs besidesxplus matrices withg(x),h(x), etc. to really stick. -
Comment on Not every student needs Algebra 2. UC should be flexible on math requirement. in ~science
Ember Link ParentI can absolutely understand Calculus and Trigonometry being optional courses in high school. Trig is situationally useful and Calc is barely useful if you’re not a STEM major. But Algebra 2… it’s...I can absolutely understand Calculus and Trigonometry being optional courses in high school. Trig is situationally useful and Calc is barely useful if you’re not a STEM major.
But Algebra 2… it’s pretty much the capstone of basic math. Polynomials, logarithms, exponents, functions… pretty much everyone can benefit from understanding logarithmic vs. exponential graphs shown on the news, or compound interest, or break-even points, etc. Even knowing what a “function” is would help demystify “algorithms” if you understand that it’s just inputs and outputs.
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Comment on What did you change your mind about this year? in ~talk
Ember LinkThat I would be ok living alone for the rest of my life. I started dating someone this year and very quickly started to notice all sorts of things about myself—things I thought were unimportant or...That I would be ok living alone for the rest of my life.
I started dating someone this year and very quickly started to notice all sorts of things about myself—things I thought were unimportant or low priority, that I’d really just been suppressing. I used to be fine with being alone for days at a time, peaceful and quietly working. And now I’m not. It was a bit unsettling at the beginning, seeing myself change. But the joy is worth it.
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Comment on Can someone please recommend me a no BS printer I can use like half a dozen times a year in ~tech
Ember LinkI’ve had a Brother HL-L2315DW sitting on my shelf for probably 6 years now. Prints maybe a dozen sheets a year. Never had to replace the toner, got it at Walmart for $100.I’ve had a Brother HL-L2315DW sitting on my shelf for probably 6 years now. Prints maybe a dozen sheets a year. Never had to replace the toner, got it at Walmart for $100.
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Comment on "Java is fast but in practice, PHP sites run faster as PHP coders take more straightforward approach to design and don't get lost trying to implement exotic design patterns and endless abstractions" in ~comp
Ember Link Parent*C# 12 just released last week (.NET 8). Long gone are the days of C# 7 and Windows-only .NET Framework.*C# 12 just released last week (.NET 8). Long gone are the days of C# 7 and Windows-only .NET Framework.
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Comment on Monaspace in ~design
Ember LinkWasn’t too interested until I got to this part: Because yeah, copilot can be a bit confusing sometimes since it’s in the same font. Sure it’s grayed out but that doesn’t always distinguish it...Wasn’t too interested until I got to this part:
What if Copilot had its own voice?
Because yeah, copilot can be a bit confusing sometimes since it’s in the same font. Sure it’s grayed out but that doesn’t always distinguish it enough.
And then the Texture Healing bit seemed really cool.
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Comment on The sneakiness of embedded allistic ableism in ~health.mental
Ember Link ParentThis is the most important context that may or may not be missing from that tweet. The curse of Twitter’s format is how it forces terse, biting, contextless messages. Was the original speaker...hyperbole is a valid rhetorical device
This is the most important context that may or may not be missing from that tweet. The curse of Twitter’s format is how it forces terse, biting, contextless messages. Was the original speaker using hyperbole or not? Was the tweet’s author exaggerating the original speaker’s words? Was it popular on Twitter because users misread it?
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Comment on Request - Suggestions of a laptop brand or style for someone who is clumsy in ~tech
Ember Link ParentOne of my family members grudgingly owned a MacBook for years. They dropped it so many times the lid was slightly bent, and it never stopped working. Of course that's just anecdote; there are...One of my family members grudgingly owned a MacBook for years. They dropped it so many times the lid was slightly bent, and it never stopped working. Of course that's just anecdote; there are legitimate concerns from the repair community about Apple products which should be considered.
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Comment on Insomnia 8 forces users to login and use cloud storage in ~comp
Ember LinkInsomnia is a popular alternative to Postman, which grew in part due to Postman’s push for cloud storage and logins. The latest update to Insomnia seems to be pushing down the same path now:Insomnia is a popular alternative to Postman, which grew in part due to Postman’s push for cloud storage and logins.
The latest update to Insomnia seems to be pushing down the same path now:
The challenge is that we cannot continue to offer a great product with all these capabilities while working on an abstraction layer that supports two different storage backends for all data in Insomnia, adds too much complexity to the whole product. Unlike Postman, the data is end to end encrypted, so there is data sharing concern with Insomnia.
While Redwall is a really great series, I personally wouldn’t say it’s all “worth the page count”. I remember thinking (as a late teenager) how many of the books felt like just re-tellings of previous entries. Main characters with tragic or idyllic backstories, struggle against a tyrant, journey across the wilderness, vast hordes of evil enemies… all fantastic and enjoyable as a kid but a tiny bit repetitive once I recognized the pattern.