Fal's recent activity

  2. Comment on Chechnya 'bans music that is too fast or too slow' in ~music

    Fal
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    Some back-of-the-napkin math tells me that the nightcore version of the Russian national anthem should be about 102 bpm, so they can just play that instead.

    Some back-of-the-napkin math tells me that the nightcore version of the Russian national anthem should be about 102 bpm, so they can just play that instead.

    4 votes

  4. Comment on We need to talk about Trader Joe's in ~food

    Fal
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    After six months of conversations with five founders of small to midsize food brands, it appears to be an open secret in the consumer packaged goods industry that Trader Joe’s outsources inspiration for new products by targeting emerging brands under the guise of recruiting them to manufacture private-label items. Private labeling is the ubiquitous (and often clandestine) practice of consumer food brands creating exclusive products for third-party retailers. The terms of these contracts vary, but the enlisted food brand typically receives compensation in the form of a production fee or profit-sharing arrangement.

    According to these sources, Trader Joe’s commonly solicits product samples and even asks for potential recipe adjustments—a revealing and time-consuming exercise for bootstrapped founders—before inexplicably abandoning the negotiations and releasing its own private-label versions of similar products at lower prices.

    The Monrovia, California–based Trader Joe’s, which owns and operates 545 stores in 42 states plus Washington, DC, is a widely loved brand with a motivated fan base. Trader Joe’s aficionados regularly brave crowded stores and long lines to stock up on signature frozen meals, like its wildly popular Mandarin Orange Chicken and Cauliflower Gnocchi, as well as quirky private-label snacks like Peanut Butter Filled Pretzel Nuggets and Baked Cheese Crunchies. But behind the kitschy grocery chain’s public face, with its superficial good vibes and Hawaiian-shirted cashiers, is a litany of thorny ethics and questionable business practices surrounding how it handles sourcing and packaging certain private-label ethnic food products.

    14 votes

  6. Comment on What's a game that you feel is almost great? in ~games

    Fal
    Link
    I love Mirror's Edge Catalyst (it's one of the few games I bothered 100%-ing), but there are two main issues that I think are holding it back from being great. First, the story could use some...

    I love Mirror's Edge Catalyst (it's one of the few games I bothered 100%-ing), but there are two main issues that I think are holding it back from being great. First, the story could use some touch-ups; even though its not super important to my overall enjoyment of the game, I think its overall low quality definitely harms the quality of the entire experience. Secondly, and more importantly, the open-world is entirely squandered. The City of Glass is actually a decently sized and good looking open-world setting, but almost every main quest is in one of five or so locations around the city. This results in my running the same few routes to get between quests. It wasn't until I went through the process of getting all the collectibles that I saw many parts of the city for the first time.

    It's a shame too, since I think that Catalyst's movement and gameplay is some of the most fun in any game, and the aesthetic is, in my opinion, gorgeous. I still hold out some hope for a Mirror's Edge 3, but I just don't see it happening any time soon.

    5 votes

  7. Comment on Megathread: April Fools’ Day 2024 on the internet in ~talk

    Fal
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    Silksong's April Fool's Day update is real Ah, the Silksong experience remains intact, at least.

    Silksong's April Fool's Day update is real

    This year, like every year, the gaming industry celebrated April Fools’ Day with a myriad of fake news to entertain fans. That included classic celebrations in Overwatch and the continuation of a tired trend by Palworld’s devs. But one of the most unexpected April Fools’ Day developments came from Hollow Knight Silksong, in the form of an Xbox store page for the long-awaited title. Even more shocking, the page is real—despite the day it appeared on.

    Silksong passed five years in development earlier this year, and foolishly hoping for an update on the game, especially a release date, has become a running joke every time a showcase from Xbox or Nintendo comes around. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that as the page made its way around social media alongside numerous April Fools’ Day jokes from the industry, fans were initially reluctant to believe the page was genuine. It is indeed real, though. Unfortunately, there’s still no release date.

    Unfortunately, there’s still no release date.

    Ah, the Silksong experience remains intact, at least.

    2 votes

  8. Comment on France plans mobile school force after headteacher resigns over death threats in ~humanities

    Fal
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    France is setting up a mobile security force for schools "experiencing difficulties", days after the headteacher of a Paris school resigned because of death threats.

    The head was falsely accused of striking a student in a row over her wearing an Islamic headscarf in school.

    Education Minister Nicole Belloubet said the mobile force was intended to reassure teachers and boost security.

    Tensions in French schools are high since the killing of two teachers.

    Samuel Paty was decapitated on the street in a Paris suburb in 2020 and Dominique Bernard was killed at his school in Arras five months ago. Former students who had been radicalised were involved in both killings.

    The education ministry said the "mobile school force" would be composed of about 20 education officers who could be deployed within 48 hours from the start of the next school year, wherever local authorities needed additional support.

    12 votes

  10. Comment on ‘Resist this’: outrage as BBC replace voice actor with AI voiceover in ~tv

    Fal
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    Sara Poyzer, who stars in the stage production of the Mamma Mia! musical, claims that she has been told that her voiceover work in an upcoming BBC production will be replaced by AI.

    The actor’s posts on social media appear to show a screengrab from an email sent by a production company working for the BBC, which are in response to some voiceover work she had been pencilled in to perform.

    “Sorry for the delay,” it reads. “We have had the approval from the BBC to use the AI generated voice so we won’t need Sara any more.” Poyzer captions it: “Sobering”.

    Following the furore, the BBC released a comment claiming that there were very specific circumstances that led to Poyzer’s replacement. A spokesperson said: “We are making a highly sensitive documentary which features a contributor who is nearing the end of life and is now unable to speak. We have been working closely with their family to explore how we might best represent the contributor’s voice at the end of the film when words they have written are read out.”

    “In these very particular circumstances and with the family’s wishes in mind we have agreed to use AI for a brief section to recreate a voice which can now no longer be heard. This will be clearly labelled within the film.”

    5 votes

  12. Comment on Trans men enter Miss Italy pageant in droves after trans women are told they can’t compete in ~lgbt

    Fal
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    On an unrelated note, 'Federico Barbarossa' is a great name. If you are also in the process of transitioning, and are choosing a new name, I implore you to consider taking the name of a former...

    More than 100 transgender men have entered the Miss Italy pageant this week, according to an activist leading a protest against recent comments by the pageant’s organizer, who said trans women wouldn’t be allowed to compete.

    The comments came after another European pageant, Miss Netherlands, crowned its first transgender winner, Rikkie Valerie Kollé, this month. About a week later, Patrizia Mirigliani, the official organizer of Miss Italy, told an Italian radio station that Miss Italy wouldn’t allow trans women to compete.

    Trans activist Federico Barbarossa, who lives in Bari, a town in southern Italy, said that he became angry when he saw Mirigliani’s comments but that he was “also kind of amused by it, because I was like, ‘Yeah, well, I was assigned female at birth, but they would reject me because I look like a boy, and they would consider me as a boy,’” he said in an interview with NBC News.

    On an unrelated note, 'Federico Barbarossa' is a great name. If you are also in the process of transitioning, and are choosing a new name, I implore you to consider taking the name of a former Holy Roman Emperor.

    43 votes

  14. Comment on Hackers found a way to open any of three million hotel keycard locks in seconds in ~tech

    Fal
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    When thousands of security researchers descend on Las Vegas every August for what's come to be known as “hacker summer camp,” the back-to-back Black Hat and Defcon hacker conferences, it's a given that some of them will experiment with hacking the infrastructure of Vegas itself, the city's elaborate array of casino and hospitality technology. But at one private event in 2022, a select group of researchers were actually invited to hack a Vegas hotel room, competing in a suite crowded with their laptops and cans of Red Bull to find digital vulnerabilities in every one of the room's gadgets, from its TV to its bedside VoIP phone.

    One team of hackers spent those days focused on the lock on the room's door, perhaps its most sensitive piece of technology of all. Now, more than a year and a half later, they're finally bringing to light the results of that work: a technique they discovered that would allow an intruder to open any of millions of hotel rooms worldwide in seconds, with just two taps.

    Today, Ian Carroll, Lennert Wouters, and a team of other security researchers are revealing a hotel keycard hacking technique they call Unsaflok. The technique is a collection of security vulnerabilities that would allow a hacker to almost instantly open several models of Saflok-brand RFID-based keycard locks sold by the Swiss lock maker Dormakaba. The Saflok systems are installed on 3 million doors worldwide, inside 13,000 properties in 131 countries.

    By exploiting weaknesses in both Dormakaba's encryption and the underlying RFID system Dormakaba uses, known as MIFARE Classic, Carroll and Wouters have demonstrated just how easily they can open a Saflok keycard lock. Their technique starts with obtaining any keycard from a target hotel—say, by booking a room there or grabbing a keycard out of a box of used ones—then reading a certain code from that card with a $300 RFID read-write device, and finally writing two keycards of their own. When they merely tap those two cards on a lock, the first rewrites a certain piece of the lock's data, and the second opens it.

    “Two quick taps and we open the door,” says Wouters, a researcher in the Computer Security and Industrial Cryptography group at the KU Leuven University in Belgium. “And that works on every door in the hotel.”

    34 votes

  16. Comment on What did you do this week (and weekend)? in ~talk

    Fal
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    I'm back home from college for spring break. I've come to realize that nothing tells me that I'm home quite like when I finally taste the tap water and don't think it tastes weird.

    I'm back home from college for spring break. I've come to realize that nothing tells me that I'm home quite like when I finally taste the tap water and don't think it tastes weird.

    3 votes

  19. Comment on Special tag: "Active" in ~tildes

    Fal
    Link Parent
    As the poster of Noah’s last four videos, I have to say tagging is particularly difficult because I tend to watch the videos in chunks over the course of a few days, but when I go back to the...

    As the poster of Noah’s last four videos, I have to say tagging is particularly difficult because I tend to watch the videos in chunks over the course of a few days, but when I go back to the Tildes post I rarely know what to tag asides from some of the big ideas. For the next one I am considering tagging more as I go, if I can find the time.

    2 votes

  20. Comment on Marathon runner, 12, sets her sights on 2028 Olympics in ~sports

    Fal
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    Evan Kim is not sure what she wants to do when she grows up. She might want to be an elementary school teacher. Or perhaps an Olympic long-distance runner.

    She’s working on the running thing.

    The 5-foot-tall sixth-grader placed second among all girls and women at the Ventura Marathon in February when she ran the 26.2-mile course in 2 hours 58 minutes, averaging less than 7 minutes per mile. Her goal this year is to run the fastest recorded marathon for a 12-year-old of either gender — she’s only four minutes away. Her trainer (also known as her dad, who goes by MK) says the equation is simple: Just follow the workout plan and the record will be hers.

    1 vote