pallas's recent activity
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Comment on A brief history of men's underwear in ~life.style
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Comment on A brief history of men's underwear in ~life.style
pallas (edited )Link ParentThey all have different advantages and disadvantages. Boxer-briefs are a versatile compromise of properties. Boxers do not need to be made of a stretch fabric, with the exception of the waistband,...They all have different advantages and disadvantages. Boxer-briefs are a versatile compromise of properties.
Boxers do not need to be made of a stretch fabric, with the exception of the waistband, and more traditional makers sell them in pure cotton and linen. They can be more breathable and last longer. I’ve worn out considerably more boxer briefs and briefs than boxers; in the same time that the fabric of some boxer briefs might completely wear out, boxers from the same maker can still look largely new (the comparison here is mostly with Sunspel, which makes both traditional and more modern underwear, but across different makers Mazarin (only traditional) and Hanro (only stretch) I've had the same experience; none of these are fast fashion / cheaply made, and they are all comparable price points.). They can also be more comfortable, in not really pushing on anything at all except the waistband. For me, in many circumstances, since my shirt tails are already in a similar area and my trouser fabric is thick or stiff enough, there is no little benefit to the cleaner lines allowed by boxer briefs.
In cases where visible lines could be a problem, briefs can work better than boxer briefs, as they move the edges of the fabric more toward areas that are unlikely to make visible impressions through clothes.
In the winter when in colder regions, I tend to wear full length wool underwear, which to me is the easiest way of adapting clothes to colder weather. These have obvious and completely different advantages. Modern ones with some stretch also, with the exception of the added bulk, have very little effect on trousers.
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Comment on Why America needs fewer bus stops in ~transport
pallas Link ParentI'd add that bad experiences on buses are not unique to the US. Buses in Ireland are often plagued by aggressively anti-social groups of teenagers doing things like blaring music, harassing...At worst, you're dealing with delays, bumpy jerky rides, litter, people blasting music, crowds, some suspicious dark brown stain on your bus' fabric seat that hasn't been cleaned in years, and/or some homeless guy sitting next to you with soiled pants.
I'd add that bad experiences on buses are not unique to the US. Buses in Ireland are often plagued by aggressively anti-social groups of teenagers doing things like blaring music, harassing passengers, taking up seats, and so on. It is made very clear that asking them to stop would result in violence, and there is never any enforcement against them; in fact, I've never seen any security on buses, unlike trains. There also seem to be problems with drug use, there is usually even more litter than in the US, and there can be similarly unpleasant riders (though usually without the mental health problems of the US). Traffic is often bad, even with bus lanes, rides are bumpy, and scheduling can be messy, with the potential for buses leaving late and early, and real-time information that is often wrong (in the worst case I dealt with, I missed a once-per-half-hour bus because I arrived at the first stop fifteen minutes ahead of schedule and it had already left). Buses sometimes just don't go to stops they are listed as going to.
But beyond these: honestly, buses in many countries aren't great in my experience. They are usually the least pleasant option for public transport, and when alternatives are available, I usually prefer them, even if taking them is more difficult: on one route I take regularly, I prefer walking 15 minutes to a train station rather than 3-4 minutes to a bus stop. Likewise, most of my relatives in Southern Europe take metros and trams regularly, but would walk, drive, or take a taxi before taking a public bus.
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Comment on Let's talk orchestrated objective reduction! in ~science
pallas (edited )Link ParentI am a physicist, with rather interdisciplinary research, but with some connections to areas that Orch-OR seeks to cover (more on the biology and computation side, less on the quantum side and...I am a physicist, with rather interdisciplinary research, but with some connections to areas that Orch-OR seeks to cover (more on the biology and computation side, less on the quantum side and nothing on the philosophy or spirituality side). I would echo your points here, which are perhaps put more sensitively than I would have written them.
I think there is a tendency in the scientific community to be respectfully quiet to the general public, when the situation isn't too egregious, about flawed research of aging prominent researchers. There is a human fear and sadness for declining faculties, made perhaps more terrifying by being a community where those faculties are everything. Within the community, I have heard nothing but skepticism, at best, for Orch-OR; a professor in a related field once expressed his view to me privately along the lines of I don't have a deep knowledge of many of the topics involved, but for the areas I do, the work seems so heavily flawed in even their basic ways of thinking about those areas that I'm very skeptical of all of it. I have also heard the suggestion that the Penrose-Hameroff relationship could be seen as that of a crackpot preying on an older, prominent scholar's wandering to push his own ideas: unlike Penrose, it should be pointed out that he has no background in physics or even science generally (he was a medical professor), and has involvement in areas of clear pseudoscientic quantum mysticism, for example, being in What the Bleep Do We Know!?; he is apparently now working on a feature-length animated film to promote his theories. I should add to all of this: I have a great respect for much of Penrose's work, and I think that many people who see Orch-OR as nonsense do too.
There is the distinct feeling that the project, potentially for both of them, comes out of a certain desire to show something 'special', or perhaps more aptly, 'sacred' about the human mind that distinguishes it from something seen as 'mundane', then searching to find anything that, through enough leaps, might suggest something sacred. That view is disappointingly dismissive of both 'mere classical computation', and of the many fascinating ways that computation can take place in biological systems.
I'd also note: with physics in particular, there seems to be a tendency for the field to capture the imagination of the general public, but in ways that are often very misleading as to what research in the field entails, what current research and questions are, and the prominence and establishment of theories and topics. We can see that throughout this thread. Physics as presented to the general public can often end up being more about vague philosophizing, and attempts at analogies to explain theories that are actually hard math, where the analogies end up being seen by some in the public as having meaning in themselves. It tends to heavily focus on philosophical interpretations of quantum mechanics (not really a major research question, as you point out), cosmology, high-energy particle theory, and string theory (usually without clarifying that string theory's position and reputation in physics is arguably very dubious).
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Comment on Is it possible to live without WhatsApp? in ~tech
pallas (edited )Link ParentI think many Americans in particular, affluent parts of the country don't understand the extent to which other countries culturally or practically enforce the use of US tech company products. It...I think many Americans in particular, affluent parts of the country don't understand the extent to which other countries culturally or practically enforce the use of US tech company products.
It isn't a matter of alternatives being less convenient. You could, as you point out, find yourself unable to effectively communicate with government agencies (WhatsApp). You could be unable to know whether there have been train incidents and delays, because the official updates are essentially only on Twitter (Ireland; yes, there are supposedly alternatives, but take a look at how many updates are actually posted there). You could be completely unable to attend university in some countries, or participate in EU research projects (Microsoft 365's complete dominance). WhatsApp could well be the only way to get OTPs for some services, and you could be expected to use it for work. "Public" outreach, with public funding, could well be done only via LinkedIn.
The stories about EU-sovereign developments and pushes, frankly, seem like completely duplicitous nonsense when compared to daily experience and the aggressive enforcement of US tech stacks by EU institutions. You can certainly use other messaging apps, for example, but you can't just not use WhatsApp.
Even in the US, WhatsApp is not a requirement, but unless you're in particular areas, you can't necessarily avoid using other systems. We have a house in the US where the electric company only gives information on outages via Facebook. There is no other electrical company; if you don't want to use Facebook, you are welcome to move, or be entirely off grid.
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Comment on What private companies are you happy doing business with? in ~talk
pallas Link ParentIt's also worth noting that Dodge v. Ford was a somewhat extreme case, where there was a reasonable argument that Ford's plans and statements were intended to act against the interest of specific...Worth noting that the duty is to manage in the shareholders interests - that leaves a surprisingly large open door to debate what that actually means: short term profit, long term profit, regulatory risks and fines, reinvestment, asset growth, etc. etc.
It's also worth noting that Dodge v. Ford was a somewhat extreme case, where there was a reasonable argument that Ford's plans and statements were intended to act against the interest of specific minority shareholders he saw (correctly) as potential competitors, and manipulate the company's dividends and stock price to harm them.
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Comment on Leaving Apple behind after eighteen years in ~tech
pallas (edited )LinkAs it appears that the author is quite concerned with what they see as the political alignments of the manufacturers they purchase from, to the extent that they would rule out purchasing from...As it appears that the author is quite concerned with what they see as the political alignments of the manufacturers they purchase from, to the extent that they would rule out purchasing from Framework over their donations, it is rather confusing that they seem to have no similar qualms about ASUS and, in particular, Hewlett-Packard. It's not clear why someone would boycott a company over small donations to DHH-affiliated groups and instead choose to support a company that publicly donated to Trump's inauguration.
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Comment on The tools bookmakers use to block data-savvy gamblers, and how to get round them in ~life
pallas LinkNone of this matters for betting exchanges, and if people want to gamble on sports, it confuses me why they'd want to make bets with a bookmaker rather than an exchange. From a regulation...None of this matters for betting exchanges, and if people want to gamble on sports, it confuses me why they'd want to make bets with a bookmaker rather than an exchange. From a regulation standpoint, it also seems like it would be safer to enforce the separation of interests that come from an exchange model. With an exchange, ideally, there is no incentive for the exchange to have anyone win or lose, they are just incentivized to have people make more bets. With a bookmaker, they are directly incentivized to have everyone lose.
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Comment on Leave the phone, take a camera in ~tech
pallas (edited )Link ParentThere are options for digital cameras with WLFs, but unfortunately they tend to be absurdly expensive. A Hasselblad 500 with a digital back, for example, can work, but the film camera itself is in...There are options for digital cameras with WLFs, but unfortunately they tend to be absurdly expensive. A Hasselblad 500 with a digital back, for example, can work, but the film camera itself is in the ~$1,000 range for one in good condition, and some of the digital backs are both in the five-figure range and very poorly reviewed; the Hasselblad one is "only" around $7k, but has utterly baffling design decisions, like being not enormously larger than 35mm film, and being fixed in landscape orientation on a camera completely designed around the 6x6 square format. Phase One apparently makes a WLF for their cameras, but just the finder is around $800, and the cameras are in the mid five figures.
this is probably one of those things where someone will sell a 3D printed holder for a phone with some mirrors to get the relative form factor and it’ll crank out boring photos…
I actually do wonder a bit about taking an older digital camera of mine, 3d printing a new body, and configuring the screen to be a WLF. But without clever rotating design, it runs into the same problem that any non-square-format with a WLF has: portrait orientation requires a very awkward finder position.
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Comment on Leave the phone, take a camera in ~tech
pallas Link ParentThere was a time when this was true, but I think I'd tend to disagree here now. I have a flagship phone, older m4/3 mirrorless, and relatively new full-frame mirrorless. It is the case that the...Flagship phones will take better pictures than basically any camera unless you invest a lot of time into learning what you're doing, and even then, it will still take pretty damn good pictures.
There was a time when this was true, but I think I'd tend to disagree here now. I have a flagship phone, older m4/3 mirrorless, and relatively new full-frame mirrorless. It is the case that the older m4/3 is more finicky, and requires more knowledge and skill, than the phone. Focus can go wrong, particularly in choosing entirely the wrong focus point, it can make poor choices of aperture and shutter speed in automatic, and sensitivity needs to be handled with care. The phone, on the other hand, will generally at least seem to make reasonable choices. But the Nikon just works, so long as it is set to something sufficiently automatic.
Both actual cameras will take what I would describe as cleaner photos than the phone, and for given conditions, are more likely to take more consistent photos. Noise and detail is likely to be consistent across a photo; it might be significant, for example, with the m4/3 at higher ISO, but it will not be the patchwork that the heavy processing of the phone camera. This is especially noticeable if you want to crop at all: I've generally found that phone camera images just don't crop well.
In large part, this is because the cameras have fundamental optical advantages over the phone. They have larger, simpler lenses, larger sensors, collect more light, and so on; in the case of the full-frame, those advantages are enormous. Since the phone is a top-end Pixel, I can run non-Google cameras on it without the heavy processing, and the comparison of those images to the cameras is illustrative of its disadvantages.
I do have a fair amount of knowledge of cameras, though I would not call myself serious about photography, and I'm basing the above more off giving my cameras to other people to take photos in auto (for example, photos of me). The full-frame, with someone with little experience taking the photo, will take better photos (apart from composition, but that is unrelated to the cameras) than I could take with the phone.
It is also significantly more expensive than the phone, but I think our philosophies may differ on that point. I'd much rather not sacrifice the quality of something lasting – for example, photographs – just to save an amount of money that does not seem significant over the lifetimes of the photographs themselves.
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Comment on Leave the phone, take a camera in ~tech
pallas Link ParentWhat would the motivation be for a digital TLR? Digital cameras in general do not have the problem of needing to have a preview through a different light path than the actual capture. The only...What would the motivation be for a digital TLR? Digital cameras in general do not have the problem of needing to have a preview through a different light path than the actual capture. The only advantage I could see over a mirrorless would be that the viewfinder would be an actual lens-based image, rather than a screen. But it would come with all the disadvantages of a TLR: parallax error, the need for double the lenses, the need for precise alignment, different depth of field, and so on.
I'd agree with your other comment that the waist-level finder typical on many TLRs can be nice, and can be quite a bit more discreet and less jarring. But they have never been unique to TLRs. Historically, they're arguably more a distinctive feature of many medium format cameras: there are many film SLRs with them (Primarflex, Hasselblad, Pilot, Mamiya, to give some examples), and many mirrorless cameras have screens that can be angled for waist-level shooting. There are even some early 35mm SLRs with waist-level finders, but having used some, I can understand why they died out, and likely shifted cameras away from waist-level finders in general as 35mm became predominant: unlike with 120, at 35mm a waist-level finder really is too small to see with any level of detail at all from one's waist, where it can barely be used at all, and practically requires significant magnification, even when held toward the top of one's chest.
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Comment on How to get found by recruiters on LinkedIn in ~tech
pallas (edited )Link ParentTo give a very different example (I unfortunately can't give more details without being too revealing about my identity): LinkedIn seems to be popular for EU research projects (along with Teams...What do you do for work that requires you to have LinkedIn and does it actually require you to have one or do you just feel obligated to do so?
To give a very different example (I unfortunately can't give more details without being too revealing about my identity): LinkedIn seems to be popular for EU research projects (along with Teams and Microsoft cloud services: parts of the EU administration are surprisingly aggressive about demanding everyone use only US cloud services). I'm aware of one collaborative research project that intentionally gives information, announcements, public seminar schedules, etc through LinkedIn. They have no website: they give out their LinkedIn page instead. This is a project where public outreach is nominally a key goal, and has a budget in the high tens of millions. This is also not a field where LinkedIn use is common.
My circumstances are such that I can simply refuse to use LinkedIn, and expect them to handle letting me know about things separately, but I expect many others can't.
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Comment on Why are 38 percent of Stanford students saying they're disabled? in ~life
pallas Link ParentIf it is a competitive situation, with grading that would potentially be based on the performance of other students in the class, I'm not sure how students gaming the system would not be properly...If it is students gaming the system, then that's a lot of kids who weren't properly prepared for college.
If it is a competitive situation, with grading that would potentially be based on the performance of other students in the class, I'm not sure how students gaming the system would not be properly prepared: the extra time in itself would be seen as a competitive advantage over other students. When teaching at a UC, my partner had several complaints from students with accommodations giving them extra time on timed tests because she didn't have any timed tests or assignments, and asked that she give timed tests instead so that they could be given extra time. They were certainly not all the students with accommodations, or even the majority of them, and their complaints were ineffectual, but those students were quite clearly interested in the competitive advantage. They were not bad students.
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Comment on Looking for recommendations for a new home router in ~tech
pallas LinkWhile I have a few router setups, I have to admit that the one I'm happiest with is a reasonably recent Linksys I found at a charity sale for $20 (someone had lost the power cord), running...While I have a few router setups, I have to admit that the one I'm happiest with is a reasonably recent Linksys I found at a charity sale for $20 (someone had lost the power cord), running OpenWrt. OpenWrt has yet to disappoint me on features, even when I need quite esoteric ones: it is currently running 4 wireguard tunnels, some vlans, and babel routing. I'm happier with this setup than another I have using Ubiquiti hardware, and one using Mikrotik.
The one nuisance I've had with OpenWrt is that the update mechanism is very clearly designed only for standard home use; there's no safe way to update remotely.
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Comment on Advice on Fairphone in ~tech
pallas (edited )Link ParentYes, I should point out: I have heard that the situation improved with later phones. The FP4 was perhaps Fairphone at its worst, for example, with the ridiculousness of the audio jack removal and...I dunno if I would take this review as representative of having a Fairphone. The Fairphone 5 and 6 seem to be much more stable devices
Yes, I should point out: I have heard that the situation improved with later phones. The FP4 was perhaps Fairphone at its worst, for example, with the ridiculousness of the audio jack removal and non-replaceable-battery earphone accessories. I have also heard that they may have brought software development back in house.
But I don't really feel like I have time to give scummy companies a second chance, and with the FP4, Fairphone was quite scummy. I also tend to use devices in unusual ways, to tinker with them, and to expect that they are at least somewhat reasonably made by people who, in some Ruskinian sense, take pride in making good things. Fairphone clearly was not that, at least at the time I interacted with them. The publicly available private keys were particularly ridiculous and telling: I realize I sound a bit like the typical "this device is useless and terrible because of this one problem I had" person, but the FP4 was actually horribly implemented. And with companies like Fairphone and Planet Computers, the defence they have is always that their next device is better.
Meanwhile, I'm typing this on a laptop I originally purchased as a first-gen Framework 13; yes, it had some problems initially, and sometimes the company disappoints, but the employees actually take pride in their products, the CEO actually deeply understands them, rather than just being a salesperson. At this point, only the case of the laptop is original, but most of other parts are being used for other things. I'm glad that I bought it, after being so burned by Fairphone: I just wish that there was a phone that was similar.
Unfortunately, right now, the best phone arrangement for people who want to tinker and have something reliable is to have a Pixel with a third party ROM, which involves supporting a company actively trying to prevent exactly the sorts of uses that those phones allow.
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Comment on Advice on Fairphone in ~tech
pallas LinkMy caveat here is that I had a Fairphone 4, and so my experiences are more about the company and their products as a whole. Overall, I found the Fairphone 4 to be disappointing, and a significant...My caveat here is that I had a Fairphone 4, and so my experiences are more about the company and their products as a whole. Overall, I found the Fairphone 4 to be disappointing, and a significant part of that was Fairphone's poor support and development around their phones. Many of the promises of the phone seemed somewhat empty, and often felt mildly deceptive. The community around the phone seemed dominated by a small group of active supporters willing to ardently defend every problem with the phone and the company with often circuitous arguments about sustainability, including arguing that repairability was not a goal of the phone, despite it being featured prominently in the marketing. Like my experience with Planet Computers, if not to the same extent as them, Fairphone felt like a company whose business model was built more around marketing toward people who wanted a particular type of product, rather than actually being built around making that product well. I'd contrast that with Framework, which, despite faults at times, really does seem to be a company built of people who want to build a repairable, upgradeable laptop.
I bought the phone directly from Fairphone, in Europe, but used it in both Europe and the US at different times of the year. This ran into the immediate problem of the back, which was illustrative to me of the dubiousness of Fairphone's claims. Yes, the battery was replaceable, easily, just by snapping off the back case, and that was also how the SIM card needed to be changed. Of course, the snaps on the back case were not actually designed to withstand many cycles of removing and replacing the back, so if you actually wanted to replace the battery frequently, or like me, needed to sway SIMs, the snaps would often end up breaking. Battery life, too, was atrocious; I often couldn't get through a single day without charging. Actually carrying spare batteries would have been difficult, as batteries, like many parts, were out of stock whenever I checked.
Meanwhile, software was terrible. Yes, the hardware of the camera technically fit the advertising, but the camera support was horribly implemented to the point that it was largely not usable for me, despite my rather minimal requirements. Fairphone didn't implement standard Android interfaces to the cameras, instead choosing to make many core features only available in their own camera app, which was quite buggy. In particular, despite nominally capable hardware, the focus was so enormously slow and unreliable that my primary use of the camera, quick reference photos, usually of text, in good lighting, would often end up unreadably blurry.
And yes, Fairphone promised some number of years of updates, but they didn't promise how timely those updates would be, or how well they would be implemented. Security updates were often so delayed that some corporate apps would stop working. Major updates could be enormously delayed, and might introduce a variety of new, significant breakages. At least at the time, Fairphone apparently didn't do any actual software development themselves, and instead used an outside contractor who was clearly trying to minimize effort; it seem like it was not something Fairphone actually cared about. Sometimes they would make bizarre choices in the updates: in one, for example, seemingly simply as the result of a suggestion from one aggressive and vocal fan of the phone on the forums (the phone worked perfectly for his daughter, as he pointed out when anyone had a support question or problem), they once changed the minimum brightness to be extremely bright.
I did use third-party ROMs at times, in part because they would often be significantly more up to date than the official one. But doing so was tricky and potentially hazardous. While I didn't have it happen myself, bricking the phone was easy to do, and while it would have been soft-bricking had Fairphone made some files available, they instead required that bricked phones be shipped to them for a paid unbricking process. My understanding is that this was likely because of enormous security flaws on the phone: the official images were actually signed by test keys, for which the private key was available, and the phone was set up to trust those test keys. If I understand correctly, the files that would have allowed unbricking would have also allowed secure boot on the phone, at least with the official image, to be entirely broken; but this was only security through obscurity.
I usually keep phones for a few years, and repurpose them when I buy a new one. The Fairphone was an exception; I ended up finding it so unreliable that I sold it after around a year or year and a half. For context, I previously had a Pixel 2XL; I still have that, running Lineage and acting as a modem. I now use a Pixel 7 Pro running Graphene.
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Comment on Automotive repair costs on modern vehicles. Any horror stories? in ~transport
pallas (edited )LinkOne of the difficulties for cars with modern electronics is that mechanics and manufacturers often simply won't do component-level repairs, and enough functions are combined that simple component...One of the difficulties for cars with modern electronics is that mechanics and manufacturers often simply won't do component-level repairs, and enough functions are combined that simple component failures can result in repairs with enormous, needless replacements. On a not-so-new, but heavily electronic car, I once had the temperature control stop functioning properly because of a malfunctioning temperature sensor. All information on the somewhat common problem was that a board with a number of functions needed to be replaced, at something like a $500 cost, and that this would be the only repair anyone professional would be willing to do.
Doing the actual repair myself instead involved replacing a single, obvious, easily-accessible, easily-obtainable through-hole thermistor with a broken lead. The cost was essentially nothing.
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Comment on Crossdressing Garbage in ~creative
pallas (edited )LinkGiven the other comments here, I feel like there should be at least one comment pointing out that it's also perfectly reasonable to wear "women's clothes" as a cis man, or otherwise not fit...Given the other comments here, I feel like there should be at least one comment pointing out that it's also perfectly reasonable to wear "women's clothes" as a cis man, or otherwise not fit mainstream gender norms, just as it is perfectly reasonable for a trans woman to wear "men's clothes". I think it is important to not let a repressive, normative culture with a narrow set of gender norms demand that people look a certain way unless, in some sense, they are seen as some 'special exception' that is wholly outside of those norms. In some inclusive places, I actually know a fair number of men who wear skirts and dresses, and look good in them. It isn't a fetish for them; it is simply part of their wardrobe.
Meanwhile, in less inclusive places, particularly in Europe, I am often dismayed at how nominally inclusive cultures can be so hostile to the smallest deviations from their particular sense of masculinity or femininity, sometimes coming from the same people who would, at least overtly, enthusiastically express how progressive and inclusive they are.
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Comment on EU country grouping cleared to build sovereign digital infrastructure in ~tech
pallas Link ParentIt is basically just a Kubernetes-based setup of well-known individual services, maintained by a German state organization.I'd never heard of this platform before. Anyone have any experience with it?
It is basically just a Kubernetes-based setup of well-known individual services, maintained by a German state organization.
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Comment on Leaker reveals which Pixels are vulnerable to Cellebrite phone hacking in ~tech
pallas Link ParentThat is true, with some caveats. From a legal perspective, in some places, for example, the UK, the risk is that you can simply be imprisoned until you provide the password, a particularly...Even so, legally obliged to provide a password doesn't make it so they automagically receive one. A fingerprint will be taken, a password must be given. Law be damned.
That is true, with some caveats.
From a legal perspective, in some places, for example, the UK, the risk is that you can simply be imprisoned until you provide the password, a particularly unsettling law considering that you may legitimately forget passwords, or random data may be interpreted as encrypted data.
From a practical security perspective, I have become a bit concerned about the idea that, in the age of ubiquitous cameras, repeatedly typing passwords in many settings may leak information about the password. This could be the case both for someone secretly recording you (I have heard that there are known cases of this attack with mobile phone pins, by scammers), and from CCTV footage. It is worth noting, for example, that CCTV footage in the EU can often be subject to GDPR requests from individuals, and while the data protection officer is supposed to ensure that the privacy of others is preserved when providing that footage, they may not realize the extent to which typing, rather than faces, might be leaked, especially when combining poor or blurred footage of many entries and developing a probabilistic model of likely passwords.
It is particularly frustrating to me that parts of the Linux community still insist on what is now seems like the security theatre of not showing any visual feedback when entering passwords; an attacker secretly watching you type your password wouldn't be trying to get the minimal information on password length from your screen, they would be secretly recording video and audio of your fingers.
As a result, I have taken to using biometrics more often for 'routine' password entries (simple screen unlocks, sudo when already logged in, etc).
There’s the context here that this is the V&A, writing what seems to be rather clearly implicitly meant to be a history from a British or perhaps even primarily English perspective. At some point they even point out an innovation (from a British context) that was essentially just taking a French fashion.