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In-reply-to » Did Apple Just Kill Social Apps? Apple's iOS 18 update has introduced changes to contact sharing that could significantly impact social app developers. The new feature allows users to selectively share contacts with apps, rather than granting access to their entire address book. While Apple touts this as a privacy enhancement, developers warn it may hinder the growth of new social platforms. Nikita Bier, a start-up founder, called it "the en ... ⌘ Read more

Lol, this is actually a good thing by Apple. Doesn’t kill social apps at all, just prevents some harvesting of your entire address book by abusive apps like WhatsApp.

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Did Apple Just Kill Social Apps?
Apple’s iOS 18 update has introduced changes to contact sharing that could significantly impact social app developers. The new feature allows users to selectively share contacts with apps, rather than granting access to their entire address book. While Apple touts this as a privacy enhancement, developers warn it may hinder the growth of new social platforms. Nikita Bier, a start-up founder, called it “the en … ⌘ Read more

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Recent #fiction #scifi #reading:

  • The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa. Lovely writing. Very understated; reminded me of Kazuo Ishiguro. Sort of like Nineteen Eighty-Four but not. (I first heard it recommended in comparison to that work.)

  • Subcutanean by Aaron Reed; https://subcutanean.textories.com/ . Every copy of the book is different, which is a cool idea. I read two of them (one from the library, actually not different from the other printed copies, and one personalized e-book). I don’t read much horror so managed to be a little creeped out by it, which was fun.

  • The Wind from Nowhere, a 1962 novel by J. G. Ballard. A random pick from the sci-fi section; I think I picked it up because it made me imagine some weird 4-dimensional effect (“from nowhere” meaning not in a normal direction) but actually (spoiler) it was just about a lot of wind for no reason. The book was moderately entertaining but there was nothing special about it.

Currently reading Scale by Greg Egan and Inversion by Aric McBay.

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** September summer **
I finished reading Robin Sloan’s Moonbound today. It was fun, and light. The blurb likens it to Narnia, and, while a bold claim, I think that was a correct assertion, but more about the intended audience than the book’s subject matter. If a sequel is ever written I’d most certainly give it a look. It seems like a great gift book for a kid between like 8 and 15…or you know, perhaps, anyone who likes fun stories that aren’t scared of bein … ⌘ Read more

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If some of you budding fathers want to know how I created a computer nerd to one day work for Facebook in the big USA, well you purchase a $1000 Xmas present, an enormous thick book with C++ programming, and say, you can play as many games as you like kids, but James has to create them using computer software.

SO James created once a 3D chess program with sound, took 6 months or so, really hard to beat, not based on logic moves point by point like other chess programs, this one was based on the depth of looking for patterns, set it to 5 moves ahead and you were toast every time. Nice program too, sadly gone over the years, computers suffer from bit rot. We used to try and mark rotten hard drive discs once as bad sectors, not sure how UBuntu does this these days, I see a dozen errors on the screen every time I load.

Today I would purchase for my kids AI CAD simulation software with metal 3D printer and get your child to build fancy 3D models and engines from scratch. This will make them an expert in the CAD AI industry by the time they are 14 years old. Sadly AI is here to stay and will spoil the Internet.

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I’ve been thinking about a new term I’ve come across whilst reading a book. It’s called “Complexity Budget” and I think it has relevant in lots of difficult fields. I specifically think it has a lot of relevant in the Software Industry and organizations in this field. When doing further research on this concept, I was only able find talks on complexity budget in the context of medical care, especially phychiratistic care. In this talk it was describe as, complexity:

  • Complexity is confusing
  • Complexity is costly
  • Complexity kills

When we think of “complexity” in terms of software and software development, we have a sort-of intuitive about this right? We know when software has become too complex. We know when an organization has grown in complexity, or even a system. So we have a good intuition of the concept already.

My question to y’all is; how can we concretely think about “Complexity Budget” and define it in terms that can be leveraged and used to control the complexity of software dns ystems?

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John Searle and Daniel Dennett on Consciousness

Below I am here giving voice to a conversation in articles on the subject of consciousness originally published by the New York Review of Books and in John Searle’s book The Mystery of Consciousness.

I find these hilarious.

Here, Searle’s adversary, well-known and now late “philosopher” Daniel Dennett follows the logical train of verificationist modern science to its logical conclusion: the denial of the subjective—the consciousness itself—the thing, the … ⌘ Read more

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Experiment in Digital minimalism
I recently read Cal Newport’s book Digital Minimalism. It really
resonated with me, despite (or because of?) being glued to my computer
many hours of the day.

Cal suggests a month of digital decluttering, at first cutting off
everything that your job and other obligations don’t depend on. At the
end of the month you evaluate what, if anything, is to be let back
inside.

I did a decluttering plan for April. It ended up being an ongoing
project when I’m writing this in June.

My dec … ⌘ Read more

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Sipeed Lichee Book 4A: Affordable RISC-V Laptop with Upgradeable Computer Module
The Sipeed Lichee Book 4A is a cost-effective laptop utilizing RISC-V architecture, designed primarily for developers interested in exploring this platform. It merges standard laptop features with functionalities tailored to RISC-V, offering a practical tool for both software development and general use. According to recent updates on the company’s social media, the Sipeed Lichee Book … ⌘ Read more

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MuseBook RISCV-V Laptop with SpacemiT SoC Starts Pre-orders at $299.00
The MUSE Book is a laptop that features a RISC-V-based architecture, presumably powered by the SpacemiT K1, an 8-core AI CPU built on the RISC-V X60 architecture. The MUSE Book is available for pre-order in three configurations, which include up to 16GB of RAM and two SSD storage capacities. The product details for the MUSE […] ⌘ Read more

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** books, the end of winter, video games and javascript **
Since my last update I’ve read a handful of books. Some standout reads include Tales from Earthsea, The Other Wind and The Left Hand of Darkness, all by Ursula K. Le Guin. I’d read them all before, accepted for The Other Wind. I thought I’d read The Other Wind, but hadn’t! Chaos: Making a New Science by James Gleick was also a fun read. I liked it for the rabbit holes it invited me down; I’ve been thinking a lot … ⌘ Read more

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More basement:

I completely forgot that DVD-RAM was a thing once. Found my old disks and they still work. 🤯 The data on them is from 2008, so they’re not that old. Still impressive.

The disks are two-sided. On the photo, that particular side of the disk on the left appears to be completely unused. 🤔

And then I read on Wikipedia that DVD-RAMs aren’t produced anymore at all today. Huh.

(I refuse to tag this as “retrocomputing”. Read/write DVDs that you can use just like a harddisk, thanks to UDF, are still “new and fancy” in my book. 😂)

Image

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‘Unforgivable’: Donald Trump won’t ‘protect’ Prince Harry
Former US president Donald Trump revealed if he is re-elected he will not protect Prince Harry from allegations he lied on his US visa application.

When applying for a visa, applicants must disclose their past drug use, and the Prince famously revealed in his book ‘Spare’ that he took drugs.

However, sources close to Harry claim he answered truthfully on his application, and there is no … ⌘ Read more

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A chat with author Morgan Richard Olivier
A best-selling author with an eye for wellness and an ear for motivational speaking recently published a new book called “The Strength That Stays.” For Morgan Olivier, the newest literature has served as therapy for both herself and her audiences. ⌘ Read more

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** Two good stories **
I just finished reading The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. I loved it. When I finished A Memory Called Empire I assumed it’d be my most favorite book of the year — it has already been unseated!? I mean, if I kept track of favorites. As I finished The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi I immediately wanted more, so looked to see if there is a sequel (alas, no (or not yet, I hope!?)). I’ve got a gigantic l … ⌘ Read more

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Update on my Fibre to the Premise upgrade (FTTP). NBN installer came out last week to install the NTD and Utility box, after some umming and arring, we figured out the best place to install it. However this mean he wasn’t able to look it up to the Fibre in the pit, and required a 2nd team to come up and trench a new trench and conduit and use that to feed Fibre from the pit to the utility box.

I rang up my ISP to find out when this 2nd team was booked, only to discover to my horror and the horror of my ISP that this was booked a month out on the 2rd Feb 2024! 😱

After a nice small note from my provider to NBN, suddenly I get a phone call and message from an NBN team that do trenching to say it would be done on Saturday (today). That got completed today (despite the heavy rain).

Now all that’s left is a final NBN tech to come and hook the two fibre pieces together and “light it up”! 🥳

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In-reply-to » I found these write-ups for advent of code. They are quite well done and a great learning resouce for algorithms!

@xuu@txt.sour.is Despite that these AoC math text problems are rather silly in my opinion (reminds me of an exercise in our math book where somebody wanted to carry a railroad rail around an L-shaped corner in the house and the question was how long that rail could be so that it still fits — sure, we’ve all carried several meter long railroad rails in our houses by ourselves numerous times…), these algorithms are really neat!

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Download Over 900 eBooks of Classics Free from StandardEbooks
If you’re interested in doing some reading of the classics, you may appreciate the Standard Ebooks project, which offers free high quality ebooks that are well-formatted, proofread, and professionally designed using style manuals. Standard Ebooks focuses on books that are in the public domain and without copyright restrictions, which is how they’re able to offer … [Read More](https://osxdaily.com/2023/12/21/dow … ⌘ Read more

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Download Over 900 eBooks of Classics Free from StandardEbooks
If you’re interested in doing some reading of the classics, you may appreciate the Standard Ebooks project, which offers free high quality ebooks that are well-formatted, proofread, and professionally designed using style manuals. Standard Ebooks focuses on books that are in the public domain and without copyright restrictions, which is how they’re able to offer … [Read More](https://osxdaily.com/2023/12/21/dow … ⌘ Read more

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