Can attest, did pee in it.

They got weirdly expensive for obscure reasons. People have always shit on them for the quality of their food but I’d wager that like myself those critics have probably had their fair share of golden arches to be able to make that assesment and until recent times probably continued to do so all whilst grumbling about the quality. I’m not disputing the low quality, it has always been a product of economic efficiency and not culinary prowess, but nevertheless they have for many decades represented a kind of minimum standard that almost everyone was willing to settle for because of low prices, consistency and ubiquity. Now they have abandoned the cheap part of this triangle. I don’t understand what’s going on in old Ronald’s bright red head these days because if you don’t deliver on the cheap part of the equation then there’s not much else left to recommend McDonalds. They’re still consistent-ish (even that’s kind of going by the wayside) but that doesn’t say much when they’re consistently bottom of the barrel whilst also being expensive to top it all off. Ubiquity is still a strong draw, they’re kinda crappy, and overpriced but they’re still here wherever that is in the world, but ultimately that only works so long as nothing else is here too since they no longer compete on price.

It’s a weird strategy to have opted for having invented and perfected the streamlined factory food restaurant model that took over the world. It worked miraculously well, why would you fuck with arguably the most important part of the trifecta? Evidently it wasn’t the masterplan of super smart business minds that can see well past my simple analysis because lo and behold, if you sell cheap crap and then raise the price so it becomes expensive crap, you tend to get fewer takers.

It is necessary to build more housing stock, but if you simply do that alone while there is still significant incentive to buy investment properties then the developers will obviously sell to those that pay and it’s typically those with means that will pay, which tends to be people who can afford multiple properties more than those who are struggling to afford one place to live in. Obviously if you’re a developer looking for a return on your investment you’ll price according to what those people will pay so that housing stock is quickly swallowed up mostly by landlords who will want to recoup their investment by charging higher rents and so on.

What? Why?

I’ve read that masks do not actually thwart these systems.

Wouldn’t be surprised if that’s how it shakes out in time or in the reality behind the pr piece but the article does specifically mention that that this extends to employees too and that was actually what the quote in the headline was in reference to specifically.

This action was so fucked up and beyond my list of shitty things that the US might do that it honestly didn’t occur to me and so when reading the headline I found it confusingly phrased but thought maybe it somehow meant there was some hint of support for the ICC’s decision and warrants which would have been amazing. Imagine the rollercoaster for me when they actually managed to surprise me with a decision and stance worse than I could have imagined.

Didn’t know they’d taken out the storage drives but I was aware despite my general ignorance that it’s not turnkey ready to go. I guess what I’m wondering is, is there any part of the of the process involved in designing and building such a supercomputing cluster that is already taken care by buying it in the manner that it has been sold and could that in any way offset the increased costs of trying to bring such a cluster online rather than starting from scratch? I’m not saying it is the case, so much as wondering aloud for anyone with expertise to chime in, to see if that’s a way it could make sense.

I understand there’s a mountain to climb to bring this thing in to a usable state for anyone, but could it maybe get you to base camp more quickly?

Does the hardware being all so arranged as it is in this manner to create a supercomputer make any difference to that evaluation? Like does the work of putting all the outdated hardware together in the complex way needed to make it functional for supercomputing make it potentially cheaper than buying more modern hardware but having to build it all yourself?

Holy shit.

Yes, but in the context of the comment to which I’m replying, I say scare quotes because the commenter has interpreted editorial intent behind the choice of how and where the punctuation has been used beyond simply establishing that the word is a direct quote.

While I kind of disagree with what that intent is, hence my reply to them, I agree with the original commenter that there is reason to believe the quotation marks served more purpose in that headline than simple punctuation. As a quote, it’s an odd choice, given it’s a single word long, conveys nothing that the sentence without the marks couldn’t have said and used to complete a sentence that is otherwise entirely constructed by the author.

I and the person to which I replied have interpreted this choice as a form of editorial commentary upon the reasoning behind the policy being discussed in the article. In the original commenter’s case they’re taking it to mean that the article’s author thinks the premise of iphones having security problems is so absurd that the people claiming such must be crazy (which the commenter obviously does not agree with). I don’t take from it such an extreme implication, although I do read some kind of implied commentary and given that this security concern has nuance to it that a headline would struggle to convey, I have suggested perhaps that that punctuation is serving to subvert or undermine the supposed security concern in some way. When that writing technique is employed, the punctuation is referred to as scare quotes.

Or you know, we’re just reading tea leaves and it’s just a one word quote, but there’s the rationale for you at least so you know why I chose that term specifically.

I don’t know too much about the relative security chops of different smartphones, however in terms of what’s actually in this article it seems reasonable for the government department to consider the iphone a security issue within the context where it presents this particular problem and for the reason why it presents that problem for them. However, it does also seem like the very reason this is a security concern in this more narrow context is arguably a better security option in almost every other context so I wonder if that’s what they were getting at with the scare quotes.

In the case of defence personnel entering secure locations they say the iphone represents a threat because it doesn’t allow 3rd party apps to control inherent functions of the device, so the defence force cannot use an app they developed which would presumably do things like disable all voice recording abilities so they can be sure that people walking around secure locations aren’t unknowingly or deliberately transmitting or recording conversations and sensitive information. I can see why this would be a problem for them, however if you don’t work in defence and are an average consumer, the fact that random 3rd party developers can not do exactly what such an app would be designed to prevent sounds like a more secure way to operate. In that scenario, apps are incapable of controlling inherent functions of the phone unless they’re developed by Apple. Obviously this leaves the door just as open for untrustworthy behaviour from Apple themselves, but if you’ve chosen to trust them, you can at least be sure that no one else is controlling your device in ways you wouldn’t want, unless the device is somehow hacked but in that case, well it really doesn’t matter which phone it is because somehow it’s security has been circumvented and at that point all bets are off.

Aww I was just about gush about how awesome they’ve been all these years. Guess I haven’t really kept up to date. I mean it doesn’t sound like it’s gone totally to shit, but just clearly embarking on a path straight in to the shit

I think there has to be at least little more to this than that. There’s some complicated implications taking this to logical extremes, what of the adult industry for example? But really, it’s hardly a stretch to say the whole theme around which these cafes operate is degrading. Typically cafe work doesn’t require a worker to behave or be encouraged to be objectified in this way and in a normal cafe context, most of the whole maid cafe schtick would be considered pretty inappropriate.

I tried peertube, several instances of invidious and bitc-hute and no luck. Peertube and invidious both have it but refuse to play it and bitc-hute can’t find it.

Well I mean what did you just read? He already said those are the facts bro.

I believe while I was figuring this out I discovered one of rogue amoebas apps that I could use in conjunction with sound flower and I was nearly certain I had it, it was something to do with how Skype worked that sabotaged me, I couldn’t believe how stubbornly persistent Skype was despite how hard I tried to workaround it. I believe I was trying to make a single virtual sound device that combined my mic output with the system Audio so I could choose that as my microphone in Skype but SOMEHOW it was always able to fuck me over don’t remember how, only that I was extremely angry.

I tried to set this up on a mac using soundflower so I could share my screen with an edit project with the director during lockdown and still chat to them at the same time. Didn’t work for some frustrating reason relating to Skype.

They’re coarse and irritating.

Cheers loyal lemmy canary.