naxxfish @naxxfish@mastodon.technology

I used to host a podcast with a few of my friends about crowdfunded technology. My role was generally debunking tech that was patently physically impossible. We stopped doing the podcast a while later, at some point /r/shittykickstarters began on Reddit. Unfortunately, it seems they're a bit too quick on the trigger to "debunk" projects. e.g https://www.reddit.com/r/shittykickstarters/comments/msxj2f/aurora_nutrio_a_smart_cutting_board_that_scans/

I had a dream that I was having dinner with Boris Johnson. Sorry, no, I meant nightmare.

Dispite the fact I'm never going to own an internal combusion engine car of my own, I'm still having to learn and pass my test in a manual petrol car because if I don't my insurance premiums will be multiplied by 5 for the rest of my life.

I guess in a sparsely populated country, extreme milage is fairly common. Do people really spend 4 hours a day diving, though, without taking any breaks?

Is it just my perception, or is Australia especially anti-electric vehicle? Check out the trolls in the comment section of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk-LnUYEXuM more than one of them claim to be from Australia....

It's a bit shallow and simplified, but it is comprehendible to a wide audience - which is quite important for this issue as it seems like something that more people need to know about!

Interesting start to the concerning world of 'microwork' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-56414491

I spent quite a lot of time advocating the use of segments for media over the last few years. A lot of the detractors would say "but nobody uses chapters" - which I always thought was a rather narrow minded idea of what a segment can be. YouTube got it (mostly) right, they've got simple tools to make chapters in videos with timestampsp in the description. But that's just the start... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMW3TFKYFtQ

This might be the VR equivilent of "you must be at least *this* tall to ride" https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198306878258/recommended/1292040/

Incidentally, I don't - my hands are extremely average. Obviously I'm not especially protective of this information, but I'm curious to know whether that would/could happen

Question: if the Oculus hand tracking feature records "estimated hand size", and "We use the information we have to deliver our Products, including to personalise features and content" - does that mean if I have small hands I'll start getting adverts for specialised hand jewelry for people with small hands?

Laundry detergent advert writers: UV light doesn't make "dirt" glow. Comparing clothes that have been washed with your product and a competitors under UV light is completely pointless and misleading.

TIL: during the brief period when I connected Spotify to Facebook, it made a post every time I listened to anything 😲

see also https://repair.eu/

tl;dr: a basic, repairable piece of tech to perform a basic task proves to be generally better than a very clever but fragile one.

But yes, they do use bags! Oh no! But actually, if that extends the life of the motor (by acting as a filter), and is one less mechanism to fail (like the bin latch on my old Dyson) then is that really worse? It might be a consumable product, but so are binbags and we seem to cope OK with those...