Even after the layoffs, most of these companies are larger than they were in the beginning of 2022
https://www.macrotrends.net/st...
https://www.macrotrends.net/st...
Looks like a good time to score a bargain.
Facebook's Metaverse? No, not in its current state.
Is it possible? Sure.
I love all things Stephenson, but I think the more interesting use cases were presented in a sci-fi short story collaboration named "Metatopolis"
No spoilers for the storytelling, but some of the compelling environment there were people using VR/AR to live comfortably in storage containers on cargo ships (OK, maybe not that different from Snow Crash's portrayal of real estate), but also using it to telecommute through a network of on-site apprentices.
I've been very happy with Zoom. There are some exotic features that will keep technical people happy.
We had to do a piano concert over Zoom last weekend. All the other tools are "optimized for voice" , so they throw out all the low and high frequencies as noise and the AGC is always messing with the volume and ducking out notes that it thinks is noise.
Zoom has a "Use original audio" for the mic to enable unprocessed audio transmission (it's off by default so you don't forget to stop using it). They also make it relatively easy to switch between multiple inputs (we had a USB mixer with the line out of our digital piano) without dinking with the system audio controls.
Most of the security gripes that have hit the news have been related to dumb settings that weren't even the defaults. They've been pretty swift at rolling out improvements in response to the media frenzy, and it's been wonderful that other conferencing suites have been rapidly incorporating some of their killer features.
Good conferencing is actually pretty difficult... people just take it for granted since it's been around for so long. This year will be a great year for new development. Looking forwards to better multi-monitor support and richer collaboration tools!
I used to like WebEx when I used it a decade ago. It's been having a bunch of weird problems lately, like freezing when trying to move it to another monitor, and generally not playing well with virtual desktops. Had to cancel a few meetings because of a big outage last week too. Oops.
At least it's not as terrible as Lync / Skype4Business
I have not been able to figure out Teams yet... it looks like a hodgepodge of familiar pieces... part app store, part conferencing, part ticketing system, but for every wacky feature that looks like it might be useful there's some missing piece that seems to prevent it from being useful.
Personally been happy with Hangouts. Unlike Facetime it's actually cross-platform.
Likewise, anyone who considers Western anti-China propaganda as reliable data is delusional. Yes, China tried to hide their initial whistleblowers... just like who else? After that they tracked it pretty much like a country run by an administration with degrees in science and engineering. https://gineersnow.com/leaders...
The numbers coming out of China are consistent with much of the West
https://www.nytimes.com/intera...
Here's a Japanese reporter on the lockdown in Nanjing and what they're doing to become a functional society again while keeping the new infection rate 0 :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Maybe the harshest thing in there was that they didn't let him into a temple because he didn't have a national ID card. As the reporter implies at the end, anticipate that many other countries will need to implement at least parts of their model to successfully get out of this without a substantial pile of dead bodies.
Here's a challenging one, after airline prices were cheap flying to China at the beginning of March, airfares are now soaring as rich people outbid each other to return to China, which is apparently containing the outbreak much better than the West.
https://www.scmp.com/business/...
This is a Hong Kong paper, so read into that what you will for or against, but prices on travel sites I've looked at are definitely a few times higher than normal.
This "flattening the curve" policy the West is intent on pursuing pretty much admits everyone is going to get exposed to CoViD-19 eventually. Only these east-asian countries are trying to lock down and track the outbreak enough to eradicate it completely. They're not even giving up on their 1% of vulnerable population while the West has basically publicly shrugged them off.
Minecraft survival mode is the only true Battle Royale, is it not?
Creepers gonna creep.
How about a nice game of World Thermonuclear Warfare?
--
WOPR
Still haven't found anything as nice to use as Progect for PalmOS
https://progect-manager.en.sof...
There was a Linux desktop version as well that could sync. If someone could port that interface it would be awesome.
I've more or less given up on the self-hosting requirement and have embraced... Google Tasks (somehow buried in the gmail sidebar) with the Gtasks app/widget. It's not ideal, but it's simple enough for long-term stuff, with due dates and alarms.
For short term (daily) stuff, call me old-fashioned, but I still use a pen and small notebook that I carry around. I draw little checkboxes. If a task falls too far behind in the queue, I copy it again on the current page and cross out the old one. If I get tired of doing that, I usually finally get motivated to either complete or drop the task. It works for me
Pretty much.
Spun alternatively... "China has better privacy protection laws than the US does, because they don't allow data on their citizens to be stored on foreign servers."
Every time you see one of those sensationalized stories about Chinese apps (like Meitu) asking for your IMEI number of your phone and other seemingly irrelevant details, it's because the Chinese devs don't have access to any info stored in your Apple iStore or Google Play account info to uniquely identify you for marketing purposes, because they're not allowed to store stuff there by law. The US devs and authorities already have access to all that personal / demographic info. If your phone supports it, you can simply block those irrelevant permissions from being shared with the Chinese app devs and go on your merry way.
Having all the user data in-country also means that they can serve subpoenas to access data to solve crimes. Sure, that could be abused by a corrupt regime, but transparency works both ways, and good transparency is the best tool to fight corruption.
Also good for economic protectionism and industrial espionage... when I worked for Disney, we essentially had to clone our entire data center to build out the online ticket store for SHDL to comply with these laws. This infrastructure investment keeps the economy in-house, as well as spreads the expertise for e-commerce to Chinese techs.
The Chinese government is run by people with science and engineering degrees, and it shows... they know what they are doing, for better or for worse. Just need to solve that corruption issue, but we're hardly the champions at that at the moment.
The sent out some SMS alert earlier this month talking about "an industry-wide phone number port out scam"
https://www.t-mobile.com/custo...
Not really related, sure, but a good smoke screen... "everyone is having security issues", I suppose.
Ugh, never fly United... most of their airline staff are old and cranky... also they have the highest unaccompanied minor charges
It's difficult to fly to some smaller airports without using United, though
Yeah, I heard Japan worked with Boeing to create some really efficient boarding processes since forever.... to get the quickest turnaround times, they'd dock their 747s with 2 gates up front and 2 gates in the back, and start boarding from the front while passengers were still departing from the rear.
Since Japan is so small the 747s they were flying around inside the country were doing many many more landing cycles per day than Boeing had designed them for (intercontinental flight). So they also had to reinforce the landing gear so they could keep up with the way Japan was using them for several short-haul flights per day.
Alaska Airlines and a few others I've flown always arrange boarding groups from the back to the front (well, after letting disabled, families with small children, and first class board).
Logical policymakers are out there... somewhere...
Eh, first class is already next to the fwd toilets. Not sure why they're in such a hurry to board first and leave the relative comfort of the terminal lounge to spend an extra 20 minutes packed in the tin can while everyone else and their dog parades past them coughing and stuff. But hey, who am I to understand first class privilege?
What this country needs is a good five dollar plasma weapon.
