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Comment Re: Cloud computing is one the dumbest ideas ever. (Score 1) 71

I was expecting someone who has used the product to help others in this discussion understand why Grab probably chose and continues to choose to develop iOS apps instead of PWAs. The answers might have taken the form:

A. PWAs weren't capable enough 12 years ago for X, Y, and Z reasons, are now, and the engineering resources to port the native app to a web app would exceed the cost of acquiring and maintaining Macs capable of running the latest macOS
B. PWAs still aren't capable for X, Y, and Z reasons

Comment Depends on what Apple lets PWAs do (Score 1) 18

The right decision would be for a news site and storefront to have platform-agnostic web sites, not applications you have to install.

And the right decision would be for phone operating system publishers to provide functionality in the included web browser to let a website act as a progressive web application. Safari for iOS has a history of lagging behind other platforms' browsers in PWA features.[1] This is particularly evident with respect to what the browser allows websites to do in the background. For example, Apple implemented Push API seven years after Mozilla did, and it requires the user to add the website to the home screen to enable PWA features.[2] Do you want Nintendo Music to pause when you switch to another application? Or if you've chosen to let Nintendo's website notify you when something becomes available, do you want to miss the notification if Safari suddenly decides that your domain's notifications shall be silent (without vibration, without sound, and at the bottom of the list)?

[1] "Progress Delayed Is Progress Denied" by Alex Russell
[2] "Push API" on Can I use...

Comment Re:Very few things are cheaper in the "cloud" (Score 1) 71

But for compute, or storage, or bandwidth: on-prem will always win in cost.

With two exceptions I can think of. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it:

1. For lightweight web hosting, a low-end VPS from a company like DigitalOcean is likely to be less expensive than upgrading a home office from home-class home Internet to business-class home Internet to unblock inbound ports 80 and 443.
2. SMTP is still an old boys' club, with major mailbox providers (such as Gmail and Outlook) blocking connections on port 25 from on-premise IP addresses as likely sources of spam.

Comment You still need a domain name (Score 1) 35

I would also consider allowing an option to blindly accept self-signed certificates on private IP ranges to encourage HTTPS for people too lazy to use Let's Encrypt or something like that

Does "too lazy" include no budget for a domain name before the proof of concept is complete? Let's Encrypt doesn't work unless you buy a domain name and keep it renewed. To satisfy a DNS-01 challenge, you need to host the domain's DNS at a provider with an API that an ACME client can use. To satisfy an HTTP-01 challenge, you need to be on an ISP that allows incoming connections on port 80. A lot of home ISPs block inbound port 80 because they use carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT) or want to upsell business-class service or both. Nor does HTTP-01 work for wildcard certificates.

Comment Depends on whether you're in customer support (Score 1) 86

Why the need for mouse jigglers and the like? Because as a remote worker you have to be at your laptop the full 8 hours, otherwise you are "slacking off".

In theory, that's an argument for adding a "bathroom break" button to groupware more than for RTO. Managers would get metrics to find employees who misuse the break button in excess of what labor law encourages employers to allow.

Go to the toilet and someone calls? You aren't working. Go to the kitchen for coffee and someone calls? You aren't working.

Ultimately, that depends on the nature of the position. Do you work call center or something else?

You don't answer an email right away? You can guess the answer.

I'm in development, not operations, so my manager tends to be more accepting of my habit of dropping offline for an hour at a time to avoid the 23-minute interruption penalty associated with complex problem-solving.

Comment Re:I connect via LAN (Score 2) 86

Say an employee with attention deficit or sensory processing disorder uses Teams on a separate device as a way to improve productivity on their primary device. Refusal to accommodate these conditions can get an employer in trouble under the ADA and foreign counterparts. If you end up fired for this, ask an equality lawyer about your options.

Comment Re:"Compromised"? (Score 2) 38

Lying to you to give you that terrible restaurant recommendation. https://arxiv.org/pdf/2510.06105 is a white paper mathematically proving that LLMs will lie.

I have said this all along- most of AI is GIGO- Garbage in, Garbage out. LLMs were trained on the largest garbage producer in our society today, Web 2.0. Nothing was done to curate the input, so the output is garbage.

I don't often reveal my religion, but https://magisterium.com/ is an example of what LLMs look like when they HAVE curated training. This LLM is very limited. It can't answer any question that the Roman Catholic Church hasn't considered in the last 300 years or so. They're still adding documents to it carefully, but I asked it about a document published a mere 500 years ago and it wasn't in the database, but instead of making something up like most LLMs will do, it kindly responded that the document wasn't in the database. It also, unlike most AI, can produce bibliographies.

Comment Re:Something to improve consumer laws? (Score 1) 53

What in modern society requires signing up for monthly payments to any service? The only thing that even comes close for the average person is renting a property to live in.

Even if electric power, water, sewer, trash pickup, and gas for indoor heating (in areas that get snow) are included in your rent, other services with recurring payments include home and mobile Internet access, renter's insurance, car insurance, and health insurance.

Even the streaming services I have either have month to month options or bill me for the full year at the time of purchase. I don't need to use any of them as I could always choose to rent or purchase to own any of the content on those services.

A lot of shows on streaming services are never released on DVD.

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