Hello,

Windows USED to have a system by which you could auto download a windows store app when a given device VID/PID was detected.
This was a SILENT install but did NOT cause an "auto run" of the app (the user had to start it at least once).
My company use that system to distribute the app that I am working on which is used to customize mice and keyboards...

Microsoft disabled that a couple of years ago claiming that the system was a security risk...
However, a similar system still exists for driver level things (which comes with a driver AND potentially apps).
This is apparently what LG used...

They 100% abused the system and the trust that microsoft had in their company in doing so... and should be punished... Blocked from the system (which would punish their users and potentially their bottom line?)

Cyrille

Hello,

No, I am not really. But I am learning to deal with it.

However, she is showing responsibility.
1- she does not show her face
2- she keeps things anonymous (no mention of specific places or things, tight camera angles that makes it hard to spot locations)
3- I have spent great time with her to look at comments and see how she is handling "bad messages". Making sure that she did not get hurt emotionally.
4- in one extreme case, I have gone with her to the police due to inappropriate behavior from some netizen. The person was found and brought in by police and given a run down. My daughter described the whole thing on her channel to tell and explain the other kids (most of her followers) that such things were not appropriate, and that you should trust in the authorities to do their job.

But yes, it is worring for a father.
But just seeing your teenage daughter going outside is...

Cyrille

Hello,

I am french, I have 2 kids, now 19 (still a kid?) and 17.

On one hand, I am 100% happy to see that law.

I see way to many people, including my kids (and wife) "suck in" endless scrolling, harassed using these systems.
Furthermore, I see how these systems are designed to "suck you in". And there is almost nothing you can do to fight it (except not go there). Education, training will NOT help you win against these systems who are run by professionals, using psychiatrist, endless A/B testing and resources. If you go on these networks, they will suck more and more of your time, energy, turn you into "human batteries" (aka Matrix) to feed themselves.

On the other side,
- They can also be great tools, blocking access to them can deprive kids from great opportunity. My 17 YO has been running a youtube channel for 3 years now (so, since she was 14), has over 50K subscribers (!) and is using it to bolster her "business" selling hand crafted masks. She has learned so much about so many things through this that it would have been a waste to not let her do it!
- Mandatory age verification will be an imposition on all of us and reduce liberties for everyone
- These are the tools of the area and kids will need to learn how to use them. Blocking them from doing so will render them less effective later.

At the end I think that what should have hapend is that the law should have required these companies to stop being so agressive in trying to lock and keep people in, and also have some good mechanism for controlling "bad speach" (as a self repost?).... The lawmakers look at it, but it was judged unconstitutional and so they went with age verification.

Cyrille

Hello,

This telescope is a monster...

It is designed to have a very wide view as opposed to other telescopes like hubble or the other bround based Giants.

This means that it can take a full picture of the sky every 15 days or so. (but with lower precision).

It has the largest "camera" in astronomy, made in fact of plenty of smaller cameras...

It has a trully amazing primary/tertiarry mirror, all in one.
This means that the main mirror, a 8m peice of glass has 2 parts, one with a given curvature (an "outside" ring) which acts as a primary mirror, while the second part, in the center acts as a tertiary mirror.

Most modern telescope use a 3 mirror configuration to correct for optical issues (Hubble only has 2).

Trully a marvel or engineering and a great thing for research! Yeha!
Cyrille

I wholly support this comment (le me explain under).

I am French and the narative here as always been that the US was so pissed at France/England having bested them in supersonic flight that they put in place this ban to give time to their industries to catch up...
(learned that at school!)

Turn out they never bothered, among other things because the price of gas skyrocketed just after Concorde was introduced.
But had Concorde been allowed to fly above the US (as it has been a couple of time for exibhition reasons), it would have been much more profitable allowing a New York to SF route for example...

Anyhow, the mathematics of flights have change since then and this absolutely gorgeous plane is now no more, just like the BlackBird...
Modern planes look so dull in comparison.

Cyrille

Hello,

Yes, ICE are way more prone to fires...

However, EV have 3 main issues when it comes from fires:
1: they can not be extinguished
2: They are WAY hotter than ICE
3: They happen 50% of the time when you are not looking at them and not paying attention (charging time)

Where this is problematic is, in an appartment building (typically concrete here in europe), someone can charge their car in the basement, it can catch fire in the middle of the night, no-one can do anything about it, and the heat will denature the concrete support beams around, and render the building unsable, making 100nd of people homeless with insurences bickering and not helping.

Cyrille

It is nice to see diversity.
Having single actors dominating a field is just too damn dangerous.

Unfortunately it is hard to have competition and huge governments pushes like this are god-send to non prime players.

So, yes, great job europe.

Now, let us hope that they also support Mozilla.

And that they will also help them by sending them some money...

Microsoft had done good stuf years ago!

Why do they keep mucking with it!

And there is no reason to have adds, suggestions and other internet stuff in my blody task bar!

I am so sick of web technologies everywhere, especially where they do not bellong.

My computer is thousand of times faster than my first , and yet, at so many tasks it is slower because of bad app design.

What especially drives me nuts is responsive, but non working UI.
You press on the button, get a nice "click response", but nothing happens. Typical of app designed with "modern" technologies.

Bring back older, WORKING, technologies which will bring consistency between apps, high responsiveness, low ressource uses!

Cyrille

Hello,

The scope is not mine :-) I use it, but it's not mine (which is more in the 1000$ range).

However, moving to Linux is not an option as these rigs require anywhere from 4 to 7 software to work together, and there is always at least one of them that does not have linux support (like drivers for the sub-part that does the focus or camera mechanical rotation)

Cyrille

Hello,

I never understood this requirements. Plenty of computers can NOT work that way.

Some computers do not have internet access.
Others are used as control devices for machinery. At that point you do not log in as yourself but as "the operator".

Plus, if a computer is used to control heavy machinery, you DEFINITELY do NOT want it connected to the internet!

One example, I am an amateur astronomer and use a >100K$ telescope (controled by a windows 11 computer). There is no way I want to let anyone potentially get access to this computer, so no internet connection!

Cyrille

Hello,

I looked at that a while ago in the context of voting systems. And yes, you can perform any operations on fully encrypted data. The flow is: user encrypts, sends data to system, system performs algorytm, system sends data to user (might be an other user) and decryption happends there...

Problem is it's slow...

So, they are proposing to solve the slowness...

Great.. But it woulf still be faster to do the compute on your own computer on unencrypted data!!!!

This seems like a solution looking for a problem!

Cyrille
Actually, they are some existing problems. In the case of voting for example, the problem is 'how do I add votes without knowing what the votes are'...
The subtelty here is that you have multiple user submiting data which needs to be agregated, and then decyphered at the end as a total...

I have a pixel 8,

And god, do I have a beef against it !!!

>I slid the phone across a desk and felt oddly satisfied that it could
> glide as neatly as a figure skater

This is just plain stupid, when I take my phone in my hand it feels so sleepery and insecure that I had to purchase a protection to put around it.
That protection is to make it "stick in my hand" more than to protect it from the fall...

Why would the make fragile, handheld devices easy to drop?

Grrrrrrrr

It might also be worth pointing out that once the rightholder has won that case, it will make it easier for him to go after the other offenders and slowly close the most gaping loopholes...

With regard to the "a 10 year old can get around it" comment... The reality is that most 50 year olds can not... in the same way that a 10 year old can go through a fence hole to grab an apple in someon's garden, a 50 year old can not...
Also, the 10 year old might do something illegal on purpose, but a 50 year old might realized, because he is blocked using the most obvious way, that this is illegal and it might be enough of a deterent to NOT look for an illegal sollution, even if he can find one.

Cyrille

Hello,

Amateur astronomer here, and I just want to say thank you!

Traditional Nasa projects are insanely expensive (10B for JWST for example).

But others have managed to do much more with much less. The European Extermely Large Telescope (39m) will tick at around 1 billon (only)...

With Starship (wouch could have taken up the JWST withotu having it folded!) it would be darn easy to send a Hubble class telescope (2.5m) in space. And Making 2.5m mirrors this days is a peice of cake (way under the million mark)...

So, yes, I have no doubt that 500 millons can found 4 télescopes, including one in space (especially if they use common design).

While you are at it, would it be possible for someone to convince Musk to put a couple of smaller telescope (like a 20 or 25cm class) in some starlink? Something that amateur astronomer could rent for picture time? This is something that is already done on Earh, but It would be awsome to be able to take pictures from "up there"!

Cyrille