Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Caveat emptor is undefeated in online shopping
Life, James Hein, Published on 11/03/2026
» It is becoming more common to buy things online. The majority of my shopping, not counting groceries, is now done that way. In the past I've warned about prices that are too good to be true, like a 4TB thumb drive for a few dollars from sites like Temu and AliExpress. There is now a kind of middle ground where the price could be correct and it's coming from, say, Amazon. Recently, even though I had some doubts, I bought a 5TB SSD drive from Amazon for around half of what I'd expect it to be. I did this knowing I can easily send things back to Amazon.
Beware the AI bots
Life, James Hein, Published on 04/06/2025
» I recently joined a Facebook group that supposedly represented Kat Timpf, a regular presenter on the Gutfeld! show. I posted a couple of comments and a couple of weeks later, I received a tag in social media purportedly from Dana Perino, a regular on the Fox show The Five. Initially this was a surprise. Why would a famous TV star want to chat with me? After a few chats, it became obvious something was off. The tag name in Messenger was just Dana Perino but the conversation had a few structural errors, not something a former press secretary would make.
Is your internet speed too slow?
Life, James Hein, Published on 09/04/2025
» How important is a good internet connection? This is one of those how long is a piece of string or what computer should I get questions. Back in the day, it was a huge jump from zero bits per second to a 2400 Baud modem. People and businesses were willing to pay a large sum to get connected because it opened up a new world of possibilities, ranging from not needing to go to the library as often and being able to sell and market products online. When and how often you paid for the next upgrade depended on your use case and the capabilities it provided. The next major jumps in speed were 4800, 9600 and 14400bps and everyone jumped to one of these as a next step. During this period, the mid 90s, the T1 at 1.544Mbps was the imaginary godlike speed we all dreamed about but didn't have money to afford. That speed provided real time video conference calls and was limited to government and large business concerns that typically involved a dedicated screening room. This was also when the concept of data compression started to gain popularity as you could send more with less bits.
Fact checkers get it wrong
Life, James Hein, Published on 13/09/2023
» First off, I have some follow-up news on an earlier story. The Australian fact checking group I mentioned being paid by Meta has been suspended for providing a series of "false" fact checks that turned out to be actually true. As I pointed out, many of the so-called fact checkers don't have any experience in the field they are apparently providing the check for. This will be particularly true in any politically charged area.
Colour e-ink phones are here
Life, James Hein, Published on 31/08/2022
» It seems like it has taken forever, but colour e-ink phones are finally starting to arrive. Enter the Hisense A7 CC, with a 6.7-inch screen that can display 4096 colours at 100ppi.
Chinese tech companies are at it again
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/05/2021
» A reminder on the importance of both scalable systems and load testing. The recent Philippines' attempt to expand its national ID programme had a number of issues when they introduced a two-factor authentication system. PhilSys, as it is known, started out just fine when registrations began in 2020, when paper forms were still used. This in itself was a little strange as the purpose of the new system was to do away with the need to present physical documents when interacting with government agencies. PhilSys the digital ID system was marketed as such and promised transformation and other buzzwords including easier opening of bank accounts. All of this would also help everyone involved during Covid times. After 28 million paper applications, the digital system was turned on and in the first hour 40,000 people tried to register. The system promptly fell over due to the load and inability to scale quickly. Most IT people will admit to a similar experience in their past, but by 2021 there are surely enough historical examples of what will happen if you don't do sufficient load testing before a major release like this.
Digital world backslides into autocratisation
Life, James Hein, Published on 03/03/2021
» - I love new technology and I often pick up the latest gadgets from sites like Kickstarter. Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder are one step closer to using humans as batteries.