Showing 1-10 of 18 results
-
YouTube hypocrisy deserves flagging
Life, James Hein, Published on 27/09/2023
» YouTube is behaving badly again. A prominent presenter I occasionally watch, who has millions of subscribers, has been demonetised, for some possible actions 20 years ago. This is not a commentary on potential innocence or guilt, but on YouTube's processes. There are people whose lives are supported by revenue from their presentations on YouTube. This ranges from small fries all the way up to the big fish like the one here. When an individual is demonetised they can lose the ability to support themselves. In this case allegations were made by the media, not the police or authorities, and at the time of writing there have been zero charges made. YouTube is essentially saying, bring us all your viewers so we can hit them with ads and we can make lots of money, but you will be getting nothing for your work.
-
What would you do without internet?
Life, James Hein, Published on 12/04/2023
» India recently blocked all internet, phone and SMS access to the state of Punjab for four to five days as they search for a Sikh separatist. I had a friend who was there at the time and they told me how eerie it was to see no one on a phone for a few days. Someone would occasionally pull out the phone to see if service had returned but apart from that, there were no people talking loudly on phones in restaurants or on public transport. This impacted 27 million people, which is more than the population of Australia.
-
Beware of TikTok snooping on your phone's data
Life, James Hein, Published on 02/03/2022
» If you didn't already know, TikTok is potentially dangerous. The app bypasses both Apple and Google protections and is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. According to reports, the app passes all your data back to servers in China, including unposted information and the contents of your phone. The app also has many security vulnerabilities allowing hackers to take over your phone. This is in addition to the expansion of your digital footprint across the planet. In China, people are rewarded for posting serious videos like those showing them using a chemistry set. Those outside China are rewarded for the dumbest presentations. I'll let the readers work this last one out for themselves.
-
Alternatives sought as chip shortages disrupt production
Life, James Hein, Published on 31/03/2021
» - There is a silicon shortage, which is another way of saying that getting your next computer will either be difficult with long wait times or that prices may rise soon, so you'd better get in earlier rather than later. A couple of fires, a cold snap in Texas and Covid-19 restrictions are some of the causes of the shortages which shows that it doesn't take a lot to disrupt supply chains.
-
The fight for a freer web continues
Life, James Hein, Published on 17/03/2021
» The social media platform Telegram has over 500 million users with over 55 million active every day. Unlike other platforms such as Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and others, you are free to express your opinion there without being cancelled, shadow banned or throttled in searches.
-
AI deserves our human paranoia
Life, James Hein, Published on 14/08/2019
» For most of my IT career I have seen promises of the "silver bullet" application. The modern iteration of this is the overused promise of Artificial Intelligence. Every man and his dog are jumping onto this marketing bandwagon and Microsoft has been no exception making it part of their database offerings.
-
Apple struggles to make a connection
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/03/2017
» There is a rumour that Apple could be replacing its Lightning Port on the 10th-anniversary iPhone with the popular USB-C alternative. I don't believe it. USB-C is too popular, and Apple has a habit of going its own way with connectors and other items. Apple has long been anti-standards when it comes to their devices, and, while it would be a good thing, they have invested too much in their proprietary Lightning connectors to let them go. So even if they did adopt USB-C it would be an Apple-only version, requiring Apple-specific cables and chargers. Sure, Apple could come up with a Lightning-to-USB cable of some kind, but that would be too easy.
-
Of hacking and international cyber affairs
Life, James Hein, Published on 21/12/2016
» According to some reports Russia was the one that hacked into the Clinton servers and arranged the email leaks to get Trump elected. Many of the US security agencies don't agree with this latest assessment. So what do we know? We don't know for example if the servers are running Microsoft or Linux operating systems, if the emails were grabbed in a single block or slowly over time. There is very little info. This is a classic case of one side blaming the other for a result they didn't want, and I suspect that the real story won't come out for some time.
-
Canon is zooming to the top spot
Life, James Hein, Published on 23/09/2015
» I have been thinking about the new 250MP CMOS sensor from Canon that can capture up to 19,580 x 12,600 pixels or around 420 or so of the highest resolution and uncompressed shots on a 128GB card. This is still over 11 rolls of the old film and of course with memory cards larger than 128GB already available it isn't really a limitation. My thinking was more along the lines of, with this kind of resolution, whether there would be a need for a zoom lens anymore.
-
When free Wi-Fi isn't really free
Life, James Hein, Published on 15/07/2015
» I've been doing some travelling recently and I've been taking some notice of the availability of Wi-Fi in international airports. Arriving in Singapore for example I was expecting free Wi-Fi at the airport but while it claimed to be it wasn't. To gain access you have to login, enter your mobile phone number and feed in the returning information from the SMS. Depending on your mobile roaming charges, and if you have roaming turned on at all, this can be somewhat costly for allegedly free Wi-Fi. Arriving at Jakarta airport the free Wi-Fi was both free and did not require any of these hoops to be navigated before accessing. Bottom line: Wi-Fi in Jakarta was much easier to use than in Singapore, which might sound counter-intuitive but based on my experience at least is true. In the age of voice over the internet the whole concept of huge phone and data charges is just plain wrong anyway. On the positive side for Singapore, buying an inexpensive voice and data plan for a couple of weeks was very reasonably priced. Also on the return journey I found that you can get a password in Singapore using a computer terminal, so access if you're not in a hurry.
Your recent history
-
Recently searched
-
Recently viewed links
Did you find what you were looking for? Have you got some comments for us?
