Comments

tojikomori, to apple in iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma Add Passkey to Your Apple ID
tojikomori avatar

Sad news: ATP shared the same trick a few months ago and received feedback that it's easy to work around:

Multigreg writes, I set a screen time restriction with the passcode, without the option to remove it using the Apple ID. I tapped cancel and hit skip. When I try the forgot passcode link, it still guides me through the options to enter my Apple ID or device password or find a forgotten Apple ID…

So the mitigation that we said last time, that specific one about the screen time password, if you did that on your phone, just remove it because it's not actually helping. I mean, I don't know if you want to remove it because it will slow them down. It will slow down the thief a little bit because now they have to go through the forgot password flow, which is kind of annoying. And you know, so it's a speed bump, a tiny speed bump, but that's about it.

AFAIK the best advice we can give people is to set a strong device passcode and never use it in a public space. Always use FaceID, and have "Require Attention" toggled on.

tojikomori, to apple in iOS 17 and macOS Sonoma Add Passkey to Your Apple ID
tojikomori avatar

Comment from the MacRumors forum, in case you're hoping it'll solve the problem Joanna Stern reported on:

Unfortunately on iOS, the backup to Face-ID for the iPhone's Keychain or PassKeys is the iPhone's passcode. So anyone that has access to your phone and knows the passcode, can use the phone's passcode to log-in to iCloud or Apple ID with this feature.

tojikomori, to mechanicalkeyboards in How do I find keycaps with the same side print on them?
tojikomori avatar

Are there any brands well known for making side-stickers or transfers that are relatively easy to line up?

tojikomori, to tech in Which current technology has the most potential?
tojikomori avatar

Maybe this is just a contrarian view, but I see "AI" as a potential rather than a technology. Right now, transformer-based technologies are what most of us mean when we talk about AI, and it's not clear to me how much more potential that idea really has. When I look at how much energy it takes to set up something like GPT-4 I see us pushing hardware to its limit and yet the outcomes are still too often unsatisfying. Significant breakthroughs are needed somewhere in that architecture just to do the kind of things we're trying to do today at the fidelity we expect and without breaking the bank.

The technology we have today might be to AI what the phonograph was to audio recording. As a technology we hit the limits of its potential pretty quickly and then… we fixated. Entirely different technologies eventually led to the lossless spatial audio experiences we can enjoy today, and seem more likely to carry future potential for audio too.

In that analogy, GPT might just be like someone arranging 8 gramophones in a circle to mimic the kind of spatial audio experience available in some headphones now. Impressive in many ways, but directionally not the path where potential lies.

tojikomori, to asklemmy in What do you think of the reddit hack that supposedly happened?
tojikomori avatar

Yes but note the specific details of that assumption and their reasoning: it's based on reddit's announcement of the security incident a few months ago which starts:

Based on our investigation so far, Reddit user passwords and accounts are safe…

Now, look again at what BlackCat has promised in this leak:

Instead, BlackCat is teasing such revelations as "all the statistics they track about their users," and data concerning how Reddit "silently censors users."

80 GB of "statistics and data" about Reddit's users is a lot. It may not contain raw IP addresses, but we know that IP matching is one of the ways Reddit catches sock puppets, so there may at least be a hash that could be used to identify accounts held by the same users.

Am I going too far worrying about PMs and other details? Maybe. It really depends on the honesty and competence of BlackCat and Reddit, and the article author's assumptions based on their statements.

tojikomori, (edited ) to asklemmy in What do you think of the reddit hack that supposedly happened?
tojikomori avatar

I've seen a few sites welcome the news with glee, as though Reddit's leadership is going to be strongly affected. That's childish and myopic. This is bad news for everyone.

Whether or not Reddit pays, we should assume the data will make its way into the hands of people who (further) weaponize it against Reddit's users, e.g. people who've posted risque photos of themselves or shared compromising details through throwaway accounts can be doxxed or matched to their normal accounts via their IP or other common details. PMs and other private account details might contain mailing addresses and other private or compromising information, too. (Edit: as Phoeniqz points out in replies, the article author assumes this is not the case based on Reddit's and BlackCat's statements about the leak.)

If Reddit knew about the breach earlier and didn't do their due diligence to alert users, then that's further condemnation of their leadership and priorities, but it doesn't undo the damage this might cause users.

If Reddit were to pay BlackCat, then it would further enrich, reward, and encourage them. If, as is more likely, it doesn't, then the blowback it receives (especially from any high profile consequences of the leak) might encourage other companies to pay up in future.

tojikomori, to plant_milk in The 10 best plant-based milks
tojikomori avatar

Thanks, that makes a lot of sense and some of it resonates with me too – the Tetra Pak problem especially. We don't go through nearly as much milk but it still bothers me that recycling is such a dubious prospect for those cartons.

tojikomori, to mechanicalkeyboards in Recommended sites to buy keycaps? (shipping to USA)
tojikomori avatar

Sorry I didn't see this sooner. I just did the same hunt, and came to the same conclusion.

I ended up getting the PBTfans Dolch set from Divinikey which comes with a decent number of relegendable caps: I figured that way if I missed them I could make my own media keys. But I'm getting along fine without them – I've been on the Mac long enough that I'm pretty well drilled on the ones I use.

Very happy both with the caps and with Divinikeys' service. I ordered a couple of other things from them – some new switches and a better switch puller – and both orders went smoothly.

The other solution I looked at for a while was WASD Keyboards printed custom keycaps. Someone uploaded their layout for Mac keyboards to GitHub and WASD also has a comprehensive layout guide if you want to make your own. I decided against it because I wanted Cherry profile caps, ideally doubleshot rather than printed, to last longer.

tojikomori, to apple in I like it.
tojikomori avatar

I saw this the other day on Ars Technica! Apparently the maker also does Mac-themed pillows.

tojikomori, to plant_milk in The 10 best plant-based milks
tojikomori avatar

I hope I didn't mislead you here, but I've never actually tried making it myself! We always buy it from a shop. This is the one we usually get, but I think that particular brand is only available in America.

That's pretty interesting, though – do you usually make your own plant-based milks? Is that your preference or is it hard to find them in shops where you live?

tojikomori, to tech in Reddit CEO defiant as moderator strike shutters thousands of forums: 'We made a business decision that we’re not negotiating on'
tojikomori avatar

It was like this for a few months on Mastodon when Twitter did the same. At least spez doesn't have any kind of celebrity status: I was able to go out with some friends last night and not a single person raised this topic. (A couple of them know what Reddit is, but none of them really use it much. And I'm sure no one in the group other than me knows who its CEO is.)

I just hope we have a good network of people here after this story fizzles out of the news. I'd be happy with kbin never becoming as popular as Reddit, so long as there's a healthy bunch of curious people sharing and discussing interesting links.

tojikomori, to apple in EU law requiring easier iPhone battery replacement inches closer to enactment
tojikomori avatar

A screw-on panel sounds like a good idea to me – a decent balance between replaceability and durability, without overly optimizing for a repair that only happens once or twice in a handset's lifetime.

The S5 looked a lot like my first smartphone, and it goes to the other extreme: a flimsy plastic shell over some sturdier plastic that frames the battery and separates its contacts from the phone's internals. My newer, non-user-replaceable-battery handsets – both Apple and Android – have held together a lot better using fewer materials more judiciously.

A sweet spot between these extremes ("you need 80 lbs of specialized equipment to replace the battery safely" vs. "let's pretend people need to swap out phone batteries like AAs") could be good for me, but I want to know about the trade-offs. Too often legislators and right-to-repair advocates talk as though there are none. Even with a screw-on panel, I'm sure there are trade-offs.

tojikomori, to apple in Question Of The Week Suggestion Thread, WO Jun 18
tojikomori avatar

Thanks for checking in – I almost declared my "stop" comment to be the winner by default. 😆

This thread was a follow-up to last week's QOTW thread (where I mentioned that I'd ask for suggestions from the sub) and I was looking for similar ideas: open-ended conversation starters, useful tips and tricks, etc. I posted a new one for this week asking about favorite iOS widgets.

There was a good amount of discussion last week, so I'm not quite ready to pull the plug on the idea. Maybe in a few weeks I'll set up a form for people to submit their own questions and link to it from each QOTW thread.

tojikomori, to apple in Question Of The Week: What are your favorite iOS widgets?
tojikomori avatar

I have the 4x4 stock calendar widget on my first Home Screen to quickly scan my day in the morning.

The widget I use most often is probably the dense 4x2 Carrot Weather one: it's split down the middle between hourly and daily forecasts, which is helpful for quick chore & dog-walking decisions, especially when deciding whether to put something off until tomorrow because it's too hot/cold/rainy.

tojikomori, to apple in EU law requiring easier iPhone battery replacement inches closer to enactment
tojikomori avatar

Weirdly torn on this: I live a few hours from the nearest Apple store, so it'd be nice if I could replace my phone battery without going through all this, but I also like the fact my phone is a decently robust and waterproof little brick with few moving parts or breakable pieces. It's practically a tank compared to the last battery-replaceable smartphone I had.

If I had to replace my battery as frequently as I did with early smartphones then I'd willingly trade some of the durability for a user-replaceable battery, but I've had an iPhone 12 mini since its launch – about two and a half years – and its battery still gets me through the day just fine. iOS Battery Health says its maximum capacity is 87%. Maybe next year I'll need a battery replacement, and that'll do me fine for another three years. I'll be extremely pleased, but also quite surprised, if the phone lasts long enough to need a second battery replacement after that. Is that a repair we should really be optimizing for?

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • provamag3
  • thenastyranch
  • cubers
  • cisconetworking
  • InstantRegret
  • rosin
  • Youngstown
  • slotface
  • love
  • mdbf
  • kavyap
  • everett
  • Durango
  • DreamBathrooms
  • megavids
  • magazineikmin
  • modclub
  • tester
  • khanakhh
  • ethstaker
  • osvaldo12
  • tacticalgear
  • ngwrru68w68
  • Leos
  • anitta
  • GTA5RPClips
  • normalnudes
  • JUstTest
  • All magazines