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Joined 3 年前
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Cake day: 2023年6月10日

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  • Unfortunately I already read the headline, is there anywhere I can offload this now unnecessary excitement?

    Python in Excel would be great, but nerfing it with some ridiculous cloud dependency is crazy. They could still paywall the feature if they really wanted while still running the Python interpretation locally.

    I suppose we should be grateful they hadn’t also stuck ChatGPT on to it too so it could (badly) write the Python for you. Tech by buzzword will be the death of us I’m sure.





  • The internet used to be more decentralised. There were lots of smaller websites, blogs, forums etc, which people discovered via word of mouth, search engines, and forgotten things like webrings. It’s only recently that big monolithic social media platforms took hold.

    Tech is often cyclical, we could now be swinging back to a more decentralised web, but with the benefit of newer technologies. Right now it’s almost a new “wild west” as new platforms appear and new ideas like federation are experimented with. Some will rise, some will fall, some will go off in the corner and do their own thing. While all that happens it’s going to be a bit messy, much like it was in the 90s with the initial rise of the web.





  • Yes, it’s a sad state of affairs that Apple’s restrictions on iOS and iPadOS browsers are the only thing stopping an effective Google monopoly over web browsers. Ideally Firefox would still keep things in balance, but Mozilla doesn’t seem to know what it’s doing these days in terms of building market share - and I say that as a long time Firefox user.

    I still remember the IE 6 era, and I hope we never see a single browser dominate the web again. To those wishing Apple would be forced to open up, be careful what you wish for.


  • Blink has diverged enough from WebKit that they are separate engines now. KHTML has been sadly laid to rest.

    It’s a miserable state of affairs that we are effectively down to just 3 browser engines now, Blink, WebKit and Gecko. But with the ever increasing scope and complexity of web standards I don’t see that changing, unless someone throws a lot of extra support at the Servo project.



  • I’ve been a longtime fan of CheapShow, a comedy podcast loosely based around unusual items found in cheap shops and charity shops (thrift stores). Episodes include deep dives in vintage/retro media, taste tests of weird foodstuffs, various games and challenges, plus a lot of complete chaos and toilet humour.

    Maybe not for everyone, but if any of the above catches your interest it’s worth a try.


  • Computers and tech in general often feels like magic. The first computer I ever used was a ZX Spectrum, now I have something vastly more computationally powerful, and constantly connected to a worldwide communication network and knowledge repository in my pocket!

    It’s amazing any of it actually works, especially as we don’t always seem to know how it works.


  • As a Pokemon fan I understand your pain. It’s not like it’s an obscure series, or from a small company. Why is it so hard to stream such a popular anime? I’m surprised The Pokemon Company hasn’t rolled out their own streaming platform yet.

    Before diving in to Plex I would highly recommend looking at Jellyfin first also. It’s offers much the same features as Plex but is fully free and open source.

    For my own media server I use an old HP Microserer G8 purchased second hand, and upgraded with a Xeon e3-1260L, also sourced cheaply used. It’s small, easy to service and happily runs my Linux disro of choice. I know other people using various SFF PCs, or even repurposed old desktops. For best performance look for a CPU (or GPU) with hardware video encoding support. Otherwise, the rule of thumb for Plex used to be a CPU with at least 2000 Passmark score on cpubenchmark.net per concurrent 1080p stream.



  • The article says the Japanese government is still working on the exact regulations to be implemented. Perhaps the Japanese government will require the platforms to promote other options somehow - similar to the browser choice screen the EU mandated Microsoft add to Windows to increase web browser competition.

    Google does not block 3rd party app stores, but most users do not use or even know of them, and 90%+ of all apps are still downloaded/purchased from the Play Store.

    It’s still a bigger change for Apple though, who block any third party software from outside the App Store entirely. As the EU are also heading in the same direction, maybe Apple will eventually cave and allow third party software sources globally. There were rumours that they would do this for EU customers only at one point, but if more and more countries adopt similar laws it will cause a lot of fragmentation.