ulyssys

Disclaimer: I haven’t yet watched the video, but on the point of security: yes, when data is collected without my clear approval and full understanding, and is not done in a secure way, it matters all the more.

It’s of little concern to me that the threat is theoretical when it’s only a matter of time before a script kiddy or some bored guy with a YouTube tutorial and $20 of AI credits sets it up himself, let alone well-funded groups or motivated actors.

Unmanaged IOT devices in general are not to be trusted. LG isn’t leading with transparency nor are they big enough like Microsoft or Apple to put out bug bounties and audits with hundreds of thousands of eyeballs on them. They make the device that sits in the corner of your living room and is forgotten about. They’re being cagey about the data they collect and how they collect it, and I’m asked to take the risk on “trust me bro” and “you’re required to tell anyone within earshot of the TV’s mic that they’re being recorded”? Fuck that.

Never mind that data being exposed even if encrypted is a risk all its own: the collection can start now, and whenever it’s detected and blocked it’s too late. It can be cracked later whenever they have the tech and the time.

> “Just log into your bank account on the mobile web browser” is a pretty clunky way to see why your card declined.

But that's because the user experience as designed is more hostile or not otherwise accounting for mobile use--right? Or are you saying there is a limit to the web platform's ability to reduce friction?

The most painful part of this is that, at a certain point in mobile app development, many of them switched to using web frameworks instead of native. We're literally figuratively building web apps to replace native apps that replaced web apps, and hoping to performance optimize them back into near-native.

Apple Maps suggests “your preferred route” as an option when you frequently travel an alternative path. In addition, all maps apps I know of have options to configure use of toll roads and highways.

Specific numbers aside, one possible reason is they want to increase adoption to gain user volume, in order to have an effect on the larger ecosystem.

Once you have non-trivial network effects, you could continue to influence the ecosystem (see: MSIE, Firefox in its early days, and Google Chrome). There are probably multiple paths to this. This is one.

I think we need to rethink the whole "advertising as a way to support creators" model. Support comes in many forms, and decoupling knowledge of a thing from being paid for good work would likely result in higher quality outcomes.

It's possible there's something to the Nostr model (https://nostr.com/) that could be of use here. A key part of Nostr is the "zap" system. In addition to allowing users to just merely upvote posts, users can also choose to zap a post, which is just a method of sending Bitcoin to the poster's wallet.

Think of it like a tip system, as it directly and concretely rewards users for good content, by exchanging a token of direct value (money).

With a system like this, advertising is something you do to get recognized, while the zaps are something you receive as a reward for valuable work (by whatever metric your audience appreciates).

In this example, assuming sequential steps, if step 2 must be performed before step 4, then it is step 2 which is the bottleneck.

After step 2 has been optimized, step 4 becomes the new bottleneck—assuming that optimization of step 2 is satisfactory.

While both steps 2 and 4 contribute to a slow system, a bottleneck means something else entirely: it is the single most significant point of slow down for the rest of the process.

To put it another way, it’s hindering the overall execution. If both use the same amount of time, then whichever is closer to the front of the process is by definition hindering more of the process.

It's not necessarily an either-or situation. It can be privacy, annoyance, and a general lack of effectiveness.

Advertising isn't just the art of selling a product, it's the art of getting past our normal social defense that someone is trying to take our money, our attention, and our time. Advertising is necessarily adversarial, and everyone's tolerance for it is going to be unique depending on how heavily they rely on free resources, but it is a necessary unpleasantry at its best.

If I could even recall the exact number of times an advertisement of any type appealed to me in the last 20 or more years, it would amount to less than the fingers on my hand. I used to welcome all of Google's advertising tracking and relevance-seeking as the best version of advertising out there, but even that resulted in unimpressive and less than meaningful ads. If Google can't advertise something useful to me, then I have zero qualms about walking by, palm facing them in refusal.

Because of these product failures, and because it is unwise to trust a big company with all of your personal data, I rarely desired to be advertised to at all.

Individual content creators have the opportunity to give me a chance with something unique that they know that their viewers would be interested in because they (hopefully) relate to their audience much more than a faceless corporation, and can present a product in its best, most relevant light.

But if that content creator is trying to sell me a Scandinavian VPN service or a game of legendary shadows, you can bet I have zero interest.

All this may change as GenAI-driven methods may key in on relevant interests based on what I wish to share about myself. I'm hoping that Apple's Intelligence systems will end up preserving privacy as well as driving a more effective ad model.

The objection to soldered RAM isn’t the RAM.

Unrelated to the article itself, but is it possible for this website to have worse ads on mobile?

It starts automatically playing with music, and if I pause it to stop the music/sound then scroll down it pops up again as a floating ad and starts playing again. If I hit the pause and X to close the floating ad, it starts playing yet again in the original inline place it was in the webpage, making me have to scroll back up to silence it again.

And the cycle continues all over again….

> Figuratively, it's nuts.

…and literally, it may or may not be nuts.

I'd like to use this without a Google account, and at most using only sandboxed Google Play services. Is that an option? It doesn't seem to work.

There are non-ligatured variants included in the download.

Not if you log all terminal input to the production log server.