I like containers. But they do have a habit of nurturing cludgy temporary hacks into permanent infrastructure, by sweeping all the ugly bits under the big whale-shaped rug.

Hopefully the band attachment remains the same turns out to be true. I don’t relish having to ditch my existing band collection.

The band system is really one my favourite features of the Apple Watch line. Very quick to change but still perfectly physically secure - which I doubt any magnetic system will ever match.

I’ve ordered various things from AliExpress before, I’ve never had any major issues. One item was DOA, and another never arrived, but In both cases I got refunded quickly and easily.

It seems no worse than any other online marketplace now.

I assume these 3DS units are some sort of refurb. Are they Chinese region units?

The window tiling and new continuity features like iPhone Mirroring and drag and drop look useful.

Some of the AI stuff seems to be have limited geographic availability.

Shareholders?

Some of it looks maybe useful. Other parts look gimmicky. The image generation stuff could be a powderkeg moment with creatives after the hydraulic press ad.

Ofc, Apple being Apple, I wouldn’t put it past them to artificially “break” things or arbitrarily introduce limits between RCS and iMessage

I’m guessing RCS support will be as barebones as possible while still technically functioning. All of the fancy bells and whistles will remain exclusive to iMessage.

Some iMessage features might not be possible to implement with RCS I suppose. Maybe RCS messages will get a different colour. All Apple said in the WWDC keynote was RCS would be supported, they didn’t elaborate any further.

The content is being uploaded to Adobe’s servers, they likely have the right and may even be legally required to moderate it to some degree.

This yet another reminder that the cloud is just somebody else’s computer. Somebody who might want to impose some degree of control with what is done with their computer, for whatever reason.

A lot of open source graphics software is made by programmers who also need to edit images sometimes. Both the lack of UI polish and featureset choices make more sense when looked at from that angle.

However, a lot of the criticism that gets thrown at these programs is also a bit unfounded. I regularly see people dunking on GIMP for not being a pixel-perfect clone of Photoshop for free. There is more than one way to design an image editor, and inability of some to learn another is really a user issue. GIMP could be better, but it still can and should be GIMP.

The military part of the proposed new national service is going to be optional however, those “conscripted” can choose a civilian volunteering path instead. So I’m not sure how this scheme would help with the threat of future conflict when nobody chooses the military option.

It’s a ridiculous gimmick to distract from the Tories failures in areas people do care about.

I’d say it’s more that parents (companies) should be more responsible about what they tell their kids (customers).

Because right now the companies have a new toy (AI) that they keep telling their customers can make thunder from clapping. But in reality the claps sometimes make thunder but are also likely to make farts. Occasionally some incredibly noxious ones too.

The toy might one day make earth-rumbling thunder reliably, but right now it can’t get close and saying otherwise is what’s irresponsible.

Seems a hard sell to go subscription on such a niche platform. I wish anyone luck that could challenge the Apple/Android duopoly though.

As an aside, can we get back into desktop cubes again? With all the upheaval in Windows land it’s the sort of eye candy that can win over new Linux users.

Any distro should be fairly stable and supported on an older Thinkpad.

I’m currently using Debian stable on my X220 and it’s rock solid.

I think it’s becoming fair to label a lot of commercial AI “scams” at this point, considering the huge gulf between the hype and the end results.

Open source projects are different due to their lack of commercialisation.

We’ve been here before, haven’t we?

While he is taking a break from YouTube, perhaps Tom Scott can put together a sequel.

Parliament will be dissolved on 30th May. When the Commons is dissolved all business is ended and MPs stop being MPs. When the Lords dissolves business ends but Lords still remain Lords.

The government still remains and ministers keep their positions, but is effectively only a caretaker for the pre-election period, and cannot enact new polices except in exceptional circumstances.

The campaign period proper starts once Parliament is dissolved. Parties will publish manifestos shortly after, TV debates may be organised etc.

I was starting to think they would dither their way into defaulting to January at the rate they had been going.

My worst fear is not a Tory comeback but a lurch in more radical and populist direction if Labour fail to start visibly turning things around after the first term. It’s unrelated to expect many if any first term miracles considering the state the country is in, but people are going to need to feel some sort of progress to stop the frustration boiling over.

The Cravendale adverts have escalated a bit I see.

2018 according to Wikipedia, so 6 years ago!