#September Software Updates

[oediex]

I realised it when I came down the stairs after waking up today and my eyes glanced over the kitchen.

The laundry.

I washed it yesterday and, as happens so very often, completely forgot. My washing machine automatically turns off once it's finished, which is in theory good for saving energy, but also a stake in the heart of my ability to remember to hang it up. Countless times now I've been in this predicament. And it's such a waste whenever you have to repeat a washing because the smell on the overnight washer inhabitants suggests this is the best course of action.

Today, as I do the repeat wash - usually inescapable when it's bed sheets - I put an alarm when I notice, passing by to get a cup of tea, that there's an hour left. The problem is that washing-machine minutes and real-life minutes do not exactly overlap. So after going about my day, when my alarm goes off, I can hear the washing machine is still going.

I guess I'll have to wait. It'll probably be only ten minutes more or so.

It's another hour and a half before I remember.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Thinking the unthinkable

On SEPTEMBER 24th, I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

Time and again, I find myself thinking about radium suppositories: specifically, I get to thinking about the day that the consensus shifted from "radium suppositories are great" to "stop putting radioisotopes up your ass."

The thing is, people really liked radium-based quack remedies. They drank radium-infused water, smeared radium cream on their faces and bodies, and yes, rammed radium suppositories up their assholes:

https://maximumfun.org/episodes/sawbones/radium-girls/

The fact that this made whatever ailed you sicker didn't deter the radium true believers: if you're getting sicker, then you must need more radium.

When I think about the debate over radium, I imagine that the people who understood that radium was really bad for you must have run up against critics who told them they were being unreasonable. "You can't tell people to stop using radium. Tell them to use suppositories with less radium. Tell them to use them less frequently. But you can't just tell people, 'stop putting radium up your asshole.' They won't take you seriously."

About 20 years ago, I started pitching various institutions that reviewed consumer tech policy on the idea that they should reject any product that had DRM. After all, DRM didn't just restrict how you used a gadget today, it provided a facility for nonconsensually, irreversibly field-updating that gadget to add new restrictions tomorrow. How could a reviewer in good conscience say, "Go ahead and buy this device if you need this feature," if they knew that at any time in the future, the gadget's maker could take that feature away and leave the buyer with no recourse?

Here's the warning I (half-seriously) suggested magazines run alongside such products:

WARNING: THIS DEVICE’S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD’S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE — BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY’RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT’LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS.

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/08/playstationed/#tyler-james-hill

No one took me up on my offer. Over and over again, magazine editors, managers of nonprofit review outlets, and indie gadget reviewers told me that it was unrealistic to publish a roundup of, say, this year's portable music players with the recommendation, "Just don't buy any of these. None of them are fit for purpose."

In other words: No one wanted to publish, "The correct amount of radium to stuff up your asshole is zero."

But the correct amount of rectal radium for you to administer is "none" and the correct car for you to buy today is none of the cars:

https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/privacynotincluded/articles/its-official-cars-are-the-worst-product-category-we-have-ever-reviewed-for-privacy/

This isn't the first time the correct automotive recommendation was "don't buy any of these cars." Back before seatbelts came standard in cars, the correct car was "don't buy a car." Sometimes, the correct answer is "none of the above." Even if that makes you sound unserious, the alternative is that you counsel people to put radium up their asses in a bid to seem "reasonable."

Today, DRM-infected products are routinely downgraded and bricked:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/9/5/24236237/ftc-software-tethering-letter-consumer-reports-ifixit

Even when companies face public uproar over these disastrous decisions and vow to reverse them, they can't, because these downgrades are one way:

https://www.stereocheck.com/news/music/unfortunately-you-cant-revert-to-the-old-sonos-app-anymore/

That's bad enough when it's your smart speakers, but what about when the company bricks your wheelchair:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/06/when-drm-comes-your-wheelchair

Or your $100,000 exoskeleton:

https://paulickreport.com/news/people/paralyzed-jockey-michael-straight-wants-to-keep-walking-but-manufacturer-wont-repair-exoskeleton

The reality is that we're living at the end of a catastrophic experiment in deregulation and its handmaidens, corruption and regulatory capture, and there are lots of "normal" things that we just need to stop doing. Not do less of them – just stop.

Like, the correct amount of collusion between realtors representing sellers and realtors representing buyers is zero:

https://www.latimes.com/business/real-estate/story/2024-03-19/realtor-rules-just-changed-dramatically-heres-what-buyers-and-sellers-can-expect

We got that one right, but there's plenty more that we're still engaged in this pathetic, denialist bargaining over. What's the correct degree to which White House officials should cycle back into working at the industries they oversaw? Zero. How many times should such a person come back to work at the White House? Again: zero:

https://prospect.org/power/2024-09-19-next-administration-can-stop-ethics-scandals/

When the Biden admin dropped its executive order on ethics just hours after the inauguration, they trumpeted that it "went further than any other towards slowing the revolving door and limiting conflicts of interest while in office":

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/20/executive-order-ethics-commitments-by-executive-branch-personnel/

And it did. But it was also full of loopholes, because banning these conflicts of interest altogether was viewed as politically unserious, so the correct amount of radium up the administration's asshole was set at non-zero. The result? Well, it's about what you'd expect:

https://therevolvingdoorproject.org/what-the-hell-is-anita-dunn-even-allowed-to-work-on/

Congress hasn't updated consumer privacy law since 1988, when it took the bold step of…banning video-store clerks from telling the newspapers which VHS cassettes you took home. Since then, a coalition of commercial surveillance companies and the cops and spies who treat their data-lakes as massive, off-the-books anaerobic lagoons of warrantless surveillance data has prevented the passage of any new privacy protections for Americans.

The result? Stalkers, creeps, spies (both governmental and corporate), identity thieves, spearphishers and other villainous scum are running wild, endangering every American's financial, physical and political wellbeing. The correct amount of commercial data-brokerage for America is zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/06/privacy-first/#but-not-just-privacy

In other words, we should order every data-broker, every tech giant, every consumer electronics company and app vendor to delete all their surveillance data. All of it. The correct amount of radium in that asshole is – as with every other orifice zero:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/08/07/revealed-preferences/#extinguish-v-improve

From the perspective of the radium pitchmen, the most shocking thing about the past four years has been antitrust enforcers – like Lina Khan, Rohit Chopra, and Jonathan Kanter – who refused to bargain about how much radium we needed to stick up our butts. Fearless of being branded as "unserious" and "unreasonable," they seriously, reasonably said the right amount is none, actually.

None. Which is why they're so mad at Khan and co. Which is why they're so bent on getting Kamala Harris to fire Khan – despite the fact that this would burn precious political capital in the senate. Some people just love the feeling they get from a radium suppository – especially the suppository salesmen:

https://prospect.org/politics/2024-09-19-lina-khan-doesnt-need-to-be-confirmed-again/

The paperback edition of The Lost Cause, my nationally bestselling, hopeful solarpunk novel is out this month!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/19/just-stop-putting-that-up-your-ass/#harm-reduction/a>

Image: Museum of the Health Sciences https://www.uab.edu/amhs/

[dlxxv-vetted-donations]

The Haboub Family's campaign is nearly fully complete.

This post is NOT being updated and I'm currently not focusing on this campaign as multiple famous people are.

Let's evacuate the Haboub family's most vulnerable members in September. Done

My other promotion lists

The weekly goal by Sep 8

Updated: Oct 1

Verification: link

Member: @mohammedhaboubsblog (Mohammed Haboub)

Payment methods: Google Pay, credit/debit

Donation drive: Crocheted bag raffle

Other: Help promote this family on Instagram.

Summary: The family want to raise $10,000 USD to evacuate 2 members with gunshot wounds and continue their education.

Current progress (Please donate if you can and share!):

SEK 133,838 252,104 / 300,000

Note: $10 USD = 105 SEK

Details about this campaign (outdated):

Update Sep 5: Farah's condition is declining and she needs to evacuate within the week. Awaiting additional details.

The Haboub family consists of 4 people - the twins Mohammed and Farah, and their parents.

Mohammed was shot in the leg and Farah had to undergo surgery for her injury in the Khan Younis Al-Tabieen school massacre.

The donation funds mostly went towards outrageously expensive survival costs, such as Farah's $2,400 USD surgery and the $3,000 rent - both of which we just barely managed to pay for last month.

It was crucial to keep the family housed as the twins have injuries that were more likely to get infected if they were out on the streets.

Now there's a new plan - the twins plan to get evacuated in September to pursue their studies. Both are studying software engineering and have excellent grades.

This is $10,000 USD for 2 adults ($5,000 each), which comes to 102,852 SEK. The campaign goal is now 234,000 SEK, or $22,751 USD.

There's still the $3,000 rent for next month, but it's less of a priority if the twins are evacuated as they were the ones most at risk if the family became homeless.

[tamapalace]

Bandai Releases Tamagotchi Uni 2.1.1 to Fix Tama Arena Issue

Software drama, but Bandai is quick to fix. Bandai has announced version 2.1.1 update for all Tamagotchi Uni’s which has been released on Friday, September 20th, 2024. The update will improve issues with characters appearing in the Tamaverse, fix a bug preventing users from playing in the Tama Arena Bunny Jump game (error 403), and fix bugs that have prevented the download area from being swapped.

After the update, the server situation will gradually improve, so if the error continues to occur, please wait a while and try again.

As an apology Bandai has announced that they’ll be giving away the UFO Ballon A prize from the event to ALL Tamagotchi Uni owners as a gift at a later date. Very thoughtful, very mindful!

[beardedmrbean]

California became just the third state in the nation to pass a "right to repair" consumer protection law on Tuesday, following Minnesota and New York, when Governor Gavin Newsom signed SB 244. The California Right to Repair bill had originally been introduced in 2019. It passed, nearly unanimously, through the state legislature in September.

“This is a victory for consumers and the planet, and it just makes sense,” Jenn Engstrom, state director of CALPIRG, told iFixit(which was also one of SB244's co-sponsors). “Right now, we mine the planet’s precious minerals, use them to make amazing phones and other electronics, ship these products across the world, and then toss them away after just a few years’ use ... We should make stuff that lasts and be able to fix our stuff when it breaks, and now thanks to years of advocacy, Californians will finally be able to, with the Right to Repair.”

Turns out Google isn't offering seven years of replacement parts and software updates to the Pixel 8 out of the goodness of its un-beating corporate heart. The new law directly stipulates that all electronics and appliances costing $50 or more, and sold within the state after July 1, 2021 (yup, two years ago), will be covered under the legislation once it goes into effect next year, on July 1, 2024. For gear and gadgets that cost between $50 and $99, device makers will have to stock replacement parts and tools, and maintain documentation for three years. Anything over $100 in value gets covered for the full seven-year term. Companies that fail to do so will be fined $1,000 per day on the first violation, $2,000 a day for the second and $5,000 per day per violation thereafter.

There are, of course, carve outs and exceptions to the rules. No, your PS5 is not covered. Not even that new skinny one. None of the game consoles are, neither are alarm systems or heavy industrial equipment that "vitally affects the general economy of the state, the public interest, and the public welfare."

“I’m thrilled that the Governor has signed the Right to Repair Act into law," State Senator Susan Talamantes Eggman, one of the bill's co-sponsors, said. "As I’ve said all along, I’m so grateful to the advocates fueling this movement with us for the past six years, and the manufacturers that have come along to support Californians’ Right to Repair. This is a common sense bill that will help small repair shops, give choice to consumers, and protect the environment.”

The bill even received support from Apple, of all companies. The tech giant famous for its "walled garden" product ecosystem had railed against the idea when it was previously proposed in Nebraska, claiming the state would become "a mecca for hackers." However, the company changed its tune when SB 244 was being debated, writing a letter of support reportedly stating, "We support 'SB 244' because it includes requirements that protect individual users' safety and security as well as product manufacturers' intellectual property."

[luigiblood]

F-Zero 99 - 1 Year Anniversary and the Future

F-Zero 99 is the best thing that happened to Nintendo Switch Online.

I'm not gonna say it any other way, it's been a bit more than a year, and I have 153 hours. This game is top 2 of my most played games (just under Splatoon 3 which has 253 hours).

I was one of the people who was down for this idea since the moment Pyoro teased it and when Nintendo announced it in the September 2023 Nintendo Direct.

This game received 6 content updates since its debut, and most of them are major updates, and as of October 2024, the latest update was 1.5.0, with the addition of the Ace League, making it the first time that Nintendo has ever rereleased Satellaview content in any way, worldwide.

I gotta be honest here, this game keeps on giving, Nintendo Software Technology, the team behind this game, not Arika anymore, is doing a great job.

I'm gonna talk about how I felt about this game, but also a bit of an history of datamining, about the game's future, but spoiler: I don't think this game will die anytime soon.

Happy One Year Anniversary to F-Zero 99!

Oh, and, to everyone saying this game is pissing on F-Zero's legacy as I've definitely seen a few: Go f**k yourself.

Online Quality

To anyone who loves to mock the online quality of Nintendo, you cannot do it to this game, or even any of the games of the "99" series. If you have online problems, the problem is on your side. 100%.

Either your connection's terrible in which case I cannot do anything for you, but most of the problems that I had with the game, it was all solved with either a fix of my internet connection setup (cables, Wi-Fi setup, etc), or by rebooting the Switch system entirely, this is most likely what you need to do the most.

It's not entirely perfect of course, but for the entire year of its existence, I have legit no serious complaints to make to the game.

Datamining The Future

Now... let's go over what we originally datamined at first.

I'm not gonna go over what was clearly experimental content such as a 3D Mute City I map or other things like that.

Extra Modes

We found code and references to 2 modes that have yet to be added to the game since launch:

Arcade Mode It is believed to work similar to old arcade racing games, where you have a limited time, and you go through Time Gates (also datamined) to add more time to your counter to let you either finish the course, or run out of time and rank out.

Survival Mode We found some references to it for the schedule file, but also what is feeling like to be a circle plane. I speculate it to maybe work like a battle royale where the playable place reduces in size, but it's hard to fully understand how it works at this point in time.

I have no idea when these modes would be added, if ever, actually, it's still subject to interpretation.

Extra Courses

We also found references to 4 placeholder course files:

Sulfur Swamp

Volcania

Fungus Swamp

Forest

Three of them uses recolored Mute City I and a custom but clearly placeholder background. But the inclusion of Forest placeholder was definitely an odd one.

It was actually hard to say what it could have been, but Forest is actually the name of a course in BS F-Zero Grand Prix 2 on Satellaview, and more to that, it's the name of a course that we never actually had recovered until the recent BS F-Zero Deluxe hack that used tons of tools in an attempt to reproduce them. We still don't have the original data yet, though. The bounty for that is still up, by the way.

I did definitely get my chances to suspect that maybe, NST was looking into Satellaview tracks, alongside brand new tracks, but maybe that Forest was just also a placeholder name.

But considering the inclusion of Ace League now, I doubt it is a coincidence. Especially when they bothered to have pretty creative names for the others, Forest just sticks out from the rest for being a pretty generic word, an argument that I had already used back then.

But I also noticed something odd, though, on this one I will DEFINITELY give an update if they ever fix this, but the Ace League's best machine ranks are not saved in the stats. This is odd, I don't know if it's a bug, or if it's actually voluntary... because IF it is, then I think the Ace League will change in the future to include the rest of the Satellaview tracks alongside a new Joker (?) League.

UPDATE from October 16th: F-Zero 99 1.5.1 update just released, and they did fix this so I was just doing copium. Not that I didn't expect it, it was a very shaky thing.

In one of the updates, before the inclusion of Secret Tracks, we had seen what was named Death Wind I Remix, which was the Death Wind I + White Land fusion. It's not unlikely that in the future, we will receive what would be called Remix tracks, for possibly entire leagues, but we might need to wait a while before we get those.

Incoming Event?

As NST is definitely aware of datamining attempts, they have been actually pretty busy scrubbing every unused files related to future content especially.

But then they missed a file in the latest 1.5.0 update that added Ace League:

It seems they are looking into doing a Mario VS Donkey Kong Festival Event in the future, including a Mini Mario League, and 4 Star Rivals called Mario, Mini Mario, Donkey Kong and Toad.

There's not much else to it, as it is just text. This text was not localized in most languages from English.

If I had to guess though, I don't rule out that this event might happen for the anniversary of the Mario VS Donkey Kong remake in February 2025. Mario VS Donkey Kong was also the baby of NST, ever since the first of the series on GBA, so it might just be meant to be a fun thing they wanted to do.

I would expect the Mini Mario League to contain either brand new or modified existing tracks to a newer style related to Mario VS Donkey Kong, new music, possibly new machines, and, definitely to me, new emotes to unlock. I expect that to be a limited time event like the others, though what you unlock will definitely stay to your workshop, like previous events, and possibly Training mode if there's indeed new courses to play that they care enough to let us play after the event.

I wouldn't be surprised if we have to collect Mini Marios or something like that, but either way, it seems NST is trying to be a little more daring to F-Zero 99 and possibly follow the footsteps of Tetris 99's themes.

Depending on the situation of the Ace League machine stats, I might have to update this post if I really somehow went too far with my suspicions. (UPDATE: Yes I went too far, they fixed the bug with 1.5.1.)

I do expect more updates related to Ace League for sure, as I do think we'll get Classic versions of the Ace League tracks, and possibly Mirror versions too.

...but oh my god though there's freaking Satellaview tracks in F-Zero 99 omg omg omg we just need the 5 left now

[theoutcastrogue]

"Automattic Inc. and its founder have been sued by a WordPress hosting company that alleges an extortion scheme to extract payments for use of the trademark for the open source WordPress software. Hosting firm WP Engine sued Automattic and founder Matt Mullenweg in a complaint filed yesterday in US District Court for the Northern District of California.

"This is a case about abuse of power, extortion, and greed," the lawsuit said. "The misconduct at issue here is all the more shocking because it occurred in an unexpected place—the WordPress open source software community built on promises of the freedom to build, run, change, and redistribute without barriers or constraints, for all."

The lawsuit alleged that "over the last two weeks, Defendants have been carrying out a scheme to ban WPE from the WordPress community unless it agreed to pay tens of millions of dollars to Automattic for a purported trademark license that WPE does not even need."

The complaint says that Mullenweg blocked WP Engine "from updating the WordPress plugins that it publishes through wordpress.org," and "withdrew login credentials for individual employees at WPE, preventing them from logging into their personal accounts to access other wordpress.org resources, including the community Slack channels which are used to coordinate contributions to WordPress Core, the Trac system which allows contributors to propose work to do on WordPress, and the SubVersion system that manages code contributions."

The lawsuit makes accusations, including libel, slander, and attempted extortion, and demands a jury trial. The lawsuit was filed along with an exhibit that shows Automattic's demand for payment. A September 23 letter to WP Engine from Automattic's legal team suggests "a mere 8% royalty" on WP Engine's roughly $400 million in annual revenue, or about $32 million."

[pspkisser]

⚙️ This laptop was saved from obsolescence! [10 mins of read]

Hello!! i am making this post here to raise awareness for PC and laptop upgrades, and how it should motivate you to do that same thing to preserve yours for longer or to give it the power you need! this will feature my history with mine, as well as the steps i took to be able to make him breathe life better! this is the story of his journey, and how it went to this current day.

his name is samuel, he is an asus fx570u and i bought him back in september of 2018 after i turned 13! he was brand new during that time and priced at 800 euros, offering only 6 gb of memory and an HDD as his specs. however he does have an 8th gen core i5 as his cpu and a geforce 1050 ti for his gpu. for something marketed as a gaming pc, it's pretty low and it wouldn't allow him to run fast enough, especially for highly demanding software and causing some compatibility issues. it wasn't severe, but as i was stuck with an hdd, that meant operating systems would run pretty slow on it, also leading to long software loading times. this is made worse by the fact that its bundled system, windows 10, isn't designed to work efficiently on hdd in the first place, but at least that means i have my hands on a windows key to be able to use some windows exclusive programs..

i mainly used him to be able to use advanced video editing software and customize the games i have on it for my own taste, because back then i loved making youtube videos and it was a passion i've had for years until i've partially retired from it. i rarely bought games on it and instead opted for free-to-plays, and overall had a good time with him.

unfortunately within only 3 months, his HDD broke down and i sent him to technicians for them to replace it with another one. it was a minor accident i've had but it formatted all my data, even though it didn't matter much since i uploaded most of it to the internet. i just had to be gentle with him by trying to not moving him around too much to stop that issue from persisting... but it was still low-end in terms of system performance. i finally used him for 1 year straight before moving on to a tower pc, feeling tired about his slowness and believing i couldn't do much about it.

i used that other (unnamed) pc for almost a year, starting from 2020! they seemed to work better since it had windows 7, but embarrassingly enough that version itself stopped receiving official security updates months before i started using it, even though i was careful while accessing the internet with it. its performances were also low, but didn't really matter much since i didn't take so much advantage from the power of samuel. suddenly, i had the foolish idea of installing windows 8.1 on the latter to try to deal with the performance issues on 10, but it led to even more compatibility issues since the drivers i used were meant to be for 10 only. only by early 2021, i got win10 back on him and started using him again to get more power again.

so the low-end performance persisted for very long. back then i never knew how to upgrade pcs, so i was only used to replacing devices with others which wasn't cost-efficient. after realizing i used windows for well over 10 years, i had the idea of switching to a mac and as a result, for xmas 2021 i got myself a cute yellow silicon imac, who goes by the name of sarah! but switching to macos posed new serious challenges, such as getting used to the lack of windows compatibility and the missing features that i was used to for a long time. most of the creativity i did with her was drawings with firealpaca and krita, and cgi with blender, which wasn't really much. still, she is pretty glossy and also powerful for many of the tasks i'm performing with her. originally i also intended to sell samuel, but that never happened (i low regret that decision so much i swear).

in late 2022, samuel's performance apparently had had a big hit... he now takes approximately 20 seconds to open any program and it seemed to me like something was wrong with him. at that time i also gained interest in linux since it's a libre OS capable of much more flexibility, essentially allowing it to revive old PCs. i finally decided to get linux mint to work on him via a dual boot with win11 (what was i thinking when i "upgraded" him from 10?). the performance seemed a little better from then, but programs still took very long to open. for that reason, he had often been collecting dust as he finally became unusable.

finally we've reached 2023. this is the year i decided to take on tearing down devices to learn how to examine problems inside of them. after checking samuel's performance again, i noticed that his HDD was having extremely low writing and reading speeds compared to my tower, which made me feel disappointed. but that's when i finally decided i could be able to replace his hard disk with an ssd, a new generation which is more durable, faster, quieter and energy-efficient...

but i still had a good wait until it was possible. suddenly with my money, i found an ssd which only costed €30, and it made me happy that this would be a quick way of healing up samuel! so i rushed to get it, and finally opened him to prepare everything... unfortunately, his keyboard has to be lifted up in the process, and there are flex cables connected between it and the motherboard. but taking out the hard disk thankfully only requires a few steps; removing some screws, then inserting the SSD inside of it. after that i quickly put linux mint back into him. SO SPLENDID...

for only the price of a high budget indie game, now he can open programs very fast, close to how fast sarah can do, and just about any task works perfectly well on him with way less bugs! thanks to that fast upgrade he's become viable for daily drives again, even though i don't have other desks suitable for pcs which makes me less motivated to use him. really wish id be able to since the architecture he has (x64) means he has a lot more software he's able to handle natively...

but then, i hadn't upgraded his ram. i said before that he only had 6 gb of it, and that meant he could only work with a few programs before becoming bloated. and as i like doing power tasks on him, that obviously causes problems. so one day, i went to a pc part store out of curiosity, and became shocked when i found small ram carts that could be compatible with my laptop. after some talk with the seller, i bought 2 ddr4 carts each containing 8 gb and clocked at 2666 mhz, more than double of what i used to have. after that it was time to take on a challenge to be able to insert them myself.

when the seller asked me if i needed assistance to have the carts inserted into my laptop, i giggled internally because of my past stories with learning how to open devices and trying to troubleshoot or modify them internally. i obviously declined it which saved me money, but also meant i had to do it all myself. after an hour of painful manipulations which required me to take out the entire motherboard from samuel, while that next step was also difficult i was finally able to insert the carts into it, before placing all his components back into place. and after such a long time of waiting...

i've finally done it!

Samuel is feeling very well right now!! despite his cpu and gpu dating from over 5 years, now he can do even more tasks at a time, while also being able to read them faster, a massive improvement compared to when it was stuck with an hdd and only 6 gb of ram. i'm guessing those low specs were for the purpose of saving manufacturing costs, but until you'd find use for the components that you'd remove, they'd end up becoming waste. and with a free os like linux mint, it adds up to an even more optimized experience than windows 10, which comes with so many unwanted stuff and can't be customized very well.

have you had a similar story to mine? did that pose you challenges? i took over 40 minutes to write this entire piece of text, but it should at least be very well detailed! on the best case scenario i hope it would inspire others to do some research on upgrading PCs to preserve their lives and especially save costs. Thank you for reading the entirety of it, don't hesitate reblogging it if you think it would interest your own audience! peace for all of you 💙

[fujocoded]

September is here and so is our newsletter!

It's that time of the month again, and our September update is ready for the reading! This month, we show off the draft cover of FujoGuide Issue 1, our new intern, new store, and new volunteer opportunities! Cover by @ymkse.

Update here 👇 and volunteering opportunities (video editing, video watching, and task coordinator) under the cut!

Video editing (for @bobaboard): Our founder Ms Boba does a BobaBoard-related stream every month, passing her knowledge of how the software works down to the community. To make them truly useful, however, these streams need some polishing and some of the downtime cut out before we can upload them to our YouTube channel! If you’d like to help out (and especially if you’d like to get some professional experience in video editing onto your resume) hit us up!

Video highlighter (for the FujoVerse): In addition to her BobaBoard streams, our founder also builds FujoVerse software in public once a week. While these streams are more often “watch a professional work” than outright teaching, there’s a lot of useful web development knowledge buried within! If you’d like help us go through our archive to find these hidden pearls so we can cut them out and make them available to the community, let us know!

Task coordinator: If you can look at a list of task deadlines and ping the people assigned to those tasks to see how they’re getting along, we could use your help! We’re experimenting with how to make this role easy and low-friction, so even if you have zero project management experience, you could be a huge help here.

If you’d like to try any of these roles, or if you’d like to get involved in other ways, let us know via contacts@fujocoded.com.

[mudwerks]

(via The US will ban sales of Kaspersky antivirus software next month)

The Biden administration has taken a sweeping action to ban Kaspersky Labs from selling its antivirus products to US customers. The Russian software company will not be able to sell to new customers starting in July and cannot provide service to current customers after September.

Ahead of the official news, a source told Reuters that the company's connections to the Russian government made it a security risk with the potential to install malware, collect privileged information, or withhold software updates on American computers. US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo announced the ban at a briefing today.

"You have done nothing wrong, and you are not subject to any criminal or civil penalties," she said to current Kaspersky customers. "However, I would encourage you, in as strong as possible terms, to immediately stop using that software and switch to an alternative in order to protect yourself and your data and your family."

[yusuke-of-valla]

Unity Offices Evacuated Over Death Threats After New Install Charge Policy

Original article on TheGamer

TL;DR: earlier today, Thursday, September 14th, Bloomberg reported that several Unity offices will be closed today and tomorrow due to “credible death threats.” Several Unity developers have commented on this on Twitter.

On Thursday, September 24th, Bloomberg reported that Unity had cancelled a town hall and would be closing two of its offices in the wake of “credible death threats”

Several employees have responded to the report, seemingly confirming it’s legitimacy, including Senior XR product designer Javier Busto and senior software engineer Eli C Davis.

(9/14, 11:46 PM EST) UPDATE: Polygon reached out to SFPD who said “officers responded to Unity’s San Francisco office “regarding a threats incident.” A “reporting party” told police that “an employee made a threat towards his employer using social media.” The employee that made the threat works in an office outside of California, according to the police statement.”

Link here

[grandmother-goblin]

Hey y’all, small personal update to explain why I haven’t been posting much lately!

In short: I don’t have time, but I probably will again starting in mid-September.

My schedule between work and home has just been hectic, and I’ve been kinda neglecting everything that isn’t work or myself.

I work as a software engineer, and I really enjoy my job, but there’s an event coming up that has me under a lot of pressure because my part of the job is the most forward facing. If something goes wrong, pretty much all eyes are going to be on me regardless of whether or not it’s actually my fault (this is just part of my job, I accept it, but it still stresses me out 😂)

Basically my life has been: wake up at 6:00am, get myself ready, get baby ready, get baby to daycare, get myself to work, work until 5:00pm, get baby ready for bed, do the housework/meal prep/animal care, and then maybeeeee I have an hour to myself before I have to get ready for bed.

Just rinse and repeat. Every day.

Now I know some folks will say “wow, such first world problems 🙄” or “you think that’s bad, I have x, y, and z and I still have time!” or something to that effect.

I know. I’m very lucky.

I’m also just very tired.

Anyways, have some pictures of my cat with batstarion.

[lgcmanager]

MONTHLY SNS UPDATE: OCTOBER

INSTAGRAM: since the deadline for september’s sns posts was yesterday, we can now announce that there is no theme for this month !  for those in TYPE ZERO, V&A, FABULA, CRYSTALLIS, and NOVA, you may send in your posts in the same manner but the posts will come via a different account / have different stats. also there will be a slight delay with sending the personal instagram stats but they will be sent sometime this week. UNIVERSE: for this month, the debuted artists were given these prompts: - if you were going to start learning an instrument, what would you learn? - what's something you want to try doing now? you may only pick ONE question to answer to. for the post to be valid, the answer needs to have a minimum of 75 words. we've also created this simple graphic template for members to use for their universe posts; if you do not have access to an editing software but would still like to use the graphic template, please message the main for assistance! please keep in mind that your posts must be company-appropriate and that the rules from the original post still stand. there should not be any posts displaying or hinting at trainee interaction across genders with the exception of siblings. for instagram submissions, if the photo is of your muse’s sibling and does not include your face, then the points will go to the sibling and not to your muse ! the deadline for this month’s instagram submissions ( due to the lgcmedia blog ) and universe responses ( posted on the respective fansite blogs ) is november 2, 2024 at 11:59pm EDT.

[shanetgeisel]

Original Content Post #6

"What does your writing process look like when you text a friend?" #writ318mu #week3

This may shock most, but my first thought when texting a friend isn't to set my font to Times New Roman 12. Neither is it to spend more than half of the time drafting an overdone thesis statement. Communication nowadays is oversimplified if anything. Never will you get a text from your friend that starts like this:

John Smith Professor Mom Hang out tonight? 101 13 September 2024

With messaging software constantly updating, it's getting to the point where you are almost not involved with responding to a text from a friend. Most newer devices will provide Ai generated responses that you can just tap to send. Now if I am going to write it myself it definitely wouldn't be in MLA or anything seen from a pigeon carrier.

When drafting up a text to a friend, whether it be the initiate or the response, there's a few things i consider

Who am I texting?

What's the mood of the conversation?

How long is this conversation going to take?

First things first, my texts to my mom are going to look a lot different then say my best friend. I text most people differently then one another because it all depends on my relationship with them. It also depends on how "tech savvy" they are. My parents are not going to understand if i use "idk" or "ight". My dad is barely getting the hang of emojis, and that's a scary sight.

Am I having a serious conversation with this person? Or is it more of a "how was your day?" I need to understand these things so that the receiving end understands I'm on the same page of them in the conversation.

Where am I? What am I doing? Am I in class? I never like to keep my phone off or completely muted. My phone is my #1 form of communication whether it be casual or professional. If I have the chance I can take my time responding. Maybe I don't have the ability to talk at the moment so I send a "ttyl in class".

As weird as it is to think about, it's as much effort to text a friend, as it is to draft an essay. We just are practicing texting every single day, and essay's whenever the class requires it.

[cindylouwho-2]

RECENT ECOMMERCE NEWS (INCLUDING ETSY), AUGUST 2024

Hello, and welcome to my very last Ecommerce News update here on Tumblr.

After today, these reports will now be found at least twice a week on my Patreon, available to all paid members. See more about this change here on my website blog: https://www.cindylouwho2.com/blog/2024/8/12/a-new-way-to-get-ecommerce-news-and-help-welcome-to-my-patreon-page

Don't worry! I will still be posting some short pieces here on Tumblr (as well as some free pieces on my Patreon, plus longer posts on my website blog). However, the news updates and some other posts will be moving to Patreon permanently.

Please follow me there! https://www.patreon.com/CindyLouWho2

TOP NEWS & ARTICLES 

Etsy has banned gift certificates/cards sold by individual shops, as of Sept 15. Only Etsy Gift Cards are now allowed. The second quarter report press release says they plan on selling Etsy Gift Cards through third parties, but no official word on how and when yet.

Many Amazon Handmade sellers were unable to list new items after a site update on July 31 [post by me on LinkedIn]. While Amazon told sellers to apply for an exemption from the Product ID requirement, some report that is not working, or that they do not have the option to apply for one. 

Reminder that Canadian Etsy shops will be charged a 1.15% Regulatory Operating fee on the item price and shipping cost as of August 15. [I’ve set a bunch of things to expire. If Etsy isn’t profitable enough to pay its taxes, maybe they should consider cutting executive pay instead of squeezing microbusinesses even more.]

ETSY NEWS 

Etsy has updated its Privacy Policy, to take effect August 31. Changes include mention of biometric data. Note that some parts of the policy are screenshots, and therefore not easily searchable nor accessible to screen readers - I am not sure how they can get away with that. I used the Wayback Machine to do a comparison of the parts that software can actually read.   There’s also a new US regional privacy policy, which currently covers laws in several states.  

Etsy is promoting a Labour Day sale August 21-September 2, and has already set up the "Cyber Savings Sale" (November 18-December 3) for Cyber Week. You can schedule the official sales through links in the announcement.

Forbes covered Etsy’s sex toy ban [soft paywall; not safe for work photos]. To no one's surprise, plenty of the banned items are still found on site, including toys and vintage Playboy magazines. 

Etsy is accused of allowing shops based in “illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory” and profiting off of them. Etsy’s response: "[W]e have shared this information internally with the appropriate teams for review."

Etsy's promised program for buyers - Etsy Insider - will be rolling out as invite-only beta in September. It's a paid membership for US buyers and includes:

Free US domestic shipping on millions of items

A birthday bonus

Limited edition annual gift, designed by an Etsy seller

First access to special discounts and select merchandise

While some of the "special discounts" are paid by sellers, that is a voluntary program shops can sign up for here. That form also allows you to sign up to offer new items to Etsy Insiders first - “drops” - which does not involve offering discounts. Etsy has done these sorts of "offers" in the past, and I believe they have already reached out to sellers for the first round of offers in September (based on some emails I have received from shop owners).

You can now sign up for “Etsy Up”, the virtual sellers conference scheduled for September 10. However, despite saying they have announced “our agenda”, all that is provided is a vague set of topics (other than the fact they will be announcing the Etsy Design Awards Finalists). It makes me wonder if there are official Etsy announcements coming soon that they don’t want to reveal too early by posting the real agenda. If yes, around August 15 is a good bet, given that  Etsy’s Search Analytics will end that day, and many new policies kick in on September 15, just one month later.

The Etsy app is showing rectangular listing images in search for some visitors, but it appears to be a test [Reddit thread with screenshot]. I wouldn’t change anything at this time. 

No, Etsy has not replaced your listing tags. I covered that topic here on LinkedIn. 

I wrote about the new Listing Image Requirement policy and the email Etsy sent to some sellers on Monday July 29. [post by me on Patreon] And not everyone is being fooled by Etsy’s new Creativity Standards, but some acknowledge it will be difficult for Etsy to turn away factory-made goods at this point. [Disclosure: I am quoted in that article]

ECOMMERCE NEWS (minus social media)

Amazon

Amazon’s second quarter revenue was below expectations, and the company predicts nothing better in the third quarter. 

In a surprising change, Amazon has decided to cancel overage fees for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) inventory storage, retroactive to July 1. 

Canadian Amazon sellers will be subject to a new digital services fee as of October 1. This is due to Canada’s new digital services tax. 

In a case that may have an impact on other larger ecommerce sites, a court ruled that Amazon is responsible for recalls of products sold through Amazon, including through “Fulfilled By Amazon”. 

US Amazon shoppers can now link their Pinterest and TikTok accounts to Amazon to be able to buy directly from Amazon ads on social media. This is already available on Facebook, Instagram and Snap. 

Amazon is changing its refund policy for Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) users: if sellers do not receive an automatic reimbursement for loss, damage and returns, they will now only have 60 days to apply for one.  A lot of ecommerce experts think Amazon is making a mistake in setting up a China to US section on the site.

eBay

eBay second quarter revenue and profit was higher than expected, but the third quarter projections are low.  

The eBay app has taken a lot of flack for inserting ads between each item in a purchase history. 

Poshmark

As marketplaces popular for pre-owned items compete for the best new stock, Poshmark is offering “rewards” for listing at least 1 item a week. 

Shopify

Shopify had a better-than-expected second quarter, and expects a decent third quarter as well. Getting larger businesses to use Shopify has helped the tech company, but I still wonder how that affects the small and micro businesses who used to be the target market.

Walmart

The Walmart Marketplace has added Chile as its fourth country, after the US, Canada and Mexico. 

All Other Marketplaces

Hundreds of business owners who sell on Temu held a protest at the marketplace headquarters on July 29. Fines for returns are one cited issue. 

Payment Processing

Credit cards issued by Chase in the US will no longer allow third-party buy-now-pay-later purchases, as of October 10. Conveniently, they offer their own option, Chase Pay Over Time. PayPal has expanded the quicker checkout solution Fastlane to all US businesses, which fills in customer information without a log in.

[demifiendrsa]

PlayStation 5 Pro Console - Reveal Trailer

PS5 Pro Technical Presentation hosted by Mark Cerny

PlayStation 5 Pro, an enhanced version of PlayStation 5, will launch on November 7, 2024 for $699.99 / £699.99 / €799.99 / ¥119,980. It will be available as a disc-less console, with the currently available disc drive available as a separate purchase. Pre-orders will begin on September 26, 2024.

First details via The PlayStation Blog

We developed PlayStation 5 Pro with deeply engaged players and game creators in mind—as many have asked for a console that runs even higher fidelity graphics with smoother frame rates at 60 frames per second. We achieved this on PlayStation 5 Pro with several key performance features.

Upgraded GPU – With PlayStation 5 Pro, we are upgrading to a GPU that has 67% more Compute Units than the current PlayStation 5 console and 28% faster memory. Overall, this enables up to 45% faster rendering for gameplay, making the experience much smoother.

Advanced Ray Tracing – We’ve added even more powerful ray tracing that provides more dynamic reflection and refraction of light. This allows the rays to be cast at double, and at times triple, the speeds of the current PlayStation 5 console.

AI-Driven Upscaling – We’re also introducing PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, an AI-driven upscaling that uses a machine learning-based technology to provide super sharp image clarity by adding an extraordinary amount of detail.

PlayStation 5 Pro provides gamers with amazing graphics at high frame rates. You can hear Mark Cerny, lead architect for PlayStation 5 Pro, discuss the key innovations from PlayStation 5 Pro in the following video presentation. This presentation provides a deep dive into the key performance features that make PlayStation 5 Pro truly special.

Other enhancements include PlayStation 5 Pro Game Boost, which can apply to more than 8,500 backward compatible PlayStation 4 games playable on PlayStation 5 Pro. This feature may stabilize or improve the performance of supported PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 games. Enhanced Image Quality for PlayStation 4 games is also available to improve the resolution on select PlayStation 4 games. PlayStation 5 Pro will also launch with the latest wireless technology, Wi-Fi 7, in territories supporting this standard. VRR and 8K gaming are also supported.

It’s humbling to see how game creators have embraced the latest technology from PlayStation 5 Pro, and several games will be patched with free software updates for gamers to take advantage of PlayStation 5 Pro’s features. These games can be identified with a PlayStation 5 Pro Enhanced label within their title. Some games you can look forward to include blockbuster hits from PlayStation Studios and our third-party partners, such as Alan Wake 2, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, Demon’s Souls, Dragon’s Dogma II, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, Gran Turismo 7, Hogwarts Legacy, Horizon Forbidden West, Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, The Crew Motorfest, The First Descendant, The Last of Us Part II Remastered, and more.

We kept the look of the PlayStation 5 Pro consistent with the overall PlayStation 5 family of products. You’ll notice the height is the same size as the original PlayStation 5, and the width is the same size as the current PlayStation 5 model to accommodate higher performance specs. Players can add an Ultra HD Blu-ray Disc Drive, or swap out console covers when they become available.

PlayStation 5 Pro fits perfectly within the PlayStation 5 family of products and is compatible with the PlayStation 5 accessories currently available, including PlayStation VR2, PlayStation Portal, DualSense Edge, Access controller, Pulse Elite, and Pulse Explore. The user interface and network services will also remain the same as PlayStation 5.

The PlayStation 5 Pro console will be available this holiday at a manufacturer’s suggested retail price (MSRP) of $699.99 USD, £699.99 GBP, €799.99 EUR, and ¥119,980 JPY (includes tax). It will include a 2TB SSD, a DualSense wireless controller, and a copy of ASTRO’s PLAYROOM pre-installed in every PlayStation 5 Pro purchase. PlayStation 5 Pro is available as a disc-less console, with the option to purchase the currently available disc drive for PlayStation 5 separately.

PlayStation 5 Pro will launch on November 7, 2024 and will be available at participating retailers and directly from PlayStation at PlayStation Direct. Preorders will begin on September 26, 2024.

Our PlayStation 5 journey would not be possible without the millions of players that have supported us through the years and have shared with us their love of gaming. Whichever console option players choose, whether it’s PlayStation 5 or PlayStation 5 Pro, we wish to bring everyone the very best gaming experience that fits their needs.