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Pixel art
  • Perhaps the software OP is using has a second layer of generation (with a different network) that focuses on details like eyes. It might not even know the input prompt (and if it does then it might not have the training background to reward keeping things pixelated).

  • Old theme ABC news link
    www.abc.net.au ABC News - Read the Latest News & Headlines

    Read the latest news headlines and in-depth analysis from an independent and trusted source. Check the latest news on business, sports, weather, and more.

    ABC News - Read the Latest News & Headlines

    The new theme seems deadset on replacing content with whitespace, driving my father in particular mad (he's having more luck finding Australian news on DW than the ABC right now; and he is sore that he has to hunt for the "Science" news category now in menus).

    Not sure how long they'll keep the ?future=x flag available, but for now it gives you about double the number of articles per page.

    5
    Long Centrelink wait times as 11 million calls go unanswered
  • or simply inconveniencing them though

    Screwing. 100% screwing.

    An inconvenience is not being able to get someone on the phone in minutes or hours. Screwing is making someone spend days, weeks or months trying to get you on the phone and navigate a system that's supposed to help them, not hurt them.

    My dad isn't at pension age yet and has been struggling the last few years whilst being a full time carer of my grandmother. It has often taken days to weeks of calling to get through and weeks to months get things approved.

    Whereas, there are so many services we have that are for ACTUAL emergencies, and require fast service, where the money would save lives.

    You have this so backwards.

    Centrelink saves lives. Support saves lives. Welfare saves lives.

    If you don't support people then they end up having to use the emergency services. Is it cheaper to support people before the need emergency services rather than after. You can't house all the unemployed, disabled, pensioners, veterans (and other people I've probably forgotten) in emergency wards, these people don't magically end up fed, housed and cared for if make Centrelink and related services a nightmare to deal with.

    My dad has been keeping my grandmother out of hospital. She's now in a nursing home, funded mostly by government, that is keeping her out of hospital. It is extremely costly to put her in a hospital bed.

  • Microsoft says it won't let you use Mail & Calendar app on Windows 11
  • I click on my "From" address and then select "Customize From Address...". I can then type anything I want up there. It's a little annoying when replying to an email chain with an alias, but not too many steps.

  • The Raes say their fridge malfunctioned, triggering illness, and their refund offer included a 'gag clause'
  • The actual quantities are pretty small

    In pure, stable form, yes. A hundred or so grams released in my house won't be noticed or cause any problems.

    But a few hundred grams of burnt fluorine hydrocarbons? 😬 That's a whole other story.

    Most modern domestic fridges stick with a plain hydrocarbon refrigerant anyway (akin to butane) these days.

    I'm yet to see R600a in Australian domestic fridges, I thought we were lagging in that department? Can you just get them at retailers now?

    if you’ve got burning refrigerant there are much bigger problems going on seeing as the refrigerant circuit is hermetically sealed

    Strong disagree xD Inhaling burning fluorine compounds > fridge not cooling any more

    That kind of thing would also provoke a product safety recall.

    I'm not diagnosing the most likely cause of a normal fridge failure, but considering some interesting causes that align with the unusual scenario depicted in the article. Don't panic, I'm not going to go all "fridge bad" on you.

  • Andrew just wants to open his files on Windows 10
  • A lot of phone modems ship with their own SoC (processor) running its own OS. It's much smaller and slower than the main phone SoC but, depending on its implementation, it can have full access to all of your main processor's memory through DMA.

  • Goldman Sachs put out a 31-page-report titled "Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”
  • I was amazed that we transitioned from one GPU heavy bubble (Crypto) to another (LLM/AI). Whilst the hype for crypto imploded the use for the hardware sort of didn't. I wonder if the next bubble with be the same, or if we get some refreshing variety to our money sinks?

    Microsoft et al are subsidizing GenAI to an insane degree. [...] prices shoot up for their customers and serve as a rough awakening to all the websites that integrated a crappy chatbot.

    I've run some much simpler chatbots on just my desktop PC, so they will have some fallback (if they really choose to take it). Still it locks up my entire computer for a few second for each reply, so even a few hundred users per second peak would be an expensive service.

    (Insert joke here about customers not noticing or caring about the difference between website chatbots built on big company services vs smaller ones, because they have exactly the same problems just in different hues.)

  • Fake job ads waste applicants' time and harm their wellbeing. So why are companies posting them?
  • Sorry to hear you're feeling crap.

    I'm having trouble looking for work for the past few months. Very few replies, the first "no" I got actually made me feel a bit more human.

    I'm convinced that some of the jobs I've applied for or enquired about are not real or just for external-advertising-before-hire requirements. I've gotten some rude responses after daring to ask questions (eg: jobs funded by research money tend to have fixed funding start dates that might not be for another several months). Most straight up ignore me.

    An old boss of mine thinks that my CV isn't conforming and mundane enough, so I'm giving his suggestions a go.

    What sort of work are you looking at? I design electronics and get into arguments with computers.

  • HP bricks ProBook laptops with bad BIOS delivered via automatic updates — many users face black screen after Windows pushes new firmware
  • Windows update fetches all sorts of things now. If the hardware advertises X device then Windows update will check if it has anything for it. Approved vendors can provide all sorts of guff. Historically that has included drivers that intentionally brick your devices. HP probably packaged up some software that updates the BIOS and got it into the Windows Update DBs.

  • Australian Tech @aussie.zone WaterWaiver @aussie.zone
    SafeWork NSW referred to ICAC over 'life-saving' device designed to protect workers from silica dust
    www.abc.net.au SafeWork NSW referred to ICAC over 'life-saving' device designed to protect workers from silica dust

    Safework NSW has been referred to ICAC over its handling of a $1.34 million contract for a device designed to protect workers from a potentially deadly disease, known as silicosis.

    SafeWork NSW referred to ICAC over 'life-saving' device designed to protect workers from silica dust

    I could not find any mentions of these problems online. The article itself has no technical detail.

    Looking forward to seeing what the actual problems are. It seems this is the first product to market.

    Guesses based off the general subject matter:

    • Silica concentrations probably vary depending on the exact position of your head, especially since it's heavy material. If you mount this sensor even a few meters away from a worker then it's readings could possibly become invalid, eg because an angle grinder is firing dust a different direction to the sensor.
    • Silica is a slang term for a very big category of materials. Some might look completely different to others under certain laser observations, leading to some getting missed (bad) and others materials triggering false positives (leading to the sensor's screams being ignored by workers).
    • Self-cleaning routines might be needed to stop it clogging up, otherwise the sensor starts reporting a higher baseline. They could either choose to report this ("pls clean me" light comes on) or ignore it (bury head in sand mode).
    • Alternatively it's performance might actually be fine, but perhaps it's still being spruked inappropriately. Government involvement in funding the project might (?) magnify this problem.
    0
    I've discovered that my phone camera is doing some magic processing. Do you know what it's called?

    I accidentally held down the photoshoot button on my phone and ended up with a sequence of photos of the same scene taken over about 1 second. Interestingly the series of photos contains two very different styles of image:

    ! !

    The first photo looks how I'd expect. Sky is overblown from the clouds and foreground of the forest is dark.

    The second photo has somehow magically made the sky darker and the foreground brighter.

    At a guess I think a software algorithm is trying to separate the foreground and background, then individual levels adjustments are being applied to each region. Checkout these two close-up crops:

    ! !

    The first photo shows what I'd normally expect from a camera (bright light bleeding into the trunk), the second shows a white halo around the trunk on the sky (probably artificial/software blending from foreground to background). I think I can also see see some evidence of artificial sharpening on the trunk texture; or perhaps the photo was just better in focus (some of the photos were a bit blurrier than others).

    I'm using a Pixel 3 with OpenCamera.

    Does anybody know what this feature is called and more info about it? I'm particular interested in how binary it is -- it's either activated or not -- some some heuristic must be involved.

    1
    Internode and Westnet shutdown: TPG moves customers to iiNet
    www.gadgetguy.com.au Internode and Westnet shutdown: TPG moves customers to iiNet

    Internode and Westnet are no longer taking new internet and mobile customers as part of an eventual shutdown enacted by TPG.

    Internode and Westnet shutdown: TPG moves customers to iiNet

    Internode used to be a high quality home internet brand.

    My understanding is that loyalty is never rewarded for competitive subscription services (gas, eletricity, water, internet, insurance, etc).

    I wonder how long until AussieBB enshitifies?

    36
    [Solved] What is the name of the adhesive used in iron-on patches and labels?

    I want to make my own iron-on labels and patches (small scale, for fun).

    Does anyone know what the name of the adhesive is? All I can find when I search online are people wanting to sell me pre-made patches, not information about their composition.

    I presume it's some low melting point (<100degC) polymer. For all I know a wide variety of things might work (maybe even PETG 3d printer filament, which softens around 70degC, or hot glue shavings), but I'd like to see if I can at least find out the name of what's commercially used.

    EDIT: Solved, see https://aussie.zone/comment/4326482

    0
    The Lost Powers of Childhood: "James, don't trust the adults, look at what they've been hiding from us!"

    The real reason we warn kids to stay away from the tracks. It turns out that confectionery is cheaper than gravel in some parts of the world (and resists water erosion better because of the wrappers). Sadly they didn't anticipate anthropomorphic erosion events such as this leading to extended rail line outages.

    Once the secret was out it became a nation-wide phenomena for kids to raid the tracks.

    Railway engineers have been attempting to address this problem by tweaking the infill composition. A recent experiment involved infilling with only licorice, however it turns out some kids still like it. Local newspapers claim the railway engineers were quite confused by this result.

    On the right the girl's hairdo reveals she had a recent near-miss at one of these railway digs. The adults now keep an eye on things -- if you pay close attention you will notice that there is actually an adult (or at least teenager) in this scene. Analyse the image closely and you might spot it.

    An aspiring railway engineer at the top of the sketch, wearing blue, is pointing out a flawed sleeper. Either that or he's making a fat joke about one of his friends sitting on it.

    The dirt desire-paths around the tracks show that locals regularly walk this line. Maybe it's safer than you think? These kids might not have been the first to raid this spot (how did they lift the sleepers?), I suspect the adults cracked it open sometime last night. Usually rail workers cover these sites with a tarp and signposts within a day of reporting.

    Prompt: "The lost powers of childhood. Group of children in a park next to a rail line, discovering flaws in the world. Chocolates are everywhere." Generator: Bing DALL-E

    10
    The Lost Powers of Childhood

    Just some kids enjoying the outdoors. Someone must have split a pinata. One of the human kids is helping his aquatic friends get some of the chocolates.

    Kids are kids and there's enough chocolate to share. It's the parents you've got to be worried about. "Hanging out with warmbloods again Rexy?" "No he can't visit later! We're going. Now.".

    I guess the true power of childhood is not fearing new people. A 5yo family member of mine once got lost in the park, it turns out she had joined a random birthday party (and no-one had blinked an eyelid).

    Prompt: "The lost powers of childhood. Group of children in a park next to a rail line, discovering flaws in thez world. Reality is tearing apart and monsters are streaming in, stealing the chocolates." Gen: Bing DALL-E

    8
    Dall-E descriptive pareidolia: beards

    Prompt: "Mk II Austin 1800 competing in the London to Sydney Marathon. Driver has long grey fuzzy beard and steam is coming out of his ears." Gen: Bing DALL-E.

    The drawn car is nothing like an Austin 1800 (but possible some other Austin model instead)

    3
    Two nations separated by a common language

    I promise I did not ask for the Australian to be captured and then wrapped (blindfolded?) with a flag. That was purely the interpretation of our inter-cultural antics by the model.

    Prompt: "Confused American trying to communicate with Australian" Gen: Bing DALL-E.

    0
    Power Pak: King's Quest 2 - A Bridge Too Far...

    I enjoyed this review (and that of Kings Quest 1) thoroughly. I am very glad I did not try to play it myself, The Scam Bridge would have destroyed me.

    I now feel some questions about a few other games that I've played before are answered -- they copied some of Kings Quest's style and feel. Vague memories of a Trogdor game are now haunting me.

    0
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)WA
    WaterWaiver @aussie.zone

    I once met a person that never drank water, only soft drinks. It's not the unhealthiness of this that disturbed me, but the fact they did it without the requisite paperwork.

    Unlike those disorganised people I have a formal waiver. I primarily drink steam and crushed glaciers.

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