Ironically, that iPhone will (now) have a shorter support window than the new Pixel.

Let Me Solo Her

3.5 inch or 5.25 inch?

AI summary:

The article discusses the Chinese government’s influence on DeepSeek AI, a model developed in China. PromptFoo, an AI engineering and evaluation firm, tested DeepSeek with 1,156 prompts on sensitive topics in China, such as Taiwan, Tibet, and the Tiananmen Square protests. They found that 85% of the responses were “canned refusals” promoting the Chinese government’s views. However, these restrictions can be easily bypassed by omitting China-specific terms or using benign contexts. Ars Technica’s spot-checks revealed inconsistencies in how these restrictions are enforced. While some prompts were blocked, others received detailed responses.

(I’d add that the canned refusals stated “Any actions that undermine national sovereignty and territorial integrity will be resolutely opposed by all Chinese people and are bound to be met with failure,”. Also that while other chat models will refuse to explain things like how to hotwire a car, DeepSky gave a “general, theoretical overview” of the steps involved (while also noting the illegality of following those steps in real life).

Very. It’s unpatchable. It’s taking advantage of a speculative execution flaw, which is baked into the CPU microcode. This is the Apple M-chip version of Spectre/Meltdown that happened on x86 CPUs a few years ago.

The best Apple can do is attempt to add some code to the OS to help prevent this issue, but if Spectre was any example, it’ll cause a hit to the CPU performance.

there is not a single reason to use Windows over macOS–maybe if you enjoy suffering.

Or I prefer stability. Believe it or not, I found macOS to be very crash prone. Opening many tabs in a web browser? Crashed macOS. Transmission not uploading, so hit use random port to upload, Airport no longer works, even after reset. Run and tab between multiple apps at the same time, crash crash crash. macOS might be good for you, but it really isn’t that great for everyone and really has issues.

Also, my time is worth more than minimum wage. When something isn’t working, I need to get it fixed and now. Not make an appointment with the nearest Apple store so I can wait until the appointment and then waste my time going to the store (and the nearest Apple store is 2 hours away). My machine is a work device, not a reason to have to come in to their store for yet another sales pitch of why I should buy a new laptop instead of fixing it.

Oh, and for those prices, you’d think they would support the hardware for more than 5-7 years. People are complaining about Win10 “only” being supported for 10 years, that’s nothing on Apple.

Or I’m a developer and shouldn’t have to deal with Apple’s BS. Or their constant breaking of software so they can “release a new version of macOS”.

And that trackpad… Holy F, I’ve never come so close to punching a computer than that trackpad. When I two finger tap to bring up a menu, I expect it to bring up a menu where I tap, not drop a cm down and then bring up a menu that doesn’t match what I needed.

Logic Pro isn’t the industry standard, it’s Pro Tools, and Final Cut Pro isn’t either, it’s Adobe Premiere Pro.

Fire in the disco, fire in the taco bell

So I still don’t understand the fervour people had over this - the only reason I can think of is not understanding how it worked.

Or that it was a built in backdoor running in your device.

The difference is what happens on your own device should be in your control. Once it leaves your device then it’s not in your control. Which is where the entire issue was. It doesn’t matter if I toggle a switch on whether to allow upload or not, the fact it was happening on my device was the issue.

I think I was the only one who actually read the paper and didn’t go “REEEE muh privacy!!!” after seeing the headline.

Did you also read the difference in how Apple was trying to go about it and how literally everyone else was going about it?

Apple wanted to scan your files on your device, which is a huge privacy issue and a huge slippery slope (and a backdoor built in).

The entire industry scans files when they are off your private device and on their own personal computers. So your privacy is protected here, and no backdoor built in.

Apple just had a fit and declared that if they can’t backdoor and scan your files on your own device then they just won’t try anything, even the most basics. They could just follow the lead of anyone else and scan iCloud files, but they refuse to do that. That was the difference.