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GnomeToys

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    What Kind Of Cell Phone Do You Have?

    in Entertainment

    Posted

    It has a heart rate sensor too. 

     

    Samsung's website says they just use an LED emitter & detector to measure slight changes in skin movement during heartbeats, so if they use 700-800nm IR for that they can probably pull a halfway accurate pulse ox reading based on how much light is absorbed vs. what was put out.   It wouldn't be as accurate because you'd need a sensor on the other side of the finger or whatever for that part, but you get some kind of baseline reading. 

     

    The iris scanner / face recognition in those is kind of funny.  This thread on Samsung's site is hilarious and says something about how much crap is being tied into the limited near IR spectrum:

    https://us.community.samsung.com/t5/Galaxy-S8-Questions-and-Answers/S8-IR-Emission/td-p/161240

     

    Quote

     

     I have a ceiling fan & light with remote control in my bedroom.

    If I leave my S8 face up in the room after a couple of minutes it will transmit something and put the fan in max speed and the light on.

     

     

     
    Quote


     

    I have the same problem with my S8 and Klipsch R-20B Soundbar.  My S8 will cause the soundbar to power on and increase volume to 100%.  Its ridiculous.  No one with an S8 or similar phone, like my girlfriends Pixel 2 XL can walk into my living room with thier phone without activating the Soundbar, which also instantly and automatically blasts the volume.  I have to return the soundbar and sub.

     

    ?  

    • Props 1

    iPhone Applications & Discussion Thread

    in Entertainment

    Posted

    On 6/15/2018 at 12:03 PM, misteraven said:

    @Leicaaaa Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence, LOL! I've never used Android, but the platform looks like a fragmented mess. I actually like Apple and usually hate Google as well, but mostly I can't see moving to a less integrated solution where the handset maker isnt the ones also producing the OS. Plus not down to start over again with all the apps. For that, I'll just throw it all away entirely.

     

    What don't you like about your phone? What handset is it?

     

    Android is a fragmented mess, for sure.  A large part of this has to do with how ARM licenses their processor IP and what their specifications were...    some quick / annoying examples of this:

    • In the ancient ARMv5 era, there was a feature level of processor that supported a mode called Jazelle, which was intended to be a hardware Java VM and would have sped up that language quite a bit.  ARM's "minimal implementation" was just a slow-ish trap into a software Java VM, though, so almost nobody implemented it in hardware because it would have been more expensive.
    • ARMv7 has a set of vector floating point instructions called VFP and another integer set called NEON.   VFP could be optionally implemented with 16 registers instead of 32, which meant that a bunch of phones couldn't run code built for the same processor level if they used the full register set.  In addition, there were 4 feature levels of VFP and NEON was optional. 
    • Maybe the least annoying, but there are also three instruction sets depending on processor version / feature level.   ARM instructions are all the same length, Thumb1 instructions were 2 bytes instead of 4, and Thumb2 instructions are variable-width 2 or 4 byte.  Switching between the modes and being compatible requires special branch instructions that rely on the lowest bit of the address being set.   This isn't a problem if you just build everything to be aware of the interop between modes and use what you feel like, unless whoever wrote the OS didn't do that. 
    • ARMv8 has deprecated a couple of things which were later removed (the IT instruction) but has been generally better at warning people about it in advance. 

    Another issue on the native code side of things for Android is that google didn't include a commercially usable C++ standard library that actually supported all C++ features for a very long time.  The one that supported everything properly was GPL'd so couldn't be used in anything anyone wanted to sell without them releasing source. 

     

    Apple got around almost all of these things by being the only hardware manufacturer, and eventually making their own processors, but there were still quite a few times where backwards compatibility was broken with apps.  This would have been fine, but their new XCode releases would often stop supporting compilation for older modes so it made things more difficult on developers wanting to support old phones at the expense of the current stuff being guaranteed to run. 

     

    15 hours ago, Pistol said:

    Looking for a good app that has eye drop and color fills with multiple layers. I don’t have a computer much less any adobe software. Just looking to tweek some designs around a bit. Bonus for working with vectors and supporting various files. Nothing professional though. 

    Have you tried Adobe's phone / tablet apps?  I've been messing around with Adobe Sketch (I think, they have a few) and although it's no Illustrator it's all vector-based and supports most of what you want.   They're all free on Android, I doubt it's different on iOS, and perform amazingly well for adobe software.  It will export to .png for emails and has an "export to illustrator" which appears to send a .ai file to Creative Cloud storage, but since I haven't had a creative cloud subscription in several years I have no idea what it thinks it's sending to in that case.

     

    1 hour ago, misteraven said:

    Pretty amazing to me how few people seem to have computers these days. Guess it makes sense why Apple is now charging as much as $1200 for an iPhone, when it would seem fewer and fewer people are bothering with it.

     

    I think this is mainly a reflection of what most people were actually using their computers for in the first place.  Tons of people had computers for the sole purpose of email, web, and simple word processing.   Although I'm not good at it some can type very fast on their phones thanks to adaptive text entry / swipe keys.  Many people don't even need the set of features something like LibreOffice / MS Office contains, and most don't do image editing on a level that requires Photoshop. 

     

    I still think the prices on new carrier unlocked phones (esp. Apple's) are stretching credibility pretty heavily, though.  I forget what the actual fabrication costs of the processors / etc they're using are, but I remember a breakdown of iPhone 4 that indicated the phone was well under $100 in parts and that was in the listed bulk prices which weren't anywhere near the quantity apple buys. 

     

    Gotta love their marketing, too.  Take creepy tech and make it a desired feature.  

     

    Quote

    A tiny space houses some of the most sophisticated technology we’ve ever developed, including the cameras and sensors that enable Face ID.

    Face ID

    A revolution in recognition.

     

    Secure Authentication

    Your face is now your password. Face ID is a secure and private new way to unlock, authenticate, and pay.

    Facial Mapping

    Face ID is enabled by the TrueDepth camera and is simple to set up. It projects and analyzes more than 30,000 invisible dots to create a precise depth map of your face.

    Animoji

     

    The TrueDepth camera analyzes more than 50 different muscle movements to mirror your expressions in 16 Animoji. Reveal your inner panda, pig, or robot.

    Ok...   this is about half of what Apple's page on the phone talks about along with the neural net hardware.  I didn't realize typing a password was that difficult, but whatever. 

     

    My concerns with this are both their willingness to share the data with 3rd party devs, who are more or less a crapshoot on mobile, and the scattered infrared laser the thing is shooting straight at your face.  It's scattered into ~30,000 points, but AFAIK nobody has done long term studies on low intensity direct laser radiation like this (which will be used more often than anyone would normally be getting direct-beam laser exposure), and I can't find anywhere that Apple has listed the output power of the laser module.  IR lasers don't generally cause the same type of immediate retinal damage a visible laser would, but have other issues and even relatively weak (10mW) DPSS green lasers from chinese manufacturers are considered fairly dangerous by laser enthusiasts because of the IR leakage.  Discussions on Apple forums just consist of the usual group of people defending the company and denying that anything dangerous would ever happen, but I'll buy that when I find actual numbers. 

     

    Here's a fun video of the laser in action.   MS Kinect uses a similar system to map rooms (meaning this ought to be able to do a limited level of the same in low light), and a couple of old Sony digicams used a visible light version to provide accurate low-light autofocus, so it isn't anything too new, it's just much closer to your eyes than either of those. 

     

     

     

     

    • Like 2

    The Nonsense thread

    in Channel Zero

    Posted

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane

    Quote


    Gropecunt Lane was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages, believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas; it was normal practice for a medieval street name to reflect the street's function or the economic activity taking place within it. Gropecunt, the earliest known use of which is in about 1230, appears to have been derived as a compound of the words grope and cunt. Streets with that name were often in the busiest parts of medieval towns and cities, and at least one appears to have been an important thoroughfare.

     

    ?  ?  ?  

    • LOL! 2

    Yo DAO, Seriously Fuck the Police (Been a while since we had one of these)

    in Channel Zero

    Posted

    Fuck that shit. 
    I'm all for making the cops carry nothing but a nightstick and optionally some weak mace, UK style.  I bet they'd be amazed at how many people don't shoot at them when they're not pulling out their service pistols at random traffic stops and shit.

     

    Quote

    Black had significant hearing impairment because of his military service, Metz said. Also, the scene was noisy from people screaming, including Black’s 11-year-old grandson, who had been violently attacked by a naked intruder.

    Yeah, he probably had a not insignificant amount of hearing issues from discharging a fucking 9mm indoors repeatedly, too.   Stack on the whole part where the cops dress like something out of a weird German bondage porn from the 80s these days and the naked dude who had run in just ahead of them and I wouldn't have obeyed anything they said if I could hear it very clearly and it was the Buddha and the second coming of Christ at the door. 

     

    Quote

     

    Black raised his flashlight toward them before the one officer fired, Metz said.

     

    “It was that time my officer fired four rounds, causing Mr. Black to fall to the ground,” Metz said.

     

    Oh lawd, not visible light!   No wonder the cop shot at him, you can get vision damage from looking at a flashlight for several weeks straight.   Presumably he fired 4 shots because the first three missed. 

     

    Quote

    Metz said the officer, who has not been identified but is a three-year department veteran, went through all the requirements necessary to come back after a shooting, including peer support, psychiatric services and gun range training. He spent 15 days on leave before being declared fit for duty.

    Well, at least they gave him more shooting lessons and he had the entire 15 days it takes a total sociopath  to mentally recover after shooting a human.

    If the guy who survived Vietnam and just got done dropping a crazed naked man had decided to shoot first and ask questions later, there'd be a lot more bodies but more decent people left alive.  ?


    RIP Gary Black

     

    • Like 4

    How to browse the internet without being spied on.

    in Channel Zero

    Posted

    I can't comment on what's going on in this one because I'm lacking background on it but it sounds dodgy as fuck:

    http://www.daily-journal.com/news/local/kankakee-chief-investigates-critics/article_c77bf066-910d-11e8-a37e-cbe13f4cf7fd.html

     

    Quote

    In a brief interview at the police station, Dumas said he searched the database for Menz because Menz posted a photo on Facebook of Mayor Chasity Wells-Armstrong’s city-owned Tahoe parked on city property.
    ...

    In the post, Menz commented, “Hey, check out Mayor Chasity Wells-Armstrong’s new ride! This is a big upgrade from the Chevy Malibu that (former Mayor) Nina (Epstein) used to drive. If you feel nostalgic for the Malibu, don’t worry, though, it is in storage at the fire department.”

    ...

     

    The chief said the photo concerned him.

     

    “You can post anything about me you want on Facebook, but not the mayor. She is a protected class,” he said.

     

    He said she was in a protected class because she was an elected official. He didn’t say which law gave that distinction for elected officials, although civil rights and hate crimes laws do not.

     

    Dumas questioned why someone would post a photo of the mayor’s city-owned car with license plate number.

    Internet readers question ability of Kankakee, Il. police chief to point correct side of gun away from himself,

     

    How to browse the internet without being spied on.

    in Channel Zero

    Posted

    The last one says more about Disney being shitbags as employers.  Also in general, but plenty of other things say that.  They already knew about this.  His directing history has the "James Gunn's PG Porn" TV series with such exciting episodes as the "Squeal Happy Whores" and "A Very Peanus Christmas" Peanuts spoof which I'm going to go watch as immediately as possible.  Assuming nobody at Disney was paying attention in 2008, in  2016 he had writing credits in

    Dolphinman Battles the Sex Lobsters :

    Quote

    Sgt. Kabukiman NYPD contracts a deadly new STD, The Sex Lobsters, and unknowingly spreads it around town while visiting Tromaville's best orgy spots. Only Dolphinman can find the cure and save the day!

    The old tweets were convenient for the asses trying to get him fired, but his bigger mistake was complaining about Trump if I pieced things together correctly.  But yeah, go on and act all shocked, Disney. 

    Or it might just be karmic payback for Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed ?

     

    Seriously though, at least this guy probably isn't going to be hurting for work or anything.  DC Entertainment should hire him and make a green lantern movie that doesn't suck ass. 

     

     

    • LOL! 1
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