callmeal (u/callmeal)

callmeal commented on A $1k AWS mistake geocod.io/code-and-coordi... · Posted by u/thecodemonkey

sofixa · a month ago

It's not that it's technically impossible. The very simple problem is that there is no way of providing hard spend caps without giving you the opportunity to bring down your whole production environment when the cap is met. No cloud provides wants to give their customers that much rope to hang themselves with. You just know too many customers will do it wrong or will forget to update the cap or will not coordinate internally, and things will stop working and take forever to fix.

It's easier to waive cost overages than deal with any of that.

callmeal · a month ago

>The very simple problem is that there is no way of providing hard spend caps without giving you the opportunity to bring down your whole production environment when the cap is met.

And why is that a problem? And how different is that from "forgetting" to pay your bill and having your production environment brought down?

callmeal commented on Ticker: Don't die of heart disease myticker.com/... · Posted by u/colelyman

tgv · a month ago

Not all things labeled "processed foods" are bad, it seems. There are enough scientists that say the distinction is often hypocritical (example from an article: a factory-made carrot cake is labeled UPF, but a home-baked one isn't, even though they're practically the same thing). Sugar, fats, and lack of fiber make factory-food unhealthy, they say. Others add that we can't feed the growing metropolitan areas without it.

callmeal · a month ago

>a factory-made carrot cake is labeled UPF, but a home-baked one isn't, even though they're practically the same thing).

Actually they are not. "Practically" is carrying a lot of weight there. The factory baked cake will have a lot more extraneous ingredients and usually has a larger quantity of sugar and fat. Similar to how restaurant food generally has a lot more salt and fat than home cooked food.

callmeal commented on U.S. already has the critical minerals it needs, according to new analysis minesnewsroom.com/news/us... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

throw10920 · 3 months ago

Here we have the "stupid" bit of my reference. No, the budget should not track population growth, because improved technology means that occasionally the cost to provide the same service to an individual decreases, whereupon the budget should also decrease. Or, for instance, a military threat or other transient event (eg COVID) that necessitated temporarily elevated funding levels expires, and the budget should decrease accordingly.

The converse being, of course, that sometimes transient events or large shifts (eg increase in costs of materials used to make some important good that the government procures) make things cost more, and so the budget should increase in proportion to those beyond population growth.

callmeal · 3 months ago

Improving technology has not increased housing stock or transportation options. Everyone still needs a place to stay and ways to get to/from work. Another issue is that using technology to reduce humans in the loop is what gets us "your call is important to us..." levels of customer support.

If the number of people who need to apply for id/license/passports keeps increasing, then the number of people servicing those requests also needs to increase (or we need to stop complaining about the dmv). No amount of technology is going to replace that need.

callmeal commented on U.S. already has the critical minerals it needs, according to new analysis minesnewsroom.com/news/us... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

throw10920 · 3 months ago

Yes, and here's some nuance: based on my experience, the majority of the people in the bureaucracy want it to be more efficient.

To effect cuts, you can either cut the budget without improving efficiency, leading to a loss of scope (which is what the current administration is doing, and is not great), or you can keep your scope while improving your efficiency such that you don't need as much money, which is vastly preferable.

Those in the general public who thinks that government budgets should increase monotonically are a linear combination between total idiots and outright politically malicious.

callmeal · 3 months ago

>government budgets should increase monotonically

Well, they should track population growth. You cannot effectively serve a larger population with the same resources, otherwise we would continue to have two lane freeways everywhere.

callmeal commented on U.S. already has the critical minerals it needs, according to new analysis minesnewsroom.com/news/us... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico

throw10920 · 3 months ago

Yes, and here's some nuance: based on my experience, the majority of the people in the bureaucracy want it to be more efficient.

To effect cuts, you can either cut the budget without improving efficiency, leading to a loss of scope (which is what the current administration is doing, and is not great), or you can keep your scope while improving your efficiency such that you don't need as much money, which is vastly preferable.

Those in the general public who thinks that government budgets should increase monotonically are a linear combination between total idiots and outright politically malicious.

callmeal · 3 months ago

>To effect cuts, you can either cut the budget without improving efficiency, leading to a loss of scope (which is what the current administration is doing, and is not great)

Um, $11,000,000,000 for ICE is not a cut. $850 Billion for the department of war (an increase of $25 billion over last year) is not a cut.

But yes, CFPB's funding for 2025 which gets reduced from about $823 million to about $446 million is a cut. Which will be great for consumers because we can now start paying extra fees that will boost corporate profits.

callmeal commented on Preliminary report into Air India crash released bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx20p... · Posted by u/cjr

bigtones · 5 months ago

Each of the fuel switches on the 787 is equipped with a locking mechanism that is supposed to prevent accidental movement, experts said. To turn the fuel supply on, the switch must be pulled outward and then moved to a “RUN” position, where it is released and settles back into a locked position. To turn the fuel supply off, the switch must be pulled outward again, moved to the “CUTOFF” position and then released again.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/11/world/asia/air-india-cras...

callmeal · 5 months ago

Or they could be inadvertently flipped if the "locking" version was not installed: (see the avherald link):

>>India's media report that the investigation is NOT focussing on a human action causing the fuel switches to appear in the CUTOFF position, but on a system failure. Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2 relating to loss of control issue (also see above) were NOT implemented by Air India.

callmeal commented on Preliminary report into Air India crash released bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx20p... · Posted by u/cjr

sugarpimpdorsey · 5 months ago

Excellent analysis here, those switches are stout, no one is moving them by accident:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wA_UZeHZwSw

callmeal · 5 months ago

Except when they are not:

From the avherald link:

>Service Bulletins by Boeing issued in year 2018 recommending to upgrade the fuel switches to locked versions to prevent inadvertent flip of the switches, as well as the FAA/GE issued Service Bulletin FAA-2021-0273-0013 Attachment 2 relating to loss of control issue (also see above) were NOT implemented by Air India.

callmeal commented on Google can now read your WhatsApp messages neowin.net/guides/google-... · Posted by u/bundie

morsch · 5 months ago

I think this hasn't been true for a couple of years now

https://faq.whatsapp.com/490592613091019

callmeal · 5 months ago

Encrypted backups are "off" by default and need to be explicity turned on.

callmeal commented on Google can now read your WhatsApp messages neowin.net/guides/google-... · Posted by u/bundie

Matthias247 · 5 months ago

How does it work technically?

Does Whatsapp expose these messages via an API? If yes, then it seems like this is not only on Google.

If no: Are they reading data from raw UI widgets? Are they intercepting input controls? Are they intercepting network traffic? That seems unlikely, given its probably end to end encrypted and the decryption happens within the scope of the Whatsapp process.

callmeal · 5 months ago

>Does Whatsapp expose these messages via an API?

Whatsapp has dark patterns that "guide" you to "archive" your chats on google drive.

callmeal commented on Google can now read your WhatsApp messages neowin.net/guides/google-... · Posted by u/bundie

GiorgioG · 5 months ago

Monetization. If people aren’t willing to pay for the products, these companies have figured out how to make the customers’ data the product.

callmeal · 5 months ago

> If people aren’t willing to pay for the products, these companies have figured out how to make the customers’ data the product.

This happens even when people pay for the products. See for instance the enshittification of streaming "ad free" services.