h2g2bob @h2g2bob@mastodon.dbatley.com

VLC in WebAssembly

https://videolabs.io/communication/vlcjs-demo/vlc.html

Very neat
"The inspection paradox is a statistical illusion you’ve probably never heard of. It’s a common source of confusion, an occasional cause of error, and an opportunity for clever experimental design.

And once you know about it, you see it everywhere."

https://towardsdatascience.com/the-inspection-paradox-is-everywhere-2ef1c2e9d709

Residents across the United States are being inundated with text messages purporting to come from toll road operators like E-ZPass, warning that recipients face fines if a delinquent toll fee remains unpaid. Researchers say the surge in SMS spam coincides with new features added to a popular commercial phishing kit sold in China that makes it simple to set up convincing lures spoofing toll road operators in multiple U.S. states.

"The ultimate goal of these kits, he said, is to phish enough information from victims that their payment cards can be added to mobile wallets and used to buy goods at physical stores, online, or to launder money through shell companies."

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/01/chinese-innovations-spawn-wave-of-toll-phishing-via-sms/

New blog post: "CMYK support in Inkscape could be a game-changer for professional print designers "
https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1061/cmyk-support-in-inkscape-could-be-a-game-changer-for-professional-print-designers

#inkscape

@neil one more for your list https://discuss.haiku-os.org/t/notice-georestriction-of-the-uk/16267

I just wanted to toot my horn for Patrick Grant and the good people of Community Clothing. I go here (and to some other UK manufacturers) for my clothing.
(https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Grant_(designer)
(https://communityclothing.co.uk/)

Why some DVLA digital services don't work at night

https://dafyddvaughan.uk/blog/2025/why-some-dvla-digital-services-dont-work-at-night/

Things I regret: Looking at github issues for the open-source self-driving car conversion kit.

Thousands of people use these things on public roads.

https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/issues/34346

Insider war story on time-smearing and fooling NTP to get around a leap second: https://rachelbythebay.com/w/2025/01/09/lag/

Fun stuff!

After @lapcatsoftware's "Photos phones home on iOS 18 and macOS 15", I took a deep dive into the tech that apparently makes it private.

I tried to write it in simple english, something apple apparently could not:

https://boehs.org/node/homomorphic-encryption

We originally had a different topic planned for this week's #geoweirdness thread, but the global discussion has turned to Greenland 🇬🇱, so let's go with it.

Join us as we consider the geographic oddities of the world's northernmost territory.

1/

Today I learned that you can search for a company on https://www.uktradeinfo.com and it shows you what categories of goods they imported/exported each month. Fairly coarse data, but still cool.

...it also shows the VAT "principal place of business" address which means my home address is on there several times. You're not allowed to use a registered office address for that, and nowhere does it say it gets published.

My thoughts on New York's (de)congestion pricing revolution, on its first big weekday: https://humantransit.org/2025/01/its-here-manhattans-congestion-relief-zone.html

"Managing load from abusive web bots" – Alun Jones

https://www.ty-penguin.org.uk/~auj/blog/2025/01/02/spigot/

Another of my fave photos this year were these taken of a train shooting out of the tunnel towards a Hamilton theatre poster. 

It looks like the man is having a stand-off with the London Underground train at Oxford Circus Station.

I can't decide which version I like best?

#photography #railway

A Puzzle about a Calculator https://aperiodical.com/2024/12/a-puzzle-about-a-calculator/

Fuck it, we can call them all out - please collect the worst UX nightmares you see this Christmas and send them over. Take photos, videos, describe it - jonty@jonty.co.uk

I'll shove them all on a website and try to embarrass companies into fixing them.

Press friends: I shall be in touch