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Tuesday, 26 March 2024 | Dereel | Images for 26 March 2024 |
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Where am I?
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Topic: technology, photography, opinion | Link here |
One of the recurring themes in film series that we watch is that somebody gets lost (in the Alps, for example). They have mobile phone connection, but they don't know where they are.
That's simple: all modern phones have a GPS module that can identify where they are to within a couple of metres. And there are silly things like Plus Codes that convert the output into incomprehensible codes.
That's nonsense, of course. The phone should be able to send its location coordinates with every call, or on a call-by-call basis for the paranoid. But its not available anywhere that I can see. I've ranted about this numerous times, most recently in August 2022.
But the matter of the RAT last week got me thinking. Mobile phones always (as far as I can tell) embed the current GPS coordinates in every photo. And with only a moderate amount of coaxing you can not only get the information, but pass it on to Google Maps!
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Isn't that nice? Finally something that works.
Well, almost. I suppose it's modern that Google Maps gets the address wrong (it relates to something at the top of the screen, under the coordinates). But more to the point, it only works when you don't need it. This is a photo taken on my own phone. What about a photo sent with the messaging app? Tried that with Yvonne's phone and got:
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No Exif data! And look at the image sizes. Yvonne's phone is effectively the same as mine, but the image has been reduced from 12 MP to 1.9 MP (a variable which it's too polite to mention). About the only useful piece of information there is the path name, for which I had seaarched in vain with inadequate tools through the Android directory hierarchy.
So: once again Android fail. I can understand the paranoia of so many people who don't want their location to be known, but it should be easier than this, at least as an option.
One day I'll find something really good about Android. I'll be amazed.
Wednesday, 27 March 2024 | Dereel | Images for 27 March 2024 |
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Blacklist removal: success
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Topic: technology, opinion | Link here |
Yesterday I received mail from Wendy Bartlett, whom I knew at Tandem Computers. Replied, or at least I tried to:
<wendy_bartlett@randomisp.net>: host ff-ip4-mx-vip2.prodigy.net[144.160.159.22]
said: 553 5.3.0 flpd594 DNSBL:RBL 521< 45.32.70.18 >_is_blocked.For
assistance forward this error to abuse_rbl@abuse-att.net (in reply to MAIL
FROM command)
Damn, will this never end? For the sake of completeness, sent a message to abuse_rbl@abuse-att.net to say that I was just an innocent bystander.
Surprise, surprise:
Thank you for contacting the AT&T Postmaster.
The mail-server IP address(es) associated with your request will be removed from the block list within 24-48 hours from the date of this letter. AT&T and its affiliates do NOT intentionally block legitimate mail in the course of our anti-spam initiatives and regret any inconvenience this may have caused.
And yes, now it works! I think this is the first time that I have been successful in such an appeal.
Eye progress
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Topic: health, opinion | Link here |
My eye continues to improve. The bubble is still there, but barely. Hopefully it will soon be completely gone, and the new floaters with it.
Today Yvonne went shopping and picked up some reading glasses for me. We had carefully measured the distance from my head to monitor and established that it was about 60 to 62 cm. That falls clearly between 67 cm (1.5 dioptres) and 57 cm (1.75 dioptres). I suggested getting one set of each power if we could return one.
That didn't happen: nobody had 1.75 dioptre glasses on offer. So she came back with a 1.5 dioptre pair. But that's not an issue: I couldn't focus to 67 cm with them, more like 40 cm. That corresponds to 2.5 dioptres! And no, it's not the reading glasses. They focus images from outside at exactly 67 cm.
So it seems that currently, at any rate, my right eye is short-sighted by about 1 dioptre. Is that intentional? Is that what David Fabinyi meant when he said that “the lens focus is set to slightly shorter than infinity”? 1 dioptre isn't “slightly shorter”, it's considerably short-sighted. Hopefully things will improve.
This page contains (roughly) yesterday's and today's entries. I have a horror of reverse chronological documents, so all my diary entries are chronological. This page normally contains the last two days, but if I fall behind it may contain more. You can find older entries in the archive. Note that I often update a diary entry a day or two after I write it. | Do you have a comment about something I have written? This is a diary, not a “blog”, and there is deliberately no provision for directly adding comments. It's also not a vehicle for third-party content. But I welcome feedback and try to reply to all messages I receive. See the diary overview for more details. If you do send me a message relating to something I have written, please indicate whether you'd prefer me not to mention your name. Otherwise I'll assume that it's OK to do so. |
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