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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: July 28th, 2023

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  • Actually it is, we do use both network cells and other public beacons for navigation when GPS is unavailable. It’s just not available everywhere – you need a map available of cell locations and usually this mandates open datasets for companies to use. Navigation works underground in e.g. Helsinki metro as a personal anecdote. We don’t need strict triangulation underground as cells are already so small. The metro tunnel is filled with picocells in practice (smaller than 200m coverage area cross-section).

    We also use the cell network to push rough satellite locations to cellphones, in A-GPS, or more generally A-GNSSb as the same functionality is available for other systems as well. This way the phone can pinpoint the required satellites much faster, which is the main reason you can get such quick and accurate readings from your phone after starting to check your location.

    Edit: AFAIK location services also enrich the information with databases of publicly visible WiFi SSIDs, using their visibility as a beacon. Scanning WiFi hotspots typically consumes less power than getting a GPS signal that’s as accurate, and is also often more reliable in urban settings and higher latitudes where the satellites aren’t as visible (though the constellations have enough satellites nowadays that this issue isn’t nearly as bad as it used to be)


  • There’s an overabundance of competent-ish frontend developers. You most likely need to pay the devs less, compared to someone writing it with e.g. C++, and finding people with relevant experience takes less time. You also get things like a ready-made sandbox and the ability to re-use UI components from other web services, which simplifies application development. So my guess is that this is done to save money.

    Also, the more things are running in an embedded browser the more reasons M$ has to bake Edge into the OS, without raising eyebrows as to why they’re providing it as a default (look it’s a system tool as well, not just a browser).


  • And we’ve nowadays taken it even further, in spoken Finnish we’ve even got rid of the “hän” and mostly use “se”, which is the Finnish word for “it”. The same pronoun is used for people in all forms, animals, items, institutions and so on, and in practice the only case for “hän” is people trying to remind others they consider their pets human.

    Context will tell which one it is.