It's even more important if this finding [1] (press release [2]) turns out to be true, namely that the amount of carbon dioxide in the air is not just a proxy for air quality, but that having less of it actually actively destabilizes virus particles.
Also, portable air cleaners seem to work pretty well [3].
It's not illegal, but unlawful for data controllers to process such personal data without free permission. But in this case there's likely an exception in GDPR article 85, for "For processing carried out for journalistic purposes or the purpose of academic artistic or literary expression" [1].
That does not give that right. It just asks states to carve out protections for journalism. Biometric data is very strictly regulated by the GDPR. The exceptions are listed in article 9.
> Privacy Pass in fact doesn't make sense outside of an anonymizing transport
This kind of thinking is pervasive in the discussion of privacy enhancing technologies. It might not make sense against the most sophisticated attacker, but it lays the groundwork of a complex system that will be able to do so.
Allowing more users will provide herd privacy at the token generation phase. Searches being decoupled from user account primary key offers privacy in all kinds of scenario's, comparable with a browser private tab.
> > Privacy Pass in fact doesn't make sense outside of an anonymizing transport
> This kind of thinking is pervasive in the discussion of privacy enhancing technologies
It is in RFC.
Origin-Client, Issuer-Client, and Attester-Origin unlinkability requires that issuance and redemption events be separated over time, such as through the use of tokens that correspond to token challenges with an empty redemption context (see Section 3.4), or that they be separated over space, such as through the use of an anonymizing service when connecting to the Origin.
I've similarly been grasping at straws to find some way that makes the fatigue go away, at least a little (although not for myself). As doctors won't prescribe any medication off-label, I've mainly looked at other methods and nutritional supplements. Here's a list (which I've been meaning to braindump for a while now anyway):
- Like you already described, monitoring heart rate variability and associated 'body battery' with a smartwatch.
- Make a log of good and bad days, note the specific symptoms. See if there are any patterns to be found that you perhaps wouldn't notice otherwise.
- Read up about POTS / orthostatic intolerance and dysautonomia in general. The book / guide "The Dysautonomia Project" is a great read. Do a simple standing test [1] a few times (when you're feeling good and bad) to see if your heart rate increases and keeps increased, even if it does not meet the criteria for POTS.
- Do breathing exercises, humming / vocalization, ear massages and meditation to activate your vagus nerve. That might help with dysautonomia. There are lots of videos / guides to be found.
- Increase salt intake if that is not a risk factor for you. That might help with orthostatic intolerance. Find a good balance of different salts in the CFS community.
- Keep light walking and (if you can) light strength training as much as you can without triggering too much PEM.
- Be outdoors in the sunlight. There are many small studies showing a correlation between getting better from CFS and sunlight. An infrared lamp might help a bit as well, but don't buy into the fancy fads. I personally prefer a simple infrared bulb because of the warmth it gives which is great in winter on its own. It's also more similar to the sun with a continuous spectrum (although relatively low intensity). Many studies emphasize illuminating your brain.
- Be aware that food supplements will probably not help too much and cost quite a bit. But you might get lucky and find something that helps. It's hard to separate correlation from causation though. It might also feel rewarding that you're busy trying something. The placebo effect might help similarly.
- Get your ferritin levels checked, and a some other basic tests around CFS as well. See if your ferritin level has been recorded in the past as a baseline, because the one-level-fits-all approach is flawed (and especially for women). 15 (women) or 30 (men) µg / L is probably too low, even if that's considered 'normal'. Lactoferrin might help your body regulate iron levels and keep pathogens from using iron, but the scientific evidence is pretty weak.
- In case of deficiencies supplement with amino acid or organically bound metals, for example iron bisglycinate. Something like Thorne Basic Prenatal at 1/3 or the recommended dosage (1 pill per day) is quite cheap with many nutrients that might help a bit in a form that absorbs well.
- Creatine is widely used in sporting performance enhancement by facilitating ATP recyling and acting as buffer. Because it's so widely used it seems very low-risk and applicable to CFS. There are some very small scale studies reporting positive effects.
- Other things that are doubtful to help, but perhaps worth trying: wide spectrum probiotics, NAD+, D-ribose, nattokinase / lumbrokinase (but be careful and use a small dose), NAC, ALC.
Same. Including weird audio clicks during supposed 'sleep' (already happend during heavy load while awake). Then one day this summer it just died without any recourse.
On an unrelated note, in 2021 Carmack and Meta announced [1] unlocking the Oculus Go bootloader, explicitly mentioning that it "opens up the ability to repurpose the hardware for more things today, and means that a randomly discovered shrink wrapped headset twenty years from now will be able to update to the final software version" [2].
I thought that was great, wanted to hack [3] on it a bit, so I went ahead and bought an Oculus Go on the second hand market. Turns out that the quote isn't true at all [4]. Updating the firmware requires enabling developer mode [5]. Enabling developer mode requires activating the Oculus Go with a Meta or Oculus account [6]. I don't have or want to have a Meta-related account, and in twenty years the online activation process likely won't work at all, making Carmack's shrink-wrapped headset useless without a fight.
I'm sure the point is moot in twenty years because you'll just ask Skynet to write you an Android root exploit, but right know my second hand Oculus Go is surely acting like a brick in my drawer.
[4] Although at first I couldn't believe this and assumed I must be doing something wrong instead. I'm still not ruling out that possibility; I would very much like to hear a solution.
> requires activating the Oculus Go with a Meta or Oculus account
I wonder if Carmack knew about this requirement at the time of his quote, or if the rug was yanked out from under him after the fact. Are there any account systems that have lasted 20 years without having the plug pulled on them?
Would you be able to do it with a fake account, and if having done that process today makes what he said entirely true? I get there’s a product manager engagement injected step but it seems harsh to say “isn’t true at all” when you mean “he left out a step that’s required that I don’t want to do.”
Of course, although it also requires a setting up a 'fake' phone number. I just don't want to touch the Meta ToS – as I haven't for more than a decade – even with a ten-meter anonymous pole.
A better solution would be to ask a friend to activate it, but I haven't because there were other yaks to be shaved.
> it seems harsh to say “isn’t true at all”
You cannot activate an Oculus Go today and "randomly" discover the same activated "shrink wrapped headset twenty years from now". I'm just trying to correct the record, as AFAIK the news stories about this have been undisputed since 2021. It's a fantastic achievement that the bootloader can be unlocked at all, and I certainly hope that it will set a precedent (but I won't be holding my breath).
I am generally against creating unnecessary e-waste but let's be real, it will likely be better to recycle it and experiment with something else in that time frame...
On the off chance that I would be using VR headsets in the first place - I might.
Much in the same way I will happily play a well maintained pinball machine from the last millennium, or an arcade game in a lovingly restored cabinet from 30+ years ago.
There is an allure to retro-gaming with MAME (which I love), but for some of us, going properly vintage can have a special meaning.
I have a Samsung Galaxy S6 that is still on Android 7 so I can still use the GearVR headset.
I think work still has a carton or two of actual cardboard boxes with plastic lenses that you shove any random phone into, from when we were doing VR meeting stuff back at the beginning of Covid.
That is not really what Carmack suggested in his quote. I’m not saying it is necessarily some huge loss, just pointing out that we still haven’t managed to pretzel our brains into an interpretation that makes Carmack right.
You're comprehensively missing the point. According to Carmack's hypothetical, someone in the future could discover a unit and unlock it even if they were born after Facebook/Meta went out of business completely. But that just isn't true if a Meta login is required.
Yes. However you can imagine a world where he is right but someone along the way put a hurdle in, yet his essential goal is correct given in the present you could do this and in 20 years use the device as he described. To say he’s entirely wrong, which was what was said, is extremely ungenerous.
> "opens up the ability to repurpose the hardware for more things today, and means that a *randomly discovered* shrink wrapped headset twenty years from now will be able to update to the final software version"
No, the device in his hypothetical is randomly discovered, so it is not ungenerous to assume that the person discovering it randomly didn’t happen to have set up a dev account. Because most people don’t have these types of accounts, a random person discovering the device should not be assumed to have one.
Additionally, he’s clearly describing something serendipitous, not something that requires planning ahead by 20 years.
That would make the quote true, or at least for early produced models. However, in guides created two months after the release of the Oculus Go, it was was already necessary to create an account: "before you can put your device in Developer Mode, you need to have created (or belong to) a developer organization on the Oculus Dashboard" [1].
Yeah and the go isn't really an interesting product anyway.
I was really hoping they would do the same with the Quest 1 which they've deprecated now too. But they haven't. I guess the firmware has too much in common with the 2 and 3 for them to consider open sourcing it. Or it was mainly Carmack who pushed for this with the Go and he has left the company since.
> Yeah and the go isn't really an interesting product anyway.
It's a basic, relatively inexpensive model that was sold widely with over 2 million units until July 2019 [1] and continued to sell for 20% of Meta VR until it was discontinued in 2020.
It still carries about a third of it's inflation adjusted 2018 introduction price on the second hand market, and was a logical product to buy in sets of 10-30 for applications like education, science and parties. As Meta stopped "accepting new Go apps and app updates after Dec. 4, 2020." [2], those sets already became obsolete for new applications using the regular developer tools.
A few months ago, some users wrote on Reddit that "90% of my apps stopped working" because Meta "shutdown the entitlement check server" [3], but that seems to have been fixed despite ending support. Sideloading works like you would expect [4] from Android after you've enabled developer mode (which I haven't tried).
Two people on Github managed to run CM 14.1 on the Oculus Go and published the device tree [5]. There doesn't seem to be much interest and it's a rough build for me. The readme claims that everything works, but I'm skeptical.
Many commenters point out that Bluetooth MAC address randomization on phones mitigates most of the privacy risk, but forget that most other devices – even including the pressure sensor in you new car's tires – use a static address that allows you to be tracked.
Please be aware that Microsoft bundles news from MSN with Windows, and will show trash articles like the one submitted here to a very large part of the population. Including students of all ages who must use a managed laptop from their school, and cannot disable this because Microsoft has for a long time made it impossible for them to do so [1].
It's completely distracting and frankly dystopian.
My partner works for the federal government and her Edge browser has the MSN bullshit too. I tried to explain my frustration with it. I don’t think she knew what I was talking about. This is one of my MS pet peeves that really gets me rambling angrily lol
Also, portable air cleaners seem to work pretty well [3].
[1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47777-5
[2] https://www.bristol.ac.uk/cabot/news/2024/virus.html
[3] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S295036202...