fowl2
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fowl2.bsky.social
fowl2
@fowl2.bsky.social
69 followers 210 following 210 posts
I’m James. Standard tech/urban/transit trifecta stuff.

Also https://hachyderm.io/@fowl2, https://twitter.com/fowl2

Melbourne, Australia
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fowl2.bsky.social
Can recommend Wake Park Cambodia in Siem Reap. Lovely day out - and I eventually managed to made it all the way around the course on a kneeboard from having not even know they existed this morning!
November 15, 2025 at 1:17 PM
fowl2.bsky.social
fairly fast (if true)
Photo of in flight entertainment: TIME TO SAI: 1h00m DISTANCE TO SAI: 7,190mi
November 14, 2025 at 1:56 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
So this email from Microsoft's I guess is a result of the ACCC court case www.accc.gov.au/media-releas...

MSFT manage to get 2 fairly key things wrong:
- My current price - I currently pay less than both options they provide
- The options available - $14/month != $139/year, nor is $18 * 12 = $179.
In October 2024, we announced changes to our Microsoft 365 pricing for subscribers in Australia. We recognise we could have been clearer in our communications about the full range of Microsoft 365 subscription options including the option to switch to Microsoft 365 Family Classic. Our relationship with our customers is based on trust and transparency and we apologise for falling short of our standards. We want to ensure you have all the information you need to make the choice that’s right for you, so we are sharing that information below, including the opportunity to receive a refund. Option 1: Stay on Microsoft 365 Family, your current plan Microsoft 365 Family includes the core Microsoft 365 apps plus our AI assistant Copilot and ongoing feature updates. Microsoft 365 Family renews at $179 AUD per year tax inclusive. If you wish to stay on Microsoft 365 Family, no action is needed. Option 2: Switch to Microsoft 365 Family Classic and receive a refund While Microsoft 365 Family Classic includes the core Microsoft 365 apps and regular security updates, it does not include our AI assistant Copilot and may not receive new feature updates. Microsoft 365 Family Classic renews at $139 AUD per year tax inclusive, the price you paid before the increase. If you want to continue using Microsoft 365 Family Classic after you switch plans, you’ll need to keep recurring billing enabled. If you switch to Microsoft 365 Family Classic by 31 December 2025, we’ll refund the difference in price between plans, starting from your first renewal date after 30 November 2024. We’ll process your refund to the payment method you use to subscribe within 30 days. Once the refund has been processed, it will be reflected in your Microsoft account. This refund option is only available to subscribers in Australia who receive this email and switch to the Microsoft 365 Family Classic plan by 31 December 2025 [Switch to Classic] Thank you for being a Microsoft 365 subscriber. [continues] Subscriptions View and manage your Microsoft products and subscriptions Microsoft 365 Family Next charge on 1 February 2026, AU$125.30 Manage Microsoft 365 Family Classic AU$14.00/month Switch plan once your current subscription renews? You already have a Microsoft 365 Family subscription. Microsoft 365 Family Classic has fewer benefits than your current subscription. Microsoft 365 Family Classic AU$14.00/month at renewal  For one to six people  Sign into five devices at once  Use on PCs, Macs, phones & tablets  Up to 6 TB secure cloud storage (1 TB per person)  Productivity apps*  Image and video editing tools  Data and device security *May not receive new feature updates. Includes productivity apps with Microsoft Copilot Microsoft 365 Family AU$18.00/month at renewal  For one to six people  Sign into five devices at once  Use on PCs, Macs, phones & tablets  Up to 6 TB secure cloud storage (1 TB per person)  Productivity apps with Microsoft Copilot*  Image and video editing tools  Data and device security  Your subscription renews on 1 February 2026 *AI features only available to subscription owner, usage limits apply; age limits may apply. You can turn off recurring billing to stop future charges in your Microsoft account. Learn about cancellation.
November 6, 2025 at 3:14 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Actually is it a monorail if it has two sets of parallel rubber wheels?
October 5, 2025 at 7:57 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Monorail maintenance vehicle
October 5, 2025 at 7:52 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
TIL Apple has a bunch of diagnostic profiles available. The WiFi one adds this section in WiFi Settings on iOS.

Pretty barebones and kinda annoying it’s not available OOtB but I’ll take it.
October 5, 2025 at 5:41 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Money mulling with app! Seriously, look at a translation of WAIWIN’s Thai website:
WAIWIN I'm free in the evening. Is it? don't know how to do it. Whatever you want, help me. Let's pay! If you are free in the evening After work or After school, why don't you use that time to earn extra money? What about yourself? You can earn more money. Simple by using Just a minute. Only Just press accept. "Payment request" Then bring the QR code you got. Go pay through the bank of Don't forget to upload the receipt to the system!
October 5, 2025 at 5:37 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
TIL
Dictionary look up for “erstwhile”: adjective, former
August 31, 2025 at 5:49 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Either PTV or Google Maps have figured out how to label, if not apply an icon to, replacement buses. Good work.

Incredible how the 900 bus can beat it despite having one additional stops and a 1 minute recorded transfer penalty.
August 29, 2025 at 12:15 PM
fowl2.bsky.social
Wow Grab (MY) charging a foreign payment fee (for using a foreign Visa card?) is a bit unusual/rude
Screenshot of grab payment receipt email showing “foreign payment fee 1.33” out of a total 45.63 charged to a Visa card.
August 23, 2025 at 5:10 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Love when jargon (PNR) leaks out. And the redundancy of asking for country of origin AND flight number. And not just including it in the survey link to begin with.
August 22, 2025 at 8:21 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Love a good airport survey on a QR code to an IP address(?)
August 8, 2025 at 12:02 PM
fowl2.bsky.social
Hmmm Singapore Airlines Krisflier or Air Canada AeroPlan?
STAR ALLIANCE Before you start converting Star Alliance Points to the Frequent Flyer Program of a participating Star Alliance Member Airline, you need to select your Status Airline. This is the Star Alliance member airline with the loyalty program through which you may receive Star Alliance Silver or Gold Status if you meet the respective spending threshold on your HSBC Star Alliance Credit Card. 3 Check which status tier may be granted in the Frequent Flyer Program of each participating Star Alliance Member Airline and for how long here. You may not be able to receive Star Alliance Silver or Star Alliance Gold Status with the Frequent Flyer Program of an airline you wish to designate as your Status Airline if you already hold status with that program. Before you choose your Status Airline, please review the applicable rules and limitations here. © In any qualification year, you may only claim status through a single Status Airline. If you change your Status Airline after you have claimed Star Alliance Silver or Star Alliance Gold Status, the change will only be effective for any status you may receive in the following qualification year. You may manage your Status Airline in the settings of your Star Alliance Rewards Account at any time. STAR ALLIANCE Air Canada - Aeroplan® Air New Zealand Airpoints™ EVA Air - Infinity MileageLands KrisFlyer Singapore Airlines Group South African Airways - SAA Voyager Thai Airways - Royal Orchid Plus United Airlines - MileagePlus®
June 14, 2025 at 3:36 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Boarding position “for fastest exit” on a Pakenham/Cranbourne line train in Google Maps. Haven’t seen that before. “Three carriage train” seems… not correct.

New data in the feed from DTP or Google has created their own?

#melbourne
Screenshot of Google maps for iOS showing part of a transit route, the segment from south Yarra to Melbourne central shows a “boarding position for fastest exit” with “middle” written on the middle carriage of a graphic of a thee carriage train, labeled “three carriage train”.
June 9, 2025 at 8:32 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Found while cleaning up.

2 hour full fare zone 1+2 metcard.

Incredible that this Melbourne public transport fare is actually $1 cheaper now, more than 10 years later.
June 1, 2025 at 6:13 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Facebook Messenger taking a different approach to jumping on the arbitrary conversation-continuity-disruption-blamed-on-unspecified-security-improvement-bandwagon.
This chat will be archived soon Messenger is upgrading security, so only your end-to-end encrypted chat with Ratty will remain active. Switch to other chat
April 26, 2025 at 6:55 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
A week of election material in Goldstein. #auspol

Libs going hard and the ALP has given up.
April 26, 2025 at 4:10 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
What fresh edge case hell has Instagram declared exactly one (1) of my conversations legacy secure storage?

I think it was my most used chat, although “view chats” has now disappeared and the help centre is wordless.
Screenshot of Gmail iOS showing mail: Some end-to-end encrypted chats may be unavailable soon Instagram 12:03 pm Instagram Some end-to-end encrypted chats may be unavailable soon Hi James, We're getting in touch to let you know that on 23 June 2025, end-to-end encrypted chats from a legacy version of secure storage may become unavailable. To keep a copy of these chats, export them from Instagram before 23 June 2025. You can also visit the Help Centre to learn more. Open Instagram Visit Help Centre Screenshot of Instragram iOS app banner: Some messages may be unavailable after June 23, 2025 You can export end-to-end encrypted messages and media before they're unavailable. View chats Learn more
April 23, 2025 at 4:55 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Further confused by these little promos to download the app which launched straight into a menu/order flow.
April 16, 2025 at 10:16 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Premier/president/prime minister confusiom always cracks me up. Also, I don’t think he got elected again?

podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id15...
“Or maybe you even do something in government. You know, another person I got to know, the Australian ambassador to the US., fascinating guy. He was the premier, he was the prime minister, I think it's called, he was in charge of Australia. Then he wasn't, then he went and got a degree, a Ph.D. Wait, he didn't have a degree before he was in charge of Australia? He had lots of degrees. But he went and got a doctorate and then he became, and then he got elected again and he was in charge. I think in between he was foreign minister and then he became ambassador and he's got another job and he doesn't feel the need to have his grip on the entire country.” From The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart: Tariff-ying Times with Pete Buttigieg, 10 Apr 2025 https://podcasts.apple.com/au/podcast/the-weekly-show-with-jon-stewart/id1583132133?i=1000702978762&r=2767 This material may be protected by copyright.
April 11, 2025 at 12:18 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
ha apple.news/AihGCCoqMSj-...
Campaigning is different this time Crossbench parties and independents work and campaign in different ways, depending on what flavour of government is in power. In a Kitchen Cabinet interview in 2012, Greens leader Christine Milne made a kind of fascinating observation. She said that the Greens were best-positioned — in her experience — when they held the Senate balance of power under a conservative government. "When Labor's in opposition, it is a lot more true to its principles than it is in government," she said, arguing that in such circumstances Labor was more prepared to team up with the Greens to push for environmental outcomes. "When Labor is in government, the exact opposite happens. Because the Liberals are pushing in the opposite direction, Labor is afraid to deliver with the Greens on a progressive policy agenda because the Liberals keep accusing them of just doing as the Greens want, so the result of that is that they go further and further to the right."
March 23, 2025 at 8:57 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
Why do in-app browsers seem to open links via a redirect instead of directly? If it’s for stats surely they could just send a ping in the background. Or is it just an artifact of how iOS works? Noticed it in Bluesky, Instagram, and Twitter. All big apps that surely care about latency!
Screenshot of Bluesky iOS in-app browser showing “go.bsky.app” in the title
March 22, 2025 at 2:13 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
So uh, this is cute n all (definitely want to program my lights to flash when my friends go online!), but since Home Assistant logs every state transition (forever?) with no easy way of controlling data retention, it become a bit creepy.
Screenshot of Home Assistant documentation: Binary sensor The Xbox binary sensor platform automatically keeps track of your “Favorite friends”. In your friends list, select Change friendship -> Favorite to have that person automatically pulled into Home Assistant. 4 binary sensors are added, 3 of which are disabled by default. They can be enabled in the “Xbox Live” service on the devices page. Entity ID Default Description binary_sensor.{gamertag} Enabled Shows the online status of your friend. binary_sensor.{gamertag}_in_game Disabled Shows if your friend is currently playing a game. binary_sensor.{gamertag}_in_party Disabled Shows if your friend is current Screenshot of home assistant showing logbook of a user “turned on” and “turned off” over a day
March 18, 2025 at 12:24 PM
fowl2.bsky.social
ahh, well, good to clarify
how is it decompressing the data? Copilot The gunzip function I provided earlier is a simplified example and doesn't actually perform full gzip decompression. It mainly demonstrates how to skip the gzip header and extract some data. Proper gzip decompression involves more complex steps, including handling compression algorithms like DEFLATE.
March 7, 2025 at 12:03 AM
fowl2.bsky.social
decoding gzip is much simpler than I thought 🤦‍♂️ #copilot #aifail
Copilot You can decode the base64 string and decompress the gzip data in the browser without any external libraries using the following code: // Base64 encoded string const encodedStr = "H4sIAAAAAAAEAKuuBQBDv6ajAgAAAA=="; // Decode the base64 string const decodedBytes = Uint8Array.from(atob(encodedStr), c => c.charCodeAt(0)); // Decompress the gzip data function gunzip(input) { const output = []; let pos = 10; // Skip the gzip header while (pos < input.length) { const byte = input[pos++]; if (byte === 0x1f && input[pos] === 0x8b) break; // End of gzip stream output.push(byte); } return new TextDecoder().decode(new Uint8Array(output)); } const decompressedData = gunzip(decodedBytes); console.log(decompressedData); This code will decode the base64 string and decompress the gzip data, resulting in the original string. If you have any other questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask!
March 6, 2025 at 11:39 PM