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The problem is that lots of scenic areas have slow or no Internet access. So uploading as you go isn't always practical.

I've just tried that in Chrome and Firefox on Android 16.

Both just show zeros in the GPS EXIF - the rest of the data are passed through unaltered.


Aha, that'd explain it. Thanks a bunch for trying it out and telling me!

The default camera app has this off by default. Most of the ones I've tried do.

But do you remember every options you've randomly toggled over the years? It's pretty easy to see how someone would flip on geotagging, forget about it, then be shocked a few months later when they discover all their photos are leaking their location.


> But I don't honestly think Google could have consulted their community. It's just too big.

The thing is, they frequently do. They have developer relations people, they publish blog posts about breaking changes, they work with W3C and other standards bodies, they reply on bug trackers.

But, in this case, nothing. Just a unilateral change with no communication. Not even a blog posts saying "As of April, this functionality is deprecated."


I don't think that's quite right. Up until recently I was able to share photos with geolocation from my GrapheneOS device.

Metadata can be attached but it's off by default.

OP here. I'm not conflating them. That's why I used the word "or".

I don't know how modern your Android phone is, but on all of mine sharing via Bluetooth strips away some of the EXIF.


On Android 16. Open photo. Hit share. Hit Bluetooth. Pick a device to send it to. Wait for xfer to finish. Observe in exifview. What detail is missing?

All the GPS data are nulled / set to zero.

I'm not able to repro, but you're likely seeing a problem with your flavor of device overlaid on vanilla Android.

At the height of the pandemic, the UK mandated zero-rating data for mobile connection to .gov.uk and .NHS.uk domains, along with several other charitable sites.

(I was part of the team working on that proposal.)


This is... Shockingly reasonable. Would be perfect if it included other essential services e.g. domains used for online banking.

It’s technically problematic. The ISP should have little idea of domains you visit. And they can’t already when everything works.

Do you have heared of IP addresses and that large institutions especially government institutions have their own blocks from the address space? Mapping these is kind of easy.

They are likely behind (foreign) CDN's.

Not that there's no BYOIP and not that it's impossible to do with shared IP's


Plenty of ISPs zero rate things like Facebook and other "partners". Especially easy when they control the DNS.

meanwhile Czechia literally BANNED free Wi-Fi in restaurants and other establishments during COVID, so people will spend there less time, I understood the rationale if people already didn't have mobile data in phones anyway

other things Czech gov banned during COVID-19 was singing in public places, no kidding!

And I'm not even going to complain they banned sale of the toys, colored pencils and other items so people will spend less time in the shop, so me and kids could just look at the colored pencils behind the tape because we had to go to shop anyway.


During COVID in Singapore, music in restaurants was banned, as people may talk more loudly to compensate.

> other things Czech gov banned during COVID-19 was singing in public places, no kidding!

So, wait, no Christmas carolling? Was this the doing of Babis? Then only the drunk shall sing in public places, mainly because they're too drunk to care.


"Church services are limited to a maximum of 100 people, and singing is prohibited; the same applies to public participation in municipal and regional government meetings."

"In other regions, the operation of schools and educational facilities is being restricted in accordance with the Education Act, and that of universities in accordance with the Higher Education Act, such that singing is not part of the curriculum; furthermore, with the exception of the first stage of primary education in elementary schools, sports activities will also be temporarily excluded from the curriculum."

https://vlada.gov.cz/cz/media-centrum/aktualne/vlada-vyhlasi...


Are you part of HMG or was it at telco level ?

I was part of HMG. It was a joint effort with the telcos - https://www.gov.uk/government/news/mobile-networks-remove-da...

Oh nice. I am surprised how many HMG colleagues I bump into on HN :)

Umm, was it more than an oppportunistic attack at net neurality?

UK has never had net neutrality, there are many limited data phone plans that include unlimited music/video etc

The UK does have net neutrality, and it's quite strictly regulated by Ofcom, which produces an annual report showing compliance and highlighting any issues it has investigated:

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/internet-based-services/network-neu...

Things like restrictions on tethering and using a SIM in a router are forbidden.

Unlike most countries, net neutrality has never been a political football in the UK.

Ofcom groups zero rating schemes into three types:

Type one - government and NGO services (always allowed).

Type two - where categories of service (e.g. video or music streaming apps) are zero rated, but any service fitting into the category can apply to be zero rated by the network.

Type three - any other kind of zero rating.

Things like the VOXI Unlimited Social Media packages fit into Type Two, so are expressly permitted.

For the rest, Ofcom assessed the impact on consumers, which is generally low.


This is not net neutrality, all network traffic is not treated equally.

Ofcom seems to have invented their own definition of net neutrality and placed it on that website, but calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. This is tiered access.


It doesn't meet a perfect theoretical definition of net neutrality, but it's a set of defined legal limits on the extent to which providers can treat different kinds of traffic differently.

Net neutrality is not theoretical, it is literally the default setting.

Any deviation from that default requires special effort be taken to identify network traffic and treat it differently, and as soon as you have made that effort you cannot truthfully claim to have net neutrality. The UK does not prohibit net neutrality but it does not require it either (according to the comment I replied to which I have not verified).


I guess to me this seems a bit like saying that free markets are the default setting. We’re not in some kind of perfect state of nature. We’re in a complex interconnected society where virtually everything of any importance is regulated to some extent. What you’re saying seems like saying “as soon as you impose one regulation you no longer have a free market”.

This non sequitur strains my ability to assume good faith on your part. We're not talking about markets, we're talking about a utility.

Does your water company bill you differently depending on what you use the water for? Your gas company? Electric? This is not a complicated concept to understand, please make an effort.


It’s just an analogy. I can understand if you don’t think the analogy lands, but it hardly seems grounds for doubting good faith.

And err, yes, not everyone is billed for water or electricity on the same terms as private homes.

>This is not a complicated concept to understand, please make an effort.

You could leave this out? It’s not the most effective way to bring people round to your point of view.


Ok but the main limit people care about is music and video streaming being treated differently

What would be the model of a country with stronger net neutrality laws? I think EU regulations are now a touch stronger than UK regulations due to post-Brexit divergence, but by world standards, the UK has strong net neutrality protections.

The important issue of net neutrality is not so much zero rating as degradation or blocking of content and services.

The OSA has forced the reverse: sites have to be non neutral as to where their traffic is going.


I'm in the UK and am currently being paid to use electricity.

My energy provider uses a tracker tariff which can change every half hour (it does have a maximum cap to prevent the issues seen in Texas). Prices are currently negative, so every kWh I use right now means the electricity company pays me.

Nuclear promised energy which was "too cheap to meter". But solar actually delivered.


If you had a big enough battery, could you sell electricity back to the grid later? Get paid to charge the battery, get paid to discharge the battery?

It seems silly, but actually... it's driving useful behavior I suppose. Then again, maybe a good government would notice this and just fast track grid storage rather than distribute that work to all the citizens.


Yes. I have a 4.8kWh battery which is slurping up electrons. It charges either from our solar panels or from cheap grid electricity.

It discharges when prices are high. So it'll mostly go into my oven tonight. If export prices are high, it can also sell back.

Very roughly, we sell about 16% of our stored electricity - the rest is used by our home.

See https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2026/02/30-months-to-3mwh-some-more...


A lot of the value to homeowners is essentially arbitrage on the retail cost of electricity: when prices are high you're going to be paying a lot more to pull electricity from the grid than you would be paid to supply it, so you're better off using up the buffer yourself as opposed to paying for electricity from the grid.

> If you had a big enough battery, could you sell electricity back to the grid later? Get paid to charge the battery, get paid to discharge the battery?

Yes, some people do this. There's even a startup built around the idea: https://www.axle.energy/


Sure you could. How much do you think they will pay you per kw? 1/10 what you paid them and they will charge you for using their infrastructure..at least in the US they do.

Someone at the utility went through the same math you are and decided it isn't worth it at scale. It's probably not worth it at small scale.

The UK is world leading in battery rollout because someone did the sums and decided it did make sense at scale.

Or it is! And they can do it cheaper at-scale than you can.

Back of the envelope I did one time told me i could earn more by picking up cans off the street and trading them for the deposit.

Still, it would feel nice - after the initial cost- to have very cheap power (only charge when cheap).


There is no such thing as "the utility" in Europe. It is legally not allowed for a single company to both operate (parts of) the grid and trade in electricity.

Overall on it's own that isn't yet profitable to do, unless you're e.g. a wind producer.

Yes, I believe some EVs allow this too.

I don't think that would ever commonly be viable or at least not for a long time. EV's are a lot more than batteries and are proportionally stupidly expensive. If the electricity net arbitrage was worth the degradation of the battery then .... companies would do it themselves and just build the batteries for cheaper at scale.

It is commercially viable. A UK energy company already has a Vehicle to Grid tariff.

https://octopus.energy/power-pack/

See also https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/publications/case-study-uk-electric...


>A UK energy company already has a Vehicle to Grid tariff.

And is that actually worth it to anyone who does the math? An optimistic 161 pound saving compares to how many of my battery cycles for example? My car costs 50-60k so battery degradation is not nothing.


Yes.

The arbitrage difference between filling your battery cheaply and discharging when prices are high is greater than any theoretical wear on your battery.

Even better if you are being paid to charge your battery.


The battery is already a sunk cost. Doesn't matter how expensive the battery was if it's already sitting on your drive.

I did a quick fag packet calculation and even today 10% of everyones EV battery would be enough to cover the grid for an hour. That's enough of a buffer to spin up gas turbines for example, so you can actually shut them completely off.


>The battery is already a sunk cost. Doesn't matter how expensive the battery was if it's already sitting on your drive.

My Hyundai Ionic 6 rolling battery costs 50-60k. Spending a cycle of it's battery is not a discardable cost.

Some will still take it but this seems just like a more deceptive version of those uber driver that get a pricey car and then find out that combined with maintenance, degradation/devaluation and other hidden costs they don't actually make that much driving around.

>I did a quick fag packet calculation and even today 10% of everyones EV battery would be enough to cover the grid for an hour.

I presume you deduct more than half of the rolling battery capacity out there. You can't discharge those to 0% shouldn't charge them to 100%, many won't be charged fully (or connected) + If I need to leave in the morning like most I don't want to necessarily be dropping charge into the grid.


>My Hyundai Ionic 6 rolling battery costs 50-60k. Spending a cycle of it's battery is not a discardable cost

Problem is we don't have good data on actual costs. So we don't know if we're talking about something substantial or something hypothetical. Absent that data I think my comment is fair.

>I presume you deduct more than half of the rolling battery capacity out there

No. We are talking about 10% of battery capacity so your battery at 80% would only need to go down to 70%.

A problem we have in the UK at the moment is that we have gas turbines running even if not needed just incase the wind suddenly drops. It takes (or can take) about an hour to spin up a turbine from cold. So a battery supply that could cover that hour would mean we could use a lot less gas. Most of the time it isn't even used, and if it is, most probably won't use that full 10% and once the gas turbines have spun up it could recharge the batteries.

To link it back to the earlier comment, even if the maths is bad for EV as battery storage, you can still use it as battery of last resort. It would be expensive, so ev owners would still be up on the deal, but there would be a system on place to actually use them when actually needed.


Like an EV....

Batteries are getting affordable too - Fogstar do a 16kWh battery for around £2000. Plus, grid scale iron-air batteries sound promising.

Have you got one? Looking for installation options.

Cheers mate, I appreciate it.

(OP here) Nope! For all their faults, Amazon don't seem to have leaked anything of mine. Yet.

> For all their faults, Amazon don't seem to have leaked anything of mine.

Selling email lists is business. Not selling email lists is, in some cases, much smarter, much more hard-nosed business, and is exactly what you would expect from Amazon.

When your only product is email addresses, you will sell them to anybody trying to sell other shit.

When you sell all the possible kinds of shit in the world, why on earth would you enable your competitors by giving them any form of access to your customer list?


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