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Hamartiogonic

@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz

Who reads this anyway? Nobody, that’s who. I could write just about anything here, and it wouldn’t make a difference. As a matter of fact, I’m kinda curious to find out how much text can you dump in here. If you’re like really verbose, you could go on and on about any pointless…[no more than this]

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Is Privacy Worth It? (blog.thenewoil.org)

When I announced I would be closing my communities earlier this year, a curious thing happened: a surprising number of regulars replied with some variation of “I think this is my exit.” While some were specifically talking about Matrix, claiming that mine was the only room they were really active in and therefore they saw no...

Hamartiogonic ,
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And that’s why you need to figure out what’s the right balance of work and inconvenience vs. the amount of privacy you get in return. Setting up a degoogled android is possible and relatively easy too. Living with that phone and interacting with the real world around you in 2024 is a completely different matter, and it’s entirely understandable if that isn’t your cup of tea.

Hamartiogonic ,
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So, the key is to run your business for loss. Wait, that’s called a charity, not a business. How is this thing supposed to work?

Hamartiogonic ,
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That’s true. If something doesn’t directly make money, it can still exist because of taxes or another arrangement like that.

Hamartiogonic ,
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In the early days of laser development, it was seen as a solution seeking a problem. A few decades later, it actually turned out to be really handy, but it would have been tough to sell this idea to anyone before that. Imagine how hard it is to find funding for research that solves a problem that doesn’t exist.

Hamartiogonic ,
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Oh, and no youtuber would ever say anything like “pause the video here if you need more time to read the details” and nobody ever adds any single frame easter eggs in their videos either.

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    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Usually those documents leave many legal back doors open, just in case. It doesn’t automatically mean that they are currently backstabbing you, but they want to have that option available to them.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    I’ve noticed that the search results are getting less and less relevant to what I’m actually looking for. I guess one day the search bar will disappear like the headphone jack of the iPhone.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Oh that thing where in between the ads you can watch low quality reality shows for a few minutes? Yeah, those were the days…

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Rookie numbers! Needs more apostrophes.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    LOL, brilliant adaptation!

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    And then there are the recaps you get every now and then. People making these shows know that most viewers aren’t even really actively watching. It’s just background noise you put on while cooking or doing household chores. When you go to a movie, there are no recap, because the director expects to have your undivided attention at all times.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Sounds to me that Meta defines privacy in a very particular way. You’re still going to give all of your data to Meta, but anything outside this transaction is in the realm of privacy where you can have rights and settings.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Generally speaking true. However some companies manage to get the hype train going which leads to people buying bad products. As a result, a company can still survive by selling bad headphones or bad water bottles. Bad reviews can balance things a bit, but if their marketing budget is as big as the defense budget of a small country, there’s not much a bad review can do.

    Obviously, this doesn’t really apply to small startups with only pennies to spend. Their marketing consists of sending samples to reviewers, and if that gamble backfires, for any reason, things aren’t going to look very good for the company. Maybe the product was bad, and they had it coming. Maybe the product was ok, but the review sample was broken. Who knows.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Add lootboxes and timers.

    If you don’t pay to post, there’s a 50% chance of your post getting deleted after anyone sees it. Pay some money to get more favorable odds. Oh, but you don’t but that stuff with money. You gotta use xitter turds first that, and some times you can get those from xitter boxes. In order to buy the lootboxes, you have to spend real money.

    If you haven’t bought any lootboxes in a month, xitter will take control of your account and start automatically posting flat earth nazi crypto trash.

    Hamartiogonic , (edited )
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    And when Xitter starts posting NFT trash in your name, you can restrict the spread of those posts by spending some Xitter Turds, which you can get from the lootboxes.

    Oh and the cooldown timers! After every post, you have to wait 24 hours, but you can cut that wait in half by spending some Xitter Turds again. Let me tell you, it’s going to be unlike any service before it. EA and Ubisoft have so much to learn here.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Same thing with fusion reactors.

    All the current machines out there are for research purposes only. Nobody can currently power an arc furnace of a steel mill using only fusion power. Sure, there’s been some progress with fusion and quantum computing, but it takes a while to get to an actual practical application of the technology.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    So, do you think that quantum computing has a much longer way to go?

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Better start preparing for the coming exodus. Try Odysee, Peertube and Nebula and see what works for you. Once the enshittification hits critical mass, you’ll be ready to let go of that sinking ship.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Yeah, there’s garbage too, but I don’t subscribe to any of that. Just watch Linux and electronics tinkering videos instead.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Maybe the only thing FF users will notice is the chrome exodus. That counts as being affected, right?

    Hamartiogonic , (edited )
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    The thing about tab grouping is a valid point. I’ve been living in my FF bubble for such a long time that I didn’t even know about tab groups.

    I was able to test that feature on my work computer, and the groups are indeed really nice. Normally, I don’t really run into the problem that this feature solves, because I have several FF windows spread across several virtual desktops. This way, all the different topics can be kept well organized while still keeping the tab bar relatively neat and tidy. However, if you want to keep everything in a single window, groups would help with that. I really hope FF devs make that happen soon.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    ‘The online instructions for restricting data access are very complex and confusing, and the steps required are scattered in different places. There’s no clear direction on whether to go to the app settings, the central settings – or even both,’ says Amel Bourdoucen, a doctoral researcher at Aalto.

    Sounds like there’s some dark pattern BS going on with those settings.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Ok, so a newer version should be fine I guess. If that’s the case, the title should be: “If you’re still running these prehistoric software, Windows won’t be able to update“

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    DeskModder noted that it wasn't as simple as blocking an app based entirely on its name; for example, while VLC is listed in the big list of services and apps that are disallowed, it's specifically listing a Windows 7 version of VLC.

    Sounds like Windows has a problem with really old versions only. I guess you should be fine as long as you keep your apps relatively fresh.

    Hamartiogonic , (edited )
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    Rule 1 in Reddit: never read the article

    Rule 2: react to the headline

    Since we’re on Lemmy, I thought I might get away with breaking the rules.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Can’t complain about that conclusion either. It fixes all your Windows problems once and for all.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Yeah, and the headline is supposed to maximize the clicks, along with your fear, hatred and rage.

    Hamartiogonic , (edited )
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    😂 true

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    That was a weird article. The simplest fix would be to keep your apps updated.

    Although, in typical MS style, the error message will probably be either vague and cryptic or otherwise completely useless. If you stumble upon an update problem like this, troubleshooting it doesn’t sound fun.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    As someone who uses Excel on Windows and Calc on Linux, I can totally understand. There are some big differences so there’s a valid reason for sticking with Excel. Casual users won’t notice anything big, but advanced users will.

    On the other hand, if you’re an advanced Excel user, it usually means you’re trying to make it do stuff that it isn’t very good at. If you want stuff that Calc can’t provide, it’s a clear sign you should have written that calculation in R or Python a long time ago.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Oh, it certainly has infuriating quirks. Like, if you copy a cell from here and you plan to paste it into 15 different places here and there. Somewhere along the way, you’ll accidentally add some text to another cell, and you lose the content of the clipboard. You need to copy that thing a second time in order to keep on pasting in the remaining places. Like, why is this a feature? Editing one cell suddenly kicks out whatever you had copied earlier? Why?

    Fortunately, Calc still has a sensible clipboard that actually remembers what you put there.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    LabVIEW pulls off visual programming pretty gracefully. It feels like, it’s written by, and for, electrical engineers, so if you’re not familiar with circuit diagrams, it’s going to take a while to wrap your head around it. However, it proves to me that programming can look very different too. Let’s just hope that eventually someone does something similar to matrices, dataframes etc.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    As soon as we’ve managed to make a computer that can simulate an entire brain in real time. Who knows how many decades or even centuries will that take.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Oh, but the board directors might want to replace the CEO anyway.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    That’s a lot like the papers that come with physical products, such as cameras or keyboards. This category of advertising isn’t particularly offensive IMO, and it’s also fairly relevant as opposed to most online ads.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    I don’t think you mentioned the announcements often heard in shopping centers. As long as your ears work, you’ll be exposed to these ads.

    Roku has patented a way to show ads over anything you plug into your TV (arstechnica.com)

    A patent application from the company spotted by Lowpass describes a system for displaying ads over any device connected over HDMI, a list that could include cable boxes, game consoles, DVD or Blu-ray players, PCs, or even other video streaming devices. Roku filed for the patent in August 2023 and it was published in November...

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    If it’s patented, it can also be hacked more easily.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Well, the idea is that anything and everything can be hacked. It’s just that the difficulty varies wildly; some being trivial whereas others are impossible until someone finds an exploit. If you’re working with a total black box, you’ll have to make many assumptions, which means that figuring stuff out may take a while. If there’s at least some documentation, such as a patent, you won’t have to guess absolutely everything. That doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to be easy. Maybe the patent doesn’t go into much technical detail, but still manages to describe the product in just enough legal detail that the company can sue anyone trying to come too close.

    Roku explores taking over HDMI feeds with ads (www.lowpass.cc)

    Roku is exploring ways to show consumers ads on its TVs even when they are not using its streaming platform: The company has been looking into injecting ads into the video feeds of third-party devices connected to its TVs, according to a recent patent filing.  ...

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    I recall watching a defcon speech given by someone who used to make malware. He opened the speech by apologizing and saying that he knows that he will burn in hell.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    See also: Nothing to hide argument

    Hamartiogonic , (edited )
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    Once upon a time, in the vast land of Internet, there was a magical library called Web. The library had many librarians, but a wise old owl by the name of Google was the most popular one. Everyone in the kingdom of knowledge loved him. People asked him questions, and Google gave them the answers. Life was good.

    However, in the dark corners of the Internet, in the Swamps of Bottomless Greed, there lurked an evil litch queen Seo. She only wanted to watch the world burn, and so she cast an evil curse on Google. The curse of Seo made Google give completely wrong answer. As chaos, ignorance and lies spread cross the land, queen Seo laughed in her castle.

    The end.

    Good night, sweet dreams.

    Hamartiogonic , (edited )
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    Had to leave out so much from this version. Maybe there should be a director’s cut, part 2 or something. 😁

    I already have some ideas for a sequel, where an evil necromancer Meta unleashes the Cancer of Facebook on the entire Internet. Later, he assassinates a competing wizard called WhatsApp and resurrects his decaying corpse thought the use of foul magic and necromancy. Now that Meta has corrupted WhatsApp, he can harness the immense power of his new minion to further increase the destruction caused by the Cancer of Facebook that is already beginning to spread across the Internet.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    But what if you have an AMD APU. Doesn’t that use your normal RAM as VRAM?

    Court Bans Use of 'AI-Enhanced' Video Evidence Because That's Not How AI Works (gizmodo.com)

    A judge in Washington state has blocked video evidence that’s been “AI-enhanced” from being submitted in a triple murder trial. And that’s a good thing, given the fact that too many people seem to think applying an AI filter can give them access to secret visual data.

    Hamartiogonic , (edited )
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    Optical Character Recognition used to be firmly in the realm of AI until it became so common that even the post office uses it. Nowadays, OCR is so common that instead of being proper AI, it’s just another mundane application of a neural network. I guess, eventually Large Language Models will be outside there scope of AI.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    If you watch smaller channels, you’ll find something to map. Even though the video is several days old, you’re the first sponsor block user watching it.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    GPT loves alliteration, so at least there’s something to support your suspicion.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Use it sparingly and with style. More isn’t always better.

    Hamartiogonic ,
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    Just found some LG business TVs/displays/signage that actually run Tizen. Remember that cool Linux distro that was supposed to take over the mobile world nearly 15 years ago? Well, turns out, it didn’t, but it didn’t it die completely either.

    Hopefully those panels are a bit more hackable or more privacy oriented.

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