Septimaeus
@Septimaeus@infosec.pub
- Comment on How Discord Indexes Trillions of Messages 3 days ago:
even old data retroactively
My impression is that retroactive opt-out data grifting represents the lion’s share of user data sales today, and that it’s a popular strategy because it works.
The formula: appraise the data and find your buyers in advance. THEN update the privacy policies to include the data you want to sell. That way, the moment new policies go into effect, all you have to do is hit the transfer button.
After that, it’s done. Users that find and flick your new opt-out toggle only stop you from selling their data to additional buyers, and that’s nbd since data brokers only pay top-dollar for exclusive access to stuff that’s not already on the market.
It’s why I consider the introduction of any opt-out privacy policy an explicit admission of data theft.
- Comment on Applying 'extreme heat' to lithium-ion batteries reportedly restores their capacity, and I think it's the sustainable tech breakthrough of 2025 4 days ago:
Ah! Yeah it’s been a while but I seem to recall seeing alkaline batteries in a some freezers or refrigerators sometimes when I was a kid, along with other curiosities like rolls of film. No one ever explained why.
- Comment on Applying 'extreme heat' to lithium-ion batteries reportedly restores their capacity, and I think it's the sustainable tech breakthrough of 2025 4 days ago:
IIRC freezing accelerates the chemical degradation of lithium ion (especially if you attempt to charge the battery at the same time) and tends to lower both the voltage and amperage of most battery chemistries, but it seems plausible that this might
- temporarily defeat a cell protection circuit, allowing a charging procedure to initialize, or
- delay a thermal failsafe cut-off of a damaged cell long enough to boot or charge a device
Regardless, for those tuning in at home, best to keep your batteries out of the freezer, especially lithium types, unless spicy pillows are what you’re after.
- Comment on Applying 'extreme heat' to lithium-ion batteries reportedly restores their capacity, and I think it's the sustainable tech breakthrough of 2025 4 days ago:
Hmm, your right. At a guess, this field might represent the maximal combined interest of both scientific and pedestrian readership within technology research, since on the one hand energy density and storage logistics is the key limitation for a ton of desirable applications, and on the other most consumers’ experience with batteries establish them as a major convenience factor in their day-to-day.
- Comment on Tesla profits plummet 71% amid backlash to Musk's role with Trump administration 5 days ago:
Technically correct. The best kind of correct.
But to clarify, the stigma doesn’t/shouldn’t extend to people with Teslas from the early days. If you happen to already own an old Tesla, don’t worry about it. You’ve suffered enough misfortune on account of that choice already.
I say this because I’ve seen few old ones around here with all the branding scraped off, and even saw these hubcaps dumped by a bin in a nearby public park late at night as if the Tesla owner didn’t want their neighbors to see:
tesla hubcaps dumped on the ground beside trash bin at Riverside Park close up showing logo of tesla hubcaps dumped on the ground beside trash bin at Riverside Park
If this is you, I just want to remind you that reasonable people can draw a distinction between EV early-adopters and the current Elon stans/nazis. Your old Tesla doesn’t make everyone think you’re a racist or whatever. So you don’t have to damage the resale value of your car [further than Elon has] just to convey your principles, and you don’t need to feel bad about supporting that company before everyone realized the CEO was such a douche canoe.
At the very least, I’m not judging you, and you won’t get keyed on my block.
- Comment on Why is there steam coming out of the streets in New York 2 weeks ago:
The difficulty was drainage. Isolated steam systems in steam era construction were designed to use gravity for condensate collection. It’s one of the reasons boilers are always in the basement of old buildings.
Steam system engineering was a well-compensated profession. A well-designed system would accurately predict the rate of condensate flow for every part of the building, prior to construction, and reflect these predictions in the slope/grade and diameter of the steam pipes. Inaccurate predictions resulted in problems like pipe knock (aka steam hammer) which you can often hear when you or a nearby neighbor partially close the shut-off valve of a radiator.
Since construction in the city had many elevations and could not be predicted in advance, there was no equivalent solution to facilitate condensate collection. The system had to be one way. And yes, it’s inefficient compared to modern systems, but was innovative in its day.
- Comment on Why is there steam coming out of the streets in New York 2 weeks ago:
Yeet the heat or beat the meat
- Comment on Why is there steam coming out of the streets in New York 2 weeks ago:
Wtf? Bad form, Peter Pan.
- Comment on Why is there steam coming out of the streets in New York 2 weeks ago:
That’s a good idea! My understanding is that the old stream network is slated for decommission and replacement by this program, basically a large distributed geothermal heat pump network that also harvests from major heat producers like data centers and provides both heating and cooling.
It will end the era of the steamy-street Sin City aesthetic but should be many, many times more efficient than the old steam system. Phase-change thermal transfer in HVAC systems is currently as much as 400% more efficient than the theoretical limit of direct heating, because it only uses the energy necessary to move heat from one place to another rather than produce it, and it works for both heating and cooling.
Right now I believe they’re piloting the system in NYCHA buildings (public housing) of neighborhoods outside the old steam network, like Chelsea and Hell’s Kitchen, but supposedly the plan is to expand to the rest of Manhattan.
- Comment on Why is there steam coming out of the streets in New York 2 weeks ago:
Yeah it’s common enough I figured most knew, but a few years ago I went ice skating at the bryant park rink with this girl who refused to walk anywhere near the steam. She thought they were toxic and didn’t accept my explanation, so we had to walk an extra few blocks to get around the steam work. Shrug
- Comment on Why is there steam coming out of the streets in New York 2 weeks ago:
Old steam heating system. They vent it when they’re working on a section.
Side-note: surprised by all the fellow New Yorkers i’m seeing in this thread. I thought yous were still at the other place.
- Comment on Why is there steam coming out of the streets in New York 2 weeks ago:
I delivered for two locations shortly after they fixed the pizza. In both locations, shift leads and managers came up with so many excuses for house pizza. More than any other chain I worked for. I didn’t connect the dots until later. The pizza must have been much worse before.
- Comment on Power is not energy: why the difference matters [Technology Connections] 4 weeks ago:
How are energy and power “loose terms”? Energy might be difficult to fully explain rigorously, but it’s one of the fundamental elements of our universe. And power is just energy over time
Well, you yourself just provided the example, since your definition of energy and power are the inverse of the definitions used in the video.
It’s the fact that people use them differently or interchangeably that makes them “loose” IMHO.
- Comment on Power is not energy: why the difference matters [Technology Connections] 4 weeks ago:
He’s making a point about instantaneous versus overall energy use, which it sounds like you already understand. “Power” and “energy” are already kind of loose terms, which could make that conversation confusing IMO.
But for anyone confused by this:
For the typical energy consumer, Watts (W, kW) are relevant when considering circuit capacity. Otherwise, Watt-hours (Wh, kWh) is likely the metric you’re looking for when considering energy use.
Concretely, your coffee maker might pull 1.2 kW while in use, more than most appliances in your house, yet it probably represents a minuscule portion of your electric bill, perhaps less than 1 kWh, since it only needs to boil a small amount of water with each use.
- Comment on X88B88 is the word "voodoo" with a reflection. 4 weeks ago:
Yeah, it’s the nature of dog whistles but 88 is the only one I remember. Even so I’d probably assume birth year and think nothing of it, but I understand the concern.
- Comment on Amazon Restricted Vaginal Health Products for Being ‘Potentially Embarrassing’ 1 month ago:
This feels like a reference to a streamer video I’ve never seen
- Comment on I hate this image because idiots will see it, not understand what its showing, and make up some crazy shit based on it. 1 month ago:
Maybe getting clowned on will snap them out of it. Regardless, love the bit. Long live rabbi rabinowitz!
- Comment on I hate this image because idiots will see it, not understand what its showing, and make up some crazy shit based on it. 1 month ago:
Lol rabinowicz is Slavic for son of the rabbi so “rabbi rabinowitz” sounds like a character from a Bourekas comedy
- Comment on Study finds bullies have more children than non-bullies 1 month ago:
Each has a strong inverse relationship with socioeconomics.
Note
I am not saying being poor makes a kid a bully. My parent was poor and I only ever bullied bullies (and stopped when they stopped). It’s just a nondescript statistical relationship. As to why it exists, I don’t know. My guess is greater baseline stress, less emotional support, and higher chance of domestic violence.
- Comment on Smoking, and to a lesser extent non-combustible nicotine use, is associated with higher levels of alcohol consumption and risky drinking. 1 month ago:
I don’t envy researchers tasked with validating common sense conclusions, but someone has to do it
- Comment on Why does most religion talk about their GOD being male? Especially Christains and Muslims. Is there a prominent female god that as big as the other two that I am missing? 1 month ago:
YHWH (“Yahweh”) was the storm God of the Canaanite pantheon likely referred to in the Old Testament book of Job. El was the head of that pantheon. When gendered in the text, both were male.
While Judaic tradition championed YHWH above the others, perhaps due to the oral tradition of the parting of the Sea of Reeds (Red Sea) in Exodus. The other gods in the pantheon came to be regarded as false/pagan gods, and their worship was considered idolatry (religious infidelity), but these older religious traditions proved difficult to stamp out, with numerous examples of return to the old gods.
One such instance of idolatry in the book of Hosea (echoed Isaiah and Jeremiah) detailed an old (idolatrous) tradition of offering “sacred raisin cakes” and “flagons of wine” to an unnamed god. This god was almost certainly Asherah, YHWH’s sister and the wife of El, whose religious tradition featured the baking of raisin cakes in the shape of her body and the pouring of wine into the earth.
So to answer your question, while none of the Abrahamic religions officially worship a god with a female gender identity, their holy books technically recognize at least one female god: Asherah.
- Comment on Common Ground 2 months ago:
That is a viable path to redemption. In fact I think spending one’s life repairing damage done is only the minimum expectation.
Also to be clear, I’m talking about common voters, rank-and-file conservatives. Public figures on the other hand, especially those active in the current administration, must be imprisoned, and many of them for life, if only to demonstrate to the world the severity of their crimes against humanity.
- Comment on Life isn't easy if your last name is 'Null' as it still breaks database entries the world over 2 months ago:
Input sanitation typically handles this as a string that only includes characters supported by the data type of the table in question. While in transit, the strings might be escaped at certain stages, such as via URL encoding. Though this is considered poor practice in many applications, it’s not uncommon to see. The point, however, is to prevent the evaluation of inputs as anything other than their intended type, whether or not reserved characters are present.
- Comment on Common Ground 2 months ago:
But don’t you see? Some conservatives haven’t even been alive for decades. Some don’t even truly understand why they were handed that banner in the first place.
I’m not saying there shouldn’t be accountability. I have friends and relatives I’ve had to place in various stages of social probation due to their politics, but for each I’ve had to consider what redemption and rehabilitation would look like. If there is in fact no redemption for any of them, where would I draw that indelible line?
Though I’ve not voted Republican, I’ve often been wrong in my life about many things, so I’m certain I would need to include myself in that group or irredeemables. Honestly, who would survive the culling of those who’ve been wrong? Would you?
- Comment on Common Ground 2 months ago:
I’m saying individual people can change. They can learn and grow.
You can stay mad at the conservatives of today, but you must let them “defect” when they’ve matured enough to do so.
Otherwise there’s no point to any of this.
- Comment on Common Ground 2 months ago:
They’re not a monolith. Political ideologies gain and lose members every day.
The kid who kicked the ball over the fence today is never the same one from last time. The kid from last time is more likely to volunteer to fetch the ball.
- Comment on The Algorithm 2 months ago:
Though the artist appeared to draw η (eta) rather than n which could mean they’re using learning rate to compute the bounds of some other value. I’m more curious what y-base log they’re taking and why.
- Comment on The Algorithm 2 months ago:
Ah, the theory group. My people.
- Comment on check it before you wreck it 2 months ago:
Truly iconic!
- Comment on check it before you wreck it 2 months ago:
I mean, we’re not talking about mutually exclusive properties.
Whether a paper is more or less dry and whether it’s more or less accessible to newcomers is separate from the quality of the contribution.
You can have both.
