RickRussell_CA
@RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world
was RickRussellTX @ reddit
- Comment on When you are on a videocall do you also keep looking at your own thumbnail video? 5 weeks ago:
This is why customer service folks often keep a mirror by the phone, looking at their own faces helps to keep their emotions in check when dealing with a difficult customer.
- Comment on On Lemmee, actual shower thoughts can be posted because theres less filters. 5 weeks ago:
“This MIT-trained engineer left a big plumbing company so he could disrupt the market with an innovative product”
- Comment on On Lemmee, actual shower thoughts can be posted because theres less filters. 1 month ago:
I wonder if they still make that shampoo I like?
- Comment on Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies 2 months ago:
Legally unassailable!
- Comment on Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies 2 months ago:
The song is from the perspective of the company, not the consumer.
- Comment on Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies 2 months ago:
You labor under the impression that they would only track & keep data if the user was logged in.
Who changed the username in the on-board OnStar system? Did you think to perform a full factory reset on the car’s electronic systems, before selling the car? CAN you?
- Comment on Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies 2 months ago:
I’m an IT professional and I am not sure of that at all.
- Comment on Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies 2 months ago:
Perhaps. There is a lot you can do to present the right appearance w/ respect to financial transactions. There’s not so much you can do when companies are exchanging data about your routine activities behind you back. Or they assume it is about you, who is going to hold them to account? Nobody.
- Comment on Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies 2 months ago:
we don’t need to worry about lions eating us
Someone didn’t read the line item in the EULA.
- Comment on Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies 2 months ago:
I wonder how selling the car impacts the data stream? If you could show that the automaker and LexisNexis aren’t properly handling the transition of the car’s owner from one to another – effectively penalizing the original owner for the actions of a subsequent owner – there might be a legal angle of attack to assert damages.
- Comment on Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies 2 months ago:
We’re headed rapidly toward a social credit system, but run by our corporate overlords instead of government. To quote The Stupendium:
You seem so surprised, what did you expect?
We’re thinking outside of that box that you checked
The terms were presented in full to inspect
You scrolled to the end just to get to “Accept”
- Comment on Poignant post on the state of things 3 months ago:
And yet, every one seeks to rest under their own vine and fig tree. I don’t think that’s strictly capitalist indoctrination. People need places, spaces, situations, groups, creative outlets in which they have some basic autonomy. We could set up soup kitchens on every corner so that nobody is ever hungry, but for many that will fall far short of a “full happy life”. Like security from violence or shelter from the elements, a full stomach is foundational to happiness, that doesn’t mean it’s enough for most people.
- Comment on Why is Google allowed to remove purchases from our Play Store accounts without telling us? 4 months ago:
I also have the Humble Bundle version :-)
I don’t really do Android gaming any more, the Shield K1 is long gone and my cheap-ass Chinese tablet is mostly for Newpipe and other Android-only media consumption.
- Comment on Why is Google allowed to remove purchases from our Play Store accounts without telling us? 4 months ago:
Harebrained Schemes’ critically acclaimed Shadowrun games disappeared from the Play store years ago – I played them back in the day on my Shield K1. The apps supported modding, and changes to the Google Play TOS meant they would require significant updates to make them compliant with new policies.
Harebrained worked on it halfheartedly for a year or two, but eventually decided not to bother updating them, so they were gone forever.
- Comment on Toyota-owned automaker halts Japan production after admitting it tampered with safety tests for 30 years | CNN Business 4 months ago:
And, presumably other brands that come from Daihatsu plants. Assuming the safety issues are only within Daihatsu facilities, that’s the key information. “Daihatsu, a Toyota subsidiary” or similar conveys the useful information. “Toyota-owned automaker” does not.
As it stands, it sounds like CNN is trying to vaugely imply that the problem applies to Toyota generally, which obvs will get a lot of clicks from people who own Toyotas. That’s sloppy clickbait.
- Comment on How do I breathe quietly through my nose? 4 months ago:
You stop explaining an apologizing.
- Comment on Has google stopped working for finding anything? 4 months ago:
“We need better training data for our AIs. Let’s introduce some random scramble into search results, and when users have to hunt through the list and pick what they actually wanted instead of the top result, we can use those data to train the AI how to respond to those words when they come up in AI prompts.”
– a Google exec, probably?
- Comment on I wonder how much of youtube content is hardcoded sponsor ads. 4 months ago:
I also wonder how much a certain sponsor influence the video topic
Literally anything can influence the creator. I watch Max Miller’s Tasting History, and he’s unrepentant that he chooses certain foods to go with wine or coffee from his sponsors. But, he also makes entertaining history pieces to go with it, and that’s what I’m there for.
Jon Townsend will happily sell you reproduction kitchen equipment from his own store, which is heavily featured in the videos.
At the end of the day, creators have to get paid somehow. Sure, some creators are doing it for free because they have a day job, or whatever, but even then you can be pretty sure they won’t do anything to jeopardize their paycheck.
I think the most we can hope for is that creators tell us when they are are influenced by advertising.
- Comment on xkcd #2873: Sumersymmetry 4 months ago:
Reading the title, I thought we were going to get a cuneiform treatise on geometry.
- Comment on Toyota-owned automaker halts Japan production after admitting it tampered with safety tests for 30 years | CNN Business 4 months ago:
Odd that they put “Toyota-owned automaker” in the headline instead of Daihatsu. Or something like, :“Daihatsu, owned by Toyota”.
Whether the problems go “up the chain” to the parent company is TBD, I guess.
- Comment on Pick your poison. Dystopian style 4 months ago:
I’ll be going in front of a venture capital roundtable tomorrow with my idea for Squatter.home, a web site where you can find unoccupied properties and occupy them for a VERY reasonable finder’s fee.
- Comment on Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content 4 months ago:
No idea how the compensation structure works on Medium. But I also have no idea what their content moderation policies are either.
- Comment on Substack says it will not remove or demonetize Nazi content 4 months ago:
I’d love to say that, but unfortunately journalists I respect, who are doing very excellent content that repudiates fascism, don’t really have anywhere else to go. Radley Balko, for example, is a preeminent journalist on the topics of police brutality, law enforcement misdeeds, and failures of the criminal justice system. But WaPo didn’t want to publish him any more, so where does he go?
I hope they find alternatives, but I’m not going to stop paying for journalism from people like Balko. I don’t want to let white supremacists force any more epistemic closure.
- Comment on My children will refer to me as father. 5 months ago:
Forgive me father for I have sinned
- Comment on AI Doomerism: Intelligence Is Not Enough -- “The lack of arms and legs becomes really load-bearing when you want to kill all humans.” 5 months ago:
I’m familiar with that thought exercise, but I find it to be fearmongering. AI isn’t going to be some creative god that hacks and breaks stuff on its own. A paperclip maximizer AI isn’t going to manipulate world steel markets or take over steel mills unless that capability is specifically built into its operating parameters.
The much greater risk in the near term is that bad actors exploit AI to accomplish very specific immoral, illegal, or exploitative tasks by building those tasks into AI. Such as deepfakes, or using drones to track and murder people, etc. Nation-state actors will probably start using this stuff for truly horrible reasons long before criminals do.
- Comment on AI Doomerism: Intelligence Is Not Enough -- “The lack of arms and legs becomes really load-bearing when you want to kill all humans.” 5 months ago:
That, in my mind, is a non-threat. AIs have no motivation; there’s no reason for an AI to do any of that.
Unless it’s being manipulated by a bad actor who wants to do those things. THAT is the real threat. And we know those bad actors exist and will use any tool at their disposal.
- Comment on Homes need to be built for better internet 5 months ago:
Hmm. I just moved into a new house in SoCal, and I’m not having any of the problems he describes. In fact I’d describe the installation of my symmetric 2gbps fiber connection as very clean, and WiFi propagation has been excellent.
I’m not ecstatic that the router they provided is an Amazon eero, but I could replace that myself if I wanted.
- Comment on A Brief History of the GTA Game Series, The Most Famous Game in History! 5 months ago:
The Most Famous Game in History!
Tetris would like a word.
- Comment on Vehicle 'Kill Switch' Mandate Is a Gross (and Dangerous) Violation of Privacy 5 months ago:
a mandate that stands to require all new vehicles to have AI-driven technology that can disable your vehicle if the technology determines you’ve had one beer too many
This, too, is a false conclusion. The bill specifies that a monitor-and-disable technology exist to prevent impaired driving, not that it should be based on AI, nor does the bill require the detection of alcohol.
Does anyone believe that in 2027, if the NHTSA requested that system manufacturers turn over the information they collect, it would be told no? Don’t bet on it.
And there is nothing in the legislation mandating data collection or storage.
- Comment on Google Chrome will limit ad blockers starting June 2024 5 months ago:
I’ve been limiting Google Chrome for about 5 years now.