RickRussell_CA

@RickRussell_CA@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In the US, is this actually the moment past the point of no return?⁩ ⁨⁨17⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the real answer is that we end up kind of like the UK – going from the worlds ultra-dominant superpower to a sort of slow regression to the mean, as China, India and others take the spotlight.

  When you look at what China is doing with their Belt and Road Initiative, and their move to dominate the transportation infrastructure of developing nations – the US isn’t anywhere near equipped to counter that. We’re still in a cold war mentality thinking that we will dominate as the world’s police force.

  Meanwhile, all the actual economies will be run by Chinese companies operating with state support.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft backtracks on deprecating the 39-year-old Windows Control Panel | Microsoft has either backtracked or clarified its language to remove the note about Control Panel being deprecated⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Then they would have to remove the various hooks in the Settings app that actually call and open the Control Panel.

  How many are there? I can think of several (advanced mouse settings, advanced network settings, printer properties, date & time has a callout back to the old panel…)

  Windows 10 came out nine years ago, so they don’t seem in any particular rush.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ISP to Supreme Court: We shouldn’t have to disconnect users accused of piracy⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, but ISPs are rich and VPN providers are not. The most recent numbers I can find for Cox (2020) show $12.6 billion in revenue.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia reveals that 150 RTX A6000 GPUs power the Las Vegas Sphere⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But can it run Crysis?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When you are on a videocall do you also keep looking at your own thumbnail video?⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ 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.⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I wonder if they still make that shampoo I like?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Legally unassailable!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Automakers Are Sharing Consumers’ Driving Behavior With Insurance Companies⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨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?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You stop explaining an apologizing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Has google stopped working for finding anything?⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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.⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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 ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨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.⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨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.”⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨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.”⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨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.