MystikIncarnate
@MystikIncarnate@lemmy.ca
Some IT guy, IDK.
- Comment on Related: https://lemmy.wtf/comment/16937362 4 days ago:
I like dark humor. A lot of the discourse surrounding Kirk has been downright hilarious.
I’m sure some Nazi motherfuckers take offense, but not me
- Comment on do you consider joking about dying and killing oneself a sign that the person saying it is troubled? 5 days ago:
It can be. It depends on context and tone.
If they say that shit with a tone of defeat, I’d address it head on. If it’s typical banter like this sucks kind of tone then whatever.
People say a lot of concerning shit if you take everything that they say literally. Fact is that a lot of us use sarcasm and hyperbole as coping mechanisms.
Today, I joked with a buddy at work that the day made me want to hang myself from my shoelaces. I have zero suicidal ideation right now, I’m just unhappy that I have to put up with the people I have to work with right now. He’s much the same, sick of the shit, so he gets me.
It really depends on the tone and context more than anything.
- Comment on Charlie Kirk says gun deaths "unfortunately" worth it to keep 2nd amendment 5 days ago:
I mean, the guy was basically just asking for it.
Anyone who promotes gun ownership, dismisses gun violence, and justifies it all with the defense of “freedom” that’s been steadily eroded away by government for as long as I can remember until we’re all basically wage slaves working for scraps while the modern aristocrats (1%ers) sell and rape young children for fun and profit then have a royal dinner to stroke eachothers ego at the house that’s supposed to represent democracy and freedom, but is almost always occupied by authoritarian assholes… Then gets shot for the effort?
Well, I’m not going to be sad that it happened.
We need to turn these childfuckers into fertilizer.
- Comment on I wish there was a system to verify that a webpage was written by an actual human before showing me it 5 days ago:
It very much used to be.
Some of the newer stuff they’ve been putting out has been surprisingly good. Full explanations of how things interact, descriptions of what each option does, what options are available, how to configure things, useful examples…
Then you get to one option called something like “-outputformat” or something and the docs literally just say “this option configures the output format”, and you fall flat on your face and perish.
- Comment on I wish there was a system to verify that a webpage was written by an actual human before showing me it 5 days ago:
I assume everything I read on the Internet is someone’s opinion. Unless it’s about an Internet thing, by the company that made that thing.
Like finding usage articles for Windows/office/whatever, on Microsoft’s website…
- Comment on 5 tomatoes 5 days ago:
I like you.
These are all good points. Thank you.
- Comment on 5 tomatoes 5 days ago:
Except an alien species wouldn’t know what cesium is… We would need to represent it to them as it’s molecular makeup, which is the only absolute representation of it, and would they know what a proton/neutron/electron are? Would they have a deeper understanding of the physics, and thereby have a different understanding of what we consider to be quantum particles?
We only generalize protons, elections and neutrons because we don’t really know what those things are made up of. Maybe they do, so when we show them our representation of it, would it be too rudimentary for them to comprehend what we mean?
There’s still a lot we don’t know. And these are the kinds of questions that tickle my brain.
- Comment on 5 tomatoes 6 days ago:
I don’t think that was the idea when the second was created.
The solar rotation cycle is naturally divided into 365 rotations of Earth (give or take), each daily rotation was divided into 24 segments called hours, each hour was further divided into 60 units called minutes, and each minute was then further divided into 60 units which we call seconds.
In the modern era, we have refined how we measure a second by a very stable natural phenomenon, the emissions of cesium (which we also refer to as an “atomic” clock). But we got there first by dividing one of Earth’s rotations by 86400. It just so happens that 9 192 631 770 oscillations from cesium also equals 1/86400th of one rotation of Earth.
Additionally, neither a “second” nor even “one rotation of Earth” would have any meaning to someone who has never been to earth before.
- Comment on 5 tomatoes 6 days ago:
See, this is all fascinating for me. I love this stuff.
It’s also a good exercise in recognizing the assumptions we make every day. I’m trying to get to a point where I can articulate my thoughts and I don’t have to struggle through the curse of knowledge.
- Comment on 5 tomatoes 6 days ago:
That could work for velocities, but any measure of distance is based on our notion of time, like “light year” (the distance light can travel in one rotation of the Earth around the sun), which is relative.
Even an AU is the distance from Earth to our sun.
To be fair, we don’t really have another point of reference with which to measure stuff.
A good way to portray distance could be a blip the length of time it would take light to travel that far. Like an RF signal that lasts as long as it would take for light up travel from one edge of an object to the other edge of the object.
… It’s a difficult problem to try to solve even as a mental exercise.
- Comment on 5 tomatoes 6 days ago:
All units of measure are abstract.
I like metric because it’s structured around an abstract amount. Even something like Celsius is pretty abstract, because the freezing and boiling point of water changes depending on the atmospheric pressure. The measure of a second? Why is a second, 1 second long? Why is it 1/60th of 1/60th of 1/24th of a day? There’s other stuff based on seconds too, like Hertz, which is literally “cycles per second”
I like to think about how abstract these things are, because if we were to ever try to communicate with a truly alien race, we couldn’t really use numbers, because their base numbering system would be different than ours, their symbols for numbers would be different, their entire understanding of math and how to calculate stuff could be wildly different, possibly because they understand things we do not. We couldn’t even say to them to communicate on a specific frequency of EM, because that frequency is based on Hertz, which is based on seconds, which is based on ??? IDFK (neither would they). We base everything we know on the world around us, and that’s entirely unique to earth. We make so many assumptions about how things are because we’ve only ever experienced life on this planet.
The only thing that kind of makes sense is how many days of the year there are, because it’s based on solid science about our solar system. It’s still unique to earth, but at least it makes sense on a larger scale. Everything else? Who the hell knows. Why is a meter as long as it is? Who defined this? Why? What abstract Earth-based thing was this based on that other societies of individuals would have no point of reference to relate to?
It’s wild we’ve made it this far, to be honest.
Anyways, I kind of got sidetracked… I guess all I’m really trying to say is that metric makes more sense than whatever the USA is doing. Even if it’s just as abstract in its conception.
- Comment on There is no good reason why there is still homelessness and poverty 6 days ago:
This. This is the reality and the root cause of a lot of the issues regarding homelessness, starvation and preventable illness in the world.
Aggressive capitalists value money more than anyone’s, and everyone’s life.
They will let you die to bump their profits a fraction of a percent.
- Comment on Time to bash Americans again 6 days ago:
I know there’s some opinions on this, but I would consider this to be the case. Many people don’t have so much pride in their origins to consider using a term like expat, then there’s Americans, who’s entire identity is based on where they were born.
So it makes sense that someone from America living in another country would identify as an American expat, while everyone else is just, immigrated to where they are. Not enough focus on what country they came from to bother with an expat definition.
Makes me think that American expats are looking backwards, while other immigrants are looking forwards.
- Comment on Foolproof advice 6 days ago:
Username is definitely relevant. :)
I would consider your comment to be far more truthful and accurate than what is pictured in the OP.
Have a good day.
- Comment on A conundrum 1 week ago:
To be fair, it’s a pretty large home. I’m living with my SO, my brother and his wife and there’s a couple of offspring that needed space too. Our house has ~5 ish bedrooms. Considering the number of people who live here, it can feel small. If it was just me and my SO, this would be humungous.
But that also means that we have four fully grown adults helping with the mortgage. So my share of the mortgage is around $1100 ish, per month, and we split most of the household bills, so I usually throw in about $400 more to help with that. I personally pay about $1500/mo.
My SO does the same, and we’ve encouraged my brother and his wife to also do the same. If everyone pays $1500 towards the house every month, we have more than enough to cover all the bills (electric/gas/water), as well as shared things like the Internet. Also that’s enough to cover the house insurance.
- Comment on A conundrum 1 week ago:
I’m glad I don’t live in America then.
- Comment on A conundrum 1 week ago:
I went from an apartment that cost ~$1250/mo. To a mortgage that costs ~$4300/mo. Just got the “privilege” of owning a home (and paying for all repairs myself).
I can only afford this because of the people I’m sharing that cost with. We’re all on the deed, and we all have a stake, and claim to, the house. Four of us.
My payment didn’t really change.
The only way we could get to the point of a down payment is that one of the four of us has been saving for something like this since they were in highschool. Because of their effort, we had enough for a down payment.
And I’m lucky to be in this position.
What a fucking crock of shit.
Despite all of this, I’m hoping the market takes a dive so the rest of you can do the same at a much more affordable rate. I’ve already spent the money and I’ll be spending years paying it off. I didn’t buy a house up objectively save money, I bought a house for stability. I never want to move ever again. There are good reasons for that which I won’t get into. I promise that I will have ZERO issues if you all get a better deal than I did. I hope you do, and I hope the housing market, specifically the rental/flipping/“income property” markets crash, hard.
In the same way, I’ve paid off my school debt, I’m in favor of school debt forgiveness. I also enjoy pretty good health, I’m in favor of universal healthcare. I’ve never caused, not been the victim of a fire, I’m in favor of fire departments.
I could go on.
Good luck everyone.
- Comment on Have you encountered this? 1 week ago:
Fast food workers generally get minimum wage at least, so tipping shouldn’t be required or expected there. It’s mostly servers at restaurants as far as I know.
When I know that the workers are paid less than minimum, I’m pretty much always tipping unless you’re grossly negligent or you are actively mean. You can have a bad disposition, that’s fine. Everyone has bad days, I’ll still tip as long as you’re not directing your unhappiness at me. I just got here, I’m not the thing you’re mad at, so please don’t treat me like I am.
If tipping goes away tomorrow, I’ll be happy. Not just for my pocket book and the pain and frustration I feel staring at menus trying to up all the prices by 15-20% so I know what I’ll actually be paying, but for the workers actually making a decent wage.
We also need to address minimum wage issues, but that’s another matter entirely and affects a much larger group of people.
- Comment on It's been downhill since 2020 1 week ago:
We’re really generating value for those shareholders aren’t we?
- Comment on YouTube is now flagging accounts on Premium family plans that aren't in the same household 1 week ago:
I would say, they’re not necessarily good, just less bad.
Same idea though.
- Comment on YouTube is now flagging accounts on Premium family plans that aren't in the same household 1 week ago:
I didn’t say there was.
I just want this specific billionaire to continue to live because, unlike most billionaires, he’s not making my life more difficult.
He’s basically refused to let steam become enshittified. Other billionaires would have long ago succumb to the one that they serve, the almighty dollar, and done whatever they can to extract the most value from their user base. Enshittifying the platform in the process, and actively making my life worse.
So as far as I’m concerned, when it comes to billionaires, gaben is far from the worst.
I have a short list of billionaires that kinda fit into the category of: I don’t mind that they exist.
There’s a much longer list of billionaires that I’d like to see pushing up the daisies.
Not that I can, or would, do anything to make that happen. I just, wouldn’t hate it if it happened.
- Comment on How long do we have before PCs get locked bootloaders and corporations ban installation of "non-approved" software? (for context: Google is restricting sideloading worldwide on Android ETA 2027) 1 week ago:
Maybe. In my experience business isn’t that patient.
A TPM is otherwise a good thing. It can extend cryptographic capabilities and the overall security stance of the system.
But I digress. I will reserve judgement for now. Time will tell either way, and I don’t think anyone will feel like gloating if they start to lock it down like you believe they will.
- Comment on YouTube is now flagging accounts on Premium family plans that aren't in the same household 1 week ago:
I think that’s the point.
They’ve had such trouble even selling YouTube premium that now they’re making it even less worthwhile, and expecting people to still buy it…
I don’t know what companies don’t get. Family means so many different things and they’re trying to dictate and control what it means to be a family. They don’t get to decide that. Many people I consider to be family, have zero blood relation to me, but they’ve stood by me like brothers and sisters when shit goes down, often staying to help long after my blood relatives, have abandoned me. The people I share a bloodline with are simply not as much of a family to me as these people I grew up with, and have stuck with me through thick and thin.
If I buy a “family” plan of anything, I expect that the family I’ve chosen can be among the people I can share that plan with. If I’m paying for a personal plan and sharing it with others, I get it, fair game. But if I’m specifically buying it because I can share it with family, then let me share it with family, or fuck the fuck off with that bullshit.
Sorry, bit of a rant, I know everyone here already knows this so I’m preaching to the choir.
Be well.
- Comment on YouTube is now flagging accounts on Premium family plans that aren't in the same household 1 week ago:
My understanding is that gaben has already put an action plan in place for when the company moves on from his leadership.
From what I’ve heard of it, the people in line behind Gabe will be upholding the same values.
We should have at least another ~40 years or more of this before sometimes entitled brat inherits the company and sells it off to a foreign interest.
With all that being said: long live gaben.
- Comment on YouTube is now flagging accounts on Premium family plans that aren't in the same household 1 week ago:
My entire extended family shares a single household and a single Internet connection. /s
- Comment on How long do we have before PCs get locked bootloaders and corporations ban installation of "non-approved" software? (for context: Google is restricting sideloading worldwide on Android ETA 2027) 1 week ago:
This is already happening, but it’s on an organisational level by policy. These policies can be applied to systems that follow trusted computing rules, which is most Windows 10 systems and pretty much all windows 11 systems. Google has laid the groundwork for this since the pixel 3 was released in 2018.
Since then, we have seen Google put the Titan security module in all phones and I’m certain Chromebooks are requiring TPM modules that serve the same function.
Apple has been doing the same since God knows when. Their systems have had unique chips that ensure that when MacOS is installed, it is only installed in Apple computers. There are ways around this, just as there are ways around the TPM requirement for Windows 11.
The trusted computing model, when fully imposed, can basically stop any applications from running that have not been given the blessing of the security team.
As far as I’m aware, the only people taking advantage of the technology are government institutions.
The fact that this can be wielded to enforce control over private individuals by our corporate masters is becoming a very real possibility, but the fact that it hasn’t happened yet, by any vendor, is, in my opinion, good evidence to say that it’s unlikely, but not impossible. Maybe that’s wishful thinking on my part.
In any case, the only truly free operating system left is GNU/Linux, with few other exceptions.
- Comment on Truck go 💥🚚 1 week ago:
Could be the person’s first day.
- Comment on Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed - Louis Rossmann 2 weeks ago:
This is the risk of “trusted computing” architectures. Who is governing the “trusted” part of that.
These cryptographic signatures are not as much of a death knell for Android as some would have you believe. The trick is to get a common code signing cert into your device, that is then used to sign any third party APK you want to run. You can avoid the Google tax this way. I assume that’s how most sideloading sites and apps are going to handle this.
The question is, how do you add that certificate? Is it easy and straight forward (with plenty of scary warnings), as a user? Or is it going to be a developer options deal? Or will I need root to add the cert?
I’m not sure what that answer is right now.
I just want to finish this post with a few words about trusted computing models. Plainly: Apple has been doing this for years … That’s why you download basically everything from an app store with Apple. Whether on your Mac OS device, your iPhone, iPad or whatever iDevice… Whether the devs need to sign it, or the app gets signed when it lands on the store, there’s a signature to ensure that the app hasn’t been tampered with and that Apple has given the app it’s security blessings, that it is safe to run. Microsoft and Google have both been climbing towards the same forever. Apple embedded their root of trust in their own proprietary TPM which has been included with every Mac, and iDevice for a long ass time. Google also has a TPM, the Titan security module, I believe that was introduced around pixel 3? Or 4?.. Microsoft made huge waves requiring it for Windows 11, and we all know what that discussion looks like. Apple requires a TPM (which they supply, so nobody noticed), Google has been adding a TPM and TPM functionality to their phones for years, and now Windows is the same. None of this is a bad thing. Trusted computing can eliminate much of the need for antivirus software, among other things. I digress. We’ve been going this way for a long time. Google is just more or less, doing what Apple has already done, and what Microsoft will very likely do very soon, making it a requirement. Battlefield 6 I think, was one of the first to require trusted computing on Windows and it will, for damned sure, not be the last that does. The only real hurdle here is managing what is trusted. So far, each vendor has kept the keys to their own kingdoms, but this is contrary to computing concepts. Like the Internet, it should be able to be done without needing trust from a specific provider. That’s how SSL works, that’s how the Internet works, that’s how trusted computing should work. The only thing that should be secret is the private signing keys. What Google, Apple, and Microsoft should be doing, is issuing intermediary keys that can sign code signing certs. So trusted institutions that create apps, like… Idk, valve as an example, can create a signature key for steam and sign Steam with it, so the trust goes from MS root to intermediary key for valve, to steam code signing key, and suddenly you have an app that’s trusted. Valve can then use their key to sign software on their store that may not have a coffee signing key of it’s own. This is just one example based on Windows. And above all of this, the user should be able to import a trusted code signing cert, or an intermediary cert signing cert, to their service as trusted.
Anyways, thanks for coming to my Ted talk.
- Comment on xkcd #3135: Sea Level 2 weeks ago:
Fair enough.
I just have a hard time translating what what shown in the video to what’s actually happening. Might be a bit too much to take in at once.
Then again, I haven’t cared much about the tides ever, and I only know that the tides are a function of the moon because of Bill Nye, I think.
My HS “education” was pretty bad, honestly.
- Comment on xkcd #3135: Sea Level 2 weeks ago:
You understand it more after that?
I’m more confused, honestly. But that’s hardly surprising.