mctoasterson

@mctoasterson@reddthat.com

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google’s ‘Secret’ Update Scans All Your Photos⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  People don’t seem to understand the risks presented by normalizing client-side scanning on closed source devices. Think about how image recognition works. It scans image content locally and matches to keywords or tags, describing the person, objects, emotions, and other characteristics. Even the rudimentary open-source model on an immich deployment on a Raspberry Pi can process thousands of images and make all the contents searchable with alarming speed and accuracy.

  So once similar image analysis is done on a phone locally, and pre-encryption, it is trivial for Apple or Google to use that for whatever purposes their use terms allow. Forget the iCloud encryption backdoor. The big tech players can already scan content on your device pre-encryption.

  And just because someone does a traffic analysis of the process itself (safety core or mediaanalysisd or whatever) and shows it doesn’t directly phone home, doesn’t mean it is safe. The entire OS is closed source, and it needs only to backchannel small amounts of data in order to fuck you over.

  Remember the original justification for clientside scanning from Apple was “detecting CSAM”. Well they backed away from that line of thinking but they kept all the client side scanning in iOS and Mac OS. It would be trivial for them to flag many other types of content and furnish that data to governments or third parties.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tech jobs are now white collar trades that need apprentices⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  I love how the trend in tech seems to be to shift 100% of responsibility for professional development to the employee.

  “Just get some certs on your own and build a homelab.”

  Yeah, I have 2 degrees and a bunch of certs, of which many require CEU or renewal costs. Everytime I ask for professional development it’s “yeah there might be some budget for this one specific thing next quarter”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Xbox Sales Hit Rock Bottom After Historic 2024 Decline⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly all of this bullshit is why I went with a Steamdeck a few years ago. As a working adult with a family I have different economic obligations and priorities.

  I need to build a new PC soon (mine is now 10 years old) but I can’t justify spending $5K on a gaming rig. If I built now with a flagship card, just the card itself would cost more than I spent on my entire rig when I built it in 2014/2015. Pair that with Microsoft’s ridiculous operating system enshittification, and the PC situation gets even more complicated for me.

  Consoles have gotten to be a bad value proposition for me as well. Paper launches, scalping during the pandemic, DRM etc., services going offline. All that garbage leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

  I’m having a decent enough time with Steam sale games, Indy games, and retro emulation.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They need to make an open source version of the Hitster card game that lets you use this to listen to the whole song (if you choose) whether you have a Spotify account or not.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Smartwatch That Was Too Good For This World⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Anyone got a good recommendation for an affordable smart watch that works with GadgetBridge?

  I’m looking to move on from an ancient Garmin that barely holds charge for 2 days…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I would do this for just 1.99⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yknow one great thing that costs about 1.99 (one time cost)?

  Those little plastic slidy bits that cover up the laptop webcam and mic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is it time to ring the alarm on internet door cameras?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  90% of it is idiots reporting deer/coyote sightings or falsely reporting fireworks as “gunshots?!?!” at 1:00am. If have literally been woken up by stupid Ring notifications more than by the fireworks themselves.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Those YouTube ads everyone hates made $10.4 billion in just three months⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think your theory is plausible. On the YT smart TV app, the ads seem to be increasingly about unpleasant things like dick pills, period pads, and constipation treatments. I think they literally serve up unsavory ad content as a way of punishing you into shelling out for a subscription. Jokes on them, I just switched to SmartTube.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why was Hitler so mean and hateful toward one group or another? I find it hard to believe he woke up one day and said you and you suck but these people over here are good. Taking it so far as killing?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Respectfully, do some reading of even middleschool level history books. He didn’t personally decide to “be mean” to particular groups. His worldview was shaped by the post WWI dynamics in Europe, latent stereotypes and domestic problems within Germany, and a whole lot of misapplied emerging science. He literally believed in racial supremecy and was trying to build an ethnostate. This motivated him to define groups of ethnic “undesirables” and also to lump in other groups that he found politically inconvenient. Read about the scapegoating of Jews circa that time. He likely believed his cruelty towards them was somehow justified because he laid all of Germany’s problems (economic issues, humiliation of the country and loss of territory post-WWI) at their feet.

  TL; DR - Bad actors believe their evil behavior is justified.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Engineer turns old 3D printer into a tattoo gun that you definitely shouldn't use at home⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They made a custom mount attaching the tattoo gun to the toolhead that included springs or something with extra give to accommodate a slightly irregular surface. They also used a small patch of skin on a relatively flat area.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨26 years late but I finally beat Half Life⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The Orange Box is one of the last gaming purchases that I actually got my moneys worth out of.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Broadcom reverses controversial plan in effort to cull VMware migrations⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But not before causing 2+ years of tedious previously-unnecessary migration work. Thanks a lot assholes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Feds Say You Don’t Have a Right to Check Out Retro Video Games Like Library Books⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not a lawyer but I believe in the US this would be legal as you are granting the use of the original license and not duplicating any content for simultaneous use by others.

  What I would like to see is a gentlemans agreement of sorts where companies agree not to come after people for playing pirate, emulated or archival copies of games that are decades old and not for sale in any format anymore. I guess this is somewhat encompassed in the framework of “Abandonware”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: You don't own your Kindle e-books.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I am now of the opinion that you should just download books off indexing sites/IRC/ Usenet/torrents and if you like the book and want to support the author, buy a physical copy, or buy 2 and put one in a neighborhood free library. That maximizes the good you are doing and helps your community instead of just generating Bezos bux.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hacking Kia: Remotely Controlling Cars With Just a License Plate.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah… fuck this shit. This is part of the reason I still drive a nearly 20 year old vehicle. It has features I want, and can’t be stolen via fucking API calls. Absolute insanity.

  I think Hyundai/Kia group has done unfathomable damage to their brands. Kia, despite being a budget brand, wants to be seen as a legit competitor to Toyota or at least Nissan. Their corner cutting with the immobilizers and the resulting “USB” theft shit was bad enough. Now this exploit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hammerheads sharkz⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The toys were a wierd texture like rubberized plastic. The sharks skin and face was flexible but the lower half of the figure was normal plastic.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered confirmed by ESRB rating⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I bought the original on Steam sale about a year ago. Played 2-3 hours. Didn’t really feel hooked by the story or the gameplay. Graphics looked great to me on the SteamDeck.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Man Arrested for Creating Fake Bands With AI, Then Making $10 Million by Listening to Their Songs With Bots⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I thought about experimenting with this (Guess it is a good thing I didn’t). There are so many low effort “Lo Fi” types of streams and tracklists on Spotify and elsewhere. Who is to say my software generated garbage would be any worse than those?

  There are also YouTubers who generate low effort music and ask their normal content subscribers to stream their shit on Spotify even if they aren’t legitimately listening. So are those streams fraudulent as well?

  It sounds like the thing he is getting popped for is the volume of automated streams.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sorry, grandma⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Remember kids, the amount you like yourself is inversely proportional to the amount you like Evangelion.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Studios are cracking down on some of the internet’s most popular pirating sites⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You do have to get an invite, seed, and maybe toss them a small crypto donation occasionally. The ratio thing depends on the tracker but usually it’s just a requirement to seed back anything for at least a week. Popular torrents become FreeLeech and they don’t count against your ratio.

  Because the participants are all vetted, you don’t get RIAA and MPAA shills in swarm trying to vacuum up IPs to start sending nasty legal letters out.

  A decade ago when I used public torrents I remember getting those stupid ISP strikes. I know shit-tier regional ISPs would even try to embarrass you with the content you pirated. They’d send you a letter like “the Copyright holder for ‘Anal Hookers of Beijing’ told us they’re big mad at you, and if you do it again you’ll get your service revoked”. Some of these ISPs were integrated with cable companies so they’d freeze your internet and cable, and display the text of the copyright strike on your fucking TV for your girlfriend or grandma to see.

  Fuck that noise.

  Since using a private tracker I have never received a single cease and desist or ISP warning letter. Then again, I only use Bit Torrent to download Linux ISOs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Studios are cracking down on some of the internet’s most popular pirating sites⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Private Trackers are the way forward.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨If My Wife Becomes an Elementary School Student. Key Visual⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Anakin: In this anime the wife regresses to an elementary school kid.

  Padme: Because it’s wholesome, right?

  Anakin: …

  Padme: Because it’s wholesome, right?!?!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Aaaaah⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Used to get these like crazy. It can be from certain physical activities, poor diet, dehydration etc. My advice would be drink plenty of water, eat Potassium rich foods (bananas, sweet potatoes) and consider magnesium, either by oral suplement or topical (Epsom salts in bath or a product like theraworx directly applied to calf muscles).

  My leg cramps completely stopped after I started using the topical magnesium stuff applied every few days.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No one’s ready for this: Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to go up in smoke.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Lots of obviously fake tipoffs in this one. The overall scrawny bitch aesthetic, the fact she is wearing a club/bar wrist band, the bottle of Mom Party Select™ wine, and the persons thumb/knee in the frame… All those details are initially plausible until you see the shitty AI artifacts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube is Losing The War Against Adblockers⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think they should have included “ad free YouTube” as a perk for their YouTube TV service, which I had for a short while. Instead they wanted you to pay an extra subscription cost for YouTube Premium to get rid of ads.

  The dark pattern game they play with the “skip” options and the increasing amount and random placement of ads is really offputting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube is Losing The War Against Adblockers⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  On the one hand I understand they aren’t serving billions of hours of video for their own health. Not sure how one can justify the expenditure as a “loss leader”. But at the same time, the ad experience is horrendous.

  In the last month I have consumed YT on desktop browser, mobile, and regular TV. Guess which is by far the worst experience?

  On desktop, you can use an alternate browser or do a reg edit to re-enable manifest v2 plugins (for now) in Chrome, and continue blocking (for now). On mobile you can use alternate apps and frontends.

  TV viewing of YT is the worst experience, as there are no native alternative apps and DNS ad blocking doesn’t block YT ads. The native YouTube app (on Samsung and LG TVs at least) is horrendous. You get midroll ads sometimes mid-sentence as the content presenter is speaking. Sometimes you get pre-roll ads, disruptive mid roll ads, and then wash it down with a POST-roll ad at the end of the video. Depending on how the content is structured it is disorienting as to whether the video has ended or not.

  Say for example its a 30 minute video. I would rather they show 5-7 minutes of predictable ads at the beginning of content, so I can at least have the same experience as broadcast TV, and make an informed decision to get up and use the restroom and feed the pets while the ads roll. Then once the content starts, don’t randomly interrupt it.

  Imagine the YT model applied to broadcast television. The quarterback drops back to throw a deep pass towards the endzone, and suddenly you find yourself watching an undskippable ad for diarrhea medication, while the football is in the air.

  And we wonder why people have ADD.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Was Elvis Presley a pedo?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Wait til you read about Gandhis sleeping habits in his old age.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Gemini is replacing Google Assistant on Pixel phones, and it’s a train wreck⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  laughs in Graphene OS

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨N64 Platformer 'Glover' Returns As A Physical Switch Release | Time Extension⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Probably because it was released just before OoT so it was an irrelevant title almost immediately.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Infamous $30 Logitech F710 called out in $50M lawsuit over Titan sub implosion⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Since the story came out people fixated on “lol he used a shitty gaming controller” but really that is one of the least sketchy design choices in the entire rig. Why reinvent the wheel and make a custom set of controls that are realistically another huge expense and potential failure point, when off the shelf solutions exist for that component?

  The corners that were cut are the ones involving the viewport/nose adhesion to the ships frame, and the structural integrity of the carbon fiber hull itself. They had test data suggesting it was a bad idea to engage in repeated dives with their design, and an even worse idea to operate at the depths they chose. They decided to ignore that.