Nollij
@Nollij@sopuli.xyz
- Comment on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sues Meta, citing chatbot’s reply as evidence of shadowban 1 month ago:
I agree, the statement earlier was another example. RFK is a terrible choice for many reasons (the worms thing is almost certainly bullshit though). But everyone has some good qualities you can focus on if you want to promote them. Similarly, everyone has bad qualities if that’s your M.O.
- Comment on Here's How to Declutter Your Google Search Results (And Make It Your Default) 1 month ago:
It’s not so much that Google is declining, but the entire Internet. Google just hasn’t figured out how to route around the damage.
Try adding “before:2023” to your searches to see what I mean.
- Comment on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sues Meta, citing chatbot’s reply as evidence of shadowban 1 month ago:
“Let’s imagine: It’s time to elect a world leader, and your vote counts. Which would you choose:
“Candidate A: Associates with ward healers and consults with astrologists; has had two mistresses; chain-smokes and drinks eight to ten martinis a day.
“Candidate B: Was kicked out of office twice; sleeps until noon; used opium in college; drinks a quart of brandy every evening.
“Candidate C: Is a decorated war hero, a vegetarian, doesn’t smoke, drinks an occasional beer, and has had no illicit love affairs.
“Which of these candidates is your choice? You don’t really need any more information, do you? Candidate A is Franklin Roosevelt. Candidate B is Winston Churchill. Candidate C is Adolf Hitler.”
Biased and selective comparisons can prove anything.
- Comment on Chemicals in car interiors may cause cancer — and they’re required by US law: 1 month ago:
Adding to this, unless you did the importing yourself, it’s still subject to the exact same regulations. Under the law, Hondas are domestic (made in Ohio). Lexuses (made in Japan) are imported, but have to meet all of the same requirements to be sold en masse. This includes federal (including safety standards) and state (most famously, California fuel efficiency requirements).
- Comment on Rooftop solar panels are flooding California’s grid. That’s a problem. As electricity prices go negative, the Golden State is struggling to offload a glut of solar power 2 months ago:
“Batteries” don’t need to be what we commonly think of as storing electricity. They can very much be a different way of storing energy instead. For instance, pumping water up to a tower (or upstream), or splitting water into hydrogen + oxygen (for consumption/combustion later)
- Comment on How does South Park get away with trashing identifiable people? Are they sued often? 2 months ago:
It’s a very fine line they would have to walk. It must be believable to the average person that the claims are true. It must not actually be true. It must be done with (the appearance of) malice. It must not be done as a criticism/satire of the target and their actions.
And on top of that, their publicist/PR must think a lawsuit will get them more than they lose. Once it’s aired, it is out there forever. It could then be the one that everyone seeks out and shares with friends, as “the one that Tom Cruise sued to get rid of”. This is known as “The Streisand Effect”.
- Comment on How does South Park get away with trashing identifiable people? Are they sued often? 2 months ago:
In Penn & Teller: Bullshit, they did something similar. They pointed out very early they would be more vulgar than most people expect. This is because words like fraud, quack, scammer, etc were specific allegations that could land them in court. But words like asshole were not, and were much safer.
- Comment on In the show *South Park*, Stan/Kyle roughly represent the ideals the writers see themselves as striving for, while Cartman is who they subconsciously want to be 3 months ago:
I think we found the guy that secretly wants to be Cartman
- Comment on Looking to build my first PC in almost 30 years; What should I be on the look out for? 4 months ago:
I think you mean LGA (Land Grid Array), meaning the pins are on the motherboard. Ball Grid Array (BGA) is used for embedded, non-removable CPUs.
- Comment on Looking to build my first PC in almost 30 years; What should I be on the look out for? 4 months ago:
The only thing I’ll add is that RAID is redundancy. Its purpose is to prevent downtime, not data loss.
If you aren’t concerned with downtime, RAID is the wrong solution.
- Comment on AI hiring tools may be filtering out the best job applicants 4 months ago:
What legal reason(s) do you have for needing to see their appearance when making a decision on whether to hire them? You may have some, such as requiring a professional appearance. These need to be spelled out in the job requirements. It also opens the doors to claims of illegal discrimination, since this will be on full display. In the US, that includes race, age, and gender. Having a required video can also reveal protected classes like familial status and religion, depending on what’s in the background.
Whether an action is “Legal” is almost always dependent on context, and the lawyers/courts involved. A common tactic by racist nightclubs is to set a dress code, particularly on shoes. The argument is they aren’t refusing entry based on race, but on clothing. But the unauthorized shoes are the ones commonly worn by people of the race they’re discriminating against. Different courts have made different rulings on whether this (and similar actions) constitute racial discrimination.
- Comment on AI hiring tools may be filtering out the best job applicants 4 months ago:
I suppose it depends on how you define by mistake. Your example is an odd bit of narrowing the dataset, which I would certainly describe as an unintended error in the design. But the original is more pertinent- it wasn’t intended to be sexist (etc). But since it was designed to mimic us, it also copied our bad decisions.
- Comment on Why don't we have one timezone covering the whole earth? 4 months ago:
Which is easier- looking up what time it is in Munich, or looking up what part of the day it is and the hours typically kept by people in Munich? What if you need to schedule a call with your business partners?
- Comment on Is HTTPS a scam? 4 months ago:
Not THE issuer. AN issuer. All of your devices have a number of trusted top-level issuers (Root certification authorities). Windows has about 50 preloaded, and this list largely matches what you’ll find on Android, Mac, etc. Everyone’s been mentioning Let’s Encrypt, which descends from ISRG Root X1. But you can (relatively) easily get certs from Thawte, Verisign, and many others.
And if none of those are to your liking, you can install your own. Seriously, there’s nothing technical stopping you. Most corporate devices (Windows, Mac, Linux; Android or iOS; mobile, client, server) have the company’s root certs installed. The challenge for public trust is exactly that- Trust. You must operate in a way that is generally trustworthy.
Let’s Encrypt was actually pretty revolutionary. You aren’t entirely off base with your concern. Prior to that, getting a cert that was trusted by most devices was non-trivial, and came with an expense. But that wasn’t because of the desire for encryption. Rather, it was about verifying that you were who you said you were. These also served as proof of identity.
- Comment on If we can use hydrogen to power electric motors, why can’t we use water to run a car? 4 months ago:
You don’t create power; you convert it and harness it. In an ICE, you convert chemical energy (gas or similar) into kinetic energy (explosion, turning a crankshaft, and rotating the wheels. Plus some of it going into the alternator) and heat, with a considerable amount still left as unused chemical energy (largely in the form of exhaust/soot)
If you separate parts of the process (such as splitting water into hydrogen) the pieces you are looking at (burning hydrogen as fuel) could be very useful. You’re still converting chemical energy into kinetic energy and heat, and that may (or may not) be a better system than carrying around an electric battery with that same amount of energy.
There is simply no way to start with water, perform a series of self-contained chemical reactions ending back with water, and having more energy than you started with.
- Comment on If we can use hydrogen to power electric motors, why can’t we use water to run a car? 4 months ago:
That would be a perpetual motion machine, and violate the first law of thermodynamics.
The amount of energy you get by burning hydrogen (creating water) is exactly the same as you spent to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
- Comment on What is easiest solution to automatically resolve missing mounts due to e.g. a power outage? 4 months ago:
The absolute easiest and simplest would be to modify your grub config to have a longer timer on the boot menu, effectively delaying them until the NAS is up.
That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the best option- there are ways to make the actual boot process wait for mounts, or to stagger the WOL signals, or the solutions others have mentioned. But changing grub is quick and easy.
- Comment on Anybody here running AD on-prem in your homelab? 4 months ago:
You’re overlooking a very common reason that people setup a homelab - practice for their careers. Many colleges offer a more legitimate setup for the same purpose, and a similar design. But if you’re choosing to learn AD from a free/cheap book instead of a multi-thousand dollar course, you still need a lab to absorb the information and really understand it.
Granted, AD is of limited value to learn these days, but it’s still a backbone for countless other tools that are highly relevant.
- Comment on ‘Zombie Offices’ Spell Trouble for Some Banks - The New York Times 4 months ago:
Yes, that’s one possibility. But if your goal is to create a multi-unit residential housing building, you would probably choose a location that doesn’t already have a giant office building in the way.
- Comment on ‘Zombie Offices’ Spell Trouble for Some Banks - The New York Times 4 months ago:
Fwiw, turning most of these buildings into livable spaces is a lot harder and more expensive than you’d expect. For many of them, it would actually be cheaper to just raze it and create a new residential building, even if it maintains the same outer dimensions.
- Comment on Bluesky, a trendy rival to X, finally opens to the public 4 months ago:
It’s weird that this post called it by the short name. The full name, as you typically see in articles, is “X (formerly Twitter)”.
It’s kinda like “The Artist Formerly Known As Prince”. A few places tried to call him “The Artist”, but no one ever knew what that meant.
- Comment on A round of applause for Mike Drucker. 4 months ago:
I actually have never heard this before. Do you have more info? All I could find were claims that her songs infringed someone else’s copyright (and thus, shouldn’t be performed unless royalties are paid) or that she didn’t have performance rights (which again, means they shouldn’t be performed)
- Comment on A round of applause for Mike Drucker. 4 months ago:
It’s supposed to be, though. A SCOTUS ruling like that is supposed to be, and traditionally has been, a confirmation that the laws (all things considered) already say it. You don’t need a new law, the interpreter/referee says the current laws already cover it.
The problems right now are a corrupt judiciary, and a government that does not represent nor even resemble the populace.
- Comment on text don't call 4 months ago:
That last part sounds like how Disney World deals with lost kids- You’re not lost, you’re right here. It’s your parents that are lost.
- Comment on Ticketek ‘glitch’ appears to re-sell fan’s $659 ticket for Taylor Swift concert — “They said, ‘someone else has it, we don’t know who, we can’t check or track who has your ticket’” 4 months ago:
Not sure where you live, but any big city is likely to have (as a whole) more than enough hotel capacity that a single big event won’t cause that much demand. You just won’t be able to find a room nearby. Add a 20 minute (or 60, depending) Lyft to the suburbs and they’re barely aware that the event is happening.
Also, to get that price you need to look at extended stay hotels. These blur the lines between a hotel and a short-term rental apartment. They do not offer a stay for a single night. They are often sold by the week, or at least with a 1-week minimum
- Comment on Ticketek ‘glitch’ appears to re-sell fan’s $659 ticket for Taylor Swift concert — “They said, ‘someone else has it, we don’t know who, we can’t check or track who has your ticket’” 4 months ago:
How do you define gouging? Last I checked, even with these high ticket prices, most of her shows are sold out. How does that differ from basic supply and demand?
- Comment on Ticketek ‘glitch’ appears to re-sell fan’s $659 ticket for Taylor Swift concert — “They said, ‘someone else has it, we don’t know who, we can’t check or track who has your ticket’” 4 months ago:
That’s not so unreasonable. An extended stay hotel near me is $539/week, and that was just the first result. That leaves $120 for food, or $17/day. While it won’t be living the high life, it can be done.
- Comment on Ex-CIA computer engineer gets 40 years in prison for giving spy agency hacking secrets to WikiLeaks 4 months ago:
To prove the charges. There have been enough cases of “she looks too young to be 18” where they were, in fact, 18. This database (which I thought was actually run by the FBI, but whatever) let’s them show that the images were of Jane Roe, born May 5 1996, and the images/material were produced between 2008-2010.
IOW, to provide proof beyond a reasonable doubt that they were underage.
- Comment on How does ripping a CD/DVD work exactly? Is it similar to copying or does it leave the CD/DVD unusable? 5 months ago:
If you look at the layers, the shiny side (bottom) of a CD is a thick layer of plastic. The data is actually on the other side of that plastic, protected by a thin sheet of aluminum foil and lacquer on top. Even a deep scratch on the bottom is unlikely to reach the data, so resurfacing should be very effective.
However, a deep scratch on the top can easily puncture the metallic layer and damage the actual data.
DVDs and Blu-ray have extra layers and are a bit more complicated, but it’s a similar design
- Comment on Reddit seeks to launch IPO in March 5 months ago:
There’s always some value to vultures (and vulture capital) that want to pick over the pieces. It might even still have meaningful value as an ongoing social media platform. But the expected IPO value has dropped heavily in the past few years, and is likely to keep dropping. This really isn’t because of anything at Reddit, but of the financial markets in general.
The big question is how will investors feel about the potential for returns, i.e. revenues. I expect to see (well, read about) a whole lot of enshittification over there. Much more data mining, ads, freemium features, etc.