captainastronaut
@captainastronaut@seattlelunarsociety.org
- Comment on What would stop you from switching to a flip phone (or dumbphone) in 2025? 1 day ago:
No way. Life is way better with smart phones. Tap to pay, maps, always having a camera, always having my notes, working as a mobile hotspot, controlling my home security system. 25 other things.
This stuff used to be so much harder. I’m not going back.
I will freely admit there are some dangerous addictive and invasive aspects to it also. I’m ruthless about what apps I will grant permissions to. And I don’t browse the App Store getting tempted by their promises.
I think the appeal of our phones not having to be a computer and not needing all the same rigor and paranoia and extra steps of a computer was really exciting. But it hasn’t turned out to be true. So now I treat it like a computer and approach everything with that level of skepticism. And also treat it like the gateway to capitalism that it is and I am skeptical of anything that’s trying to take my data or money. I think with the right attitude it’s a net positive device in my life
- Comment on Best Fediverse platforms to do it all right this time 5 days ago:
Yeah same, I mostly just check the inbox for fun things my friends have sent. I’m not ready to give that part up yet
- Comment on Today marks the beginning of His Majesty's fourth year on the throne. May His Majesty have many many more! God save the King! 1 week ago:
Warm? That’s not an adjective that has ever been attached to Charles.
- Comment on Best Fediverse platforms to do it all right this time 1 week ago:
Pixelfed is good and has some great artists and photographers already there. The mobile app was pretty rough a few months ago but it’s getting better quickly.
- Comment on Yes, you can store data on a bird — enthusiast converts PNG to bird-shaped waveform, teaches young starling to recall file at up to 2MB/s 2 weeks ago:
It’s cloud storage and terrestrial storage. And it’s multi cloud. It’s the ultimate cloud hybrid!
- Comment on Microsoft fires 2 employees after they broke into president's office 2 weeks ago:
That was a bad move. Sit outside instead and block the door where everyone can see you and you get press coverage. Breaking into his office just gives them a reason to lock you up.
It’s not even the rainy season in Seattle. It would’ve been a nice day to occupy the lawn.
- Comment on Our Channel Could Be Deleted - Gamers Nexus 3 weeks ago:
In a rising tide of enshittification we all have to find higher, cleaner ground. Standing on a hill that seems to be above the shit for awhile is an ok strategy even if that hill is owned by someone else and might sink into the shit eventually. It’s working for now and it’s better than being in the shit. Not everyone can build their own hill, at least not right away.
- Comment on Jimmy Wales Says Wikipedia Could Use AI. Editors Call It the 'Antithesis of Wikipedia' 3 weeks ago:
Because this is one of the rare times he sat down at the keyboard to do the real work being done by people in this organization and he realized that it’s hard and he wants a shortcut. He sees his time as more valuable and sees this task as wasting his time, but it is their primary task and one they do as volunteers because they are passionate about it. He’s not going to get a lot of traction with them telling them the thing they do for free because they love it isn’t worth anyone’s time.
- Comment on US pursuing stake in struggling chipmaker Intel, commerce secretary says 3 weeks ago:
Oh good. Let’s nationalize the chip manufacturing so the government can install hardware security back doors.
- Comment on OpenAI eyes world’s largest valuation for private company in stock sale talks 3 weeks ago:
Agreed I don’t get why anyone would invest in them right now. Five years ago you were joining a hype train, but how does anyone think their value is going to increase from today forward?
Their biggest appeal seems to be that their consumer product ChatGPT is a household name and has widespread consumer use. But consumer adoption of a phone app is a very fickle thing to stake a trillion dollars on.
- Comment on SpaceX says states should dump fiber plans, give all grant money to Starlink 3 weeks ago:
Not only do you have to deploy them in a constellation, you have to deploy them in a descending constellation. They are constantly burning up all the time and you have to keep launching new ones forever just to maintain current capacity. It’s the perfect business plan to make SpaceX look better on paper.
- Comment on Sam Altman admits OpenAI ‘totally screwed up’ its GPT-5 launch and says the company will spend trillions of dollars on data centers 3 weeks ago:
That someone is so attached to this stochastic parrot is truly disturbing.
- Comment on Get to know the robot dog that can clean your house and serve you soda 3 weeks ago:
If it’s Internet connected and requires a cloud subscription service, you are just paying to be spied on and controlled. This is as true for dogs as it is for speakers and TVs.
- Comment on AOL will stop offering dial-up internet service after more than 30 years in business 4 weeks ago:
DSL is distance-sensitive and only works within about 2-3 miles from a switch office. It also depends on line quality and the speeds degrade based on both factors. So old rural lines that haven’t been upgraded and are long hauls on single copper are basically doomed.
- Comment on OpenAI’s Sam Altman Expects To Spend ‘Trillions’ On Infrastructure 4 weeks ago:
“OpenAI’s Sam Altman Expects To Spend ‘Trillions’ On Boiling All Our Oceans And Poisoning The Skies”
FTFY
- Comment on Wikipedia loses challenge against UK Online Safety Act rules 4 weeks ago:
Agreed. I get that the mission of Wikipedia is to make information available to everyone and purposely cutting off a whole nation from their information goes against their mission. But sometimes Wikipedia should play hardball, and if the UK elected a government that wants to block Wikipedia then the people of the UK shouldn’t get Wikipedia. The people of the UK will need to elect a new government. Or get a VPN. Or both.
- Comment on Harry and Meghan sign new multi-year film and TV deal with Netflix 4 weeks ago:
“Spotify’s head of podcast innovation and development labelled the pair “grifters” on his own podcast after the Sussexes announced the end of the relationship.”
Sounds about right.
- Comment on Cat soap operas and babies trapped in space: the ‘AI slop’ taking over YouTube 4 weeks ago:
Wow yikes. I couldn’t even get through a few minutes of one of them. I assume the prompt was “generate the most annoying video possible using random clips of humanoid cats and a soundtrack that induces aneurysms”
- Comment on AOL will stop offering dial-up internet service after more than 30 years in business 4 weeks ago:
This is actually a problem for people in rural areas where broadband has not reached (and won’t because it’s not profitable). Cellular will be the best option they have left.
- Comment on Reddit will block the Internet Archive 4 weeks ago:
As long as the previous collections of archives are still intact. We probably don’t need all of their new spam posts in the wayback machine anyway
- Comment on TikTok to replace trust and safety team in Germany with AI and outsourced labor 5 weeks ago:
The “outsourced labor” is the most concerning part here. People who won’t have a voice and can’t protest the poor conditions
- Comment on Why isn't Mbin more popular? 1 month ago:
Lack of a cute animal mascot.
- Comment on Is there a good selfhosted service that can download and rehost tiktok links from a web ui? 1 month ago:
I would be the most concerned about the music. The MPAA exists solely to sue consumers and seems to have no other real purpose. Probably best to scrub the soundtracks.
- Comment on Project Dystopia: How a Little-Known Non-Profit Has New Orleans Considering Mass, Real-Time Facial Recognition Surveillance 1 month ago:
WTF is a “crime city” in your mind? It’s a low income city (avg $51k compared to US avg $79k). Does poor = criminal now?
- Comment on Meta touts 'superintelligence' for all as it splurges on AI 1 month ago:
To be fair, if everyone spent more time looking at cat memes instead of listening to billionaires talk about their big stupid ideas, we’d be in much better shape as a species.
- Comment on Google failed to warn 10 million of Turkey earthquake severity 1 month ago:
Is Google solely responsible for earthquake notifications? For a system they describe as a safety net it’s pretty concerning it’s being relied on so much.
- Comment on Twitter in EU and UK 1 month ago:
May it wither and die. I would post my ID on the bathroom wall at Heathrow before I would submit it to what remains of Twitter.
- Comment on This Tiny Radio Lets Me Send Texts Without Wi-Fi or Cell Service 1 month ago:
Very low and yes. They work great for IoT, as long as it’s not mission critical stuff as messages can get dropped or arrive out of order sometimes. But for something like monitoring a remote sensor station that’s within the Lora range, without needing a cellular plan, yes.
- Comment on Brave browser blocks Windows feature that takes screenshots of everything you do on your PC 1 month ago:
Thorium.
- Comment on Introducing Lumo, the AI where every conversation is confidential | Proton 1 month ago:
I like the logo. That cat looks appropriately suspicious.