unmagical
@unmagical@lemmy.ml
- Comment on Yeah 3 days ago:
Naw, text layers in a .xcf is where it’s at.
- Comment on Developer survey shows trust in AI coding tools is falling as usage rises 3 days ago:
I mean “ought to be useful,” sure that would be nice. They ain’t, but perhaps “ought to be.”
- Comment on [deleted] 4 days ago:
My family always told me that I’d grow more conservative and want a family of my own as I grow older.
As I aged I went from ambivalence toward politics and kids to decidedly anti-conservative and anti-kid.
You know your own feelings on the matter more than your family does, and letting your family dictate how you live your life will lead to resentment and misery.
- Comment on Pharmacies shouldn’t give pill bottles 6 days ago:
Relying on a small child to stay on the ground in order to not accidentally kill themselves is a great way to end up with a dead kid.
Furniture should be anchored to a wall, guns locked in safes with the safety enabled and ammo removed, drugs in child resistant packaging locked in a cabinet, drawers and cabinets secured, etc.
Kids climb stuff, get into things, find things they shouldn’t, AND they emulate what they see their parents do. Putting something out of reach is nowhere near secure enough.
- Comment on Pharmacies shouldn’t give pill bottles 6 days ago:
Guns should also be left in the open for children to play with since we’re on the topic of easy things we can change to threaten the life of those that may not know better yet!
- Comment on Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals 1 week ago:
WiFi uses a subset of the significantly wider microwave band. Ground Penetrating Radar also uses a subset of the microwave band. While there can be some overlap, the frequencies desired for GPR will very broadly based on what you are looking for, what you are looking in, and how deep you are looking for that thing. The wattage supplied can also differ.
WiFi and Microwaves in general are most definitely not the same thing and I will absolutely encourage you to not set up a 1kW 3GHz jamming antenna for your WiFi needs.
Could you use WiFi for search and rescue? Maybe for a narrow set of circumstances, but in almost all situations a dedicated GPR option will be better.
This also won’t identify a victim, only revealing that one exists.
- Comment on Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals 1 week ago:
Microwave based ground penetrating radar is actually different from WiFi. Also the technology referenced in the link is a motion based body locator, not an identity recognition device.
This is different technology doing different things than what the original article was talking about.
- Comment on Cloudflare gets involved in the battle against piracy, blocking streaming websites in the UK — and VPNs won't help 1 week ago:
VPNs will help. The article is only talking about VPN servers based in a location with a geo ban, which, duh. But if you actually use your VPN to be in a different country and not just a different city it’ll work fine.
- Comment on Echelon kills smart home gym equipment offline capabilities with update 1 week ago:
It’s no longer the product you bought, eh? Seems like everyone who owns one should be doing whatever they can to get their money back.
- Comment on Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals 1 week ago:
Why do you need to identify specific cats over merely the presence of movement or cats in general?
- Comment on Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals 1 week ago:
If all you need is presence detection then a motion sensor would be vastly more efficient.
If you actually need identity detection, then maybe, but you’ll still have to have a camera or detailed access logs to associate the interference signature with a known entity and at that point you may as well just put an RFID reader under the bowl you throw your keys into or use facial or gait detection.
- Comment on Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals 1 week ago:
Probably not.
This kind of thing relies on the fact that the emitter and environments are static, impacting the propagation of the signals in a predictable way and that each person, having a unique physique, consistently interferes with that propagation in the same way. It’s a tool that reports “the interference in this room looks like the same interference observed in these past cases.”
Search and rescue is a very dynamic environment, with no opportunity to establish a local baseline, and with a high likelihood that the physiological signal you are looking for has been altered (such as by broken or severed limbs).
There are some other WiFi sniffing technologies that might be more useful for S&R such as movement detection, but I’m not sure if that will work as well when the broadcaster is outside the environment (as the more rubble between the emitter and the target the weaker your signal from reflections against the rubble).
Don’t think of this as being able to see through walls like with a futuristic camera, think of this as AI assisted anomaly detection in signal processing (which is exactly what the researchers are doing).
- Comment on Humans can be tracked with unique 'fingerprint' based on how their bodies block Wi-Fi signals 1 week ago:
I’m generally pro research, but occasionally I come across a body of research and wish I could just shut down what they’re doing and rewind the clock to before that started.
There is no benefit of this for the common person. There is no end user need or product for being able to identify individuals based on their interactions with WiFi signals. The only people that benefit from this are large corporations and governments and that’s from them turning it on you.
Continued research will ease widespread surveillance and mass tracking. That’s not a good thing.
- Comment on What sort of grill needs a firmware update lol 3 weeks ago:
What are the chances they shipped it on Thanksgiving vs Thanksgiving being the first time in a while the user turned it on?
- Comment on Tabletop Club - A board game simulator 5 weeks ago:
I’ve used it to play Doomlings with some friends across the country. Pretty straightforward to set up custom cards and layouts. The UI is sparse, but has what you need.
As a virtual environment it’s unobtrusive and allows the actual game you’re trying to pay to be front of mind.
As a piece of interactive media there are some times that it lags or the physics is a bit clunky.
I’ve not used the proprietary competitors, so my comparison is just with playing the game in person. It’s free though so worth just trying it out.
- Comment on Front Brake Lights Could Drastically Diminish Road Accident Rates 1 month ago:
The hazards also override your blinkers so I now have no idea when you are going to attempt lane change.
- Comment on Could You Prove You’re a US Citizen? 1 month ago:
And when ICE says your passport or birth certificate is fake and they confiscate it?
- Comment on If Christians were real, they’d be lining up to post for their sins (not trying to avoid judgement). 2 months ago:
Do you not believe that Christians exist?
- Comment on VPN firm says it didn’t know customers had lifetime subscriptions, cancels them 2 months ago:
To continue providing a secure and high-quality experience for all users, Lifetime Deal accounts have now been deactivated as of April 28th, 2025.
- Comment on don’t call me a damn bad person for saying my side of things. 2 months ago:
I’m not calling you a bad person for saying your side of things, I’m calling you a bad person cause you are one.
- Comment on You can now submit your claims for Apple’s $95 million Siri spying settlement 2 months ago:
So if someone else’s device spied on me they can get money, but I cannot? Wonderful.
- Comment on Chinese robots ran against humans in the world’s first humanoid half-marathon. They lost by a mile 3 months ago:
Thank goodness John Henry has taught us Americans that machines will never beat humans, so we obviously know how this will end. /s
- Comment on Do you use your blinker in a car? 3 months ago:
If you habitually use it on simple or clear turns or empty roads you will habitually use it when there are people around. That’s a good habit to have.
Lights on always and signal whenever you’re deviating from your current lane.
- Comment on Madison Square Garden’s surveillance system banned this fan over his T-shirt design. And he didn’t even wear it to the venue. 4 months ago:
These the same guy’s that let the Nazis have a rally?
But a shirt that says “Ban Dolan” is “offensive in nature” and makes “threats against an MSG executive?”
- Comment on [deleted] 5 months ago:
Nazi salutes and internment camps sure are a good place to start!
Then there’s selling shirts with swastikas on them and talking about poisoning the blood of our people.
Beyond that there are a lot of scary similarities like book bans, transphobia, and attempts to overthrow the government.
Oh and of course, rubbing shoulders with Nazis and not bothering to criticise them!
- Comment on Liberal women 'least happy and loneliest', according to new survey 5 months ago:
People aware of how fucked the world is and how much they are looked down upon don’t like it.
- Comment on No wonder they lost so bad in November 5 months ago:
Meanwhile the other guy had already attempted to ignore the will of the people and install himself as president and told people that if they voted for him they would never have to vote again.
- Comment on Israel Is Blocking 11 American Doctors and Nurses From Leaving Gaza 6 months ago:
It’s totally not an occupation though.
- Comment on Trumo Hatred 6 months ago:
Dude has been breaking all sorts of laws his entire life. Including during his first administration. His policies consistently hurt the majority of his constituents for the sole benefit of himself and his cronies. His behavior and rhetoric have made America even more of a laughing stock on the world stage and his campaign promises have near single handedly strengthened America’s “enemies” and pushed away our “friends.”
Trump did 3 good things in 4 years of office:
- Legalized Hemp
- Banned bump stocks (overturned by the judges he appointed)
- Expedited the covid vaccine production (botched everything else about the pandemic response including vaccine distribution)
Trump has flirted with a presidential run in 1988, 2000, 2012, 2016, 2020, and 2024 under the Republican, Reform, and Democratic party tickets. It was only the republican party that he found bolstered enough support for him to win. He left the Reform party for the Democrats after involvement from David Duke. But later refused to disavow a direct endorsement from David Duke.
What does that tell you about Trump?
It tells me that he shops around looking out only for ways to bolster himself, his wealth, and his power. He doesn’t have a consistent moral and he doesn’t stand for America. He stands for Trump. His next administration is the wealthiest in history and his announced policies will siphon more money from the working class to him and his oligarchs.
He’s talked about invading our closest allies which has led directly to an increase in military recruitment not to fight our common enemies but to fight us directly.
He’s talked about blanket tariffs on all foreign goods. These tariffs will be paid by the American public. This will encourage American companies to raise the price of their own goods to: 1) recover the extra cost of imported materials, 2) close the price gap between their own goods and the now more expensive foreign goods. This will also encourage foreign governments to establish retaliatory tariffs on American exports which will also lead to American companies raising prices to make up for lost sales. This won’t just affect things like toys or electronics. American food is imported, lumber for home construction is imported, oil for gasoline is imported, electricity is imported. Literally everything in America will cost more if his tariffs go into effect.
I can afford that–can you?
Trump found a group of people that will blindly follow him and he manipulated and lied to them to convince them to give him power once again–even after getting our spies killed, leaking our nuclear and security secrets to our enemies, attempting a self coup to remain in power, and botching the plan to leave Afghanistan.
Trump supporters are not necessarily stupid people and I don’t think someone is necessarily stupid for supporting him, but they haven’t taken the time to look into and understand the effects of his claims, they were lied to, used, and led astray by a populist strongman who doesn’t care about them and who will actively work to better himself at their expense.
- Comment on The Browser Choice Alliance - an Alliance to allow Windows users to choose there browser 7 months ago:
