Blemgo

@Blemgo@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What do far-left Christian liberationists feel about Catholics?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, antitheists, a subgroup of atheism, are exactly that: people who are very vocal about their disdain regarding religion. And sadly often the vocal minority is seen as the majority.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someone Forked Systemd to Strip Out Its Age Verification Support⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think that systemd is really bending the knee too hard on this one. Actually, I think this move is actually a great way to render any sort of age verification, when using systemd, inert. Because, let’s think about it: it’s an optional field, in a JSON file that NEEDS to be editable at all times. If a distro decides to implement any serious age verification, it will have to store the data, namely the date of birth, somewhere. The /home folder would be wrong, as the user could edit that at all times. The userdb on the other hand can be restricted, meaning that the user can only edit it with user privileges. So if a government questions the seriousness of this verification method, distros can just claim that it is the administrative duty of the parent to prevent their children accessing things they shouldn’t, and that the Linux kernel itself provides the proper tool to do it without constant supervision. Yet systemd cannot enforce any stricter rules because service users, especially root, are not real people and thus cannot have any age verification. The only solution would be to tie these accounts to a person. This would cause an outrage at companies, considering that this role would most likely be the CEO or CIO, and if that device is stolen their identity could be linked to a crime, and I doubt any police station would bother trying to retrieve that laptop.

  So this change will most likely be the maximum systemd can do without breaking distros for corporations, while at the same time allow classic Linux users, who most likely give themselves admin rights, a way to render any verification null and void by editing this optional field on their own.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someone Forked Systemd to Strip Out Its Age Verification Support⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, the introduction of the date of birth field is obviously done to make it easy for distros to comply with age verification by simply saving the birth date and nothing else.

  As for the other fields: what use would it have to have such info at OS level? What application would use these fields and how? I mean, some fields, like the ‘location’ one, already are pretty useless, as, for example, the ‘location’ field doesn’t seem to bhave any firm consensus on how it should be formatted. Even the documentation lists both “Berlin, Germany” as well as “Basement, Room 3a” as valid values.

  So I doubt not introducing such fields has any sort of political agenda to it, but just raises the question on why such fields would be useful to begin with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someone Forked Systemd to Strip Out Its Age Verification Support⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  That is a valid point. Of course it still would be rather anonymised, but it could always be a ‘frog in the pot’ type situation, where most drastic changes are introduced very slowly. My main concern at the end of the day is how much info will be required to be given to services and how much data will be actually stored. If it’s anonymised, then I don’t see much of a threat. If a service requires me to fully identify for an age check, that’s an entirely different thing, especially considering the last of Discord’s data leaks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Someone Forked Systemd to Strip Out Its Age Verification Support⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I find that move extremely funny, since it’s purely made for sensationalism and nothing else. I mean, if you hate how systems implemented age verification, then why don’t you remove its identity verification too, i.e. also optional fields for stuff like your address an e-mail that most users don’t even fill out.

  There is no mechanism verifying what birth date you type in - you can type whatever date you want and systems doesn’t care.

  I’d say no matter where you stand with age verification, this is the best solution to handle the situation. After all, any and all age checks we have nowadays are a black box anyways. There is no real knowing how other systems are checking ages, and there is AFAIK no real government mandated rules on how it is verified. They could make you scan your ID’s front, back, nuclear composition and dietary preferences and give you a result that is almost, but not quite, entirely unlike a proper age verification procedure.

  If the government wants to introduce age verification, they have to do it themselves - build an API that handles the age verification, similar to how the digital ID in Germany works, as an example. If they want proper age verification, they also have to take the blame themselves if things go wrong.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are flat earthers so badly harassed and ridiculed by globers?⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I know that this is most likely bait, but it’s fun to address this topic.

  The problem is the base of the arguments. Often flat earth theories disregard theories we see as proven, based on empirical evidence, and form their own theories, which have flaws that people “globers” see as authorities in the field (e.g. scientists, scholars) can point out in a reasonable manner. However, these flaws are often disregarded due to paranoia, claiming these people are also part of the conspiracy, or are brainwashed by it.

  This leads to a disjointed thinking process. One side cannot think like the other due to different bases in logic, so any classic arguments are fruitless to convince the other. Hostility ensues due to frustration.

  It’s similar to people who suffer from psychosis. There is no point in arguing traditionally, and the only way to help them is through processes like the LEAP method, in order to help them connect to a more grounded reality, if that is even possible.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The world’s first transatlantic fiber-optic cable is being dismantled after almost 40 years⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Huh, TIL. I guess the image is just clickbait then.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The world’s first transatlantic fiber-optic cable is being dismantled after almost 40 years⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The only thing that comes to mind is that undersea cables are often under attack by sharks.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I have to disagree with that. Most positions in factory jobs exist because human labour is very cheap, especially in terms of flexibility. I doubt there are many positions where a robot with a less humanoid shape wouldn’t do a better job than a human or a humanoid robot. It’s just often cheaper to employ these workers because you pay them a salary, either on a hourly basis or on a monthly one, yet don’t have to worry about maintenance. With robots you have less hourly costs, but a much bigger overhead, as you now have to hire qualified technicians to perform regular maintenance on those machines, and also semi-regularly order replacement parts. These costs will rise alongside the complexity of these robots. And humanoid robots are much, much more complex than industrial robots, especially as they need to incorporate a lot more sensors that most industrial robots just won’t need. Sensors that might be very sensitive or require regular calibrations to ensure they work properly. That doesn’t come cheap.

  Even when we look over the costs, humans will always be more versatile than robots. Give a person a book on how to do a job and they will perform it with the help of the books, and develop their working style to even work more efficiently. In contrast, robots would need a much more thorough training in order to work properly. This could be done traditionally by hardcoding the logic, or by using neural networks, which would be more intuitive, but are prone to create undesired results if one doesn’t have a good eye for the involved factors. And this process would need to be repeated for each job, and again if jobs would be fused together. And of course one would have to adhere for hardware limitations. A processor can only work so fast, and there are limitations on storage space, data transfer speed and reliability that also come to play when it comes to saving the training data.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Then what niche will they fulfill? What work requires a humanoid form?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Android will become a locked-down platform in 194 day⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m sceptical with Windows, considering that most programs are installed via EXE files, so the outcry will be huge. But I’m not saying it can’t be a possibility.

  With Ubuntu there would only be a chance of it happening if they also make their distro immutable. That way the user could not as easily install packages the traditional way. But even then there might be ways to disable this immutable mode for troubleshooting. However, this, in my opinion, would cause a mass exodus as Canonical does not have the same advantage as Microsoft or Google have: Windows and android are, to an extent, closed off ecosystems. Thus switching to another system is very hard, as not every software is available on every other system, so potentially subpar alternatives and comparability layers, whose functionality mostly depends on whether the company behind the original system is actively fighting against these tools or not. Ubuntu on the other hand, is a Linux distro, so you cab make it like Theseus and recreate this distro more or less with the sum of its parts, if need be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  If a factory can afford robots, they already have acquired it. Industrial robots excel at their work already due to them being extremely precise already. If you need transportation robots, there are already ones that euter run on embedded rails or are already fully self-driving using wheels. Humanoid robots solve no issues that the industry hasn’t already solved. It would just be a robot that would be less stable compared to any other transportation robot nor as precise as stationed ones while also more complex, and thus easier to break down, with the only upside it being that it’s more of a generalist, but that is also sort of a moot point because a human could do it still cheaper.

  The real use case of humanoid robots is very niche, with it being in environment where classic robot models fails, that being an environment that cannot be modified for classic robot use (e.g. mountainous terrain) where flying is not a viable option. After all, the human body, and the bodies of quite a few animals, excel at climbing rough and steep terrain whereas most, if not all, currently commercially available robots fail at it, or at the very least do very poorly.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The TV industry finally concedes that the future may not be in 8K⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I wouldn’t say you’re too cynical with that view. I mean, the 2 German public broadcast channels (ARD, ZDF) are under constant fire for basically catering to an audience that is slowly dying out - both metaphorically and physically. Sure, some of these shows still have some popularity with younger generations, but that is few and far between. It’s pretty much the same idea that plagues big corporations - change is scary as it poses a risk, so they avoid it - even if they literally have nothing to lose.

  And I agree that the fractured streaming environment made it ever harder to license content. However, I don’t think they should focus on licensing content to begin with. Instead, offer more grants for independent studios to create publicly available movies and shows. I mean, as we speak, Glitch is funding multiple shows to be viewed for free on YouTube. Why can’t public broadcast channels do that more too?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The TV industry finally concedes that the future may not be in 8K⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  As an example of the system being reworked into a better one: Germany’s equivalent not only finances public broadcast channels, but also youtubers through the program FUNK. Granted, a lion’s share still goes into the old TV channels, but at least that includes the French/German channel Arte, which has some top notch content (though usually documentaries) that it regularly uploads onto YouTube.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Do you really need the entire installation? Would only the user folder(s) (C:\Users) suffice?

  Alternatively, you could install Linux mint on a large enough USB stick and run it off there, if you don’t mind the longer read/write times. You’d also need to change the boot order for it too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What would be your motivator to pay human artists? Why sign any?

  I mean, the internet has given artists a way to spread their works and profit off them without any major record labels. So what artists will lose by that are exploitative companies whose only benefit is that your music will be sold by major retailers as physical CDs or Downloads.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  They took the code of Scratch 3 and claim to have made some improvements on it to make it run faster alongside some other improvements (such as rising the maximum framerate to 60 from Scratch’s 30). However, there doesn’t seem to be any proof that this is the case, so it could perform exactly like Scratch 3 without any improvements.

  What is an actual bonus is that this software offers actual installation files, whereas normal Scratch 3 is only available through a browser and by downloading it from the App/Play/Windows store. It’s nice to be able to not use these storefronts because a) it means that you have a little more control over the software you use and b) you can use Scratch 3 offline on Linux as well with this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I just checked it out. Apparently it is a fork of Scratch and supposedly applies some optimisation to it, which I would take with a grain of salt without any benchmarks.

  I think the biggest advantage is the proper offline mode, as Scratch 3 doesn’t have classic installation files (and therefore no Mac and Linux installations).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Child sexual extortion cases in the UK soar: Charities warn threat of sexual extortion (or sextortion) against children ‘not diminishing’ as new data show sextortion cases soar 72% in a year.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Though this solution also seems to be very flawed, doesn’t it? You basically trust another company to manage your child’s smartphone and granting it full access to it. Furthermore, that doesn’t stop predators, as they could still arrange meetups with their unknowing victims. And even if it captures text messages, kids would be discouraged to use their phone due to their fear of their parents disproving of their friends or their communication to them. Instead, they’d more likely learn the use of “burner phones” by getting a factory-reset phone and using that one instead.

  It’s the sort of ham-fisted attempt expected by parents that blame their kids for their mistakes instead of their parenting.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Could you explain how it doesn’t undermine your argument?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google admits the open web is in ‘rapid decline’⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the term you are looking for is “Deep Net”, although it originally meant websites that weren’t indexed by web searches.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK households could face VPN 'ban' after use skyrockets following Online Safety Bill⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not only that, but they are crucial for network security. VPNs allow all network traffic (with a few necessary exceptions) to be routed through the company’s network and benefit from its security measures, mainly monitoring traffic for suspicious and malicious behaviour. Without it, finding compromised PCs is much harder and enforcing company policies regarding web use would be impossible outside the office.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨When tech hardware becomes paperweights⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  One company that I can recommend is Withings. They do have an companion app, but a lot of devices do work on their own, and when not, they work with Google Fit or HomeAssistant, though probably due to that fact the products are pricier.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨idk man⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah, wonderful Poulaines.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bitch shape attack⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, there are some theories of CWD causing Creutzfeldt-Jakob-Disease in unusually young patients and there are some concerns/doubts about the actual barrier believed to protect us, so that’s fun.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Prime Reasons to Avoid Amazon⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d argue most people just aren’t parasitic enough to willingly exploit both their sellers, workers and customers in the scale of how Amazon did and still does.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I require nothing more⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You should do that anyways. Bed frames exost for a reason: it helps to stop moisture building up on the underside of the mattress, and thus prevents mold.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What are the differences between 1) probabillities, 2) possibillities, and 3) plausabillities?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Possibilities are all possible outcomes of a certain scenario. With the example of a coin toss, it’s heads or tails. However, these are dependent on your definition of what you want to observe. For example, at a dice roll, you could define the possibilities as:

  • any number less than 5 is rolled
  • a 5 is rolled
  • a 6 is rolled

  ---

  Probabilities are attached to possibilities. They define how likely an outcome is. For example, in an ideal coin toss heads and tails have a probabilitiy of 0.5 (or 50%) each.

  With my 2nd example, the probabilities would be:

  • any number less than 5 is rolled: 4/6 (or 2/3 or 0.666… or 66.666…%)
  • a 5 is rolled (1/6 or 0.1666… or 16.666…%)
  • a 6 is rolled (1/6 or 0.1666… or 16.666…%)

  All probabilities must add up to 1.0 (or 100%), otherwise your possibilities overlap, which is generally not something you want.

  ---

  Plausibility is a bit more tricky, as it also depends on your definition, namely a cutoff point. You could see the cutoff point as a limit of how much you want to risk. I’ll only examine the example for the coin toss for that. Say you will toss a coin 100 times. This would mean there are 2^100^ possibilities, but we will examine only 2 for this matter:

  • you will get 100 times tails
  • you will get as many tails as heads

  Let’s say the cutoff point is 0.01, i.e. 1%. This would make the first possibility improbable, as 1/(2^100^) is far lower than 0.01. The second possibility is 0.5, which is greater than 0.01, and therefore probable.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Winner, winner, chicken dinner⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Sphinx cats are also notorious for skin conditions, making them high maintenance in terms of vet visits, sadly.

  But yeah, it would be cool to meet one in person.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Does using ChatGPT change your brain activity? Study sparks debate⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But do you also sometimes leave out AI for steps the AI often does for you, like the conceptualisation or the implementation? Would it be possible for you to do these steps as efficiently as before the use of AI? Would you be able to spot the mistakes the AI makes in these steps, even months or years along those lines?

  The main issue I have with AI being used in tasks is that it deprives you from using logic by applying it to real life scenarios, the thing we excel at. It would be better to use AI in the opposite direction you are currently use it as: develop methods to view the works critically. After all, if there is one thing a lot of people are bad at, it’s thorough critical thinking. We just suck at knowing of all edge cases and how we test for them.

  Let the AI come up with unit tests, let it be the one that questions your work, in order to get a better perspective on it.