balsoft

@balsoft@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The US in one image⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Russia did some pretty bad stuff in Ukraine (including some war crimes) but nowhere near the hell on earth unleashed by the US every few years. The civilian death toll in Ukraine war in 3 years is less than any single year of the Gaza genocide.

  China did overreact to uighur nationalist terror groups with unnecessary searches, arrests, and reeducation camps, but it’s not even closely comparable to the other two.

  US is by far the shittiest most evil country on this planet, and until you come to terms with this and internalize it, you’re (a small) part of the problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Historic Chat Control Vote in the EU Parliament: MEPs Vote to End Untargeted Mass Scanning of Private Chats⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  This is a really naive take - this amendment (which requires message scanning to be targeted) passed with a slim majority and could well have failed. In that case the existing mass surveillance (“voluntary scanning”) would probably keep happening at least until 2028.

  The council meanwhile is overwhelmingly pro-message-scanning, and they (together with the commission) are the ones who are pushing to break e2e encryption. There will now be talks between the three institutions to decide on how to proceed. Sadly I expect that some “compromise” will be reached eventually.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Western Imperialism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Poland and Lithuania became “the west” very recently; hence “most” in my claim.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Uber is letting women avoid male drivers and riders in the US⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I get your point, but if you actually go out and speak with women who trust you, chances are they will all have multiple stories of harassment and/or SA that will make your hair stand up. It’s not just fearmongering, there are a lot of awful men out there (in absolute terms)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Western Imperialism⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Most “western” countries have been acting like this in the past century and are still to this moment reaping the benefits from colonial and imperialist plunder of the global south. It’s not just the USA, even though it is the most damaging.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨I was told it would be a cultural experience⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, but not because they have fun gimmicks on gas stations

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨simpler times⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I think there were some (plenty?) of NFTs that were backed by IPFS.

  I think the fundamental problem with them is that the concept of “owning information” is ultimately absurd.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨President Donald Trump bans Anthropic from use in government systems⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Good, let the nutjobs fight

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twitch: "Hey, come back! This commercial break can't play while you're away."⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Fuck I though this was a satirical shitpost but it’s real. This seems like the last stop before that patent about yelling the company name to get back to your content…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trans people in Kansas are being ordered to surrender their drivers licenses⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The constitution prohibits “ex post facto” laws - how can you revoke someone’s documentation when they complied with the laws as they were at the time?

  I agree with you generally that this should be illegal, but it probably isn’t.

  It definitely isn’t ex post facto; this is not a law that punishes anyone from a legal perspective, it merely changes the requirements for a certain privilege (the ability to drive a vehicle). If it declared these licenses invalid before the date of the law (which could carry punishments for illegally operating vehicles), then it would be ex post facto.

  Another way to put it is that it simply makes a certain action illegal which was previously legal, and laws do that sort of thing all the time. Consider that in the US you didn’t need a driver’s license in order to drive at all until 1913. That NJ law also “revoked” someone’s privilege even though they complied with the laws previously, requiring them to get a permit that they didn’t need before. But, since it didn’t introduce any punishments for not having the permit before it was introduced, it wasn’t ex post facto.

  Of course the law is also clearly discriminatory, but US’s extremely limited anti-discrimination laws are likely not broad enough to be applied here.

  The current events should awaken many people to the sad fact that US laws and its entire legal system exists primarily to protect the wealthy and the powerful from everyone else; all other functions are secondary. As such, many horrible, immoral, and unjust things will be legal under US laws, and many others will be twisted into being legal by the supreme court.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon BUSTED for Widespread Scheme to Inflate Prices Across the Economy— Amazon, its vendors, and competing retailers are price fixing, hiking up prices for consumer products⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s not the fault of consumers, monopolization and price fixing are inevitable outcomes of capitalism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb': OpenClaw AI chose to 'speedrun' deleting Meta AI safety director's inbox due to a 'rookie error'⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, fully agreed. What dummies!

  – Sent from my ThinkPad

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'I had to RUN to my Mac mini like I was defusing a bomb': OpenClaw AI chose to 'speedrun' deleting Meta AI safety director's inbox due to a 'rookie error'⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It actually does this already sometimes, especially if you chat to it long enough. Not because it’s “smart”, but because it’s just emulating a writing style of a corporate middle manager.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨User accidentally gains control of over 6,700 robot vacuums while tinkering with their own device to enable control with a PlayStation controller⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  ‘Company deliberately has control of over 6,700 robot vacuums while selling them to unsuspecting general public’

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨"Being vegan is unnatural"⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  As another vegan: sorry, no, it’s not accurate. And the texture/meltiness is just completely off. It is similar enough for me to enjoy it and not want real cheese anymore. However, for many people (especially americans) cheese is some holy substance, so we do need to continue improving vegan cheeses for more people to jump.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This MF is quadrupling down and dropping Alien files before dropping the full, unredacted Epstein Files. GODDAMN.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It is not used correctly. The word UFO starts with a consonant in all major English dialects, as such the correct article is “a”, as in “a UFO”. See www.merriam-webster.com/grammar/is-it-a-or-an

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Hopefully, he will be 6 underground by that time.⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There was very very little to complain about with her.

  • Promising full military support to a settler colony currently committing a genocide using US weapons
  • Campaigning with fucking Cheneys and pandering to fascists
  • Not promising any actual support for trans people, stopping at "I will follow the law"
  • Not being actually voted on by anyone, instead just appointed by DNC
  • Most importantly: she’s a neolib, and the working class has been suffering materially due to neolib policies for the past 50 years, people want change

  There is a shitton to complain about her. I would’ve voted for her if I was in the US, but it’s crazy to just shove a status-quo establishment neoliberal and expect people who are surviving paycheck-to-paycheck due to that very ideology to be excited about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Western Digital runs out of HDD capacity: CEO says massive AI deals secured, price surges ahead⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Even if that happens (which is not a guarantee), it is no worse than status quo. Until then, unless you are an active threat to China, and are planning on visiting it, you don’t have to worry about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Western Digital runs out of HDD capacity: CEO says massive AI deals secured, price surges ahead⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Sooo, same as right now, but with way less possibility to be used against me? Sign me up!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Europe’s $24 Trillion Breakup With Visa and Mastercard Has Begun⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Ok, so this makes the most sense to me. This would indeed need to be handled, I think the best solution is for EU to come up with a set of dispute resolution procedures and pass it as a law for everyone to follow. That way, disputes would be resolved the same way regardless of what network or bank you are using, which sounds the most reasonable to me.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Europe’s $24 Trillion Breakup With Visa and Mastercard Has Begun⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Aha, interesting. I never had a credit card because it always felt like a very weird idea to me, but I think I get it a bit more now. Still weird that it’s visa/MC money and not your bank’s though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Europe’s $24 Trillion Breakup With Visa and Mastercard Has Begun⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Does Visa/Mastercard actually offer any protection themselves? When I’ve had to reverse debit card transactions due to fraud or otherwise, I always just called/reached out to my bank and they did it without getting Visa/MC involved. Since this system is pretty much SEPA in a trench coat, I’m pretty sure the same would work here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia might not have any new gaming GPUs in 2026 — and could be 'slashing production' of existing GeForce models⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Honestly it’s fine. LSPs are nice but you don’t need them per se. A combination of tmux, entr, a fast incremental compiler, grep, and proper documentation can get you a long way there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia might not have any new gaming GPUs in 2026 — and could be 'slashing production' of existing GeForce models⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s nicer to develop anything on a beefy machine, I was rocking a 7950X until recently. The compile times are a huge boon, and for some modern bloated bullshit (looking at you, Android) you definitely need a beefy machine to build it in a realistic timeframe.

  However, we can totally solve a lot of real-world problems with old cheap crappy hardware, we just never wanted to because it was “cheaper” for some poor soul in China to build a new PC every year than for a developer to spend an extra week thinking about efficiency. That appears to be changing now, especially if your code will be running on consumer hardware.

  My dad used to “write” software for basic aerodynamic modelling on punchcards, on a mainframe that has about us much computing power as some modern microcontrollers. You wouldn’t even consider it a potato by today’s standards. I’m sure if we have our wits about us, we can optimize our stacks to compile code on a friggin 3.5GHz 10-core CPU (which are 10 year old now).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nvidia might not have any new gaming GPUs in 2026 — and could be 'slashing production' of existing GeForce models⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You can write code just fine on 20 or even 30 year old hardware. Basically if it runs Linux, chances are it can also run vim and compile code. If you spring for 10 year old hardware, you can even get an LSP + coc or helix, for error highlighting and goto definition and code actions. And you definitely don’t need a GPU for it (unless you’re doing something GPU-specific of course).

  Editing 720p videos (which, if you encode with a high enough bitrate, still looks alright) can be done on 10-15 year old hardware.

  Research is where it gets complicated. It does indeed often require a lot of computing power to do modern computational research. But for some simpler stuff - especially outside STEM - you can sometimes get away with a LibreOffice spreadsheet on an old Dell or something.

  From the looks of it we will have to get used to doing more with less when it comes to computers. And TBH I’m all for it. I just hope that either my job won’t require compiling a lot more stuff, or they provide me with a modern machine at their expense.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨PSA⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s funny you should say that, if you look at the living standards & human development before and after, it’s pretty clear that the revolution was overall a really good thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Man posts his incorrect opinion online⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  UK is clearly “shoes on” on the map though, it’s marked is green.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, yeah, the dev environment was compromised but the author restored everything and checked that it all works.

  Personally I use Pipepipe and Outertube on my android phone, and just watch through a browser with adblock on my Linux phone. Although I don’t watch youtube too often, especially on my phone (maybe twice a month or so), I didn’t notice any issues with either of those methods, and never got any ads either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ad blocking is alive and well, despite Chrome's attempts to make it harder⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  BTW you can/should install an alternative YT frontend on smart TVs, if you want to watch YT and are forced to use a smart TV. Even something semi-suitable like Pipepipe will do, but there are also frontends more suited for TV use, e.g. SmartTube

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Rent is theft⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  It depends on what is meant by “ownership”.

  Personally I’m in favor of some modified version of the chinese system where almost everyone “owns” a home, but their children can’t inherit it. I think technically the state owns all the housing, and provides people with a cheap/free lifetime lease of some kind. There should also be a limit on how many properties a single person can own, and renting those places out should be banned.

  And then as a compliment there should also be some excess state-owned social housing. There are edge-cases where for one reason or another you can’t/don’t want to own.

  So yeah in general I think we need to abolish the concept of homeownership as it exists in the west.