Monument

@Monument@lemmy.sdf.org

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⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨WHO officials admit they are preparing for possible nuclear weapon use in Iran⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Do you think they are gonna gold leaf a trivia buzzer for that slobbering idiot to paw at while he continues to pretend he’s in a movie?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨xkcd #3221: Landscape Features⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Hey, no! You’re supposed to be so upset that I’m wrong that you do significant research for me for free!
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨xkcd #3221: Landscape Features⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
I’m posting this wild postulation in the hopes that someone corrects me.

Okay, so a billion years ago a volcanic plume tried to fuck up Michigan and failed, causing the Midcontinent rift system. Then it chilled out for awhile before getting squished by glaciers into going east and making the Adirondack mountains about 20 million years ago. Then it went west due to daylight savings time and made Yellowstone.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sam Altman Thanks Programmers for Their Effort, Says Their Time Is Over⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Not buy their products. Drag them on social media. Give interest to news stories about the product’s users, not the figurehead of one of the vendors, so the news media focuses on them rather than the distraction. Reach out to your politicians and your friends to discuss how product failures are the result of the company embracing AI and don’t forget to highlight the greed that brought us to this fascist economic system. Use, donate to, or even offer your skills to non-LLM FOSS alternatives. Spend your dollars on companies with scruples. Build your own home lab, give up on all technology, get really into self-sufficiency, and go live in the woods to escape the whole system.

I don’t know… something other than giving in. Literally anything other than that.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sam Altman Thanks Programmers for Their Effort, Says Their Time Is Over⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
For all the focus on Scam Altman, we should probably be focusing on the companies that are so quick to abandon their workers on the promise of saving a few bucks.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
Being treated only as a font of knowledge, a hard worker, a reliable friend (when the friendship is otherwise not rewarding), having a lot of tools, etc, is kind of crappy. I at least get pleasure from sex. Honestly, if I had my druthers of how folks reduce me, I wouldn’t hate being valued for being good in bed.

I wonder if the friend with the truck ever feels like that.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
The pain aspect is something you should address. First with your partner if their technique can be changed, and second with your doctor. And this one is like a layer cake - maybe you’re ace, maybe there is emotional context (that could be entirely unrelated to your current situation) that causes physical discomfort, or possibly there’s a physical component that your doctor might be able to help you with. Or some combination of all of them, because people are complex.

But romantic asexuality is definitely a thing, as is a number of variants within it.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨cigs w/o u⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:
You don’t message your homies at 2 am to tell them you miss them?
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Senators Launch New Effort to Ban Federal Elected Officials Profiting from Prediction Markets⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:
Until I saw your comment, my (flippant) response to the person you replied was going to be “Because Congress hasn’t figured out how to use Polymarket.”

Which is a far less eloquent corollary to your comment.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
They did read my memoirs!
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dear Faith II⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
A friend once revived an email riddled with misspellings and grammatical errors from her boss that critiqued her (appropriate) use of exclamation points. Specifically, that appearing cheerful was not professional.

Some people just like to be miserable.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dear Faith II⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
They’re in there. You don’t see them?
⁨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:
Very probable. I was also not the most economically sound back then. I was trying to save money on a $20 can opener!
⁨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:
Can openers is what did it for me.

In 2015 I needed a new manual can opener. The local big-box stores had two basic styles. A cheap, all metal one that was just stamped from a single sheet, and a more expensive one with better handles.
The more expensive one had previously rusted and began to look nasty within a few years.
Amazon had a bunch of different styles at less than the price point of the more expensive one.

I bought one. It was fine. I didn’t love the operation. It cut the whole top off from the side, rather than from the top in a downwards cut. The sharp edges were on the can rather than on the lid. It would catch the paper labels and sometimes wad them up into the can while you cut. Cans with no air space would leak when opened.

Anyway. Replaced it in 2019. Amazon still had a broad selection, but all except for obvious crap was as expensive as the local big box store’s expensive option. Wound up going to a smaller local(ish) bulk foods store and bought a cheapo restaurant one for less than Amazon’s/the big box store’s similar offerings. Minimal rusting to date.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
A long time ago, someone said something really useful to me about oversharing online:
“I would like to fuck you, but I’m afraid you’ll write about it on your LiveJournal.”

And on that day, I became a lot more selective about what I shared online. At least when it relates to others. I’ll tell you all about my childhood trauma.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨we're all a little gay inside⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
My old apartment used to be set up in just such a way that after a midday shower, you would see a small Brocken Spectre’s centered around each of your eyes when you looked in the mirror. It was honestly kind of terrifying. The first time I noticed it, I wondered if I’d finally lost it.
Glowing circles around your black eyes in a fogged mirror.

I think that means I have the opposite of a pot of gold in me.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Modern problems require modern solutions⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I’ve begun to use nonsense statements, made up words, and random vocalizations to make the bots think they couldn’t help me. That usually gets me to a human faster.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
My circulation is terrible. I’ll have cold feet and hands while my core is too hot. Sometimes I will move the blanket so it’s over my feet and arms but my body is just under sheets. I need a blanket that is like a reverse vest.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twenty four US states are now considering legislation to allow small, plug-in solar power systems that connect directly into a wall socket.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Like I said, I’m weak on the science. I’m more of a computer person.

Most of what I know is based on either a Practical Engineering or Matt Ferrell video, but I’m interested in the topic, if a little too busy to dig deeply enough to get past the marketing. If you have a good info source on the matter, I’d love to check it out.

With that said, the first paragraph is not really applicable to my concern, which is that a grid connected panel + battery could be hacked. En masse, they could dump power onto the grid and fry transformers or take out substations. (Which smarter people than I have identified as a concern, re: EV chargers.)
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twenty four US states are now considering legislation to allow small, plug-in solar power systems that connect directly into a wall socket.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
Hm. Imprecise on my part.
The panels aren’t the concern. It’s stored energy in the battery that can be dumped onto the grid, along with the stored energy of other compromised systems.

The article I linked outlines a scenario like what I’m describing being possible with EV’s that have had their chargers hacked.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twenty four US states are now considering legislation to allow small, plug-in solar power systems that connect directly into a wall socket.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I love the idea. Scares the shit out of me.

I’m not as concerned with these things starting house fires, but I want to explain that away first. I’m a little weak on the science, but my understanding of how these work is that they attune to the grid frequency and voltage to deliver power at a slightly lower frequency than what is provided by your wall plug. This allows them to augment your home power use without refeeding power into the local grid. IIRC, if there’s no wall power, they only offer power through outlets on the devices themselves, vs through the wall plugs.
And, I think that the above safety feature will prevent over-amperage situations for in-house wiring loops, since the device cannot exceed the power delivery of the circuit it’s plugged into, when operating normally.

These things scare the shit out of me because the U.S. power grid is badly under-engineered. Before actual electrical engineers hunt me down and kill me, think of building a bridge. You can do that by just pouring a billion tons of concrete into a ravine. But building something that is material and budget conscious while being safe enough to avoid lawsuits is not what I’m getting at. (Think of a bridge the phrase “Anyone can build a bridge, but not anyone can build a bridge that barely stands.”)
It’s a feature, not a bug. Otherwise, power lines would be I-Beams and we’d have some sort of insane switching technology to isolate and shut off every single segment of the grid.
But we don’t! Homes are never disconnected from the grid unless specialized hardware is installed at the meter to disconnect them. (Which happens for distributed/co-generation scenarios.)

The existence of always connected power generation or storage sources as a potential threat vector is well known. In 2023, it caused a minor kerfluffle as several brands of EV chargers were shown to be easily hackable and as few as a few hundred of these could be used to take down a regional power grid. Not everyone can afford an EV, and usually those users are a tad more tech savvy. They generally are not buying third party chargers, anyway.
But the rate of adoption for these devices could be significantly higher. The law of averages being what it is, I think these pose a much higher threat to the grid from hacking. Everyone loves apps. No one thinks about security. They could easily exploited, rooted, and have their safety features disabled. Who needs 300 EV’s when you have 300,000 balcony chargers?

Funnily enough, these would be in high demand if the U.S. grid got fried. It would take years to undo the damage.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ring is always recording and uploading to their servers, even with you're not paying for the subscription⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I had the creepiest conversation with a cop a few months ago.
My neighborhood is seemingly getting rougher by the day. I do have a video doorbell, but it’s not one of the major U.S. brands.

Anyway, it was trash day. Garbage had been collected. I had noticed several police cars around, but didn’t see any police. I went to collect my bins, and one of them popped out of nowhere to chat at me.

He was light on details, but needed to track the comings and goings of a parking lot across the street from my house. Didn’t need super clear images, just said he needed timestamps for a timeline. Said my camera angle was ‘perfect’.
And it is! I get so many alerts that I disabled it unless motion is detected within the area of my yard. (Which was not helpful to them.)

But he was explaining this to me, and said that he needed me to send them the video (before I told him that it was unlikely I had video, and then confirmed that I did not with him). A moment later, he did a quick scan of my various neighbors houses, and said (to himself) “Okay, that’s a Ring, that won’t be a problem.”

A problem?!? Just casually warrentlessly seizing footage from people’s homes is not a problem?

For those curious, the system I currently have is by Eufy and I cannot recommend the brand. Anker as a brand has been great (Eufy’s parent company), but I find the Eufy app to be riddled with spam, the offered features to be mediocre, and generally, customer service to be poor. They even had an amazon review removed once. (I called their app a piece of crap, and they hit it with a community standards warning to get it removed.)
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Genes be crazy⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I cannot!
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Genes be crazy⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:
I can’t smell ants, and cilantro tastes soapy. However, I do have dry earwax and my armpits don’t smell. (Which is just spurious information to your hypothesis.)
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨This is a really cool clock⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
Unimpressed. It’s not 7:20.

All that engineering and they didn’t get the time right.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bioindicator PSA⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
It indicates other things, too!
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK grab a cup of coffee and read this article if you want to truly understand what's happening in Minnesota⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
I made a joke recently that if I were desperate for a job I’d get hired as ICE and quit right after training. But then I realized I might spend more time filling out some of the application, failing the drug test, and attending a 6-minute long interview than I would spend in training before they tried to make me do evil shit. I’d have to quit before I got my ROI.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Engineer at Elon Musk's xAI Departs After Spilling the Beans in Podcast Interview⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
I hear you, but I would imagine that Musk would retaliate by counter-suing the city and/or state, if for no other reason than spite. And would drag the whole thing out for at least as long as the AI infatuation lasts before abandoning the building for officials to deal with.

A single citizen with a drone and a bunch of glass bottles full of petrol dropped onto the generators, however, would shut down operations immediately.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Sony’s TV business is being taken over by TCL⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
I used to have a TCL soundbar.

In addition to being extremely mediocre, it promised to integrate with my WiFi so that music could be airplayed through it. After adding it to my WiFi, it still broadcast the open ‘setup’ WiFi network.

If you joined the setup network, you could SSH into the soundbar as root without a password and dump the dhcp.conf file, which would give anyone access to my home WiFi network. Other TCL models also allowed for root via SSH, but used 12345678 as the password. A skilled hacker could just bot these via wardriving and turn them into network listeners.

It may have still broadcast the setup network because I blocked the device from accessing the internet. I only ever went poking around on it because I noticed that the setup network kept getting set to the same channels as my home network and it was causing interference. I eventually just factory reset the device so it had no information on it at all.
After the umpteenth time of not being found by my TV, a hard reset killed it. Just got stuck booting and never recovered.

Anyway - crap brand. Sad day for Sony TV fans.
⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YSK: A real American Civil war will NOT be like Battlefield or COD.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:
Yes!

I was just talking to my wife about, if not this idea, then the ramifications of splitting. We were discussing how someone like Putin can stay in power, or how I think it would be touchy to have joint protests against Trump in the U.S., even as his support falters across the board – because I couldn’t imagine republicans with morals, disaffected MAGA, democrats, and leftists on the same side of a picket line.