thurstylark
@thurstylark@lemm.ee
Open source nerd
Reddit refugee. Sync for Reddit is dead, all hail Sync for Lemmy!
- Comment on Manjaro is experimenting with **opt-out telemetry | Hacker News (More like op-out spying) 3 days ago:
Finally time to update manjarno.snorlax.sh again -_-
- Comment on I benchmarked 6 different metal USB sticks 2 weeks ago:
Oh my god, thank you so much for this. I have always had the hardest time finding these exact same requirements, and this is perfect. All metal construction and coexisting with keys has always been a priority for me, but it seems like everyone is inexplicably fine with copping out by just dangling their data on this flimsy little string tied to a brittle plastic case and I cannot understand it.
I’m not currently looking for one at this exact moment, but I will be returning here when I am. You’re doing the lord’s work out here!
- Comment on Arch Linux and Valve Collaboration 1 month ago:
Some extra fun details from the staff discussions around this: Valve is not interested in control of the distro, but are mainly interested in funding work on projects that are chosen by Arch staff, and are already things that Arch staff wants to implement. The projects chosen are indeed things that Valve also want to be part of the distro’s infrastructure, but the process has been totally in the hands of Arch staff.
I gotta say, it’s been really cool to see Valve go through the process of considering OSS as not just a useful tool or worthwhile target, but as a robust collaborator.
First, they build and maintain their client on Linux, and build their games to run natively on Linux, learning that things aren’t actually as difficult as it’s commonly made out to be, and the things that are more difficult than they need to be can be fixed by working with and contributing to the existing community.
Then they consider building their own hardware, but try the half-way approach of building SteamOS on top of Debian, and depending on existing hardware vendors to build machines with SteamOS in mind, learning that there’s a lot of unnecessary complexity around both of those approaches to that goal.
Then they learn how to develop and build 1st party hardware with the SteamLink and Steam Controller.
Then they put the lessons from the Steam Machine project into practice by dumping loads of time and effort into Proton, knowing that they won’t have the market unless they can get Windows games to run on Linux in a reliable and seamless way.
Then they put all that knowledge and effort together to do the impossible: unite PC gamers of both Windows and Linux flavors under the banner of the SteamDeck, a fully gaming-focused, high-quality, and owner-friendly piece of kit that kicks so much ass that it single-handedly pulls a whole category of PC hardware out of obsurity and into the mainstream.
And what do they do with that success? Literally pay it forward by funding work on the free software that forms the plinth that their success stands upon.
Good on Valve.
- Comment on New teen accounts on Instagram are a welcome step, but real ‘peace of mind’ requires more. 1 month ago:
It’s not about actually caring about making minors safer on their platform, or caring about giving tools to guardians to help keep minors safer on their platform.
It is about having something to point to the next time Meta is called in front of a congressional subcommittee to discuss proposed regulations. Look, we did positive things to our platform in the name of protecting minors, and we did it voluntarily, despite what losses we saw in that demographic! We definitely can (and so totally do) put the control of those protections in the hands of parents, where it belongs! We don’t need to be regulated, because we’re doing it ourselves already!
- Comment on Instagram makes all teen accounts private - npr 1 month ago:
I think it would be naive to think that they don’t know this already. Not to say that I think you’re making that argument, but that I think the losses are calculated against the benefit of the appearance of care that this move affords them. Sure, these new restrictions and tooling means that some parents will be more willing to allow their teens to engage with the platform, but there’s no way that will outweigh the active user reduction in the targeted age range.
The real benefit is looking like they’re doing stuff in a positive direction in the context of minors. I’m definitely expecting them to point at this move (and its voluntary nature) as an argument against future regulation proposals. Especially the part where they’re ostensibly putting that control in parents’ hands.
- Comment on Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates. 2 months ago:
On top of this, your account gets penalized if you refuse to take an offered ride.
- Comment on Judge Rules $400 Million Algorithmic System Illegally Denied Thousands of People’s Medicaid Benefits 2 months ago:
The complexity is the point. The less people willing or able to jump through all the necessary hoops to receive their healthcare through the system, the less money they have to pay out. Adding more complexity in the form of yet another opaque approval system adds many more hoops to get through, which is actually the entire point. Deloitte knew this going in.
Yes, I have sympathy for the individuals who have to build this system, however I have absolutely zero sympathy for the company that put it into practice.
Yes, the medicare system is needlessly complex, however Deloitte decided to replace manpower with cheaper automation which had the side effect of saving them work by increasing rejections.
The world also happens to be complex. Enough so that both things can be true.
- Comment on Uber drivers in Kenya are ignoring the app and charging their own rates. 2 months ago:
As a former rideshare driver: Fuckin’ based.
- Comment on So Starbucks’ CEO commutes to work by private jet? Let’s not pretend the super-rich care about the planet 2 months ago:
- Comment on Lemmy being used as a source now 2 months ago:
I already don’t own an xbox and am happy about it. Checkmate, MS.
- Comment on Teacher pay needs to nearly double to afford a typical house 2 months ago:
Why not? It’s a thing that factors into cost of living.
What’s the alternative? Just wait until economists have declared the housing market is at some baseline of normalcy before determining pay? Do you really fail to see how rediculous that would be?
- Comment on Offensive names dot the American street map − a new app provides a way to track them. 2 months ago:
My city recently renamed a street after Nelson Hackett, who was a local slave, but more notably, was the first and only escaped slave to have made it to Canada, and then be extradited back to the US. The road was previously named after Archibald Yell, the governor of Arkansas at the time, who wrote the extradition order. Canadian laws at the time forced the government to respect the extradition, but they found this situation so distasteful that they immediately changed the law to basically make Canada a safe haven for escaped slaves.
Lots of locals didn’t know who Archibald Yell was, but now they do, and the road is now named after the slave whose case laid the groundwork for the Underground Railroad because of the governor’s actions.
Not just a correction to the person who should really be celebrated, but also an S-tier snub, if you ask me.
- Comment on $1 million starter home? It's the norm in 237 cities, according to Zillow 3 months ago:
Not to mention across demographics. Plenty of people don’t use Reddit for reasons of taste, time, or simply access.
Plus, there’s definitely a bias towards bragging about ones high salary (whether real or imagined). Not a lot of us who are struggling like to broadcast exactly how much we’re struggling. It fucking sucks, and the majority of our lives are spent dealing with that fact.
You’re operating on anecdotal evidence in a heavily biased context. This is why you’re getting the downvotes you deserve. Get yiur head out of your ass.
- Comment on North Korean hacker got hired by US security vendor, immediately loaded malware 3 months ago:
Oh yeah, I remember having to watch those for onboarding. They weren’t as cheesy as they could have been for an informational video.
I do appreciate how they’re handling it, though. A public post-mortem is much more reassuring than damage control PR. Plus, being honest means they gain the IT folks who actually have to use their stuff as allies.
- Comment on Microsoft says EU to blame for the world's worst IT outage | Euronews 3 months ago:
My guess: Because they reviewed and signed the kernel space code which calls code that is unreviewed and unsigned (or, at the very least, pulls directly from files that are unreviewed and unsigned without proper validation or error checking), calling out CrowdStrike’s failure puts them on the hook too.
- Comment on CrowdStrike downtime apparently caused by update that replaced a file with 42kb of zeroes 3 months ago:
Well, you see, the front fell off.
- Comment on To bad we never did give electoral reform a try before The Fall 3 months ago:
Yes.
- Comment on Signal downplays encryption key flaw, fixes it after X drama 4 months ago:
Yeah, this is why I added a hardware key to my db. The hardware key is required not just for reading the db, but writing to it as well.
Another tip: use something like an OnlyKey that has its own locking and self-destruct mechanisms so this method isn’t foiled by simply acquiring the key.
- Comment on Nvidia reveals that 150 RTX A6000 GPUs power the Las Vegas Sphere 4 months ago:
IIRC, the interior of the main performance space is also covered in video wall, so add that to the pile.
But, yeah… I doubt this power is for playback. My guess would be render farm.
- Comment on Most consumers hate the idea of AI-generated customer service 4 months ago:
Already out there in certain ways. There’s a restaraunt near me that uses an automated system to collect orders in the drive-thru, and puts them into the system incorrectly.
At least that’s what seems to be its purpose, because it does that really well. That, and piss people off.
- Comment on [deleted] 4 months ago:
Is it common? That depends on your context. Since your particular context includes an internet connection, literacy, and living in a situation with the means to reserve space for a child that isn’t home full-time, I feel pretty confident in my estimation that it’s probably not common.
Is it harmful? No. Honestly, I think it’s pretty sweet. My only advice is to not let it stray into forbidden territory, but you seem to already have a pretty good grasp of where the line is.
- Comment on What are diabetic test strips made of? 4 months ago:
I think this might be a “yes, but no” kind of thing.
Yes, these are test strips. Yes, they change color to indicate a reading. Yes, they use chemical reactions to cause that color change.
AFAIK: No, these aren’t for testing blood. No, these don’t seem to be for consumption by an electronic meter. And no, I don’t think this is what OP was asking about.
Like, there’s probably some good info, but not for this thread specifically :P
Source: Pulling it straight out of my ass, but it is informed by my limited experience with medical test equipment, and much less limited experience with electronics.
- Comment on TeamViewer got hacked 4 months ago:
…again
- Comment on Microsoft insiders worry the company has become just 'IT for OpenAI' 4 months ago:
The AI doesnt understand the former, only the latter.
Do you possibly mean “The AI evangelists” or something similar?
Like, I could totally understand it in the “software will also include the biases of those who wrote it” kind of way (a la Amazon’s failed attempt at automating job candidate search). If the only incentive you’re given as a programmer is “make it make money”, then yeah, your AI is going to bias towards that end.
Just couldn’t tell on first reading
- Comment on The Secret IRS Files: Trove of Never-Before-Seen Records Reveal How the Wealthiest Avoid Income Tax 4 months ago:
You don’t need to break a system to make it broken, just never maintain it and it’ll break itself!
See: Insurance companies
- Comment on Microsoft won't fix Windows 0x80070643 errors, manual fix required 6 months ago:
I agree that if there was enough space in the recovery partition to begin with, this wouldn’t be a problem, but the user isn’t the party that specified that size or the party that decided to add enough stuff to the recovery partition to exceed that spec.
MS knows that this is a widely-deployed configuration (they deployed it), but they’re going ahead with an automatic update that is incompatible with that configuration anyway, failing to communicate to the user why the failure occurred, and refusing to automate a fix to the thing their automation broke in the first place.
- Comment on Microsoft won't fix Windows 0x80070643 errors, manual fix required 6 months ago:
Waow. MS can’t decide if their users should have control of their hardware or not.
Your linux bootloader and efi config? That belongs to Windows, and it will make changes as much as it wants. A recovery partition that has no usefulness outside their own ecosystem? Yeah, they know it’s fucked, and they fucked it, but it’s your computer, you fix it!
- Comment on I wish to give this many fucks 6 months ago:
DIDYOUPUTYORNAYMEINTHEGOBLETOFIYAH
- Comment on 200-foot AM radio tower disappears, halting Alabama station broadcast | "There's wires everywhere, and it's gone." 9 months ago:
R-u-n-n-o-f-t!
- Comment on He thought it was a sausage on a stick.. 10 months ago:
Me want plant corndog delight