t3rmit3

@t3rmit3@beehaw.org

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game Informer Is Back⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I was going to mention GameStop (I think most of us got it for ‘free’ with our GameStop trade-in subscription thing), but I couldn’t remember if it was always owned by them, or if they just bought it after it was big.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Game Informer Is Back⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  It was the game news source in print media, for many years. It often used to come with demos on a CD in the back of the magazine, so it was also the best way to try games for yourself.

  I don’t think they’ll ever get back there, if only because honestly having a magazine to read was better than a website, imo, but I’m always tentatively hopeful to have another reputable news source in the gaming space.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Social Media Has Me Ducking My Friends And It Sucks - Aftermath⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  social media

  Well there’s your problem! Honestly, other than Beehaw I don’t have any digital comms apart from texting, and none of my friends or family are here. It’s so much nicer than when I had Instagram, or even much further back, Facebook.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Europe is looking for alternatives to US cloud providers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  There’s a lot of insider talk in tech about moving back to colo or to hybrid cloud, away from cloud-native.

  The lock-in, the bloat, the over-complexity… convincing companies that they needed to be prepared to “hyperscale” because they totally absolutely definitely were about to go unicorn overnight was just a scam.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨‘Dogequest’ Site Claims to Dox Tesla Owners Across the U.S.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I wouldn’t do this, but I also don’t care if someone does. We already have laws that cover harassment or assault or property damage if someone misuses this information, and we also have phone books and Internet people search tools.

  OSINT should never be illegal.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨(Blog) How I'm Building a Trump-Proof Tech Stack Without Big Tech⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are difficult choices that have to be made. Choices about who we are and who we want to be when the world is in crisis and people’s lives and freedoms are at risk.

  It’s easy to laugh at people who “choose the mountain” - deliberately making their lives harder and more complicated to pursue their values. We laugh because we’ve been taught, we’ve been convinced that sincerity and idealism are cringeworthy, embarrassing to the point of pornographic discomfort.

  But that cynicism didn’t help us stave off the last gasps of bigoted, white supremacist power, and it won’t help us fight against it.

  We need the idealism that pushes ordinary people to make better decisions and stick to them.

  Yes, even if that looks like switching email providers.

  No notes!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google’s Sergey Brin urges workers to the office ‘at least’ every weekday⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeah, for sure, but I don’t want to be Brin, I want a llama farm. 🦙

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google’s Sergey Brin urges workers to the office ‘at least’ every weekday⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Give me a salary that guarantees $1 million a year post-tax, and I’ll do it for a couple of years until I’ve saved up for a seaside llama farm I can fuck off to. But even at Google, almost no one is making that as an “IC”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Humane Ai Pin Has Already Been Brought Back to Life⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  100%. Even them saying “But (using a cert to unlock the device) is crossing the line.” is the sort of arbitrary moral line-drawing that tech bros are prone to, where they think they deserve to dictate what people can do with their products/ code. The same as LLM companies saying it’s wrong to train on their output, while training on everyone else’s.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mozilla says its new Firefox terms don’t give it ownership of your data⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve tried this route before, but honestly I don’t think the juice is worth the squeeze for the average person. There’s also almost no way to assess its effectiveness.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You know, at least it’s not Brave, throwing in cryptomining bs, getting caught selling data without telling anyone*, or using the profits to push COVID conspiracy theories and anti-LGBT activism, or getting their funding directly from Founders Fund (Peter Thiel).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Firefox deletes promise to never sell personal data, asks users not to panic⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I tend to trust Mozilla (more than other browser-owning companies), but they really should just clarify exactly what they do that would be considered as sale of data in any jurisdictions.

  They seem to be implying that the data is just metadata that has been abstracted for (presumably ad-targeting) commercial purposes, and there are jurisdictions that consider derived metadata as still being “user data”, but in that case just make a blog post laying out what and where you are sharing. If your “partners” are opposed to people knowing about them, or you are scared that people would not like who you’re in bed with, that is a problem.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google binning SMS MFA and replacing it with QR codes • The Register⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Also, it’s dead simple to send someone else (or tell them over the phone) 6 numbers, when you’re being phished. Much harder for people to send someone a QR code.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨While Democracy Burns, Democrats Prioritize… Demolishing Section 230?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  MLK never stops being relevant and right to a ‘T’.

  You may well ask: “Why direct action? Why sit ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word “tension.” I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, so must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood. The purpose of our direct action program is to create a situation so crisis packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation. I therefore concur with you in your call for negotiation.

  We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed. Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct action campaign that was “well timed” in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”

  You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

  I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: “I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action”; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man’s freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a “more convenient season.” Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.

  I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weekly “What are you playing” Thread || Week of Feb 16th⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Been playing Avowed, and enjoying it a lot. Also played some Avorion and Mabinogi (Frieren crossover event).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨still can't believe Mewt made the whole thing up⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reddit plans to lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The part about not wanting this to become Reddit is more about content and site ethos, not size.

  And sure, there are some ex-redditors whose views may not be welcome here, but there’s no need to put disclaimers in every comment.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Avowed Review Thread⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I expected a solid 8/10, given The Outer Worlds and POE. Looking forward to the exploration more than anything.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What We're Fighting For⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I get called a Luddite (which honestly makes me preen) at work because I am very skeptical of new technology ever being fundamentally different than some already-extant tool. Almost everything billed as new is just an iteration on something you already have, or if you don’t have, don’t need.

  SaaS and I/PaaS has been a horrible shift in the industry, because it takes a truth (that most orgs don’t have the people or expertise needed to run large-scale environments and the tools needed to support and secure them), and entrenches that in policy by handing the money you could be spending training people to do it, to another org, further shrinking that knowledgebase in the industry. It was bad enough when that signing-over of core responsibilities was happening with small IT companies via MSPs (who were only ever supposed to be “IT for non-IT companies”), but *aaS has pushed that to mid and even large companies.

  It was supposed to help IT professionals do their jobs, but the reality is that it’s just another money extraction tool, and job-destroyer.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Framework (2nd Gen) Event is live on February 25th - Framework holding new product launch in 2 weeks⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I just got a Framework 16 about a year ago, and I’m not worried. I LOVE my fw, and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. But I think the other commenters have the right of it, they’re probably leaning into either a tablet or a handheld game console.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bill proposed to outlaw downloading Chinese AI models.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  ShallowReveal

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Facebook flags Linux topics as 'cybersecurity threats' — posts and users being blocked⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Man pages, help files, and commented configuration files galore

  Technical documentation != Tutorials. Not even remotely.

  Linux support forums might be hostile to entitled noobs looking for a handout and a quick fix

  “Oh so you use Linux? Name every distro (to prove you ‘put in the effort’ to my standards)”

  Sarcasm aside, Lime Buzz is completely correct; FOSS as an ecosystem has cultivated an air of ahem techno-elitism, and that severely undermines its actual usefulness as a tool of individual freedom or certainly resistance. If a tool requires a bunch of X (time, money, base knowledge, etc) in order to utilize, it’s not going to be useful to people who do not have that resource to spend on it. Which is going to be the majority of any given group. And that has really made it as an ecosystem much less important than many other concerns. Individual projects can still be important, but Linux is certainly not going to save us from Authoritarianism.

  Corporations pay for support services. The code is free (as in speech). No one ever claimed that the support was also (or even should be) free.

  Corporations may unfortunately be people, but people are certainly not corporations, and shouldn’t be expected to pay for everything corporations do.

  If you believe that Linux actually helps people- that it materially improves their lives over being trapped in a predatory tech world built by for-profit entities who are happy to sell their customers out to a fascist government- then you are conceptualizing the relationship between Linux evangelists and new users incorrectly. We’re not providing sales and tech support in that case, we’re providing them aid. And aid workers don’t ask people to show how much they’ve tried to help themselves before offering them help.

  And if you don’t think Linux actually aids peoples’ lives, then you just agree with Lime Buzz that

  There are far more important things to worry about and to do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chinese AI lab DeepSeek massively undercuts OpenAI on pricing — and that's spooking tech stocks⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Relative to people in their country, sure. But China can’t and isn’t interested in flying over to the US to arrest you if you talk to their AI models about Taiwan being its own country, whereas no one should have any doubt that OpenAI or any other US AI company is happy to tell Trump’s administration who’s been asking it about LGBT+ issues or other topics the US government is now against.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Knowing less about AI makes people more open to having it in their lives – new research⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Knowing more about AI makes people less open to having it in their lives

  Is it just me? Doesn’t this feel like the more natural way to frame this? There’s something about the title that feels like people are being encouraged to know less about it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So what are you referring to, then? Inflation-adjusted wage growth?

  Purchasing power, which was not shit in the 90s compared to today. That’s what really matters; what can you get with the money you have.

  You’re ascribing way too much rationality to the average voter here.

  I think you’re ascribing too little. The average voter is not a political philosopher, but they’re also not comatose. They understand simple economic principles like tax cuts being given to other and not to them, or subsidies for certain industries and not others, or the lack of government action to curb rising prices, etc. They may not have all the proper labels to describe what they’re seeing vs what they want to see (and indeed, the US has spent so long demonizing Socialism and propagandizing Capitalism that most can’t describe either properly), but polling proves that most Americans (hilariously, even most Republicans) don’t want cutthroat neoliberal everyone-for-themselves economic policies.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨U.S. FTC Surveillance Pricing Study Indicates Wide Range of Personal Data Used to Set Individualized Consumer Prices⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We’ll see how long it takes for the government to put a stop to US companies actively data-mining, profiling, and discriminating against our citizenry, before congress takes action. I’d say we need a Chinese company to come in and do it, but clearly they’d just ban that one company instead of the actual problematic actions, and allow US companies to continue exploiting us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  bull market

  The stock market is not the economy. The economy on the ground has not been bullish. The US stock market doing well benefits the wealth-holders, not workers.

  people primarily care about their own life, and just aren’t motivated by big abstract concepts

  I agree, which is why the DNC’s attempt to allow a leftward shift only in its social policies has fallen largely flat with connecting with voters. Voters see that they’re not actually moving Leftwards on economic policies that would help their own lives. Sadly, it seems the DNC is taking this as a message that the Leftward shift on social issues was a problem, rather than the lack of economic change. Sanders has been talking about exactly this ever since election day, but the DNC leadership is already signaling they don’t believe that or care. I am worried we’re in for several Presidential election losses before they all die out or get the message.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Passion isn’t felt towards everything equally, it’s specific, and Democrats can’t figure out how to make people passionate about their candidates without compromising on their leaders’ neoliberal economic policies and their so-called “rules based order” of American hegemony, so they keep losing. Obama ran as a populist candidate, and he blew away previous numbers even though he turned out to be a staunch neoliberal. Biden barely managed to eke out a win in 2020 (“Despite his relatively comfortable 74 vote margin in the Electoral College, Biden only won the decisive states of Wisconsin, Georgia and Arizona by a combined 43,000 votes.”), and it was only because he was coming straight out of Trump’s term. Harris had 2 months to try to turn around Biden’s dumpster fire of a campaign, and she made too many missteps.

  Ultimately, candidates have to earn votes, and the DNC’s anti-populism and pro-neoliberalism clearly aren’t doing it for people. Maybe in the '90s when people’s salaries were booming, Clinton was able to win on it, but we’re not in that economy, and most Millennials and younger have only seen recessions and stagnation. Even after Trump, we’re in for more losses if Democrats only allow for Progressive social policies, and not economic ones.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Biden’s TikTok Flip-Flop: President Rushes To Undo Ban He Championed As Backlash Grows⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The fact that Congress could come together so rapidly and so unanimously to do something so stupid, at a time when our country is falling apart, says so much about their priorities. They work for the Capitalist class, not us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨TikTok Users Gleefully Embrace Even More Chinese App To Spite US TikTok Ban⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I hate to link to Reddit (and I’m too old to know how to get to the original video), but this also seems pretty relevant: reddit.com/…/if_tiktok_being_banned_doesnt_radica…