Melody
@Melody@lemmy.one
- Comment on Death Of A Forum: How The UK’s Online Safety Act Is Killing Communities 2 hours ago:
Hearing this sort of law go into effect just makes me sadly want to ban anyone from the UK from my small communities.
I’d hate to be forced to do it; but I certainly would immediately start swinging the hammer with IP range bans and banning anyone who is clearly professing to be from the UK.
Unfortunately the kind of laws they’re trying to pass do nothing to fix whatever problems they have Online; and are basically meaningless political posturing. I feel sorry for people in the UK and strongly recommend they start using VPNs; as it’s the only way to ensure they won’t get snared up in the ensuing waves of bans when compliance with the OSA law that they let get passed is mandatory
The shoe is clearly on the other foot. It’s not so easy to manage when politicians are allowed to get so uninformed that they go out of their way to pass bad laws.
- Comment on Is this the first casualty of the Online Safety Act? An online cycling community web forum with over 60K users shutting down 5 days ago:
Seems like it’s time to start Geo-Blocking UK users. Ain’t nobody with an independent site got the time nor money to deal with the UK’s OSA laws.
Until this overbroad act is protested on the world stage; neither Brits themselves, nor their liberal leaders will prioritize repealing it. They’ll just shrug hopelessly and blame it on their Tories; much like Americans blame our own Republicans.
If you run a small community website and you have worries about this; make it felt. Countries that enact laws like this should be rebuffed; and their people excluded as much as is necessary to ensure full malicious compliance with those laws.
- Comment on Discord admin gets 15 years for “one of the most significant leaks” in US history - Ars Technica 5 weeks ago:
Honestly I question the sanity of allowing a child to have an actual clearanced job and not brag about it to his friends. Mentally you’re pretty much a kid until you’re about 25 or so if you’re AMAB.
I’m concerned that higher clearances aren’t checking people for signs of stupid viewpoints before they’re cleared.
- Comment on Requiem for Raghavan 1 month ago:
I am glad to see it when the selfish people at the top fall so far down the hill. They orchestrate their own falling typically, much like Ikarus in his waxen wings, falling when he flew too close to the sun in direct sunlight at the height of a hot summer’s day.
As for Google; I hope the DoJ not only pulls up all of the resultant weeds in the garden, but also makes sure to till and salt the soil thoroughly, so that no part of Google can ever hope to rejoin it’s other pieces to form a monopoly or ‘anything like a monopoly’ on anything, ever, again.
Google must rightfully suffer a most painful and enduring ‘Corporate Death Penalty’ so to speak; in order to ensure that no company ever gets so bold again. We must also repeat this with several other large companies like Microsoft, Amazon and Apple too; as well as a few other companies I’m unable to name because I’m unaware of how ridiculously massive and monopolistic they are.
- Comment on AI Seeks Out Racist Language in Property Deeds for Termination 1 month ago:
This is exactly the kind of tool I’d expect AI to be useful for; it goes through a massive amount of freshly digitized data and it scans for, and flags for human action (and/or) review, things that are specified by a human for the AI to identify in a large batch of data.
Basically AI doing data-processing drudge work that no human could ever hope to achieve with any level of speed approaching that at which the AI can do it.
Do I think the AI should be doing these tasks unsupervised? Absolutely not! But the fact of the matter is; the AIs are being supervised in this task by the human clerks who are, at least in theory, expected to read the deed over and make sure it makes some sort of legal sense and that it didn’t just cut out some harmless turn of phrase written into the covenant that actually has no racist meaning, intention or function. I’m assuming a lot of good faith here, but I’m guessing the human who is guiding the AI making these mass edits can just, by means of physicality, pull out the original document and see which language originally existed if it became an issue.
To be clear; I do think it’s a good thing that the law is mandating and making these kinds of edits to property covenants in general to bring them more in line with modern law.
- Comment on Why wordfreq will not be updated - AI spam 2 months ago:
Such a system might be constructed for one’s own scraping needs by taking any one of the current frontend/backends and customizing that behavior such that it could mitigate issues or ingest/ignore data based on your own inputs as well; such that your model could be “riding along on a human surfboard with human guidance”
- Comment on Why wordfreq will not be updated - AI spam 2 months ago:
The filtration capabilities available to most users is pretty robust; depending on what you use to interact with the Fediverse. I thinik it would be possible to filter out problematic bots, users and even whole domain sources with the right kind of software.
- Comment on Why wordfreq will not be updated - AI spam 2 months ago:
I’m going to be bold enough to say we don’t have as wide of an AI/LLM issue on the Fediverse as the other platforms will have.
I’m certain that if someone did collect data from the Fediverse; it would become a hot topic and it might not be enough data anyways as the Fediverse is not mainstream enough normally. So the data and language collected here might skew in a few imaginable ways that one might find undesirable for a general model of word frequencies.
Also the fact that people might not appreciate that data being collected. Let’s be real. It’s too soon for such a project to begin. The AI TREND MUST DIE as it currently lives and it’s corpse must be rotted away completely. Now, in internet time that may not be all that long…a few to several years…the memory of the internet can be short-lived at times. It must, however, fade from the public conscience into some obscurity first.
Once the technology no longer lies in greedy hands again; new development can begin anew.
- Comment on YubiKeys are vulnerable to cloning attacks thanks to newly discovered side channel 3 months ago:
It feels like this vulnerability isn’t notable for the majority of users who don’t typically include “Being compromised by a Nation-State-Level Actor.”
That being said; I do hope they get it fixed; and it looks like there’s already mitigations in place like protecting the authentication by another factor such as a PIN. That helps; for people who do have the rare threat model issue in play.
The complexity of the attack also seems clearly difficult to achieve in any time frame; and would require likely hundreds of man-hours of work to pull off.
If we assume they’re funded enough to park a van of specialty equipment close enough to you; steal your key and clone it; then return it before you notice…nothing you can do can defend against them.
- Comment on Are there any legal issues with pulling out of an interview? 4 months ago:
No. There’s no issue legally.
You might take a hit to your reputation with that company; but if they already were presenting enough red flags for you to back out of an interview; I wouldn’t consider that to be a problem.
If you cancel an interview it’s not a big deal. No money changed hands. No agreement was ever reached. Their emotional feelings are irrelevant; the whole point was to help both sides decide if you could work with the other.
- Comment on Why are people downvoting the MediaBiasFactChecker not? 4 months ago:
I use an instance that does not Display or parse downvotes or permit them locally.
So I don’t see the phenomenon. I don’t care about downvotes. I only see the upvotes; which are a far better indicator to me as to how useful a post I made is. If someone posts trash or extremist things; I block them. If they try to argue in bad faith or with far too extremist of a viewpoint, I block them.
The bot doesn’t always get the most upvotes but it does have it’s uses. As someone who has used the Ground News app in the past; I have a sense of their rating scale and I do find that it helps classify things; although you should always use your own discretion and not just blindly trust the bot.
But most people who downvote this bot, do so for completely wrong reasons. Usually they’re upset because they disagree with the assessment of the bot, or do not understand it’s scale. Maybe they don’t like their viewpoint’s position being laid bare for all to see.
Maybe that should be explained more; and there’s posts on Ground News’ website that EXPLAINS how their rating system works. Perhaps the bot should link them.
- Comment on Why do people complain about multiple streaming platforms existing? 4 months ago:
The issue with too many streaming services is largely the same as not enough streaming services
An average person will have a wide variety of favorite shows. Let’s say there’s 25 of them. For this example; Access to each of these 25 shows are non-negotiable to you and you feel you MUST have access to them.
If Service A and Service B is the only options; they both get to set the price. So to get access to a “complete” collection of content that you want you’re paying both of them $50 each. It’s most likely that half will be available only on A and the other half on B.
Now imagine that there are 10 different services. Each service is owned by one of the big ten networks that makes your 25 favorite shows. We will call them by their number from 1 to 10. Now each of your 25 shows have 10 places they could be.
On average; each network is likely to have 2.5 shows you like. Maybe a few have made some sweet deals with others; but no one place will have even 7.5 of your favorite shows…because these deals are costly and nobody wants to make less money per view.
Now each service; because they’re struggling to compete with each other will settle on a price of $10 each. But you still end up being forced to subscribe to all ten of them because no single provider has everything you want and no combination of less than all of them can provide complete access to all that you want to watch
- Comment on Microsoft Ruined Windows 4 months ago:
Honestly, there are low-touch/low-fuss distributions that exist that can be installed with some assistance from a more techy person in one’s life.
But I will admit that Apple is more usable across the board.
However, not everyone can really afford the extra cost of an Apple system; which genuinely does require re-buying a lot of other devices in order to get basic compatibility.
For some, yes, Apple does solve the problem. For others, Linux can be accessible and easy to use; particularly if hardware being used is older, and the workflows are common enough.
- Comment on Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools? 5 months ago:
All research based on smartphones is based on anecdotal evidence.
It’s even worse if phones are on even without any sort of notification, like vibration.
This is false. There is minimal acceptable evidence that a phone that is online, in a pocket or purse, in a complete silence mode configuration, with no vibration or sound, affects anyone negatively.
I thought you were for banning use during instruction time.
All time spent at any K-12 school institution or local country equivalent; including transition time; is considered instructional time. At least it was by any school principal I’ve ever spoken to, many of whom were holders of American PhDs in education. Laws in all 50 states reflect this typically.
I think children must be taught how to self-regulate with phones for sure. Much like anything and everything; children must be taught how. I personally never struggled with this because all campuses in my home town would confiscate it at least until End of Day. Sometimes they’d attempt to hold the device longer; but that just resulted in parents going to the police and them being forced to return the item. They’d sometimes hold the item until your parent retrieved it however; and that was allowed as long as they returned it the moment the parent requested it. So you really couldn’t rely on parents retrieving it too many times.
I did however get the entire district policy hard limited from “on school grounds” to “In building, from bell to bell” because of the aforementioned involvement of police.
Similarly I will point out we had devices like Game Boys and other portable consoles growing up in the 90s.
- Comment on Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools? 5 months ago:
Having a smart phone in their pocket is damaging.
There is not enough scientific evidence of this; and oftentimes studies of this nature are not randomized and controlled; but instead rely on anecdotes and self-reporting by parents.
Outside of class time sounds good, but it really means that students become fixated on checking all their notifications between classes. This is an experience blocker. Instead of engaging with their peers or teachers, they’re screen zombies caught in addictive dark patterns, generating anxiety constantly all day.
If you read; you would know I already advocate for the students being unable to use their phone during school hours. Their phones would remain locked up; much like the article mentions; for the entire school-day.
The only thing I advocate for is for them to have a phone in general so that they have it for when they need it; either in case of emergency or otherwise. Yes; that does mean they have access to it before the schoolday begins and after the final bell rings. That’s intended.
I do believe it is possible to raise children to resist the addiction; but it has to start early.
As for inflicting a ‘dumbphone’ on a child; I do think that’s not necessary all the time. it depends on the child and is definitely one way a parent can control a child’s screen time.
- Comment on Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools? 5 months ago:
While I do agree that rules that are clear oversteps; like “No Talking in the halls”; should be curbed; I don’t think depriving students of their phones is on the same level.
Kids should be required to pay attention when they are a student. Banning things that disrupt classrooms from functioning is a fundamental thing we all should agree needs to be done. In short; the child should have learned something that was being taught before leaving that classroom if reasonably possible.
Do I think that means schools must run like prisons? Hell no. But I do believe the teachers and administration need the ability to contain disruptions in class.
I’d be all for phones in schools if they were school-issued devices that were tailor-made to be educational and actively contributed to the classroom and learning environment…but those sorts of implementations are very sparse and unlikely these days; and tend to be scoffed at because of their cost.
- Comment on Why are US states, school districts banning smartphones in schools? 5 months ago:
In general; I don’t think banning them will help. By all means; confiscate phones which do not get put away during class and return them after class. Give teachers and administrators the authority to do this.
Offer appropriate places to securely store and charge phones in each classroom until the teacher releases them. These places remain “locked” or “inaccessible” until class is over.
Do this from a young age and teach the children how to have moderation through this method.
I do not believe children should be deprived of their devices before and after school. If a student is found to be bullying other kids or students online; then charges can be filed in a school-based court and a Judge can consider ordering the bullying kids to have limited no access to any smart device unsupervised. This puts the burden on the parents to manage any kids who are misusing the tech outside of school. Similarly the troublemakers can be transferred to other schools.
Students who are being bullied online can simply report this to the teachers or admins and get relief from their tormentors. If they can’t also learn how to get the adults involved in actually troublesome situations; that’s also a problem that needs addressing.
I would encourage students to be open with their parents and teachers about things and definitely also focus on things like social media literacy and how to navigate through tricky situations as well.
Various apps and software tools could be used to manage a student’s phone (During school hours) as well; if and only if needed. They could make this mandatory; but it would only be restrictive on phones of students who misuse their phones; and thus are identified as needing ‘management’. This would ideally only enforce appropriate usage times and optionally; iff the student is being penalized for bullying or misusing; provide a way to disable various apps and browsers while preventing new ones from being installed without parent or teacher consent.
TL;DR: If the kid follows the rules; their phone isn’t going to be locked down. If they don’t; they get the lock-down experience while the adults ensure the kid is educated as needed.
Even if that sounds dystopian; it’s also a way to integrate phones into the school experience which addresses all the issues…and ensures the adults in charge of the students has ample opportunity to educate the kids about how to use their phones correctly…and intervene with a student’s usage if needed while still allowing them to have phones for emergency and necessary use.
- Comment on US sues Adobe for “deceiving” subscriptions that are too hard to cancel 5 months ago:
0.00000003% 3 Satoshis of a percent.
- Comment on 'LLM-free' is the new '100% organic' - Creators Are Fighting AI Anxiety With an ‘LLM-Free’ Movement 6 months ago:
- Comment on The Paradox of Blackmarket Wired Bluetooth Apple headphones. 6 months ago:
Your comment missed the mark entirely. Please don’t reply-guy me; I know what I’m talking about.
- Comment on The Paradox of Blackmarket Wired Bluetooth Apple headphones. 6 months ago:
So much for using airplane mode to conserve battery.
Your understanding is slightly off.
Airplane mode Does In Fact Turn off your CELLULAR Radio This radio is what powers your (2/3/4/5)G and LTE (This is 4G btw) connection to the cell towers.
Most international radio communications laws can prohibit the use of Cellular Radio in flight; however they often don’t prohibit the use of shorter range radio technologies such as WIFI or Bluetooth.
It’s all about ‘loudness’. Think about it. Your phone must ‘scream louder’ at a farther away cell tower than it would need to communicate with a nearby WiFi router or a Bluetooth headset.
- Comment on Beeper Messaging App That Irked Apple Is Acquired by WordPress.com Owner 8 months ago:
Mandatory archive.is/Dt8FX link
- Comment on [deleted] 8 months ago:
With that being said; I do fully support an Instance’s choice to federate, not federate or even limit their federation with them.
In most cases this should not affect instances; but unfortunately there are people who will ignore all warnings and use the Fedi Garden as a whitelist instead of a list of instances that you know will handle policy violations quickly.
On the other hand I absolutely also respect the needs of communities who ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY WILL NOT TOLERATE instances who choose to federate with either X, Threads, or any other instance they deem to be too toxic to play nicely. As instance operators you absolutely have the right to block problems BEFORE they happen, and if you happen to KNOW an instance will absolutely be a HEADACHE, you have every right to say NO. If the users do not like your decision; they are free to find a better instance for themselves; or spin up an alt account on a better instance.
- Comment on [deleted] 8 months ago:
I would argue that federating with either of the biggest companies on the fediverse is a monumentally bad idea.
Not just because of “Reports of genocide” or anything specious like that; which can be debated for days and days on end by people in both good and bad faith; but because both Threads and Meta are simply too large to be moderated correctly and be capable of managing basic issues such as harrassment and extended bouts of hate-speech which should never be considered acceptable; even if you do not necessarily agree with all of the goals and policies of the Fedi Garden; as strict as they are.
