dRLY

dRLY, 6 months ago

For real! One of the things that made using Signal a non-issue for me was due to it being able to use SMS as a fall-back and therefore didn’t need me to push friends to also install another message app. I really only first installed it because it was the messaging app my local chapter of the SRA was using. I was excited that it did the shit I loved about the old Google Hangouts before they unnecessarily chose to break shit back out into three replacements. Being able to use a more feature rich messaging service when the people I am messaging also have it is awesome. But being able to still send a basic SMS from the same app without leaving is super nice. It is the main thing I always envied about how iMessage has worked basically forever.

Fortunately some of my friends and co-workers also have needed to install Signal for similar reasons I did or for remote therapy stuff. But it is so hard to get others to just install it just because it is privacy focused and since we already have Facebook Messenger/Discord/Snap/IG/Line and of course SMS. Also hate feeling like I am being pushy or annoying unless I am directly asked about apps to try or some specific reason.

I also have fond memories of using Gaim/Pidgin back in the day for being able to just have one IM client that could work with basically whatever any of my friends/contacts liked using. A universal chat/message client really seems like something that would be cool to see come back.

dRLY, 6 months ago

A messaging app/service that can work via both regular stable connections but also via non-online. Briar is kind of similar to what I am talking about. But it can’t/doesn’t go as far as I mean. It can send messages via cell data, WiFi, and Bluetooth but as far as I am aware, it can’t do a mix of them. And it would still require the person being messaged to be within range of my phone’s Bluetooth if not on cell/WiFi. So it doesn’t do the hopping I am really interested in (to my understanding).

So I am wanting to be able to have basically zero cell or WiFi signal on my phone, but be able to just have shit be able to bounce around via all methods to get to the person I am trying to reach. So like I could be in a no service spot for my carrier but maybe a friend that also has the app and does have a signal be used to bounce my message from Bluetooth to their cell or WiFi that is working. Then it either get to the final person from that bouncing, or maybe still get it if they are also in a no-signal area but still near another friend that does and is also in their Bluetooth range.

So the message would just hop whatever chain of devices and connections even if it takes a little more time (like if it just had to keep hopping from a number of phones completely through Bluetooth jumping. Would also be cool if it could jump even if the other devices didn’t have the app and was just encrypted text-only blobs hopping like how data hops around various servers when online. But aside from the fact that data costs money and would mean basically everyone’s shit would get used at all times. The nightmare of how the messages/service would know how to get places, or if maybe it already arrived via one method while a different chain was still trying would be massive. In addition to literally all the other things that would have to be figured out. And that is all before making sure it could be still private in any real way.

dRLY, 6 months ago

I think the only reactions from the west will sadly be just endless propaganda about how they are “actually just using it as cover for making enough nuclear weapons for there to be one for every person in the US”. Or some other BS that just serves the military industrial complex and contractors that stand to make even more mad profits from this new cold war we are groomed into more and more daily. Just look at how freaked out the federal government that won’t shut the fuck up about how fucking perfect our “free market capitalism” is, has made damn sure to tell companies they can’t sell lots of shit to any Chinese company.

Doesn’t matter if those companies can pay. Just matters that they are artificially kept from having the most current tech at all costs. Also how our government also legally blocks certain Chinese products over here for additional BS reasons and even shown to not be issues by our own allies (before those allies also had to ban them because we said so).

Fortunately for China, they have said “fuck you, we will just do it then” and are closing the gap pretty fast. So all the sanctions/bans will just mean that China has the most to gain from being able to offer cheaper but similarly working (or close enough) tech to more places. But it will all just be used to bring back the “good old days” of history that really doesn’t need to be re-lived.

dRLY, 6 months ago

True, it is really up to the instance to decide if they want to stay small and turn off registrations or big and keep them turned on. So long as the instances of all sizes stick to the official standards of the Lemmy codebase and respect the specs of the various other federated systems. It is not really an issue that the average user should have to worry about (for most issues at least).

dRLY, 7 months ago

Here is the problem with changing the user agent (IMO). It just re-enforces the idea that Chrome/Chromium browsers are the only browsers and therefore sites should just be coded for them. Which they are currently the most common for people to be using since even Microsoft gave up on IE and the original Edge. But the fact that Microsoft and Google are still the most dominate OS’es means that we are just seeing IE all over again. With sites being coded to only expect Chromium, then they are just set to not even allow them to be loaded by anything else.

The fact that so many of the sites do in fact work with Firefox/Safari when the user agent is set to falsely report that it is Chrome/Chromium should be kind of concerning. Just leads to false narratives that other options are not worth using due to being bad products. Kind of like how in the US we are conditioned to believe that there are only two parties to choose from and all other options shouldn’t be allowed or are never okay to support.

dRLY, 7 months ago

Just going to just preface this with a heads-up that it is all just a rant about how much I hate that the “reopen everything” box is defaultly checked.

Also it being the default setting for Mac OS means that people just never actually quit out of programs (though being fair most normie Mac users don’t even seem to know that just closing a window doesn’t quit the program). Which leads to just massive slowdowns and weird errors that they just turn around and pay way too much money to “fix”.

I have had so much success with just immediately restarting them and just making sure to uncheck that stupid box so most shit finally is fully closed out when it powers back on. Which I also make it a point to tell everyone I help to actually reboot their shit even just a couple times a week (since most users also seem to never use either the shutdown or reboot and just always close the lid) to keep things more or less okay. I also educate them on how to actually quit out of programs.

I shit you not that I once just did the whole “uncheck the box and reboot” shit and completely fixed a weird webcam not being detected problem within less than 2mins total. Made my boss happy that I was able to help that fast, but was very frustrated to hear that the person had actually been to the Apple Store before coming to us. They (the Apple Store) ran some super quick diagnostic and it came back as not seeing the webcam. To which they had quoted the person like $500~$600 to for the parts and labour.

Coming to us was just a last attempt to make sure and the MacBook Air had been at least turned off and not just put to sleep before coming over. But the main factor was that stupid box being defaultly checked, and just everyone ignoring it and just keeping the problem around. The average person I can understand either just not really noticing or just being scared to uncheck it for fear of somehow messing something up. As they just assume that it wouldn’t be already checked if it was “correct”.

So at least I was able to fix an issue that really wasn’t an issue, and the person walked away not having to spend a dime. And they learned to only check the box if they need it and will just uncheck it the rest of the time. Which also makes me happy to have helped and have taught them something they didn’t ever think to question.

dRLY, 7 months ago

There is a pretty similar looking and function called Revolt that could be useful for getting people that are used to Discord to switch. I think they also have a long goal of being able to send and receive messages and calls with Discord. Obviously they don’t have that atm, but it is open-source and nice to at least know about in the event a quick exodus of Discord is needed.

dRLY, 8 months ago

Not providing any channels (the ones I know the most about are listed by OP and commenters), but more about non-YT versions of channels about privacy being on YT. For people that use YT but are open to LBRY/Odysee/PeerTube. I have found these extensions to be great for quickly seeing if a channel is also on those services. If anyone knows of others like these, I would like to know about them. And for anything that isn’t also on them of course Invidious instances are great for at least having some amount of privacy while dealing with YT (at least until Google finds some way to stop them from working).

Disclaimer: I am not a dev (or these or anything) or an auditor of security, so I can’t say how good or bad these are outside of personally finding them useful. I also am not affiliated with them and again just find them good for seeing if non-YT versions of channels exist.

For LBRY:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/watch-on-lbry/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/watch-on-lbry/jjmbbhopnjdjnpceiecihldbhibchgek?utm_source=ext_sidebar&hl=en-US

For Odysee:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/watch-on-odysee/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/watch-on-odysee/kofmhmemalhemmpkfjhjfkkhifonoann?utm_source=ext_sidebar&hl=en-US

For PeerTube:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/peertubeify/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/peertubeify/gegmikcnabpilimgelhabaledkcikdab?utm_source=ext_sidebar&hl=en-US

dRLY, 8 months ago

It doesn’t definitively prove openAI didn’t pay for the works.

But since they are a business/org and has all of those works and using them for profit. Then it kind of would be provable if openAI did or didn’t pay the correct licenses as they and/or the publisher/Stephen King (if he directly were to handle those agreements) would have a receipt/license document of some kind to show it. I don’t agree with how copyrights are done and agree that things should be public domain much sooner. But a for-profit thing like openAI shouldn’t be just allowed to have all these exceptions that avoids needing any level of permission and paying for ones that ask for it to use it. At least not while us regular people that aren’t using these sources for profits/business also aren’t allowed to just use whatever we want.

The only way that (I at least) see such an open use of everything at the level of all the data/information being fine is in a socialist/communist system of some kind. As the main concern for generally keeping stuff like entertainment/information/art/etc at a creator level is to have money to live in modern society where basic and crucial needs (food/housing/healthcare/etc) costs money. So for the average author/writer/artist/inventor a for-profit company just being able to take their shit and much more directly impact their ability to live.

It is a highly predatory level of capitalism and should not have exceptions. It is just setting up a different version of the shit that needs to also be stopped in the entertainment/technology industries. Where the actual creators/performers/etc are fucked by the studios/labs/corps by not being paid anywhere near the value being brought in and may not have control over it. So all of the companies and the capitalist system are why a private entity/business/org shouldn’t just be allowed to pull this shit.

dRLY, 8 months ago

I think the main issue here is that the very simplified rhetoric of ending use of personal cars in favor of public transportation. I don’t think that their issue is about it being better to get as many cars out of use. When the idea of ditching personal cars for a much better system of public transport is brought up it is presented as if everyone is in urban or a large suburb. Which are the areas that such public transportation is a great and needed goal. But the same words that are used never present that people in rural areas aren’t to be considered assholes for still needing personal transportation. Which also allows for right-wing outlets and politicians to spread the constant feeling of rural folks and their live are being attacked by libs. Those same right-wing folks will of course always find stuff to make this argument. However the lack of any mention of farmers or other rural folks as being an exception until we can make usable alternatives is a simple thing to sort out for the movement towards public transportation.

It just needs to be mentioned at all and can bring in better solidarity in reducing the vast majority of unnecessary personal ownership and use of cars. As someone that does live in a rural area and is very much in agreement about getting enough public transportation to get rid of so many cars. As it stands it just sounds like just another thing needed for daily work and life being “taken” from folks that don’t have the chance at other options. It would be good to not turn having a car into being a “rebel”. So many other efforts in protecting the environment have shown a similar divide between urban/suburban vs rural. Shit like “rolling coal” is an active effort to say “fuck you!” by people that really do feel like they are being attacked. It is a very stupid and stereotype re-enforcing thing to do in addition to being an asshole to others and the planet. But it is a divide that needs to be closed as much and and fast as possible if we want to be able to have any chance at un-fucking the global disaster. There is a difference between having a big truck with four wheel drive and actually needing it for farm work or other jobs that need that kind of thing. Vs the urban/suburban folks that get them and will never need to use it any different than they would a basic small two wheel drive car.

Also doesn’t help when rural folks constantly hear about all the stuff cities and suburbs get for infrastructure (especially stuff like telecommunication/real high-speed internet access), but they get left behind and charged even higher rates for the bad options that are there. The whole closing down of schools and offices for COVID meant that so many people literally just couldn’t do those things. It is much easier to deal with needing to suck it up and just stay home if you aren’t constantly fighting a shitty and laggy connection. Dial-up is still a real thing and unless the communications companies are forced to get shit for real out to these folks, then they will always just leave them out because profits.

And this one particular example of the massive divide is something that could be used in addition to the push for rolling out more rail options. The cities and suburban areas could benefit from taxes being used for public mass transit and rural areas could get massive modernization of internet access. Get more fiber laid while building the high-speed rail and other lines while the construction teams are already digging things up to get the tracks installed. I don’t know, but it would build a better feeling of connection instead of the current division of “city slickers and country hicks”.

dRLY, 8 months ago

I scrolled through so many comments to see if anyone was just going to let that one go un-asked! I started reading the chart from the bottom and got to chaotic good last and went from leaning back in my chair to fully forward when I read it. Was like car tire screech “What the fuck is the bottle hack?!?!?” lol

dRLY, 8 months ago

The Chromium Edge really started to win me over a bit with how well they have done vertical tabs (Brave only just recently got something even close). Was cool up until Microsoft really seems like they have gotten insecure about trying to be popular again. I fix people’s computers so I see it more than a normal user would, so I will just say that now. But it feels like every time I open Edge it seems to just bukkake my eyes with “helpful” pop-ups trying sooo bad to trick me into turning on more and more data collection “features”. It is already annoying that they try to cover up the area where the download starts if it detects that it is on the Chrome download page.

But they took what was looking to be a shockingly good alt to Chrome, and I have even gone out of my way from time to time to let customers know that they don’t really need Chrome and Edge. Instead I try to at least offer Firefox as a second option. As I do find that if a site is messed up for Chromium based browsers FF might at least give them a usable site until Edge/Chrome starts working again.

That being said, I am really curious how the original Edge would work if they had kept at it. It sucked at first because all browsers suck for awhile when new. The extensions being through the app store seemed about as normal as what Apple does with Safari. But the Edge extensions didn’t require first signing into the store in order to get free ones. So that was much less frustrating. Jumping to Chromium just further enabled Google to be on more fuck shit.

dRLY, 8 months ago

There are .deb and .rpm versions of Edge for Linux. Doesn’t get mentioned on the main download site until you scroll below the Mac/iPhone/Android options.

dRLY, 8 months ago

It might be a good idea to get a good VPN for any of those sites (even the streaming ones). No hate if you ran into an issue with FF. Every now and then I do see some PCs act weird with FF DNS options. Never able to figure out what causes them to not work correctly while most other PCs are working fine on the same local network. Opera and Opera GX “feel” too “busy” for me personally with just all the random things on the UI and features. I support people using anything that isn’t official Chrome at this point.

If you don’t already have a VPN, here is a list article with more than a few options and give some basic info on stuff like if they keep logs of IPs and for how long. Some of them also have additional DNS options for removing ads. https://torrentfreak.com/best-vpn-anonymous-no-logging/

dRLY, 8 months ago

ME

dRLY, 9 months ago

Yeah but those supposed companies that “needed those malicious practices to stay competitive” also could have done the thing Mozilla is now doing. Could even use direct knowledge and proof of those practices in a big ad campaign about how they actively don’t want all your info. This “doing it because everyone is doing it” headspace is one of the many corpo versions of “just following orders.” I understand the point you are making, but it isn’t like any of these companies are too small to fight back. Allowing this kind of thing (beyond just this specific instance) just further gaslights us at a consumer level into continued abuse being normalized and okay. Which makes it even harder to do anything about it.

Just like with how we see that a major amount of voters literally just give up and see everything as pointless in doing anything (and that is assuming that they even know about any information at all). Or how we are trained to only see one or two day polite marches in protest of something as being the whole “fight” and just go home. But when people don’t just go home or “stay out of normal people’s ways” it is seen as those protesters being “unrealistic” or even “assholes in the way.” The whole point of protests is to literally be as in the way of “normal life” as possible to push whatever change they are fighting for.

dRLY, 9 months ago

But it is also likely that the car companies have a separate system in the car’s computer that acts independently of the main infotainment system for sending data. Even if you aren’t paying for any of the “extras/add-ons”, it could still get information from your phone just being used with Bluetooth or ping your WiFi if it is on and your phone visible. Also given how much more actively these companies are all trying to get passive income from our data. I wouldn’t be shocked if the other commenter’s point about getting all kinds of “errors” popping up if disabled (especially if a fuse is pulled/modified). We already see that non-car companies like John Deere go to some big levels to remove your control over something you bought and DRM shit that has zero reason outside of forcing us to pay only them for repairs. We as people aren’t allowed to control both our physical devices or our data, and big corps are just allowed to skim everything and sell it to any other parties that pay for it. Hell even our legal system and enforcement are allowed to bypass our rights that prevent search and seizure by just going to these companies instead of us.

dRLY, 9 months ago

Slight modification to my point as I think I was meaning to say that they could have a separate system in the first sentence. Like maybe there isn’t one right now (as you point to by stating that folks have fully disassembled current cars), but they could add one or more as they gain profits from either directly using the data or (more likely) from selling the data.

As for the later point you made about them not bothering for the <0.1% of people. How long is it worth just assuming that they won’t do it as they try to find any and all ways to generate profits? They could start moving to the Apple repair tactics of requiring parts to be paired to the vehicle and require “calibration” using their tightly controlled systems in order to have very basic things work correctly. Which removing fuses to those data mining “features” could start shit like a constant system error check light or artificially disable unrelated things.

Honestly feel free to just stick to the top two paragraphs. I went down a rant rabbit hole beyond my initial point. But leaving it here as it still has some amount of value (not sure how much and to whom).

To use Apple again, if you replace a display with a third-party or even a real part but not one they sent you directly (and therefore isn’t a valid repair listed for your phone). You all of a sudden get a list of “scary” sounding warning alerts all the time about how the parts can’t be verified or calibrated. Which then leads to shit like auto-brightness, truetone colour, and even one or more cameras not working or pictures taken not saving/not being post processed with their software that makes the images look as good as they do. All that because the screen was replaced that they didn’t approve of. Sure some things like bio-metrics might make some sense to be disabled due to the non-zero chance that someone could put a hacked part on that could maybe possibly steal your shit for gaining access to your device/account/money. But shit can’t dim or do basic shit (even if the replacement is a real part).

Given how drastically so many companies of all kinds are finding it harder and harder to make numbers go up for the shareholders (which is a legal duty to do literally everything possible to do so). Especially as prices for everything are being artificially upped under the pretend guise of “inflation”. But it is really more about how they have to charge more so that those shareholders and the top level people can keep making more (but not workers). The level of data mining for passive income is invading all of our shit at levels that really should be freaking more people out. More of these car companies that were bragging about having built-in CarPlay/Android Auto a couple of years ago are now removing them in order to artificially require using rebranded access to them. Locked behind yet another subscription that they can just stop allowing to work every few years. Got to install their apps on your devices. Going to get worse as they find more and more things to “require” having their app. Even if not using your car at the time, it can try to find out what you do and where.

We at the very least need to have all that shit controlled in the interest of users/buyers with very clear legal requirements that at least it be very easy to see a full list of what is, how it is, why it is, and where it is being collected from. And it needs to be legally required that these lists or whatever are written in ways that someone with an 8th grade level of education can read and understand. So no just having an insane amount of super micro tiny legalize TOS stuff like we see with everything currently and hidden away in some cases. Each model of every car with every trim/add-on package should have that list in both print manuals in each car, and have it permanently (and very very easily to locate) on that manufacturer’s site.

dRLY, 9 months ago

Which he is also pretty consistent about. Yet somehow these children’s cartoon evil/greedy businessmen are just handed power and trusted by such a shocking amount of people. It is kind of impressive in a “we’re fucked” kind of way.

dRLY, 9 months ago

Not being hyperbolic, but almost every single time I have to speak with or am spoken to by a manager/GM at work. HR at all large companies I have ever worked for as well.

dRLY, 9 months ago

I have only ever had one project on there that has been an issue. But even then it happens with all the browsers I try. Do you use any other security/privacy extensions?

The rest is really just a rant about literally getting people to use alternatives instead of Chrome.

Also those nerds that like Chrome could just switch over to basically any other Chromium-based browser to show that they don’t support Google’s new attempts to make the internet only play by corpo rules. Edge and Brave work well for normies and for nerds (though Microsoft is really really trying to make it more frustrating as possible and adding their own data mining with every update). Just have to disable various things. Like the crypto stuff on Brave, and basically anything that Microsoft tries to tell you to use. Vivaldi is a really impressive option for power users. Their UI customization are wild af and can be a bit overwhelming from the sheer amount of options. Opera is okay too, but it seems to be confusing with how it presents its options and some features seem to overlap too much for my taste with how extensions can show up in multiple places. And of course there is Chromium, but the lack of auto updates and other things defaultly not present makes it not a good option for normies.

I personally have Brave, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, LibreWolf, Mulvad, Palemoon, Tor, Vivaldi, and Waterfox installed on my main PC. So I can see how various projects are working and to be super ready to answer the question “have you tried loading the site with a different browser” if I need to contact support of a site. Though I tend to use Mulvad for searching torrent sites and Tor for onion sites. And LibreWolf, Palemoon, and Waterfox are kind of more out of an interest in seeing how different Firefox based browsers are coming along. Out of the Chromium browsers, I tend to use Vivaldi the most as it is fun to use as an RSS feed reader and can treat Mastodon/Misskey/Foundkey as kind of apps via slide-out sidebar. Can also do email similar to how a normal email app would (though not close to as many power features). Brave would be next go-to, especially now that they have the vertical tabs working as smoothly and pretty as Edge does. The vertical tabs was basically the only reason I used Edge for a bit. All the other vertical tabs from browsers like Vivaldi or extensions always feel/look bad, and the extension based ones don’t remove the normal horizontal tabs. So it always breaks the overall UI consistency.

Should anyone that isn’t me or a site designer/tester have more than maybe two or three browsers installed? Hell no, lol. But the main point is that folks that like Chrome but would like to show that they don’t like how Google is trying to re-create the old days of Internet Explorer do have options. Get those daily installs and usage metrics of Chrome to drop after so many years of being the new replacement default. Most likely won’t stop them from doing bad shit, but it would bring back some amount of competition and more importantly give more reasons for sites to respect universal standers and not just be coded to only work with one browser. We really don’t need to see a return of those little icons on every site saying that it “Works best with IE”. For profit propratary shit is how we will cease to be able to have an open internet that isn’t just HR approved and all requiring us to be “allowed” to interact with any of it.

dRLY, 9 months ago

Yeah for real! They were really really quick and light on RAM in the super early days. But that was due to not having much there compared to Firefox and Opera, or even IE and Safari. Even the original Edge browser was kind of quick due to it just not having everything. All of them lose that little advantage after being around long enough to have the code base be added to along with trying to copy features from popular extensions or trying to add random things to stand out. Even when Firefox got heavy with RAM, I still stuck with it due to extensions factually being able to do more that I wanted. But then they solved the RAM issues dramatically with that Quantum refresh, though it did mean many extensions got nurfed by virtue of not having as much access to the OS level stuff (which is probibly a good thing with regards to security and privacy). Even then they still have better access to being able to really block ads and other privacy related things. And that is because they aren’t an ad company that wants to dictate how you are allowed to use the internet.

dRLY, 9 months ago

That is because they are a publicly traded for-profit company. They are legally required to do anything and everything to always make the numbers go up. By any means necessary, which is where any semblance of “not being evil” goes to die. Especially after a product/company was able to get massive popularity for doing/supporting actually good things and/or being known for being “the” name that people think about as being ridiculously well made. So many CEOs and the top controlling shareholders start gutting everything to squeeze out any and all extra profits. Just a hollow shell where massive cuts in jobs and replacing anything that got them there with passive money generating replacements. And since basically all normies just go with whatever they were last really told was good. They don’t notice how bad it has become, and don’t question it at all (like how many people thought those IE toolbars were just part of IE from an update).

Feel free to skip the next bit as it is more rant about the importance of actually updating the information normies have gotten and just default to.

I on a daily basis have to explain to customers who’s computers I work on, that AVG and Avast are beyond bad things to have installed these days. And that they (and really all the major paid for AV products) are the reason that their computer is dog slow. Along with pointing out that all the scary messages they are seeing are from the AV products trying to constantly up-sell them on getting every single one of their pointless products that they will never use/need. Especially bad when you pay for something and think that it will just do the damn thing you wanted without harassment. Just to then get more alerts and pop-up messages trying to scare you more into getting more “protection from X” than you got before giving them any money at all. They just keep using these things all because someone or a few “tech people” that they personally knew at work or before moving somewhere told them it was the best. Same goes for shit like Office and Outlook. So many older folks think they can’t use email if it isn’t through Outlook and freak the hell out if their drive or OS fucks up. They think they can’t create/open documents if it isn’t Office (same goes for Acrobat for PDFs). There are randomly people that do need those things, but they also tend to be more aware of stuff like creating backups of PST files.

dRLY, 9 months ago

FSB not KGB

dRLY, 9 months ago

LG/HB are vanguard af and we doesn’t afraid of anything! I have this account because I made it around the same time I made my LG account and like that Lemmy.ml is pretty good for normies (no hate) of various kinds. Joined HB long before it federated and after the CTH subreddit was quarantined. Both places are much more chill than folks think. HB is much more trollie and should be taken with more than a pinch of salt. LG is much more serious and strict, but you just need to be clear in phrasing things in good-faith if asking questions. Are there dicks on both? Yes, just like there are on here and any other instance. But I think they both benefit more from lurking for a while if not used to non-liberal leftist spaces. Feel free to downvote all you want if you disagree or whatever…or are right-wing of course. #PunchNazisIntoTheDirt

dRLY, 10 months ago

Being fair, they did land some things on the Moon before while part of the USSR. Though it is nice to see a new nation get a first for something relating to the Moon.

dRLY, 10 months ago

While I understand your headspace. Space isn’t easy even with modern tech for any nation (or company in the case of the private launch sector). They didn’t have the benefit of the Space Race injecting mad money and manpower like the US and the USSR did (shit is hard to justify spending money on while still being on the newer side of certain industrial development as a nation). They also had to make their own systems to get there. Even SpaceX still has failures to land their first stage boosters after getting it pretty well figured out. Just a crazy amount of variables means it will fail majorly if any random one is wrong. Even if they had failed to land, it would still be worth some respect for even getting on target. I think that once AI is much more mature (and not just a large language model that tends to just make shit up that sounds correct but isn’t), then I think your stance would be more correct. As the ship itself would be able to deal with all of it with or without input from earth. Would also be better at making the tough calls to abort or proceed without any emotions/stress causing bad decisions.

dRLY, 10 months ago

The landing part is the hard part, but it isn’t like Russia is any less inept than any other nation with a space program. Until SpaceX and now NASA got their new launch systems up and running, it was Russia that was getting our people to and from the ISS. The US had a pretty long span of time having to rely on basically the same launch systems that were directly competing against them during the race to the Moon. Shit is just really hard no matter how long any nation/company has been doing it. We still get plenty of pretty epic explosions from SpaceX and will see many more (especially with the BFR project). And before them we lost Challenger without it making it to space, and Colombia while coming back to earth. They did at least get to the Moon and did leave a mark of sorts. I wish there were cameras with high resolution recording all the landings and crashes from all nations that could upload after the fact for us to see. I would love to see how big the dust plumes get from all of them (especially the crashes), and see how long it takes for shit to settle again.

dRLY, 10 months ago

A lot of homeless people do end up in prison both for all of the anti-homeless laws in various cities. For some folks it may end up being a better option than just outright dying in the streets from lack of food, medicine (love how the richest nation can’t put our tax money into anything that actually helps all of us), and/or from the elements. So while your point of bringing up prison population is a valid one. It is still (in part) related to homeless population numbers, just not totally useful by itself.

That being said, I do think that China is actually putting much more effort into dealing with the problem. As bringing people out of poverty/homelessness is crucial to keeping support of the masses. When enough people are just tossed out and can’t get help. It will lead to dramatic and very widespread revolts and even civil wars. That is true for any nation, no matter what system is in place. Socialist nations were birthed by such widespread poverty for the many while the few hoarded the wealth and resources. It is kind of one of the main points Marx and other anti-capitalist theorists base their shit on.

dRLY, 11 months ago

Wouldn’t need to take their money if donations were to get high enough (though it might be easier to have a collective org that all kinds of open internet groups could join and donate to). At the moment FF is the only browser that isn’t relying on Google’s Chromium while also being a real player that isn’t OS specific like Safari is. All the FF alts may have their own very good points for making their forks, but they aren’t building anything from the ground up. Which puts them in the same spot as all the Chromium based forks with regards to relying on base code needing to stay current. It is of course possible for the Chromium forks to join with FF (and any of its forks that can put their issues with Mozilla aside on this issue) to call for protections.

IE/Microsoft was pulling the same kinds of shit before Chrome, Firefox, and Safari were able to show what could be possible with both actual demands for standards to be followed and that the internet should be open. The open standards are what allowed so many devs of all classes/nationalities/ages/etc to create so many cool things when barriers like money and copyright are removed. Now Google is the Microsoft of the internet and they only respect the rights of corps and rich fucks that don’t create anything. Just digital rights versions of landlords. We wouldn’t have the options we have now if we waited for those copyrights holders to stop us from just doing shit with technology.

dRLY, 11 months ago

Getting more people to start using Firefox instead of Chrome would be the best way to “vote with our wallets” in this case. Though some of the Chromium forks do make easier sells, but they are much much more likely to just go with whatever Google does by using the same base. So if Google forces something into Chromium in order to keep being able to functioning and being compatible (in web standards, security updates, and the massive extension library). It will just force the use of whatever Google wants, and make Google the de facto boss of how we are “allowed” to use the internet.

dRLY, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

Might as well ask here. I am waiting on Sync for Lemmy to be released, and more importantly reach a non-alpha/beta release. But for now I am also down to try out others. Are there any that are able to handle Android tablets correctly? At the moment I have only used Jerboa. It is great on my phones, but it looks like the old days of apps for Android being forced to run on early tablets on my Galaxy Tab S8+. It just stretches out and feels off in both landscape and portrait orientations.

*Adding this to be more specific, as I blanked on it originally.*The thing I was somehow forgetting to mention was having cards in multiple columns. With Sync for Reddit, you could have posts show as cards that had smallish preview thumbnails in multiple columns. So posts would show more like a grid. Not sure why I blanked on saying that when talking about how currently posts just stretch all the way across the width of the display (especially in landscape mode). I am not sure if this is even currently an option with how Lemmy itself works. So hopefully that helps better. lol.

dRLY, 11 months ago

Installed and it does seem to be smooth, so I do thank you for pointing it out! I am beginning to think what I am looking for is more an issue with Lemmy. The thing I liked about Sync was the ability to have multiple columns of posts in the card format. So each post in a community doesn’t just span the whole width of the screen (which is much more dramatic in landscape). Also keeps it easy to scroll more posts and preview images being smaller, but not as tiny as the super small list view.

That all being said, I do think Connect is very clean and will be using it more for the moment. It is good to see attention from devs being put towards Lemmy.

dRLY, 11 months ago

Installed and seems to have the same issue. But I will keep it installed along with Connect and any others I come across. I like to jump between different apps over time to see how they evolve and compare to each other. Thanks for sharing it!

dRLY, 11 months ago

Truth! I wasn’t shocked that all the social media and entertainment companies all decided to treat the Covid years as if that growth was organic/normal (all retail stores started doing this much faster). As if people were just going to keep having the same amount of time to spend on them. Or in the case of sites like Reddit, they think that they are the creators of content instead of the location to get it. Companies like Red Hat are more jarring and seem like they would’ve been more realistic.

The next two paragraphs are just a rant about companies and the government not really caring for stability long-run. Feel free to ignore.

Of course people were going to start unsubbing now that they need to focus on actual things needed for just living. Covid has shown that all these greedy folks running (or holding shares) companies in all sectors refuse to just be focused on stability. They act like all the crazy large profits were all because of their “genius innovative ideas and leadership.” Of course that was going to happen to all the publicly traded companies, due to their literal legal obligation to always make numbers go up. But shit is beyond a bad way to handle the real material conditions of life. It also doesn’t help that the US did a worse job at doing things like monthly stimulus money compared to other places.

A capitalist economy requires that people keep buying both needed and wanted things in order to keep things moving around. But instead of putting money into the hands of people, which would then likely buy more things or even have finally something to save for when things normalized (which would be helpful for making the falloff less dramatic). We barely got two total $2000 payments. Fuck, even just making sure folks could have money to finally get out of various debits would mean people could more easily justify keeping things like Netflix.

dRLY, 11 months ago

They make a large amount from Google paying them to be the default search engine. Also they have been making additional projects that can be subscribed to as add-ons for Firefox (like a VPN and an email forwarding service that allows you to make fake email addresses or phone numbers to use on sites that will forward the messages to your real inbox/phone). You can use a limited version of the email thing without paying though so it is easy to try out. And they are always ready to take donations of any size and can be reoccurring. I personally pay .99/month for the email service even though I don’t use it often. As it is nice to have if I need it, and it is basically a donation at that point. lol.

Here are links to those products if you care to read more about them or at least see pricing.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/products/vpn/

https://relay.firefox.com/

But even just making a point to donate some one-offs here and there does help in small ways to keep a real option in browsers that isn’t just another Chromium-based project.
https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/

Everyone hated when IE was the only browser that sites were coded for, and we are seeing more and more Chromium only sites. Which means a bad vulnerability in Chromium will impact all the browsers based on it. Also privacy add-ons for Firefox tend to work better and block ads well.

dRLY, 11 months ago

This kind of vibe is becoming actually scary from a “no one knows how X actually works, but they are building things that might become problematic later” headspace. I am not saying that everyone needs to know everything. But one really really bad issue I see while fixing people’s PCs is that a shocking amount of high school and college aged folks are really about media creation and/or in comp sci majors. However they come to me with issues that make me question how they are able to function in knowing so many things that all involve computers, but not the computers themselves.

These next paragraphs are mostly a rant about how the OSes are helping make the issue grow with all users and not just the above. Also more ranting about frustration and concern about no one caring about fundamentals of how the things they make their stuff on function. Feel free to skip and I am marking as a “spoiler” to make things slightly less “wall of text”.

spoilerSome of it is the fault of the OSes all trying to act like smartphone OSes. Which do everything possible to remove the ability to really know where all your actual data is on the device. Just goes on there with a “trust me bro, I know where it is so you don’t need to” vibe. I have unironically had someone really really need a couple of specific files. And their answer to me when I asked if they knew where they might be saved was “on the computer.” Which was mildly funny to see them react when my face led to them saying “which I guess is beyond not helpful.” I eventually convinced him to freaking try signing into OneDrive like I had told him to do while I checked his local drive files. Which turns out it was not on the PC but in fact OneDrive. That was a much more straight forward moment. Microsoft tricking people into creating Microsoft Accounts and further tricking them into letting OneDrive replace “Documents”, “Desktop”, and “Pictures” local folders at setup is a nightmare when trying to help older folks (though even younger folks don’t even notice that they are actually making a Microsoft Account either). Which means if I just pull a drive out of a not booting computer those folders don’t exist in the User’s folder. And if the OneDrive folder is there, the data is mostly just stubs of actual files. Which means they are useless, and can be bad if the person only had a free account and it got too full and there is now data that may be lost due to those folders not “really” being present. They know how to use these (to me) really complicated programs and media devices. They know how to automate things in cool ways. Create content or apps that I will just never wrap my mind around. So I am not over here calling them stupid and just “dunking” on them. But they don’t care or just refuse to learn the basic hardware or even basic level troubleshooting (a lot is just a quick Google search away). They know how to create things, but not ask how the stuff that they use to create things works. So what will happen when the folks that know how things work are gone and all people know is how to make things that presuppose that the other things are functioning? All because the only things that get attention are whatever is new and teaching less and less the foundations. Pair that with things being so messed up that “fake it till you make it” is a real and honest mantra and means only fools will give actual credentials on their resumes.
It is all about getting a title of a job, without knowing a damn thing about what is needed to do the job. It also means so many problems that were solved before are needing to be re-solved as if it was brand new. Or things that were already being done are “innovated” by people with good BS-ing skills in obtuse ways that sound great but just add lots of busy work. To which the next “innovator” just puts things back to before and are seen as “so masterful.” History and knowing how things work currently matter in making real advancements. If a coder just learns to always use functions or blobs of other projects without knowing what is in them. Then they could base basically everything on things that if are abandoned or purged will make their things no longer work.
Given how quickly “professionals” from so so many industries are just simply relying on these early AI/MLs without question. They don’t verify if the information they got was factually true and can be cited from real sources. Instead of seeing that the results were made from the AI/MLs doing shit they have been taught to do. Which is to try and create things based on the “vibe” of actual data. The image generators are all about the attempts to take random prompts and compare to actual versions of things and make something kind of similar. But the text based ones are treated so differently and taken at a scary level of face value and trusted. And it is getting worse with so many “trusted” media outlets beginning to use these systems to make articles.

dRLY, 11 months ago

It is making my somewhat impulsive need to actually download copies of things make sense again. Obviously have had some kind of “b” folder for random memes for years alongside my movies/tv shows/music/etc. Initially it was because streaming and shit was not as big a thing, and even when they got popular there are always random times where internet is down. Which that last point is a very very clear sign of the massive digital divide between urban, suburban, and rural areas. Even between different urban areas you see a huge difference. All these services are made in major tech centres where it is like network access is about as plentiful as air. But are a constant issue for everywhere else.

I even like to respond to folks that don’t understand the point of actually saving pr0n with all the modern options, by saying you never know when a basic outage might be something big. And so long as the drives and computers are working, it is basically its own currency for trade.

Given how all the streaming services tend to just lose lots of major things all the time. It is good to know that I can just keep enjoying stuff. Cloud stuff is cool so long as it can be used however the users want/need. But all the companies are trying to turn the net (and even basic programs) into being 100% controlled by everyone but the users. Can’t play single player games without being online, but isn’t an issue if pirated. Try to be “legit” and pay for a movie/show/album, but not be able to use it with a player you like or just have a local copy. AND they still scoop-up all kinds of data on us and everyone we might know. Pay for a steaming service doesn’t even remove ads anymore unless you can justify the higher tier (digital caste system). But then they just make all the options cost more even if ads are present.

Now we are seeing it get harder and harder to even have basic internet culture that is user generated. We are seeing costs that promise more ability to get these things go higher and higher without then being able to do any of said things. We need to get more things onto decentralized and P2P networks while there is time to figure them out. I2P and Fediverse are great starting points, but need to be easy enough for actual normies to use. And they really only work at an acceptable rate if lots of people keep things like laptops and desktops running as often as possible to keep data moving. Which will make them immediate targets for all the same companies that came after them before the current services were considered “approved.”

dRLY, 1 year ago

This is the most upvotes I have seen on Lemmy so far! We gotta get this over 1k at least!

dRLY, 1 year ago

This is a big flashy headline that isn’t as big of a deal as it presents itself. AI is still extremely far from assisting doctors, let alone replacing them.

While I also agree it is less than the hype. There are already people that are just concerned about moving quickly up the ladder and/or lazy that are just using GPT on the low and taking credit (with or without first checking any of it). I read about a law firm that was found to have used GPT for a case and were found out mainly due to legal case citations that they submitted were just made up by GPT and couldn’t be found to have ever happened. They then claimed that they weren’t aware that the AI would provide fake information as it sounded real enough.

Not to mention all the tech companies that are having to tell workers to stop uploading code or other information for the AI to work on. Given how bad the lack of fucks given by so many docs with pill mills and opioids. I am more than willing to believe there are already docs all over that are using GPT or any of the others.

I can attest to many docs/nurses not giving any fucks even when just trying to get correct diagnostic codes for the lab company I worked for years ago to simply bill insurance. We had to get a specific code and not a general code (like they can’t just use something like 264 as it is a general code for “Vitamin A deficiency” and would need to state like 264.1 “With conjunctival xerosis and Bitot’s spot” to specify which kind of Vitamin A deficiency). I would have to call about them missing or not being specific. And I got a shockingly high amount of docs that had ordered the freaking tests just tell me to just use “whatever made sense.” Our already fucked medical services are gonna get much worse.

dRLY, 1 year ago

I mostly agree with you on the first paragraph. Though I would say that I am not so sure they won’t try to phase out plenty of professionals. All of these companies are freaking the fuck out and trying to just rush shit out at rates that are beyond problematic. All the VC’s and major tech companies are chasing the dragon of money and ignoring all the real issues that comes with normies thinking that shit is magic and accurate. Though I am also blaming the for-profit media of all types that are all about hyper-attention grabbing titles. Which does fill the gaps of normies thinking things are much further along than they are. So even if the devs make a point to say that things are not even fully in betas, we are seeing shit being pushed out like it is full release. We already saw how fast internet folks were able to turn old chatbots into outright Nazi sympathizers. There are already well equipped blackhats out there that are trying to take some of these models and remove protections. Though it is very fun to see the ways that how the more prankster folks are bypassing some things with just wording shit differently.

I also agree that I want the healthcare system and insurance needs to be burned down and just moved to tax funded with lives being more important than any money. But the codes I was speaking of wasn’t billing codes. They are actual medical diagnostic codes. So it does kind of matter that things be correct in that element. As it implies that their diagnoses for patients are not based on knowing specifics. One wrong code could change what is being looked for and could be bad in wasting time. Though I will stress that it is likely to not matter for most common tests. So I yield to that in those situations.

Overall I do want to again say that I think we may agree more than my initial reply might sound (or even this one). I just think that we can’t keep the constant hype-trains running so hard all the time as if things are going to work. We are being charged more for less finished products. And we are seeing the beginnings of mass reductions in workforces as the corpo leaders just think that we aren’t needed anymore. But that could work in favor of a worker’s revolution if leftists really start going hard for catching those impacted before they fall into reactionary hands and fascism takes over again. But I don’t wish for so many to suffer more than they have already.

dRLY, 1 year ago

And they will keep yelling about how leftists are all actually Nazis while literally burning books. The worst kind of fascists are all fascists, but the next in line are the ones that don’t seem to realize that they are. The combination of massive corp greed across all media has done the real work for indoctrinating so many. Doublespeak and gaslighting all the culture war stuff. The right is doing a terrifyingly good job at making people actually proud to be ignorant. It is “American” to be consumed with placing individualism above community. So convinced that any and all assistance programs are “evil” or that we can’t “encourage laziness”. Which is ironic given how folks that claim this shit are among the worst offenders for grifting or otherwise scamming people that do work hard. The “pro-law and order” folks are among the worst offenders of literally breaking laws and threatening people and property (which they won’t STFU about how "Antifa is being trucked into places in order to break shit). I wouldn’t lose sleep if I ever had to put down any of them, as they are only tripling down on their stances and open threats. Not willing to just take the L on shit they have been, or currently are, wrong about (which is admittedly a big step ego-wise). Which is why I do try to do what I can if I manage to get a good-faith conversation going, and I see them actually having their mind blown. But that requires a lot of factors lining up and time isn’t on our side atm.