Boaty_McBoatyson's recent activity

  1. Comment on Unexplained electronic components found in imported equipment for Denmark's energy supply network – investigation underway to learn more in ~tech

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link
    It's odd to me how this super vague story made it into the news. Sounds more like a type of situation where you file a complaint with the supplier. I mean look at the quote below. Some seriously...

    It's odd to me how this super vague story made it into the news. Sounds more like a type of situation where you file a complaint with the supplier. I mean look at the quote below. Some seriously mild journalism.

    "It's possible the supplier had no malicious intent. We can't say at this point, but that doesn't change the fact that these components shouldn't be there," he said.

    5 votes
  2. Comment on What are the best niche software tools you're using? in ~tech

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link
    Instead of paying for clown storage I use SyncThing. It syncs files/folders using local wifi, no server in the middle. It works really well. It makes owning a pile of laptops/devices something...

    Instead of paying for clown storage I use SyncThing. It syncs files/folders using local wifi, no server in the middle. It works really well. It makes owning a pile of laptops/devices something great because I can sync my current work project folders.

    3 votes
  3. Comment on US President Donald Trump to issue executive orders to end birthright citizenship, limit gender identity — incoming official in ~lgbt

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    Obama was a black pawn for Wall Street, aiding and abetting the gutting of the US middle class. There are no opposites between the actions of the democratic party (NAFTA) and the rise of fascism....

    How the fuck did the United States go from its first black president to Fascism?

    Obama was a black pawn for Wall Street, aiding and abetting the gutting of the US middle class. There are no opposites between the actions of the democratic party (NAFTA) and the rise of fascism. It's the same stair-step process back to fascism. Economic disenfranchisement is all it takes as many other point out here in the comments.

    Political blogger Jon Schwarz quoted from Iron Law of Institutions

    The people who control institutions care first and foremost about their power within the institution rather than the power of the institution itself. Thus, they would rather the institution "fail" while they remain in power within the institution than for the institution to "succeed" if that requires them to lose power within the institution.

    9 votes
  4. Comment on What are some words or usage that became more prominent in 2024, either in your life or in general? in ~talk

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    Re: literally OK, I guess I'm confused and very much not an authority on daily usage since I'm not living in an English speaking country and English is not my first language. We have an equivalent...

    Re: literally
    OK, I guess I'm confused and very much not an authority on daily usage since I'm not living in an English speaking country and English is not my first language. We have an equivalent word to 'literally' in My CoUnTrY and It would look veeeeery stupid if you used it in the same way as 'literally' in amr. English.

    Yeah I find this written uptalk distracting and a bit lazy. You could phrase yourself to imply being unsure instead of just slapping a question mark at the end. You begin a reading a sentence that turns out becoming a question and it just feels like ... betrayal???

    2 votes
  5. Comment on What are some words or usage that became more prominent in 2024, either in your life or in general? in ~talk

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link
    Please everyone haven't you noticed also here on the tildes twin epidemics have been raging: Using 'literally' as all-purpose emphasis in any context at all Putting question marks at the end of...

    Please everyone haven't you noticed also here on the tildes twin epidemics have been raging:

    1. Using 'literally' as all-purpose emphasis in any context at all
    2. Putting question marks at the end of sentences that are not questions
    8 votes
  6. Comment on What are some words or usage that became more prominent in 2024, either in your life or in general? in ~talk

  7. Comment on MasterCard sells my transaction data in "anonymised" form; but I get targeted spam related to credit card use. How does it work? in ~tech

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    Your comment is very useful. I'll keep this in mind when researching the topic further.

    Your comment is very useful. I'll keep this in mind when researching the topic further.

    2 votes
  8. Comment on MasterCard sells my transaction data in "anonymised" form; but I get targeted spam related to credit card use. How does it work? in ~tech

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link
    Recently changed my credit card provider to MasterCard, then I started getting some quite pertinent and well-timed spam emails related to my use of the credit card. I discovered MasterCard is...

    Recently changed my credit card provider to MasterCard, then I started getting some quite pertinent and well-timed spam emails related to my use of the credit card.

    I discovered MasterCard is selling it's customer transaction data online - in an anonymised form. I'm not a data scientist, but from some brief research I get the impression it's quite easy to de-anonymise a large dataset. See for example this video:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puQvpyf0W-M

    From a privacy perspective, is there anything to the implied privacy of 'anonymised data' or is it mostly a fig leaf to allow businesses to sell my data and still comply with, for example European GDPR privacy requirements? Would love to hear the thoughts of those well-versed in law and/or tech. Thank you.

    18 votes
  9. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link
    The title of the post lead me to believe you were abandoning Kagi because you found the service of Yandex to be superior. Yandex' reverse image search works very well, I use it often to trace the...

    The title of the post lead me to believe you were abandoning Kagi because you found the service of Yandex to be superior. Yandex' reverse image search works very well, I use it often to trace the origins of images. Overall searching on Yandex gives me way better results than other mainstream non-paid search engines.

    As a left leaning non-US citizen watching the developments in the US it appears to me any major differences between the Russian and US political system are shrinking, corporate wellfare and the corporate capture of the political system.

    13 votes
  10. Comment on How do you listen to your favorite obscure music that never made it onto any streaming platforms? in ~music

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link
    There are peer-to-peer filesharing networks such as Soulseek http://www.slsknet.org/news/ Strong community of users digitizing music that never will make into the walled gardens of streaming services.

    There are peer-to-peer filesharing networks such as Soulseek
    http://www.slsknet.org/news/

    Strong community of users digitizing music that never will make into the walled gardens of streaming services.

    11 votes
  11. Comment on Operating on good faith in a bad faith environment—the implications in ~society

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link
    Quick thanks to OP and everyone commenting on this topic for creating an oasis of sanity on the www.

    Quick thanks to OP and everyone commenting on this topic for creating an oasis of sanity on the www.

    3 votes
  12. Comment on Grokking KOReader in ~books

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link
    Nice to see some KOreader appreciation here on tildes. If any of you have had the experience of fast battery drain with a Kobo ebook reader (mine is KOBO LIBRA H2O) + KOreader AND succesfully...

    Nice to see some KOreader appreciation here on tildes.

    If any of you have had the experience of fast battery drain with a Kobo ebook reader (mine is KOBO LIBRA H2O) + KOreader AND succesfully solved it I would absolutely LOVE hearing from you.

    I loved KOreader, but it wasn't useful in practice since it drains 8-10% a day while idle. There were a some posts about it on an ebook forum but none of the suggestions solved it for me.

    1 vote
  13. Comment on Ideology of news-selling and its critique in ~humanities

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    I find scheerpost.com to be a decent amalgamation of various single-person news sources. Openly egalitarian-leftist.

    I find scheerpost.com to be a decent amalgamation of various single-person news sources. Openly egalitarian-leftist.

  14. Comment on Atheists of Tildes, what alive religions do you find fascinating, excluding Abrahamic ones and Buddhism? in ~talk

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    Your recommendations are of great help and I've already passed them on to some of my friends. Thanks for sharing and showing up with excellent comments whenever there is an introspective mental...

    Your recommendations are of great help and I've already passed them on to some of my friends. Thanks for sharing and showing up with excellent comments whenever there is an introspective mental health question on tildes.

    1 vote
  15. Comment on For every month a person completes their monthly exercise challenge in the Fitness app, Apple should give them a free month of the 50GB iCloud plan in ~tech

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    I was unaware of this connection btw. insurance and smart watches. The critical side of me sees social norms being paved toward a social credit scheme and health surveillance. I have a very bad...

    I was unaware of this connection btw. insurance and smart watches. The critical side of me sees social norms being paved toward a social credit scheme and health surveillance. I have a very bad feeling for the technological naivety of older generations, those I know seem so incredibly gullible.

    1 vote
  16. Comment on For every month a person completes their monthly exercise challenge in the Fitness app, Apple should give them a free month of the 50GB iCloud plan in ~tech

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    Just because they love you they removed the 'select all' button from the online interface of iCloud. Have fun clicking your 1.000+ photos off one by one when trying to escape their little fiefdom.

    Just because they love you they removed the 'select all' button from the online interface of iCloud. Have fun clicking your 1.000+ photos off one by one when trying to escape their little fiefdom.

  17. Comment on Atheists of Tildes, what alive religions do you find fascinating, excluding Abrahamic ones and Buddhism? in ~talk

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    Wonderful stuff user ShamedSalmon. A lot to return to later, will start with Daoism Explained. Books are piling up here. So much to read. A pleasure. If you don't mind me asking: are you...

    Wonderful stuff user ShamedSalmon. A lot to return to later, will start with Daoism Explained. Books are piling up here. So much to read. A pleasure.

    If you don't mind me asking: are you academically involved in this topic or is it some sort of heavy duty spiritual hobby? :-)

    1 vote
  18. Comment on Do you believe the world is controlled by competing interests, or do you think there is a "power elite" that controls the world from the background? in ~talk

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    Reagan wanted very much to avoid a well-educated proletariat and for this reason created what you might call selection bias and sunk cost in making college educations more expensive. I appreciate...

    Reagan wanted very much to avoid a well-educated proletariat and for this reason created what you might call selection bias and sunk cost in making college educations more expensive.

    I appreciate all your examples of resistance to self-reliance. I would add how fossil fuels were chosen over solar energy because of how solar energy might become a decentralized grid. Examples abound in Perlin's book on solar energy 'Let it Shine'.

    I think the world is driven by greed.

    You might be right. It is the assumption of neo-liberalism. I do often find myself wanting to challenge this: most people I have the privilege to know are collaborative, decent, sharing. Sure, when we look up and examine vast power structures it appears very much to be driven by greed. My pet theory is that we get a combination of 'career sunk cost' and 'selection bias' in those people who aspire to positions of power in the system. But that most people are not well described by the basic assumption of human nature according to neo-liberalism. Homo sapiens would have died out long ago if we weren't more collaborative than competitive. I'm in no way married to this belief, but it gives me great solace to think way better of people than neo-liberalism does.

    Are you aware of this concept? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principal%E2%80%93agent_problem
    A pretty spot-on description of self-interest in institutional hierachies / transactional situations.

    Since this topic is 'your jam' please do send me a PM if you want to exchange resources or discuss further. I don't have any more pet theories, just a willingness to listen to what else you've discovered from your interest in this question.

    1 vote
  19. Comment on Do you believe the world is controlled by competing interests, or do you think there is a "power elite" that controls the world from the background? in ~talk

    Boaty_McBoatyson
    Link Parent
    It's called 'folklore' I believe :-) It's been around for a good while. BTW, did you know the sun moves across the sky because it is being pulled by a little golden wagon?

    innate desire for people to have simple answers to complex problems

    It's called 'folklore' I believe :-)
    It's been around for a good while.

    BTW, did you know the sun moves across the sky because it is being pulled by a little golden wagon?