OBLIVIATER's recent activity

  1. Comment on CONTROL Resonant | Announcement trailer in ~games

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    I'm not sure if Firebreak was anyone's thing, It seemed pretty much DOA.

    I'm not sure if Firebreak was anyone's thing, It seemed pretty much DOA.

    5 votes

  2. Comment on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 becomes first indie game to win Game of the Year at The Game Awards in ~games

    OBLIVIATER
    Link
    I'm sad Silksong didn't win but I think it never stood a chance against the kind of game E33 is for an awards show like this, but its still by far my GOTY.

    I'm sad Silksong didn't win but I think it never stood a chance against the kind of game E33 is for an awards show like this, but its still by far my GOTY.

    6 votes

  3. Comment on Can a heavily modified Rivian take the EV Cannonball record? (Part 1) in ~transport

    OBLIVIATER
    Link
    While I'm a little disapproving of the concept of the cannonball run for safety reasons, I can't lie and say that I'm not extremely excited for part two. Everything Robert makes seems almost...

    While I'm a little disapproving of the concept of the cannonball run for safety reasons, I can't lie and say that I'm not extremely excited for part two. Everything Robert makes seems almost tailor made to be interesting to me. I don't even particularly like cars, he's just such a great creator.

    5 votes

  4. Comment on These travel influencers don’t want freebies. They’re AI. in ~travel

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    It's about flooding social media with slop to get your brain to subliminally think about product/service. Even if you do know its slop, you're still thinking about the product and that's a win in...

    It's about flooding social media with slop to get your brain to subliminally think about product/service. Even if you do know its slop, you're still thinking about the product and that's a win in their book.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on Your "Yukon Gold" potatoes probably aren't Yukons—here's why in ~food

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    I love red potatoes, they're perfect for stews and other hardy meals.

    I love red potatoes, they're perfect for stews and other hardy meals.

    3 votes

  6. Comment on Cloudflare down again in ~tech

    OBLIVIATER
    Link
    Is it just me or is this happening far more frequently this year than previously? Maybe I'm just noticing it more because it's happening at times I actually use the Internet

    Is it just me or is this happening far more frequently this year than previously? Maybe I'm just noticing it more because it's happening at times I actually use the Internet

    20 votes

  7. Comment on A new anonymous phone carrier lets you sign up with nothing but a US zip code in ~tech

    OBLIVIATER
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    That's the first thing I thought of too, this says "honeypot" to me lol https://www.vice.com/en/article/anom-phone-arcaneos-fbi-backdoor/ That being said the article doesn't exactly shy away from...

    That's the first thing I thought of too, this says "honeypot" to me lol

    https://www.vice.com/en/article/anom-phone-arcaneos-fbi-backdoor/

    That being said the article doesn't exactly shy away from the history of the FBI demanding access to carriers networks, and the founder does have a long history of fighting legal battles against them.

    Merrill has some firsthand experience with those demands. Starting in 2004, he fought a landmark, decade-plus legal battle against the FBI and the Department of Justice. As the owner of an internet service provider in the post-9/11 era, Merrill had received a secret order from the bureau to hand over data on a particular user—and he refused. After that, he spent another 15 years building and managing the Calyx Institute, a nonprofit that offers privacy tools like a snooping-resistant version of Android and a free VPN that collects no logs of its users’ activities. “Nick is somebody who is extremely principled and willing to take a stand for his principles,” says Cindy Cohn, who as executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation has led the group’s own decades-long fight against government surveillance. “He's careful and thoughtful, but also, at a certain level, kind of fearless.”

    6 votes

  8. Comment on Is YouTube's use of AI upscaling for Shorts unethical? in ~tech

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    Yes, after seeing the results I agree this shouldn't have been done to people's videos without their permission. I don't think that because of any ethical reasons though, I just think it looks bad...

    Yes, after seeing the results I agree this shouldn't have been done to people's videos without their permission. I don't think that because of any ethical reasons though, I just think it looks bad haha

    3 votes

  9. Comment on Is YouTube's use of AI upscaling for Shorts unethical? in ~tech

    OBLIVIATER
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Ok to be fully honest, would anyone actually get upset about this issue if it wasn't reported as "AI Upscaling"? If it was just called "Upscaling" or "enhanced transcoding" or something, people...

    Edit: After seeing the results of this upscaling, if its "AI" or not, it doesn't matter. It just looks ugly and shouldn't be done without creators permission.

    Ok to be fully honest, would anyone actually get upset about this issue if it wasn't reported as "AI Upscaling"? If it was just called "Upscaling" or "enhanced transcoding" or something, people would probably either be unaware, or think that it's a cool feature. "AI" upscaling has existed for quite a while in one form or another, and has quietly been a powerful tool for a lot of purposes.

    The question is valid though, if Youtube is using this as an excuse to train AI on all youtube shorts that definitely is a misleading and scummy thing to do; but I'd have to see any scrap of proof that its actually happening, not just "what if they were doing this?"

    I get that everyone is rightfully a little touchy over AI since pretty much every major company has trawled the internet and stolen zettabytes of data to train their AI on, but there isn't even any real evidence that this is that. Youtube claims its traditional machine learning upscaling and explicitly not generative AI which is neither new nor damaging to artists/creators. I think it's vitally important that we don't just call everything "AI" until it completely loses it's meaning (even though companies have been doing exactly that as a marketing buzzword.) It's just muddying the already very muddy waters and confusing people who don't have any idea of what's actually going on and are just following whatever the youtuber says.

    Youtube absolutely should make this an Opt-in service though, simply because people are so wary of it. No reason to give people a service they don't want.

    15 votes

  10. Comment on Living wage calculator in ~finance

  11. Comment on Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds in ~enviro

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    Maybe we'll get lucky and an asteroid will take us all out before it becomes a bigger issue.

    Maybe we'll get lucky and an asteroid will take us all out before it becomes a bigger issue.

    2 votes

  12. Comment on Collapse of critical Atlantic current is no longer low-likelihood, study finds in ~enviro

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    A Measles resurgence is just the tip of the iceberg in Canada and the rest of the over-developed world. I genuinely believe that wealth inequality; even just within individual countries, is by far...

    A Measles resurgence is just the tip of the iceberg in Canada and the rest of the over-developed world. I genuinely believe that wealth inequality; even just within individual countries, is by far the number one most damaging issue affecting the largest group of people. There are definitely issues that are affecting smaller numbers of people much more severely (things like the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Palestinian genocide, and the Uyghur crisis) but on a grand scale there are billions of people living in poverty and most of the rest are not that much better.

    It's impossible to expect anyone who is struggling to afford to live in a safe home, can't pay for nourishing food, and doesn't have access to even minimal amounts of healthcare to even begin to care about how we are absolutely destroying the ecosystems that took hundreds of millions of years to form.

    Until we stop allowing the 00.001% of the world to control, manipulate, and devastate all of our resources; we have no hope of making any meaningful changes. The system of monarchs, nobles, and royalty controlling the masses was always heading this way, ever since the beginning, it's just accelerated at a dizzying rate over the last few hundred years. Today our monarchs and nobles look a little different, but in the end they're the same dangerous, damaging, and cowardly parasites they always have been.

    14 votes

  13. Comment on The turf war for Seattle in ~transport

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    In the description they credit two other relatively popular Youtubers who no longer produce videos, I'm guessing that could have something to do with it. I've seen a few channels show up out of...

    In the description they credit two other relatively popular Youtubers who no longer produce videos, I'm guessing that could have something to do with it. I've seen a few channels show up out of nowhere producing very high quality videos recently, and it turned out some of them had private equity backing them, so that's possible too.

    9 votes

  14. Comment on Over 120,000 home cameras hacked for 'sexploitation' footage in ~tech

    OBLIVIATER
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    I think it was Insecam but it's been so long I can't remember. It was on a reddit thread like 10+ years ago. Looks like it's still up but the site seems a little sketchy now with weird ads, so I...

    I think it was Insecam but it's been so long I can't remember. It was on a reddit thread like 10+ years ago. Looks like it's still up but the site seems a little sketchy now with weird ads, so I don't know if it's even the same one.

    This a cool one of a Japanese solar farm. http://www.insecam.org/en/view/1010777/

    Or this one of some French cows chilling

    http://www.insecam.org/en/view/1010215/

    2 votes

  15. Comment on Over 120,000 home cameras hacked for 'sexploitation' footage in ~tech

    OBLIVIATER
    Link
    Oh man I remember a long time ago there used to be a site that had whole pages of unsecured IP cams. They were almost all things like weather cams or random security cameras, but it makes me...

    Oh man I remember a long time ago there used to be a site that had whole pages of unsecured IP cams. They were almost all things like weather cams or random security cameras, but it makes me wonder if there was more disturbing stuff like this on there.

    Technological ignorance and dependence is a dangerous thing, it's far too easy to be trusting or even unaware about these kinds of vulnerabilities.

    21 votes

  16. Comment on US shoppers, drawn by steep discounts, power through Black Friday in ~finance

    OBLIVIATER
    (edited )
    Link
    My computer monitor started dying exactly on Black Friday which was convenient because there was good sales on, but a little suspicious. I'm going to attempt to repair it, but I still ordered a...

    My computer monitor started dying exactly on Black Friday which was convenient because there was good sales on, but a little suspicious. I'm going to attempt to repair it, but I still ordered a new one because I can't afford to be without one. If the capacitor repair goes well then I'll have a good backup/2nd monitor, and I'm excited for my upgrade.

    3 votes

  17. Comment on Advice request: potentially adopting a cat in ~life.pets

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    I just close my door when I sleep, my cat cried for a few days but I just turned my white noise machine up and slept. Now she's used to it and I can actually sleep through the night.

    I just close my door when I sleep, my cat cried for a few days but I just turned my white noise machine up and slept. Now she's used to it and I can actually sleep through the night.

    3 votes

  18. Comment on This climbing gear is designed to fail in ~hobbies

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    I climb a bit, I want to go more but my climbing buddy has been busy recently :(

    I climb a bit, I want to go more but my climbing buddy has been busy recently :(

    2 votes

  19. Comment on There may not be a safe off-ramp for some taking GLP-1 drugs, study suggests in ~health

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    I think treatments like this need to be done in combination with some exercise in order to build up some muscle mass so if you do stop taking the treatment you have some long term health...

    I think treatments like this need to be done in combination with some exercise in order to build up some muscle mass so if you do stop taking the treatment you have some long term health improvements to fall back on. Appetite suppression alone will never be a permanent solution unless you're solution is to be permanently on the treatments.

    3 votes

  20. Comment on Voyager 1 is about to reach one light-day from Earth in ~space

    OBLIVIATER
    Link Parent
    Relative to how long its been in space, that's not very far off. And I mean, its basically a full light day away already haha, who's counting a couple measely AU.

    Relative to how long its been in space, that's not very far off. And I mean, its basically a full light day away already haha, who's counting a couple measely AU.

    15 votes