Tiraon's recent activity

  1. Comment on Never forgive them - On digital platforms vs users in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link
    This was a very long rant. There could be another extremely involved discussion about direct, indirect responsibility, the incentive structures that drive them and the same about them but I am...

    This was a very long rant.

    There could be another extremely involved discussion about direct, indirect responsibility, the incentive structures that drive them and the same about them but I am interested here in what would be needed for change which the article does not go into much.

    In my opinion there are three broad directions from where change is even possible. Leadership, popular sentiment and external factors, changes by which we are certainly due for but the shape of them is anyones guess.

    Popular sentiment could put a floor on how bad things can get. Lets take the laptop example. For that 238$ it would be possible to go buy used business class laptop, put Linux on it and have better experience than what the author describes. It would depend more on location but it is likely possible. I believe anyone to be technically capable of that much if they wanted which is why the societally glorified tech illiteracy is so frustrating.

    I consider the second episode of Black Mirror to be the most terrifying horror I saw and taken metaphorically enough we are already there.

    3 votes

  3. Comment on Microsoft says having a TPM is "non-negotiable" for Windows 11 in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link
    Personally my worry here is what a situation of universally available(or enough that those without could be safely ignored) tpm on the desktop platform under de facto control of one company, or...

    Personally my worry here is what a situation of universally available(or enough that those without could be safely ignored) tpm on the desktop platform under de facto control of one company, or several companies could lead to.

    It is far too easy to imagine remote attestation to simply kill adblockers for just an example if the user wants to use any of the mainstream web. Or just any software that is deemed unwanted.

    4 votes

  5. Comment on Chat control is back on agenda, again in ~society

  7. Comment on Mozilla begs courts to allow Google search deal for Firefox to continue in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link
    On hand I consider Firefox to be the best current alternative platform(not as a browser, not even remotely) to the effective Chrome monopoly in the sea of garbage. On the other they made enough...

    On hand I consider Firefox to be the best current alternative platform(not as a browser, not even remotely) to the effective Chrome monopoly in the sea of garbage. On the other they made enough despicable decisions and pushed enough "modern-design" elements that I am lukewarm about its future.

    It would be bad if it could not continue, or had to become even worse to get funding but as far as I am concerned the actual problem is the bloated nature of the web standards and experience and the effect it has on making choices sparse.

    5 votes

  8. Comment on Stellar Blade: The fake outrage in ~games

    Tiraon
    (edited )
    Link
    I listened to this on commutes today and came away with the impression that the author made somewhat decent and very long video for a non-issue. Discussing for a decent chunk of a time the...

    I listened to this on commutes today and came away with the impression that the author made somewhat decent and very long video for a non-issue.

    Discussing for a decent chunk of a time the mediocrity of a game for reasons that I do not even actually fundamentally disagree with, just think were overblown. As far as my opinion goes, there is not actually an original story, the point is if it brings together a coherent whole in its own tone without blatantly copying too large chunks too literally without acknowledgement. I also do not consider erotic elements an issue and gameplay-lore dissonance is an unfortunate fact of videogames in general.

    Though I admit I may be slightly biased here since I actually slightly like Stellar Blade as a game, mildly dislike Nier: Automata as an actual game(and consider the story and philosophy only notable in relation to the medium) and honestly despise anything soulslike.

    The rest of the video is spent discussing a so called controversy of censorship based on a single(as far as I remember) source. The video also seems to have a generally, deliberately and unnecesarilly slightly caustic tone.

    3 votes

  9. Comment on Google's new app will help warn you about nude images in Messages in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link
    Android system SafetyCore, an ai powered content analyzing(at least) system app to become available. Seems it will be opt-out for minors, opt-in for others, how will they tell? Additional links...

    Android system SafetyCore, an ai powered content analyzing(at least) system app to become available. Seems it will be opt-out for minors, opt-in for others, how will they tell?

    Additional links https://developers.google.com/android/binary_transparency/google1p/overview, https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google.android.safetycore

    6 votes

  11. Comment on In praise of inconvenience: The hidden costs of a convenient world in ~life

    Tiraon
    Link
    We don't live in a world that is convenient but in a world where the illusion of being convenient was weaponized against the integrity of the decision making process of an average person. In the...

    We don't live in a world that is convenient but in a world where the illusion of being convenient was weaponized against the integrity of the decision making process of an average person.

    In the cases where mainstream options are actually temporarily convenient it is there to funnel people away from possibilities that would be better(and more convenient) in the long term of to funnel people to options that are worse.

    Case in point - smartphones. Our own personal tracking and marketing devices loaded with unwanted software and secured against the supposed owner in the name of security(but not against any random company that can pay to have their garbage ware preloaded). Full of popus, forced account registrations, bad control options, with software built around them being straight up malicious. Made convenient by the fact that society forces their use.

    That is not to say that a pocket computer could not be convenient or cannot be made convenient, simply that the default options and the way their usage is forced is not.

    Or many other software on real life things made "convenient" only by forcing their use, forcing things for which they have to be used or by destroying alternatives.

    I do agree that being conciouss of this and to deliberately add friction to certain actions can be good for the person.

    5 votes

  12. Comment on Hackers take control of robot vacuums in multiple US cities, yell racial slurs in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link
    This is inevitable for so called "smart" devices requiring internet access and for most also an arbitrary online account. If something allows remote control it can be controlled remotely. When you...

    This is inevitable for so called "smart" devices requiring internet access and for most also an arbitrary online account.

    If something allows remote control it can be controlled remotely. When you then connect it to the Internet it can be controlled over the Internet. To the large surprise of everyone involved that is problem and a bigger one when someone buys an Internet required appliance and trusts everything that appliance can do and all the data it can gather to a who knows who with unknown level of commitment to security and uknown level of respecting privacy.

    There are entire classes od devices where it is all but impossible to buy ones not requiring internet access. Robot vacuums, tvs, cars and probably more. Because that is more profitable and because most people simply do not care about consequences that are even minimally out of sight or obscured (as evidenced by the prevalence of ad-data business model, Windows, Youtube, Android, Google and many, many others) and basic computer literacy is at about the same level it the generall population as actual literacy was in the middle ages. Not because it is that hard or expensive(in time, money or opportunity costs) to have a very basic awareness of digital hygiene and best practices, but because most people cannot be bothered to take the weekend to educate themselves about the very minimal basics of the devices they trust in their everyday life with basically everything.

    And yes there is absolutely a cultural bias for that kind of a attitude but it should not be such an unrealistic expection for average person to think critically before trusting their privacy to unknown entities over whose practices regarding their personal information they have at the absolute best and only in certain jurisdictions tenuous and indirect control which they will likely never actually exercise. Sometimes it is neccessary to function in society, yes but this not a timeline where the effects we are seeing were caused by thoughtfull and conscious compromise toward these forces by the general population.

    Lot of that is probably because the consequences are indirect, nebulous and obscured even if their broad effect(or at the absolute minimum the general direction of the the impact they have) is very transparent.

    6 votes

  13. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Tiraon
    Link
    Nier: Automata - I must say that so far I am not really impressed considering how praised it was. A lot of it has to do with the no saving demo which is one of the most horrible design decisions I...

    Nier: Automata - I must say that so far I am not really impressed considering how praised it was. A lot of it has to do with the no saving demo which is one of the most horrible design decisions I have seen personally. Getting through it on easy I can see how they worked it into the lore, but the fact that it was intentional does not mean that the decision is good. Even as an outside observer not well versed in game design I could see obvious ways to mitigate the problems while keeping the core point which probably means they left the problems intentionally - hence horrible design.

    Other that the gameplay is fine but nothing special so far.

    I could see what they are doing with the camera changes. Though personally I thought that in the prologue where they were used most so far they were far too frequent and abrupt even if the gameplay transformation was interesting.

    I am up to second main boss so far and I must say that I am not sure what to make of the story.

    Probably mild spoilers and idle speculation since I am likely fairly early into the game.

    The obvious conclusions the game present so far makes me think they'll add twists to it or pivot in unexcpected directions though I don't think they will completely subvert it.

    That being that the machines are in some way remnants of humanity and the androids are in some way aggressors. But even assuming no subversion will take place later there are lot of ways that could be taken.

    I am not even ready to discard the possibility that there are actually humans on the moon who were the aggressors with the earth-bound humanity succumbing to some bioweapon but not before cobbling together some prototype uploading process and rigging automation to keep it going.

    Or we could go completely different direction and take the alien story at face value. Aliens invaded and conquered but splintered after with one faction assimilating the(concept of) humanity and the other the form.

    Though I admit I have trouble differentiating what is there for presentation reasons and what is there for lore reasons.

    The intro message, general tone and what I have been hearing about the game make me think that the overall message will be something gratuitously nihilistic and or edgelord though I would like to be pleasantly surprised.

    I'll look forward to seeing how close or far I was though at this point I am honestly not sure if I just look it up or play the game.

    4 votes

  14. Comment on <deleted topic> in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link Parent
    I am going to use my personal usage here as example and I have no idea how common it is. In the past year I have watched less than ten hours of that content six of which was a single one off...

    I am going to use my personal usage here as example and I have no idea how common it is.

    In the past year I have watched less than ten hours of that content six of which was a single one off tutorial series. Paying for premium would mean +- of 20 cents per minute. The ads on the other hand are genuinely insane, one after the other several times per less than half an hour video and with severely questionable content.

    If they actually let me pay a price that was commesurate with even an order of magnitude more than it actually costs them, no problem. Once that gets into orders of magnitude in maybe high single digits then that is different. Not even mentioning the bundling and other tricks.

    If they had tried less hard to become the default that might also be a different story.

    5 votes

  15. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Tiraon
    Link
    Particle Fleet Emergence from the author of the Creeper World series. A game dealing with controlling a fleet of spaceships fighting against particles, particle emitters and particle based ships....

    Particle Fleet Emergence from the author of the Creeper World series. A game dealing with controlling a fleet of spaceships fighting against particles, particle emitters and particle based ships.

    The player ships are also varied and partially destructible including functional subsystems. So for example you have a ram ship to tank the particles and be able to get close to the emitter with a utility ship able to destroy it or a redirector ship to send friendly particles against enemy ones and other ship types.

    To be honest the logic controlling the particles is relatively basic and I view the game as being a good way to a puzzle game instead of strategy one but it is fun.

    I am not a fan of the story but the campaign is effectively a tutorial towards making your own ships and levels or exploring the various user made ones.

    3 votes

  16. Comment on The iPhones 16 in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link Parent
    Positive would be leaving the user a choice. Companies know a lot of things that are very definitely good(enough) for most people and are happy to make them reality.

    Positive would be leaving the user a choice. Companies know a lot of things that are very definitely good(enough) for most people and are happy to make them reality.

    5 votes

  17. Comment on The iPhones 16 in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link Parent
    Absolutely. A phone running open linux distribution out of the box featuring today midrange hw and solid sw support. With an eink screen and replaceable battery and expandable storage. Made from...

    Absolutely. A phone running open linux distribution out of the box featuring today midrange hw and solid sw support.

    With an eink screen and replaceable battery and expandable storage. Made from ground up to be easy to repair.

    Personally I used Pinephone(which at least tried in some points) as my main phone for about a year about two years ago but in the end the sw was not there yet and the battery life was too bad.

    7 votes

  18. Comment on The “email is authentication” pattern in ~tech

    Tiraon
    Link Parent
    Personally I just don't use it. The auto in the implementation means that it has negative utility to me. I'd rather accept the occasional typo then the lost time. I have no idea if it is used for...

    Is there a slang word for a typo caused by autocorrect doing the wrong thing?

    Personally I just don't use it. The auto in the implementation means that it has negative utility to me. I'd rather accept the occasional typo then the lost time. I have no idea if it is used for training or data collection or something but the implementation is not there for the user.

    Also, very prozaically - automess-up.

    2 votes

  19. Comment on What games have you been playing, and what's your opinion on them? in ~games

    Tiraon
    Link
    I got back to Legend of Grimrock 2 or more specifically some of the mods that have been built on top of it. The base game is a decade old and a grid based dungeon crawler, unlike the first one it...

    I got back to Legend of Grimrock 2 or more specifically some of the mods that have been built on top of it.

    The base game is a decade old and a grid based dungeon crawler, unlike the first one it has more varied environments and does not take place entirely underground. The gameplay strikes a nice balance between combat and puzzles and the game has a nice atmosphere. And the story is there, basically.

    For now I've settled on The Guardians - which is one of the bigger and more elaborate mods made for the game. This can actually cause problems since the game is 32bit and can only use 2GB of memory. The solution is to patch the executable to use 4GB of memory and to lower texture settings but crashes can still sometimes happen.
    It is actually bigger than the base game and features several additional systems such as cooking, mining or trade. It has a darker atmosphere and is more difficult but that is partly due design decisions that I personally dislike, mainly putting a limit in the form of food on the length of the game.

    There are several other mods I'd like to try, some by same author and some hosted outside steam such as Call of House Hardabar.

    I wish that there more games using this format but the very few that came out generally didn't really grip me as this one as they did not manage the same semi open format, atmosphere and good focus between puzzles and combat.

    6 votes