ThrowdoBaggins's recent activity
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Comment on Exposing AdFection - how Discover-Tech turned targeted ads into a pipeline for zero-click mercenary spyware in ~tech
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Comment on Donald Trump strikes deal with Vladimir Putin to get diesel in sharp reversal of US policy weeks before midterms in ~society
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentOn the contrary, I know of more than a few people with chronic illnesses whose very existence is fuelled by spite and rage (at least so they claim)On the contrary, I know of more than a few people with chronic illnesses whose very existence is fuelled by spite and rage (at least so they claim)
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Comment on The return of phones with physical keyboards? in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI’m fond of calling it autocucumber, especially in a derogatory or expletive kind of wayI’m fond of calling it autocucumber, especially in a derogatory or expletive kind of way
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Comment on Why is there no word for please in the Nordic languages – are their speakers simply more direct, or is politeness expressed in ways outsiders may not immediately recognise in ~humanities.languages
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI happened to scroll past it, but for anyone else who didn’t see it, this is referring to the recent Tildes link...I happened to scroll past it, but for anyone else who didn’t see it, this is referring to the recent Tildes link https://tildes.net/~tech/1wei/denmark_government_hack_leaked_8_7_million_citizens_ids_the_password_was_123456
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Comment on Solo developer rebuilds Adobe Creative Suite in Rust using Claude, releases it free to all in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI’ve often seen that kind of marketing except the ads are careful to not explicitly name the competitor. Maybe something like “exactly the same tools as the market leader but without the...I’ve often seen that kind of marketing except the ads are careful to not explicitly name the competitor. Maybe something like “exactly the same tools as the market leader but without the subscription!”
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Comment on Become worthless (to tech companies) in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI think I agree with everything you’ve said here, so I had a think about why I’ve come to a different choice of behaviour. I think it’s because I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like paid...I think I agree with everything you’ve said here, so I had a think about why I’ve come to a different choice of behaviour. I think it’s because I’ve come to the conclusion that I don’t like paid commercial advertising as an industry entirely, and I certainly can’t have any impact on the platforms by using adblockers or scrolling past the ads I’m served, so I see “clicking on every single ad” as one of the few tools in my toolkit.
For any given instance, I agree that having the ad clicked on just pushes money from the advertiser to the platform, which isn’t my objective. But in aggregate, every dollar spent on my clicks is a dollar that can’t be used for successful marketing, and is a dollar which is essentially wasted, and hopefully is a dollar which disincentivises commercial advertising in general, which is much closer to my preferences.
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Comment on Become worthless (to tech companies) in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentMy browser adblocker of choice does this for me. For every ad that tries to load in the page, the extension sends a request to the page so that it counts as a click. And it also prevents the ad...My browser adblocker of choice does this for me. For every ad that tries to load in the page, the extension sends a request to the page so that it counts as a click. And it also prevents the ad from visually appearing on my screen, so from my perspective, it’s the same experience as a regular adblocker anyway. While it’s technically slightly less secure than not loading anything at all, it costs advertisers a lot more, and throws a lot of noise into the signal of what I’m interested in, hopefully making it a bit more difficult to pin down my interests for advertising platforms.
There’s also a section where you can review all the ads that it’s “clicked on” and it estimates the total cost to advertisers (using approximate pricing, I don’t think it can actually access the exact price each advertiser paid). I’ve edited from the default settings to allow much longer history, which means using more MB on my computer for holding onto snapshots but also allows me to see the running total of how much money has been spent to advertise to me. Last I checked, it’s in the high hundreds/low thousands per year, which is a lot more than I expected.
Edit: AdNauseum is the name of the extension, I can’t remember if it’s just Firefox or across other browsers too.
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Comment on Interview: Firefox’s chief on why he hopes a redesign will help win users from Chrome in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentThis is such an excellent idea, I’m surprised there isn’t an option for it! There’s already the “private/incognito” mode, but there should be an inverse one where it behaves like a brand new,...I wish Firefox had one single button for turning off all privacy stuff when you need to, something that would turn it off just for the session and then reset on re-launch
This is such an excellent idea, I’m surprised there isn’t an option for it! There’s already the “private/incognito” mode, but there should be an inverse one where it behaves like a brand new, totally default, out-of-the-box, block nothing mode with maximum compatibility with as many websites as possible, possibly even up to and including pretending the user agent string is a chromium version or something.
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Comment on Using ASCII art to prove that I, not an LLM, wrote something in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentFor me, it’s the same thing but when I’m writing emails. I can’t tell you how many times I just completely fail to spot an error when I’m looking for one, but my eyes lock onto it as soon as I hit...For me, it’s the same thing but when I’m writing emails. I can’t tell you how many times I just completely fail to spot an error when I’m looking for one, but my eyes lock onto it as soon as I hit Send. As if my subconscious logged it on my Nth re-read and review, but decided to only bring it up once it was too late.
I absolutely love the option to “delay send” emails, I have it switched on for basically every service and platform whenever possible.
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Comment on The plunging price of AI in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentThis absolutely sent me. Wild guess but this wouldn’t happen to be about the Eco game would it? I find that, more than any other game I’ve played, Eco players can create interpersonal drama on...It's actually pretty useful because you can have it summarize tremendously long arguments between people
This absolutely sent me. Wild guess but this wouldn’t happen to be about the Eco game would it? I find that, more than any other game I’ve played, Eco players can create interpersonal drama on nearly unrivalled scales!
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Comment on What is your dream game? in ~games
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI’m not sure it quite matches GTA’s options for open world travel — I don’t think there are planes or helicopters as far as I can remember — but maybe you would like Watchdogs? You can drive...I’m not sure it quite matches GTA’s options for open world travel — I don’t think there are planes or helicopters as far as I can remember — but maybe you would like Watchdogs? You can drive around similar to GTA but as you’re driving, you can interact with the world around you because you’re a master hacker who has access to the city’s infrastructure on your phone.
Police chasing you? Just activate those bollards that are sunk into the street, and they pop up just behind you. You got through just fine, but the cop car behind just got totalled. Or you see the cop car ahead of you trying to cut you off? What if that set of traffic lights just happened to go green for everyone at the same time and cause a 5-car pileup in the middle of the intersection, so the cops have to go around the long way while you duck into an alleyway.
There are very few games that do a good job of action and stealth within the same game engine, and this isn’t stellar by any means, but I do love that sometimes when the cops are after you but have lost line of sight, your best bet isn’t to keep running forever, but instead to pull over and park and duck below the window so your car looks empty from a distance and the cops just drive right past you without realising.
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Comment on The plunging price of AI in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI’ve been trying to think of a way to explain this to my family (who don’t really pay attention to AI stuff except that it’s on their work computers everywhere now) and I phrased it as “incredibly...admittedly expensive (but not unreachably fiscally inaccessible) hardware
I’ve been trying to think of a way to explain this to my family (who don’t really pay attention to AI stuff except that it’s on their work computers everywhere now) and I phrased it as “incredibly expensive consumer-grade, or surprisingly cheap business-grade kinds of prices” — which I think feels about right?
If I look at a colour laser printer, for example, I can get decent quality consumer grade version for well under $1000, but as soon as I’m looking at a commercial product, that’s instantly looking at about an order of magnitude higher.
Spending $10k-20k on a home computer seems like incredibly dedicated hobbyist kinds of prices, but for a small business that’s ... okay it’s not easy, but certainly more achievable, especially if it’s a tool you need for your business.
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Comment on What do you listen to while you’re reading? in ~books
ThrowdoBaggins LinkI don’t really have much of a choice, if I’m reading then I’m listening to the voice in my head that narrates all the words I’m looking at. If there’s music happening, either I’m listening to the...I don’t really have much of a choice, if I’m reading then I’m listening to the voice in my head that narrates all the words I’m looking at.
If there’s music happening, either I’m listening to the music (involuntarily) and therefore not reading, or if I’m managing to still read it’s because I’ve completely blocked out the music.
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Comment on OpenAI hacked Australia's Medicare portal in ~tech
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentIf you’re looking through the lens of intent, I agree it’s difficult to know where to draw the line and how severely to respond. But I think stepping back from that lens, I feel the lack of...If you’re looking through the lens of intent, I agree it’s difficult to know where to draw the line and how severely to respond. But I think stepping back from that lens, I feel the lack of accountability is setting devastating precedent for once these similarly-powerful agents are commercially available to anyone with $200 in their pocket, so the question really does need to be answered.
It’s also worth keeping in mind that this lack of individual responsibility behind the hacking is definitely something these LLM companies are hiding behind at the moment, so I think that should be considered when weighing what to do.
Personally, I’m swinging away from examining intent and more towards what behaviours are we enabling/encouraging, so to me it’s clear that the punishment should be severe, but not personal/individual. If these companies are being hit by substantial fines, greater than just “cost of doing business” kinds of fines, then intent aside they will certainly start changing their behaviour. Choosing to not do so, I think, implicitly grants the green light for LLM companies to continue on their merry way, without a second glance at social responsibility.
Maybe you could even have the fine be proportional to the number of individual’s records that were accessed — I’m sure there are existing laws and fines for irresponsible use or access of medical records, so using that as a guide might lead to a big enough number for them to be clear that they can’t just ignore the risks and carry on.
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Comment on There is no epidemic of loneliness, but there is an epidemic of social scurvy in ~life
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI’m not going to claim I’m any kind of expert, but sailors of last century are not the only people to get scurvy. I know there was scurvy discovered among university students at the university...Scurvy is also caused by a forced diet, forced conditions. Sailors may have craved fresh fruits/vegetables but they were not available or accessible at the time. The sea is a barrier.
I’m not going to claim I’m any kind of expert, but sailors of last century are not the only people to get scurvy. I know there was scurvy discovered among university students at the university near where I live, apparently almost two decades ago.
The university got very embarrassed and quickly spun up a program of free pancakes with berries and toppings etc once a week, to make it as easy as possible for the broke students to have some vitamin C in their diets, because they otherwise lived off the cheapest ramen bulk packs for the majority of their meals, for months at a time during semester.
They still maintain the program today, so I assume the university has decided it’s better to maintain this program than to roll the dice on finding out their students are still mostly eating the cheapest sustenance they can get their hands on with absolutely no variety.
Also, it’s from hearing about this program that I learned berries have much more vitamin C than citrus, but the British Navy mostly stuck with limes because they could survive for months at sea without going bad as quickly. So it’s fascinating to me that hot lemon and honey drinks have survived as the de facto cure to getting sick even as I was growing up!
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Comment on VR questions, recommendations, tips, and tricks in ~games
ThrowdoBaggins LinkFor VR newbies, I definitely recommend spending a bit of time looking into what kinds of experiences cause nausea and the recommended approach to desensitising yourself to it. I’m so glad I took...For VR newbies, I definitely recommend spending a bit of time looking into what kinds of experiences cause nausea and the recommended approach to desensitising yourself to it. I’m so glad I took the advice to go through the progression in order rather than jumping in at the deep end, because ultimately I was able to get to my end-goal of being able to handle nearly anything, but certainly felt each step would have been difficult to skip along the way.
In general, I believe teleporting with a black screen is the least nauseous movement option, followed by teleporting with full vision. Then smooth movement with vignettes would probably be the next stage, then smooth movement without vignettes. By far the most challenging I’ve been able to do so far was free falling without vignettes, and even though I’ve built up my fortitude, it still feels uncomfortable nearly every time.
Also, take your time with it. And I don’t just mean a few hours of each level before you progress — if you take a break for a few weeks, take yourself a step back before jumping straight back into it. The point is to develop your own fortitude in the long run, not just skip to the endgame as soon as possible.
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Comment on VR questions, recommendations, tips, and tricks in ~games
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentWhen I saw the stats for the Vision Pro and compared the numbers to my only IRL experience (Quest 3), I’m not at all surprised that having an external computer running it needs an incredibly beefy...When I saw the stats for the Vision Pro and compared the numbers to my only IRL experience (Quest 3), I’m not at all surprised that having an external computer running it needs an incredibly beefy setup. I can’t wait for that kind of resolution (and the hardware to power it) to be cheap enough for me to participate, but I don’t expect that to be any time soon.
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Comment on VR questions, recommendations, tips, and tricks in ~games
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI definitely benefited from a fan early on while I was developing my VR fortitude. It helps keep you grounded in a below-conscious-thought kind of way. It didn’t take me out of the immersion, but...I definitely benefited from a fan early on while I was
getting my sea legsdeveloping my VR fortitude. It helps keep you grounded in a below-conscious-thought kind of way. It didn’t take me out of the immersion, but it did provide another data point for my brain to make sense of what was going on.While it didn’t completely prevent the motion sickness (which I think is an approximation, but not quite an accurate description, of what’s going on) it certainly helped reduce the heights of spiking discomfort when the various senses didn’t agree. And occasionally helped against being completely disoriented when dramatic movement or rotation happened in-game.
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Comment on Does the dryer shrink your clothes? in ~life
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI made some for myself a few years back and they’ve worked wonders for preventing thicker things (winter hoodies) from staying damp when everything else is dry, as well as having a big reduction...What I also found helps a lot with getting your clothes dryer quicker is wool dryer balls.
I made some for myself a few years back and they’ve worked wonders for preventing thicker things (winter hoodies) from staying damp when everything else is dry, as well as having a big reduction in how often I get static from the dryer.
I just grabbed some pure wool knitting yarn (no idea if wool blend also works, I didn’t try it) and balled it up and wrapped that tightly in stockings, tied off at the ends. Throw that in the hottest wash and hottest dry cycle your machines can do, and the wool yarn all felts itself together into a single cohesive ball. Then you can remove the stocking outside and the ball stays together, never unravels itself, and works its magic for years!
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Comment on What are the genuinely worst films of all time? in ~movies
ThrowdoBaggins Link ParentI’m not even sure I can agree that it was a leap in CGI. Certainly it was a lot more CGI, based on CGI screen time, but I don’t think it’s better/more realistic CGI than Davey Jones and the crew...It was a leap in CGI, but little more and one can argue that increased CGI isn't a good thing.
I’m not even sure I can agree that it was a leap in CGI. Certainly it was a lot more CGI, based on CGI screen time, but I don’t think it’s better/more realistic CGI than Davey Jones and the crew of the Flying Dutchman (Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest), despite Avatar arriving three years later.
But maybe I’m personally biased because I love the POTC movies so much.
Yes but only in the short window available until the exploit is identified and patched. The reason these exploits are called zero-day is because that’s describing their nature as not-yet-publicly-known vulnerabilities.
Definition from Wikipedia:
Although the term "zero-day" initially referred to the time since the vendor had become aware of the vulnerability, zero-day vulnerabilities can also be defined as the subset of vulnerabilities for which no patch or other fix is available.