zestier's recent activity
-
Comment on Dehumidifiers are confusing. Here's why. in ~engineering
-
Comment on Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-through after man orders 18,000 waters in ~food
zestier (edited )Link ParentYeah, this is where my confusion comes from. I also personally find the "not using it in drive through" to be strangely ambiguous for a statement that seems like it should be unambiguous. The...Yeah, this is where my confusion comes from. I also personally find the "not using it in drive through" to be strangely ambiguous for a statement that seems like it should be unambiguous. The reason is that it's not stated as any sort of policy, or even directly quoted, and is bundled into a sentence about what he "would now think carefully about". So to me that sentence reads as likely just saying that he's been thinking about the future AI plans and one of the considered options is ceasing voice AI in drive through.
-
Comment on Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-through after man orders 18,000 waters in ~food
zestier Link ParentI've been looking around for such a definitive statement reported somewhere. I can find vague speak like "rethinking", "reconsider", and "in talks", but nothing saying what their plan actually is....I've been looking around for such a definitive statement reported somewhere. I can find vague speak like "rethinking", "reconsider", and "in talks", but nothing saying what their plan actually is. The most definitive-sounding thing I found across half a dozen articles or so is saying that they're going to be more selective with expansion plans, but that tells me effectively nothing.
-
Comment on Taco Bell rethinks AI drive-through after man orders 18,000 waters in ~food
zestier LinkAm I crazy or do the title and the contents say basically opposite things? The title implies that they're planning to roll it back, but the contents and quotes both read like generic "we just need...Am I crazy or do the title and the contents say basically opposite things? The title implies that they're planning to roll it back, but the contents and quotes both read like generic "we just need to work out the growing pains" type lines.
-
Comment on Google will require developer verification for Android apps outside the Play Store in ~tech
zestier (edited )LinkHow nice of them. They won't stop you from making an app not intended to be in their store, but they'll still charge you for the privilege of not wanting to use their service while also hoovering...How nice of them. They won't stop you from making an app not intended to be in their store, but they'll still charge you for the privilege of not wanting to use their service while also hoovering up your personal info. They'll obviously never ever ever use the list of excessive PII about developers that want to avoid Google services for nefarious means either.
Google really needs to lose control of Android. Requiring every Andriod developer, even those that distribute outside of Google's store, to use and upload sensitive documents to Google Pay really should trigger some antitrust stuff.
-
Comment on How Tea’s founder convinced millions of women to spill their secrets, then exposed them to the world in ~tech
zestier Link ParentI actually don't hate the idea itself. I just don't desire for it to be another vector to feed big tech more of just everything. In my opinion, if Google wants it then it wants something in return...I actually don't hate the idea itself. I just don't desire for it to be another vector to feed big tech more of just everything. In my opinion, if Google wants it then it wants something in return (ie. I am the product). I think there are other places it could come from that are significantly less problematic. For example, my bank already needs all this information for KYC compliance and has far less incentive to try find ways to collect excess data than an ad company.
-
Comment on How Tea’s founder convinced millions of women to spill their secrets, then exposed them to the world in ~tech
zestier Link ParentTo answer literally: https://tildes.net/~tech/1pr7/how_teas_founder_convinced_millions_of_women_to_spill_their_secrets_then_exposed_them_to_the_world#comment-g8uf. The thing I replied to is where...I don't understand where Google entered into the conversation.
To answer literally: https://tildes.net/~tech/1pr7/how_teas_founder_convinced_millions_of_women_to_spill_their_secrets_then_exposed_them_to_the_world#comment-g8uf. The thing I replied to is where Google entered this conversation.
More broadly, that they're championing it. For example, the spec linked elsewhere (https://w3c-fedid.github.io/digital-credentials/) has only 4 editors listed and 2 of them are Google. Also that they've already started supporting it (https://blog.google/products/google-pay/google-wallet-age-identity-verifications/). If services start taking a dependency on this sort of identity verification spec in practice it means that customers more-or-less have a choice between Google and maybe Apple (it is less clear to me if they even have it fully supported).
-
Comment on How Tea’s founder convinced millions of women to spill their secrets, then exposed them to the world in ~tech
zestier (edited )Link ParentI can't speak to all of them, but some of the ones you mentioned either have been used for mining data or are ad delivery platforms. In short, they have monetization strategies. Gmail has floated...I can't speak to all of them, but some of the ones you mentioned either have been used for mining data or are ad delivery platforms. In short, they have monetization strategies. Gmail has floated between those over it's life cycle. At present I understand it to be a "show ads if free" platform even though they've now stopped literally scanning the email contents like they used to.
Some of the others are used for data analytics, which is also of value to them. For example, one of my previous employers forbad using the Google font servers because it allowed Google to more-or-less directly get our traffic data by looking at where fonts were being loaded from.
Google is a data harvester. That's their business. In my opinion they're going to harvest just about anything they can find a way to. They have direct financial incentive to do so and arguably that's the "right" thing for them to do for shareholders. I just don't believe they'll leave a data vector untouched unless they really really have to. My understanding of why they stopped reading free user's emails is just that it scared enterprise customers to have such close proximity of their data to that kind of harvesting, so if that wasn't associated with a paid product they'd probably still be doing that too.
It's not even all for personalized ads either. As an example, font numbers don't help them personalize ads but font numbers can still be used for other stuff like calculating how "valuable" some third party is to them based on their traffic. Same with stuff like amp links: they want data and control.
They aren't some altruistic nonprofit. They always want something in return. So I'm forced to ask myself: if they become the custodian of my personal identity online, what are they taking in return? I sincerely believe the answer is not "nothing".
-
Comment on How Tea’s founder convinced millions of women to spill their secrets, then exposed them to the world in ~tech
zestier Link ParentLetsEncrypt is not a for-profit company that derives revenue from data collection and ads. Additionally, LetsEncrypt doesn't need to involve itself beyond the initial CA signing due to the way the...LetsEncrypt is not a for-profit company that derives revenue from data collection and ads. Additionally, LetsEncrypt doesn't need to involve itself beyond the initial CA signing due to the way the trust chains work.
Google on the other hand would have a strongly vested interest in figuring out what your certificates get used for and to be willing to sign the certificate in the first place they would be in possession of the identity data. Operating a free service means they're going to want ads or usage data in order to not run it at a loss. So even if they were to release it today and not gather anything I strongly doubt it would stay around in the long term if they're just wasting money on it.
In my opinion its a matter of when, not if, they start scraping all the data they can out of it. I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt because saying "Don't Be Evil" 25 years ago doesn't earn it when I can look at their actions being in the opposite direction. I think a far more realistic reality than them actually operating this in the way idealists hope for is that in 10 years there's some huge leak about how Google was collecting the usage data all along and knows every service you've ever age verified (or other) for and then people will just be like, "Duh, it's Google. Too late now though. These verification services are integrated into everything."
-
Comment on How Tea’s founder convinced millions of women to spill their secrets, then exposed them to the world in ~tech
zestier Link ParentPeople just generally need more common sense. It's one thing to upload your ID to your bank where they legally need it, but it's crazy to me that anyone thought it was a good idea to give all this...People just generally need more common sense. It's one thing to upload your ID to your bank where they legally need it, but it's crazy to me that anyone thought it was a good idea to give all this personal info to a gossip site. Them asking for should be a huge glaring red flag.
I'm personally anti further ingraining big tech into everyone's lives and further eroding privacy as we hand over every morsel of who we are while they claim it's all for our own good. That definitely paints my opinion of not wanting the solution to be having to give up even more. I don't believe the claims that Google and such wouldn't know what they're verifying you for because they wouldn't run the services if that were true. They'll find a way to know so they can monetize it rather than having the service be a capital drain.
-
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
zestier LinkI'm in the testing phase of the Stremio plugin I was working on. Some parts of it are a bit hacky, but it is overall working pretty well. I'll probably be able to release it soon even though some...I'm in the testing phase of the Stremio plugin I was working on. Some parts of it are a bit hacky, but it is overall working pretty well. I'll probably be able to release it soon even though some stuff it does isn't exactly ideal.
I've also now entered the setup phase for my other project: a tunneling service. I tried both cloudflare tunnels and local tunnel, but neither of those nor any other options I could find really satisfied what I wanted. Most notably local tunnel lacks encryption and ability to reserve sticky names while cloudflare mandates having a custom domain and the clients kind of suck (don't really function correctly when trying to tunnel out of VPNs, have issues when not root/administrator, etc.).
-
Comment on McDonald’s is cutting prices of its combo meals to convince customers it’s affordable again in ~food
zestier Link ParentWe have plenty of alternatives to fill those needs that we both prefer. It's entirely just a craving thing. I don't think we've ever gone there when she wasn't pregnant. She didn't even want just...We have plenty of alternatives to fill those needs that we both prefer. It's entirely just a craving thing. I don't think we've ever gone there when she wasn't pregnant. She didn't even want just a burger from our normally preferred places. She was just craving a big mac.
-
Comment on What's a question you could ask to determine if someone is an expert in your line of work? in ~talk
zestier (edited )Link ParentAs an ex-Mint user I'll second that Mint Cinnamon is a pretty good option for someone looking for a simple Windows-like experience for basic applications. I used it as my daily driver for a few...As an ex-Mint user I'll second that Mint Cinnamon is a pretty good option for someone looking for a simple Windows-like experience for basic applications. I used it as my daily driver for a few years when I dropped Windows and it was a largely smooth transition up until I got deeper into power user territory. A random thing I miss that came out-of-the-box with it was the Windows-like updater down in the taskbar reminding you to do them.
The reasons I dropped it are unlikely to be relevant to anyone whose needs could likely also be satisfied by a Chromebook. I dropped it because I was finding that having a deeply derived distribution to be frustrating when I wanted to do things further from the tested path of Mint. The sort of territory where your options are to follow (with modification) either Ubuntu or Debian guides and hope for the best. As said though, I don't think that's a consideration that needs to be made for someone whose needs largely live in a web browser.
-
Comment on McDonald’s is cutting prices of its combo meals to convince customers it’s affordable again in ~food
zestier LinkIn general I end up avoiding McDonald's for reasons already repeatedly stated. Unfortunately, my wife's pregnancy appetite has it on the short list of things that doesn't make her nauseous to even...In general I end up avoiding McDonald's for reasons already repeatedly stated. Unfortunately, my wife's pregnancy appetite has it on the short list of things that doesn't make her nauseous to even think about. Bringing prices down to be actually affordable, and ideally even further down to bring them in line with the quality, would be nice. I guess any little bit will save me something until we can go back to not eating it though.
-
Comment on Germany legal case alleging adblockers violate copyright in ~tech
zestier LinkI think that if this were to happen there is a good chance there would be an unforeseen mental shift that makes this backfire. Basically if ad blocking and piracy are both breaking the same rules...I think that if this were to happen there is a good chance there would be an unforeseen mental shift that makes this backfire. Basically if ad blocking and piracy are both breaking the same rules in the same way then it's a lot easier to make the mental jump to not caring about copyright infringement at all.
Anecdotally the thing that caused me to pretty much stop caring about personal use copyright infringement was how difficult it has become to back up my own media that I paid for physical copies of. A sort of "if I'm going to be treated the same for doing things I should be allowed to then why am I even bothering with the harder path?"
-
Comment on Guilt and video games in ~health.mental
zestier LinkI was feeling a bit similar last year and then decided to make it a goal to play more games. I knew I focusing too much on trying to be productive, so I decided to intentionally insert the...I was feeling a bit similar last year and then decided to make it a goal to play more games. I knew I focusing too much on trying to be productive, so I decided to intentionally insert the unproductive activities as a goal to achieve. Not exactly this, but similar to adding "spend at least an hour a day doing unproductive things" to a routine.
It helped me get over the guilt of feeling like I was doing nothing because I now was doing something. It just happened that that something was telling myself to chill and unwind.
-
Comment on A friendly introduction to SVG in ~comp
zestier (edited )Link ParentI find the assertion they are unsupported to be misleading. They're supported just as well as any other HTML element. I've used them for years without plugins. It would be unfortunate if anyone,...I find the assertion they are unsupported to be misleading. They're supported just as well as any other HTML element. I've used them for years without plugins. It would be unfortunate if anyone, especially newer users of React, came away thinking that it lacks svg support or needs these plugins.
What you can't do is the exact thing that plugin is doing without it or equivalent code, but frankly I think that's a very strange use case and thing to do. I get why they're doing it, but I don't think that not having explicit support for an edge case that I'd personally discourage using in production constitutes being unsupported. "Load and inject into the DOM this file defined at runtime" isn't really a feature of any frameworks I'm aware of, and probably shouldn't be because it's a security footgun.
-
Comment on A friendly introduction to SVG in ~comp
zestier Link ParentWhat do you mean about them requiring plugins in React? In the past I've written svgs in React JSX by just using the associated nodes. I more-or-less just copied in the contents of an svg made by...What do you mean about them requiring plugins in React? In the past I've written svgs in React JSX by just using the associated nodes. I more-or-less just copied in the contents of an svg made by an artist on my team and tweaked it a little to support some parametrization, but all in rather plain React.
-
Comment on How do you manage separate development environments on your computer? in ~tech
zestier LinkI'm unsure if I'm not understanding the request, but to me that sounded like you were describing devcontainers. In VsCode stuff like automatic port forwarding is built-in to the IDE. The only...I'm unsure if I'm not understanding the request, but to me that sounded like you were describing devcontainers. In VsCode stuff like automatic port forwarding is built-in to the IDE. The only cases I've found this setup to be problematic is with graphical applications, but it's more of just a pain than an actual blocker.
I personally use podman devcontainers for almost everything I can. I don't like piling my host machine full of random packages, so I isolate where I can.
-
Comment on What programming/technical projects have you been working on? in ~comp
zestier Link Parentreminded me of video about that premise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJSW7Rprio. I recall it being about storing data in transit by sending data to be echoed at to the furthest servers...A file that only exists within the tubes. The fibers of the internet as the hard drive...
reminded me of video about that premise: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcJSW7Rprio. I recall it being about storing data in transit by sending data to be echoed at to the furthest servers possible to maximize transit time.
I'm confident that's the right creator, but it's possible that's the wrong video. I think that's the right one though.
ACs can and do dehumidify. I watched the video months ago so I don't remember the details clearly, but I believe he discusses that the type of dehumidifier mentioned is, by components, very close to being an AC that just pumps the heat back into the same space due to being arranged differently.
Where I grew up, Florida, is notoriously humid yet I don't know of my family ever using anything just labeled as a dehumidifier. We ran the AC and dehumidification came as a desired side effect.
The "problem" with using the AC as a dehumidifier though is that it unless you desire to make the space colder then you may end up cold, whereas just a dehumidifier has a much smaller effect on the temperature. This "problem" isn't really much of an issue in Florida though because it's usually so hot you want the AC on anyway.