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BelleOfTheBall

520 karma · joined December 9, 2019

I'm your Anne-tidote to horrible content on the internet.
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BelleOfTheBall··on Improving your online privacy: An update
I clicked this expecting some deep-dive ramble about moving all communications to Matrix, but this is actually a very concise and accessible guide. Now, I will admit I'm biased since I already follow all of these steps, but it seems really simple to me. In fact, the addition of the "Expected effort" bits makes me wonder if I could convince some friends to follow suit and at least switch to Firefox and DDG. OSM has proven a hard sell so far, sadly.
BelleOfTheBall··on Mullvad on Tailscale: Privately browse the web
Can confirm, it seems like every single YouTube channel I've watched in the past 2-3 years has had an ad for 3 or 4 VPN services. Plus, the internet is getting more segmented, when I send links to some US sites to my friends overseas they need a VPN to access it, which wasn't the case like 6-7 years ago.
BelleOfTheBall··on Total Commander
I remember once I needed to rename a bunch of files to a template similar to NewName_001, upwards of 100. TC lets you just set a name pattern and follows it, which meant I did it in about 10 seconds. My colleague took 10 minutes and a lot of groaning about "why isn't there a better way?".
BelleOfTheBall··on Theft of the Mona Lisa (2000)
The funny part is that, in another article on the subject, it's said that the Louvre had absolutely awful security back then: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/stolen-how-the-m...

With multiple art pieces being stolen, it's also partially a matter of luck and publicity that Mona Lisa was so singled out to become a legend.

BelleOfTheBall··on India’s diaspora is bigger and more influential than any in history
I'd say it's more just numbers, it's about the culture's status in the recipient country. While stuff like Indian food or Chinese food is super-normalized, you don't really see either culture dominating the US. Education does help, because it makes them seem "closer" to us, but a lot of the time a big culture will just end up absorbing all others that connect to it.
BelleOfTheBall··on GPT-4 details leaked?
That is a very dangerous way to approach copyright laws. They are definitely abused by corporations like Disney, infamously so, but abolishing them is absolutely not the answer. Art makers are already struggling en masse, taking away their ability to earn money off their work isn't an answer, especially if it's just to train a predictive text generator.
BelleOfTheBall··on Where can I see Hokusai's Great Wave today?
Aren't the versions of "The Scream" all pretty different though? I think I read some of them are pencils or charcoals only, whereas the Great Wave variants seem to be quite similar
BelleOfTheBall··on Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe
There's also the fact that we are developing new agricultural advancements constantly and I mean the collective we - vertical farms in Asia, new irrigation systems, lab-grown stuff and so on. Surely we can think of ways to improve agriculture while retaining our feathered friends
BelleOfTheBall··on Sugihara's Dog
Oh, this is really interesting, he goes into detail on how difficult it can be to print them, too, based on the fact that you have to make the parts moveable and a lot of them are somewhat small, too. Thank you!
BelleOfTheBall··on Sugihara's Dog
Searching on YouTube doesn't seem to bring anything about the one linked here, am I putting in the wrong term? I'd love to know how this was done, it's messing with my head.
BelleOfTheBall··on E-bandages lightly zap and heal wounds
I imagine a tiny amount would be okay, based on the scientists' reactions. However, I wonder if chronic use of this, which is how it'd be for diabetics, would actually lead to bad consequences. Perhaps the material is specifically tailored to be not just prone to absorption but also neutral/positive when processed by the body?
BelleOfTheBall··on Better to micromanage than be disengaged
I'd agree with this an don't see much point in trying to figure out which bad type of management is the least bad. Instead, the approach should focus on finding ways to make a bad manager better in a meaningful way.
BelleOfTheBall··on ‘I will show you how safe Telegram is’
From their official announcement of reproducible builds. And this seems to be the instructions: https://core.telegram.org/reproducible-builds
BelleOfTheBall··on ‘I will show you how safe Telegram is’
Huh? Their client code isn't just fully open-source, it also has reproducible builds both on Android and iOS, has been for a while. Doesn't Signal only have them on Android? It's a great app either way but if RBs matter, that's a little knock against it.
BelleOfTheBall··on IKEA made a smart air quality sensor to track indoor pollution
You can use methods of cleaning the air in your house, I assume things like humidifiers and specialized air conditioning/cleaning units exist. The point of these sensors is to show the problem actually exists. If thousands of people suddenly find out their home air is compromised, that will then create a demand for air purification tools.
BelleOfTheBall··on Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google
Logged out - about two weeks ago, couldn't close the pop-up, no X button. Perhaps it was changed recently but doing it on mobile was simply not an option for a long time.
BelleOfTheBall··on Tell HN: Tweets no longer seem to be properly indexed by Google
Specific tweets, yes, but if you want to scroll a person's profile, you'll need an account after about a page of scrolling.
BelleOfTheBall··on Despite crypto layoffs, Kraken continues to hire
I'm a cis woman but any person who gets genuinely upset at people for asking to be addressed by their preferred pronouns comes off like a clown. If I change my name and ask to be addressed by my new name, anyone who wouldn't do it would be ridiculed. And yet someone changing their pronouns asking for the same is somehow too much.

You don't have to be super-woke or tolerant to simply refer to people correctly.

BelleOfTheBall··on Telegram has released user data to German Feds in multiple cases
Their stance has always been that they don't protect terrorism suspects, they even had a channel where they reported how many ISIS groups/channels got shut down.
BelleOfTheBall··on Telegram has released user data to German Feds in multiple cases
The app famous for not cooperating will cooperate?

https://hongkongfp.com/2020/07/05/exclusive-telegram-to-temp...

BelleOfTheBall··on Are we running out of resources?
To be fair, gas isn't just used for heating. Germany needs it for industrial work, as far as I know. But yes, heating alternatives are available aplenty.
BelleOfTheBall··on Spinal implants allow paralysed people to walk, swim and cycle again
I'd agree with this sentiment. These articles make people excited and bring awareness plus, if you allow me to speculate, I bet someone with paralysis who at least sees these articles and realizes they might have a chance to walk in the future will feel better than someone who doesn't see them. Knowing there is a chance makes it easier to cope with problems. Or maybe I'm wrong, tell me if I am, I fully understand my perspective may be skewed.
BelleOfTheBall··on Who keeps an eye on clipboard access?
Wow, I had no idea things worked this way. It makes sense but is also terrifying to think about, that I might be copy-pasting some sensitive data and then accidentally tab into some app and it'd just ghost-paste the data into its cache.
BelleOfTheBall··on Cryptographers unearth vulnerabilities in Telegram's encryption protocol
A 0.0001% chance that a Facebook product has backdoors to spy on people? I see that you have a real hatred of Telegram but come on, this is such a biased take. You are willing to protect a closed-source app from Facebook just because you hate the alternative so much. You are not helping anyone with this.
BelleOfTheBall··on Et Tu, Signal?
They are encrypted, just like everything else in the app, just not E2E. There's a big difference between no encryption and encryption that isn't E2E.
BelleOfTheBall··on Nobody designs for small iPhone devices anymore
This is in part because it's assumed that everyone will get the cool new model once it's out and, in particular with iPhones, there's a marketing push to acquire newer models, lest yours feels outdated or stops being supported by the company.
BelleOfTheBall··on WallStreetBets members adopt 3,500 gorillas in six days
When a momma gorilla and a papa gorilla love each other very much... (and significant resources are dedicated to keeping them safe, content and ready to procreate, which is what I'm assuming Reddit has achieved.)
BelleOfTheBall··on The story of the PDF (2018)
Man, I haven't seen a DjVu file in years. It used to be somewhat common in scans of magazines and other media that relied on images. Pity that it didn't catch on, although I suppose it still could, if some of its benefits were refined. I find that larger PDFs tend to tank optimization, is that a problem for DjVu files at all?
BelleOfTheBall··on Denisovan DNA found in cave on Tibetan Plateau
If it was produced initially from an animal, there's still harm done, although I'd argue it's infinitely small compared to what it achieves. There's also the fact that many vegan people try not to purchase vegan products if they come from a "non-vegan company". So if a meat producer also starts peddling tofu, vegans will buy from a different brand simply so they don't line the pockets of the meat or dairy industry. With the way things are going, I'd imagine the first to achieve lab-grown top-quality meat would be an agricultural/farm corporation, which wouldn't sit well with many vegans.
BelleOfTheBall··on The Laptev Sea hasn't frozen
> Good.

No, not good.

Just because it will make people take climate change seriously, this is not, by any measure, good. It's a dangerous and irreversible change and if most people want to deny climate change or downplay it, it shouldn't take a catastrophe to change their minds. The data is there, just because people find the prospect of awful things happening in 2030 not scary enough, doesn't mean we should be happy these things will happen sooner. COVID probably changed a lot of people's minds on healthcare and politics. Would we classify that as 'good' as well?

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