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duskdozer

1,618 karma · joined July 4, 2025

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duskdozer··on Returning from vacation? The government can search your phone without a warrant
Yes, I also used Ti[tanium?] Backup, and now use NeoBackup. Those still don't quite hit the spot for me of a full and reliable backup. It's close in many ways, but I've found system settings to be largely nontransferable, and many times apps would just seem to break or crash after restoring. So I have no idea how people do anything close to it without root, although I suppose it's possible at this point if you use a Google account and apps they probably have something.
duskdozer··on Returning from vacation? The government can search your phone without a warrant
Explain how? I've yet to find something reliable like this. At best you can have a decent number of apps automatically reinstalled to the original state, but not all, and most settings don't transfer, etc. And that requires root access, which most people don't have afaik.
duskdozer··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
Is it really that crazy though? Or is it an acknowledgement that the people in power would think like Peter Thiel and if given the choice between ending capitalism or ending humanity, would pick ending humanity?
duskdozer··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
And do you feel comfortable drawing all that down so that you're left with nothing at the end of the decade?
duskdozer··on The last time my family was replaced by technology
It could. But I'm not confident there will be a broad recognition of the fact if things become much worse than they are, or of the cause, or that there will be a desire to make things be better. There has been a long decline in quality in favor of optimizing for monetization and engagement, predating LLMs. But I do think there will be some pullback in things that actually matter if not in the SaaS FOTM.
duskdozer··on America.gov
>but performance on low-end devices and compatibility with accessibility technologies are not.

These are probably features

duskdozer··on We’re forgetting what darkness feels like
From what I've seen, most of this energy-per-lumen efficiency has just been funneled into outputting more and more lumens, not actually saving energy. It's only going to get worse with the new 2027 regulations coming in.
duskdozer··on We’re forgetting what darkness feels like
This is just assuming that more and brighter lighting is objectively good and better. It's not.
duskdozer··on We’re forgetting what darkness feels like
This is a common myth. Increased lighting does not reduce crime or improve safety[0,1], especially not poorly designed lighting - like the excessively bright and blue-tinted spotlights - which can even make things worse[2], by increasing glare, preventing our eyes from adjusting to the night, and increasing the number and contrast of relative dark spots.

Regardless, if one still lights up their own property due to anxiety, it's not a justification for causing light pollution. That light should remain on their property with angling and shielding.

[0]https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/chicago-...

[1]http://jech.bmj.com/content/early/2015/07/08/jech-2015-20601...

[2]https://theconversation.com/more-lighting-alone-does-not-cre...

duskdozer··on America.gov
No, it really isn't.
duskdozer··on Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
By that time it may be decided that he's too big to be jailed.
duskdozer··on Why Is Sam Altman a Free Man?
His big mistake was clearly giving away what he got for free instead of trying to make a lot of money off it
duskdozer··on You are no longer invited to dinner
Housing prices also more than doubled in real terms in the period of that graph https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/QUSR628BIS
duskdozer··on Does Reddit have an astroturfing problem? What the data suggests
Moderators are still able to see your post history without extra steps.
duskdozer··on A Privacy Analysis of Web and Mobile Conversational AI Agents [pdf]
Well, some data is deliberately provided at least. It's not a situation of other apps managing to grab the data like the facebook-localhost exploit

>The most prevalent third-party services included in CSP headers belong to Google Tag Manager (googletagmanager.com), Google Analytics (google-analytics.com), and Google Ads (googleadservices.com and doubleclick.net). Yet, as Table 8 shows, CSP policies commonly include other prominent actors in the advertising industry, such as TikTok and Meta.

duskdozer··on We're gonna need a lot more mathematicians
I'm not conflating them. They were one of the examples I've used to say that the messaging promoted by public health officials is not the same as the expert understanding.
duskdozer··on PipePipe: NewPipe hard fork implementing SponsorBlock
Well, that's why I scarequoted it. Morally I agree with you, and for the same reason I will not support LLMs and the companies pushing them. But as it is, the techbros and the adbros will continue to move fast and break things, and nobody will check them, so if some people can divert them into breaking slightly less, it is a small consolation.
duskdozer··on PipePipe: NewPipe hard fork implementing SponsorBlock
I actually think this is 100% the correct move practically, as someone who thinks advertising is unethical. Keeping it out of this popular option while remaining open source allows the original to be clear from "wrongdoing" here and does not put so much pressure on creating an arms race. Then, the fork just adds sponsorblock, and things are ok.

As I see it, it's similar to the situation with FOSS passkey options. Currently the big projects are complying with all of the (increasingly silly, imo) demands of the standards org. If they did not, there would be significantly more pressure for attestation, in which ultimately only Google/Apple/Microsoft-controlled options would be permitted. Complying allows a fork to patch out the user-hostile behavior.

duskdozer··on PipePipe: NewPipe hard fork implementing SponsorBlock
I haven't been able to watch youtube in the browser for ages. I get like one 10-20s chunk then nothing further. Do you use just the standard block lists?
duskdozer··on PipePipe: NewPipe hard fork implementing SponsorBlock
Freetube if it's still working? I haven't tried it in a while.
duskdozer··on We're gonna need a lot more mathematicians
I'm saying that "experts" here is not one group. The politicians and public figures choosing what information to publicize and disseminate are not the same people as those who worked on developing the vaccines.
duskdozer··on What even is an OS now?
How would an LLM know not to take that road then?

If your answer is you tell it, then the obvious solution to improve the app is to provide a way of specifying a road exclusion list, and that is extremely feasible.

duskdozer··on What even is an OS now?
I agree - we should have many more good fully-keyboard-accessible UIs!

I don't want to talk to my computer to use it.

duskdozer··on We're gonna need a lot more mathematicians
It's incorrect to assume that the information you heard is 100% an accurate representation of the scientific understanding and not information filtered through "public health" which balances that with other interests. I'm not aware specifically what was known at the time about the initial vaccine formulation, but there are several examples where there was a disconnect:

- ~Feb 2020: COVID is known to spread through and linger in the air, not just spread via droplets or fomites; public health messaging fixated on simultaneous 6ft distancing and surface cleaning rather than air filtration and masking

- Spring 2020: it's known that masks reduce the risk of acquiring and spreading infection; in the US, public health messaging stated the opposite, in order to keep as many masks in supply to healthcare workers despite a major shortage of masks

- Jan 2022: it's know that an infected person can remain contagious for over two weeks; in the US, public health isolation guidelines are reduced to 5 days due to noncompliance and in response to pressure from the airline industry, which was experiencing a significant shortage of flight staff due to COVID infection

duskdozer··on One Month Without AI
The issue with LLM guarding isn't that it's "excessive" in outputting edge case handling, it's that the result often ends up just suppressing an error that actually indicates there is a bug or that should be handled elsewhere in a different way.
duskdozer··on How to keep enjoying programming in a world of LLMs
I think there will be a divide. The SaaS of the future can probably absorb much more LLM use with less knowledgeable devs, because the product not being trash was never critical; it just has to be good enough that Sales can keep convincing people who won't use it to buy it for their orgs. But for things that actually need to be right, there will always be a need for devs who can understand and write code. There has already been some pullback among a few of my colleagues who were riding high earlier this year because what we're working on is more of the second type.
duskdozer··on How to keep enjoying programming in a world of LLMs
No, it's actually much, much harder unless you are ignoring any of the details, which are the things that actually matter ultimately. When you were first learning did they not do the "tell me how to make a PB+J sandwich" or whatever to show you the imprecision of plain human words? You may comprehend the LLM I/O easily, but you don't know that that matches what's actually happening.
duskdozer··on How to keep enjoying programming in a world of LLMs
>Who likes...

People other than you, I guess. I think your first chunk is a bit of an unfavorable perspective, but still I would take that over the second every time.

duskdozer··on I'm tired of being on the network
I doubt it. I've never been overweight in my lifetime. I have never had to put any effort into that. I simply cannot relate at all to the food-related struggles I sometimes read about overweight people having. It would be silly and condescending of me to claim that I simply have more strength of will here than they do. On the other hand, I struggle heavily with some things many/most people do not, and this is often blamed as a personal failure and weakness of mine. So I wonder if it's just that people who don't have any similar struggles think they are just superior beings with superior willpower.
duskdozer··on I'm Tired of Being on the Network
If my phone demanded my attention as much as it seems the author's does with notifications, I'd probably not keep it with me either. I also feel tired of it, but it's difficult to remove access to the number of beneficial things I get from it. I try to limit non-FOSS apps and modify most of those to suit my purposes better, though that often feels like a lot of work done with the intent of saving work...
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