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greycol

724 karma · joined November 1, 2018

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greycol··on Bible and Quran apps flagged NSFW by F-Droid
It's all about interpretation, which is the point where you mark something as not appropriate for children so that parents can actively make the choice on if their kids should be exposed to it. In this case there's very little argument about whether we want more people following the voice in their head to kill their son, which is from the bible, or having vanilla sex, which is the definition of hardcore porn (as opposed to softcore porn, not hardcore as in extreme at least that was the definition I'm used to perhaps the meaning has drifted).

People are comfortable with religious texts because they are bought up with them and know which pieces to ignore, just look at the moral panic around teenagers getting hold of a Qaran and going off to join ISIS after 9/11. Hell I find the prevalence and acceptance of genital mutilation encouraged by religious texts horrendous when I spend time considering it.

It's not a hardship to let parents decide whether kids should have access to this stuff. That being said what the tag does in context of the f-droid shop is not really helpful behavior. It's not what most people would expect for parental control and outside of countries where the texts may be proscribed it's not really helpful behavior to hide these apps.

greycol··on Windows 11 25H2 October Update Bug Renders Recovery Environment Unusable
Best of luck, had that crop up occasionally with multiple updates as one offs across multiple machines. Sometimes all the typical troubleshooting steps (troubleshooter, clearing local update files, local repairs) won't fix it and your best option is to do a "upgrade" install with 'keep all files' selected using the media creation tool.
greycol··on Novo Nordisk's Canadian Mistake
While I'm all for saving costs, I would be shocked if mixing your own inject-able medicine either weekly (with the chance of making a mistake in dosage or sterility) or too such a high degree of sterility that you can confidentally store several doses is not worth the $200 return flight every two years. Maybe I'm overestimating the risks but it still seems like a small saving for it.

Realistically the cost of semiglutide in generic form means you could fly return every 90 days (personal import restriction for perscription meds) and still save $1000 every 3 months (3x$500 monthly - return flight - generic cost).

greycol··on You are the scariest monster in the woods
Of course the flowchart that fill that blank has other outcomes than total nuclear war, but you aren't considering how unacceptable those outcomes are to those involved or the feedback loops involved.

Let me ask you this question. Why did Russia use a small nuke on a military target in the middle of nowhere Ukraine? Because the outcome was positive for Russia... but the only way that can be true is if the cost of using a small nuke was better than the alternatives. This either means it was a demonstration / political action or... 1 or more Russian units in the Ukraine are armed with tactical nukes and it was a militarily sound option so by definition you'll see more nuke flying around at least from the Russian side when it's militarily sound. Now due to the realities of logistics that means there is capturable nuclear material on the battlefield.

If it's a demonstration/political action what do you think it was meant to accomplish? Either the consequences will be less detrimental than the military gain and so Russia can use tactical nukes and will do so if it improves the military situation... or the consequences will be at a level detrimental to Russia.

See the premise of the question is flawed in that Russia doesn't just use one Nuke in the middle of nowhere, because everyone already knows Russia has nukes. Russia is trying to demonstrate it will use them and so the actions from that are either a Ukraine alliance capitulation, Russia can continue the war just the same but with whatever ever extra political consequences of using 1 nuke, or continue the situation using Nukes.

You see the issue right? Should the Ukraine alliance surrender to a single tactical nuke when it hasn't to the threat of strategic nukes? Russia can't fire that first Nuke without being a country willing to use tactical nukes on the battlefield and what did they gain if not the use of those nukes to ensure a military victory because it hasn't ensured a diplomatic one.

So the statement becomes: Russia uses tactical nukes across the battlefield. ____. Everyone is firing nukes at eachother.

That last sentence is synonymous with "Strategic nukes being fired by ICBM" which is incredibly likely when 1 non scheduled ICBM is fired. While you're right that 1 tactical nuke in the middle of nowhere wouldn't ensure MAD, it is not a massive assumption that the realities around that 1 nuke being used would.

greycol··on Windows 7 marketshare jumps to nearly 10% as Windows 10 support is about to end
An easy example, if you haven't already try going to GPO and enable 'Computer Configuration>Start Menu and Taskbar>Remove Recommended Section from Start Menu' then restart your computer. Open the start menu and be amazed that people weren't actually complaining about FUD as you witness a nice fossilized example of updates superseding users previous choices.

You can hunt out the other newer superseding settings (good luck without a 3rd party script or guide as you won't find required settings and steps to remove it in any MS docs just scattered parts) and eventually neuter the recommended section again... possibly as you suggest forever or possibly until an update touches this again.

greycol··on Windows 7 marketshare jumps to nearly 10% as Windows 10 support is about to end
Pro isn't ad-free by default. With appropriate regedits/privacy scripts/tools you can make it ad-free until an update inevitably reverts/"upgrades" some part of it. It's not hard to maintain it in this state but you are fighting against what microsoft wants the OS to be when you do this.
greycol··on Gmail will no longer support checking emails from third-party accounts via POP
I honestly believe that last point is the reason people still have their free grand-parented in workspace accounts. Google went to close them down realized they didn't have a graceful way to let people keep their paid for apps and realized the engineering time to create a workspace to consumer migration was worth much more than any costs associated with those accounts.
greycol··on What if I don't want videos of my hobby time available to the world?
I wouldn't be surprised if spurious criticisms about an awkward youth and couch fucking have inured him to very real criticism of his governance.
greycol··on YouTube addresses lower view counts which seem to be caused by ad blockers
Because google links that information to what you do in other places of the internet. I don't care if my church knows my favourite hymn or my sex store knows I buy sex toys, I care if my church knows I buy sex toys.
greycol··on Charlie Kirk killed at event in Utah
Sure but the people asking to track gun deaths properly are rebuffed by the people who want to keep guns, so even the guys who want to keep guns infer better stats will make them look worse.
greycol··on U.S. added 911k fewer jobs in year through March than reported earlier
They really aren't. To pay off a 30yr 300k at 4% you pay $17350 a year. If you pay $17350 on a 100k 16% mortgage you pay it off in under 18 years and have saving of 222k (even at 0% returns) + 100k house by the time 30yrs is up.
greycol··on We all dodged a bullet
Every time I bite my tongue (literal not figurative) it's also astonishing to me. Last time I did was probably 3 years ago and it was probably 10 years earlier for the time before that. Would it be fair to call me a negligent eater? Have you been walking and tripped over nothing? Humans are fallible and unless you are in an environment where the productivity loss of a rigorous checklist and routine system makes sense these mistakes happen.

It would be just as easy to argue that anyone who uses software and hasn't confirmed their security certifications include whatever processes you imagine avoids 'human makes 1 mistake and continues with normal workflow' error or holds updates until evaluated is negligent.

greycol··on iPhone Air
The thinness of the letters in the title really accentuate the camera bump. For me it makes it looks like it's called APR and really draws attention to a design feature I dislike, having said that I know that some people find camera bumps a positive feature.
greycol··on We regret but have to temporary suspend the shipments to USA
Food, iron and salt where all from inside their empire. What critical production are you actually referring to?

Closest I can think of is the Romans required a constant influx of cheap labour from outside their empire for their economy. When the flow stopped (diminished conquering meant diminished number of slaves coming in) that was a major factor in economic decline.

greycol··on We regret but have to temporary suspend the shipments to USA
It's generally not like a store, it's charged at time of import not at time of sale. The seller can choose to pre-pay for the importer (the customer) but they'll only do that if they know what to pay. If they don't know what to pay (i.e. if the tariffs change randomly with no notice) they'll tick the box that says importer pays and the buyer gets a call from customs when it arrives in the country saying pay the tariff or we impound/destroy your goods.
greycol··on Pixel 10 Phones
A lot of people buy clothes for their looks with minimal weighting towards functionality (or rather that is the functionality). If you've got a body in reasonable nick then tight pants can look good.

The traditional solution to poor pockets is a purse or bag. Phones are interesting in that they can demand attention and that they are probably the most used item that people carry around with them. Thus people compromise their lines/comfort to actually use the faster accessibility of pockets. Probably explains the popularity of ridge wallets and key wallets too.

greycol··on Secure Boot is a requirement to play Battlefield 6 on PC
It's the Javelin Anti cheat system which forces the use of secure boot.

This conversation already covers a lot of the anticheat linux issue:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21947047

It's been about a year since MS managed to release an update that hit dual boot users running linux with secure boot. They released a fix in may this year, so hopefully going forward that won't be an issue.

However if you're running "old" hardware you've still got the expiring keys issue with secure boot to deal with.

https://www.techradar.com/pro/security/linux-users-are-about...

I think there's a bit of a confluence between ai making graphics cards more widely useful for work machines, the hostile malware like nature of anti cheat, and the worrying unreliability of secure boot, that coupled with the higher cost of graphics card (making it less affordable to just have a second machine) that make this problem more untenable.

Really does give more credence to the "doomsayers" of yester year who denounced secure boot.

Will be interesting to see how it all plays out with MS proclaiming they're going to fence off ring 0 access after crowdstrike, and the growing popularity of linux as a gaming platform (as a realist, i'm betting on depressing. It'll play out depreesingly).

greycol··on Ubiquiti launches UniFi OS Server for self-hosting
You can't actually configure the wan connection fully without internet connectivity (at least last i checked).

This meant for instance if your WAN required VLAN like New Zealand you couldn't actually set it up without another router. Their fix is to add 1 more option to the WAN configuration options rather than the full suite of WAN configuration options you get once it's talked home.

The partial fix does make it clear that the philosophy of "you must talk to the mothership" is a guiding one that ubiquiti sticks to.

greycol··on Have I Been Pwned 2.0
Great, they meant better acting corporations have no click or single click (dismiss-able with simple add-ons to proactively affirm the user's position) ribbons to get get rid of unwanted cookies. Let's be realistic anyone who hates those banners and hasn't bothered to do the google search and 5 minute task to get rid of them permanently (either enabling or disabling consent) is not having their political opinion changed by them, they are using them as an excuse to buttress their position of government bad or corporations malicious.
greycol··on Microsoft Teams will soon block screen capture during meetings
Basically by enabling drm (widevine). For the browsers/configurations that people knowledgable about browsers use for anything but streaming they'll force audio only mode and pretend that it's an acceptable solution.
greycol··on Harvard's response to federal government letter demanding changes
The problem with your questions (if the one above is an example) is that you're asking what can be seen as an insulting question that doesn't really add any nuance or analysis itself.

You could have asked the question while highlighting points in the governments letter that you thought were valid policy goals that you wanted more discussion about. You could have asked if they'd read the government letter and pointed out that the government telling the university that it both had to consider who it hired with regard to political and ethnic and to make personnel changes to demonstrate they didn't consider political and ethnic considerations going forward was particularly ridiculous.

You may still get downvoted for emotional(which you shouldn't) or other reasons but it would be less likely to be the case as it showed you made some effort (which can indicate good faith) and more importantly you're comment might inform someone reading the comments more about the topic as well.

greycol··on US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU
Because tariffs can be applied on specific goods rather than the current blanket tariffs.

i.e. You could place a tariff on steel to ensure local manufactures use American steel while placing a tariff that includes cocoa does not necessarily mean American chocolate producers can buy more from American cocoa producers so it only injures the local chocolate producers (and downstream consumers) without protecting or improving another local industry.

You could still argue that the steel tariff is not a net positive but at least the positives and negatives of tariffs are arguable.

To your second question three (inexhaustive) possible reasons are that the industry has large political sway, or it's part of a plan to stop the quick collapse of an industry while the economy develops other industries, or it's a defense against the artificial short term lowering of external prices (i.e. foreign government subsidies either to grow an industry in their country or to destroy the industry in other countries).

greycol··on U.S. stock futures tumble indicating another plummet on Wall Street
That's more due to OPEC deciding to allow higher production quotas. Though you could argue that's because they expect a global downturn though it's not an independent view just the view of those countries.
greycol··on Why I don't discuss politics with friends
Sure but if you're so reductionist then you'd also be arguing that slaves were making a statement about their values and how they viewed slavery because the majority didn't immediately escape or die trying. It would be disingenuous to say or even imply from that statement that their value system was pro slavery though.
greycol··on Honey has now lost 4M Chrome users after shady tactics were revealed
I'm sure I've seen dunk tanks (throw a baseball, hit the target, person falls in) in plenty of US movies though no idea how common that is in reality.

Regardless, one of the nice things about the practice is does mean people are at least somewhat committed to a cause they are raising funds for before they go soliciting. It also deals with the irrational part of the human psyche and moves the action conceptually from the person begging to the person trading which can have an impact on how people perceive it.

greycol··on The Alexa feature "do not send voice recordings" you enabled no longer available
They actually have thought it out well. The short of it is you can set up a device to constantly stream to home assistant so that you can use any wake word. That comes with the draw back of more power use and more importantly higher cpu use for each microphone you add. It's still possible (https://github.com/dscripka/openWakeWord)

The alternative for a dedicated low power device is to have trained a model to run on smaller micro controllers so that it can run locally on low powered devices (https://github.com/kahrendt/microWakeWord) this is what they have chosen for their dedicated devices.

This choice also comes with much higher default privacy. Which is great as home assistant offers cloud integration and the fact that they put privacy first in this area makes it much easier to trust they do the right thing in other areas.

A brief run down on the subject https://www.home-assistant.io/voice_control/about_wake_word/

greycol··on Apple's Software Quality Crisis
To clarify their issue, you can celebrate someones birthday without knowing the year they are born, you only need to know the reocurring date. You can't enter a birthday in apple contacts without a year, if you attempt it it sets it as the date of tomorrow.

My experience with apple is something's either a 2 minute fix or unfixable which to be fair is a reasonable way to do things though much less appealing to me (though less relevant for many users as stock android/windows continue to give users less and less control).

greycol··on Forum with 2.6M posts being deleted due to UK Online Safety Act
I'll remind you of two thing which a lot of people often forget with hobbies/volunteering and may make this argument moot for you: Just because someone gives time for free doesn't mean that time doesn't cost them or can easily be increased without significantly impacting the giver. Secondly that some parts of a hobby can be work that is required for the fun part of the hobby and changing the ratio of fun:work can kill any motivation for the hobby.

To your point even your extract from the link there are compliance costs.

>So, we wanted to reassure those smaller services that this is *unlikely* to be the case

Your source admits there are extra costs that will likely cause some small services to have to shutdown if the costs are to burdensome for them, they are just saying that they hope the costs are small enough that it doesn't put most small services in that position.

Even in your quote it explicitly lists extra costs. i.e. the cost of a compliant compliance tool. Obviously the government isn't going to implement it or spend the time moderating reports or abuse of reports. Which means the cost of extra hours moderating and setting it up are on the service provider.

"Must have an individual responsible for compliance". So either employ someone to take this risk or take on the risk and responsibility yourself and the associated due diligence costs (lawyers in the UK are only free if you're already losing hours of your life to the court system).

These costs will definetly push some people over the line to not wanting to host such services. Especially when the wording is so wide that you need to moderate out insults in your forum.

Jesus Christ! Your comment would probably be flagged as foreign propaganda to soft peddle broken UK policies, that is if the US had such rules. My comment should be flagged because that could be an insulting insinuation or the expletive at the start of this paragraph could be stirring up religious hatred by being needlessly blasphemous. And a moderator has to read the entire post to get to the non compliant part.

greycol··on Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone
I figured it was a rather apt example of how the turn it off and wait until someone complains doesn't work if the damage done in the wait until it's restored time isn't repairable. The abrasive personal example is because he's ignoring that this view has many people's lives at risk when we talk about programs like usaid.
greycol··on Everyone at NSF overseeing the Platforms for Wireless Experimentation is gone
To be rather abrasive in my response: I believe your view is a waste of air. In case I'm correct how about we cut you off from air for a week and if there's a problem we'll restore it then.
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