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stef25

3,095 karma · joined July 25, 2008

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stef25··on Root shell on a credit card terminal
> You can make fake debit/credit card transactions on a $2 USB card reader

Not asking "teach me how to do this" but could you explain in a little more detail ?

stef25··on Gemini Diffusion
It might sound unbelievable but if you write in multiple languages and mix languages in the same message or sentence, often spell check doesn't work properly. Which is only normal.

I regularly send messages in 4 different languages (living in a bilingual city + frequent use of English and lots of Spanish friends). Sometimes even using 3 languages in one sentence.

Whatsapp kind of improved it now in that you can "activate" two languages at the same time. Apart from that I'm not sure there's much else that can be done.

It's not even that much of an edge case. Brussels is the one of the most international cities in the world, street names exist in 2 languages, a lot of slang and expressions get borrowed from other languages.

stef25··on Gemini Diffusion
I understand what negative space is in art. Can you explain how this applies to writing software ?
stef25··on After months of coding with LLMs, I'm going back to using my brain
Recently I tried getting ChatGPT to help me build a Wordpress site (which I know nothing about), starting from an Adobe design file. It spent hours thinking, being confused and eventually failed completely.

However it's great for simple "write a function that does X", which I could do myself but it would take longer, be boring and require several iterations to get it right.

Having said that, blindly copying a few lines of ChatGPT code did lead to automated newsletters being sent out with the wrong content.

stef25··on Human
Hasn't this question been basically answered ? Conditions in the early universe allowed for the creation of things like amino acids, I think it's even been replicated in a lab.

Would love to see a "why does the universe exist" version of this

stef25··on Why are banks still getting authentication so wrong?
We have universal ID cards here in Belgium. They have a chip and along with a special card reader usb device you can log in to govt websites related to taxes, pension and basically everything else.

If you have a smartphone you can use an app to scan a QR and log in that way. It's super convenient.

Where is the privacy problem if you use this system to consult your own civil data ? Privacy is a thing in the EU and it's a complex issue mainly because of these tech behemoths that need to know your shoe size before you can use their todo list app.

> Resist every single effort to make it easier for merchants and private entities to strongly identify users

How is this related to govt issued ID cards ?

stef25··on Car companies are in a billion-dollar software war
In Asia it's mainly used to signal your presence, like when you're overtaking someone. Just a little tap of the horn. Just the fact that you hear it say in the right corner behind you will make you not swerve in that direction. It's almost subconscious and really does improve safety imho. You can't possibly visually scan for all vehicles around you.

The result of course is that there's a non stop cacophony, in places like Hanoi it REALLY gets to you after a while.

Here in EU if someone honks at you it's considered rude and will make me really react with wtf is your problem. Out in Asia it's completely normal.

stef25··on OpenAI is building a social network?
There's no better life hack
stef25··on OpenAI is building a social network?
> Product is not kickass

It might not be the best but people of whom you'd have never thought that they would use it, are using it. Many non technical people in my circle are all over it and they have never even heard of Claude. They also wouldn't understand why people would loathe AI because they simply don't understand those reasons.

stef25··on Canadian math prodigy allegedly stole $65M in crypto
> his intent was clear

Would it be fair to say his intent was to enrich himself by using this platform's features ? And bonus points: "is that a crime" ?

stef25··on US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU
On the Sam Harris podcast you can listen to a great interview with Anne Applebaum that goes in to some detail about the relationship between various US and RU politicians. There's a lot more to it than the Steele dossier.
stef25··on US Administration announces 34% tariffs on China, 20% on EU
The only other currency that comes to mind for global trade is the Euro but even that seems impossible?
stef25··on Spammers are better at SPF, DKIM, and DMARC than everyone else
Marketing decides on DKIM and SPF ?
stef25··on Generate impressive-looking terminal output, look busy when stakeholders walk by
> a manager who could remote-log-in to my machine

That's diabolical

stef25··on Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg
If you have a job at Facebook today, you can get an impressive job somewhere else tomorrow. Nobody should be that connected.
stef25··on Europe's most wanted man plotted my murder and that of my colleague
No clue what you're trying to say ...
stef25··on Europe's most wanted man plotted my murder and that of my colleague
> nerve toxin in underwear.

This fact came from one of the people who was involved in putting it there. Navalny phoned a Russian guy pretending to be another Russian official, asked him how this op went down and the dude said the toxin was in his underwear. You can see this all in the documentary.

Your attitude is misplaced, so much that one wonders why you're posting this.

stef25··on Material Theme has been pulled from VS Code's marketplace
Correct, the author links to it from his github page https://github.com/equinusocio
stef25··on Bybit loses $1.5B in hack but can cover loss, CEO confirms
Chemical Ali ?
stef25··on Why can't we remember our lives as babies or toddlers?
So it's like a built-in protection to prevent us from recalling traumatic experiences ? Could make sense. But then why also block the overwhelmingly good memories like getting xmas presents ?
stef25··on Google Lighthouse recommends not embedding YouTube videos directly
Yup +1 for this, it makes Lighthouse happy
stef25··on The year I didn't survive
Similar here. Covid happened, lost my relationship of 15 years, had a total mental breakdown, lost my job, lost 20Kg, substance abuse, spent all my savings, struggle to pay bills. Lost my dad 2 months ago. Unemployed for a year now. I'll never be able to get back to where I was professionally. Feel dumb, confused and my memory sucks. Three shitty ass years. Medicated.

Slowly starting to see some light. My two young kids get me through this, they are with me every other week and give purpose to my life, they are best thing ever.

I hear you too. Don't be scared to ask for professional help. Meds can make a difference.

Seeing people's testimonials made me feel better so I thought I'd post mine.

stef25··on Mystery brain disease patients in New Brunswick say they welcome investigation
Why would these deficiencies occur in one specific geographical area ?
stef25··on The legacy of lies in Alzheimer's science
> Alzheimer's is likely not a single disease but likely multiple diseases which are currently being lumped into the one label

Back at uni 25 years ago they told me the same about schizophrenia and I'm sure it's still valid.

stef25··on The legacy of lies in Alzheimer's science
Make sure you always have some energy left when taking care of him. Don't burn yourself out. Like they say to new parents - regularly get a babysitter no matter what.

My pops died from Lewy body dementia about 2 months ago. It gets much rougher toward the end. The more carers you have the better, it's almost impossible by yourself. You'll never forget the period you're going through now. Make sure you have no regrets when it's all over.

stef25··on OpenAI says it has evidence DeepSeek used its model to train competitor
Mechanical turks ?
stef25··on Exposed DeepSeek database leaking sensitive information, including chat history
Lol, I learned it in the 80s - 90s. If you chose to learn Latin & Greek in high school here in Belgium then you're seen as being a top student. It's still a big thing.
stef25··on The Canva outage: another tale of saturation and resilience
Maybe your IP was mistakenly seen as being in Russia ? Obviously should never have happened
stef25··on I made $100K from a dick joke
Not sure if it's still the case now but you could perfectly open a Stripe account in the EU without the need for any business documents.
stef25··on Decline in teen drug use continues, surprising experts
Don't quit your day job just yet
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