TWeaK

@[email protected]

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TWeaK ,

I have a drying rack that doesn't open wide enough to slot plates in it. I did manage to fit a chopping board in it, just... Then I heard a crash a few minutes later as it had popped out and jumped out the window.

Fortunately there was scaffolding outside, which I could get onto from a window on the other side. Going up and over the roof to fetch the chopping board gave me the chance to check out the new apartments they're building up there.

TWeaK ,

Erm, WhatsApp would suggest otherwise.

WhatsApp was the vector for zero click access to a target's phone from Israel's weapons grade hacking Pegasus toolkit. They would send a video call, typically in the middle of the night, and with no input from the used they'd get full access. My personal belief is that they used functionality WhatsApp itself uses to access user data.

There was also an encrypted phone called ANOM, which had this trick calculator app with a hidden encrypted messager. "Made for criminals, by criminals". Except, when the guy started his business he got investment from the FBI and Australian Federal Police to pay for the servers and some of the phones themselves. Basically every time it sent an encrypted message it sent a separate encrypted message to the ANOM servers. It's entirely possible (perhaps even likely) that WhatsApp would do this also.

As for Google, they're truly insidious. Lots of banks now require you to connect to Google captcha servers - they don't give you the pictures, it's just the back end, basically the tracking parts. Then there's the controversy about them collecting location data when users have said no. They absolutely do collect data they shouldn't.

TWeaK ,

Ejaculation is supposed to refer to written statements, though. As in, Watson ejaculated over Sherlock Holmes. (He literally did, the word is used all over the books).

TWeaK ,

Article: there's a video, but we're not going to show it, just trust us!

TWeaK ,

All software from torrent sites should be treated with a wary eye.

Never buy .xyz

I just wanted to post this here because I want to help you all and hurt gen.xyz as much as possible. I had a .xyz domain through njal.la which I used to host jellyfin, homeassistant, and other basic things for friends and family. My domain recently became inaccessible without any notice. After a while of troubleshooting, I found...

TWeaK ,

I mean, a jellyfin server is typically full of copyright protected material. I also wouldn't expect them to notify you in advance, however they should still send some notice when they stop providing the service you've paid for.

TWeaK ,

Doesn't Google already let you do this?? My Android phone doesn't even have Google Play Services, I just only use 3rd party stores. If I want an app from Google Play I get it through Aurora.

TWeaK ,

Downloading F-Droid from Google Play kind of defeats the purpose of F-Droid.

TWeaK ,

Ah wait, I should've read the article lol:

The law allows local authorities to name "designated providers" of a certain scale – currently only achieved by Apple and Google – and require those providers to do three things:

  • Allow third-party app stores on their devices;
  • Allow application developers to use third-party billing services;
  • Enable users to change default settings with simple procedures, and offer choice screens for tools like browsers;

And it forbids them doing three more:

  • Engage in any form of preferential treatment of their services over those of competitors in the display of search results without justifiable reason;
  • Use acquired data about competing applications for their own applications;
  • Prevent application developers from using features controlled by the OS with the same level of performance as the one used by Designated Providers.

So Google already allows 3rd party app stores and lots of settings (although these are always hit and miss, even in the custom ROM scene - I can't get pocket detection right now and my phone keeps doing things in my pocket), but the 3rd party billing and choice screens applies to them.

TWeaK ,

You're still putting a measure of trust into Google with that, rather than just trusting F-Droid.

TWeaK , (edited )

Ty, but I think I'm just gonna switch from my dodgy Chinese Xiaomi phone to the refurbished Pixel 7 Pro I have. I mean, I've had it for like e months now, one of these days I will. Although, I really will miss my IR blaster, even though I hardly ever use it it's nice to be able to change the TV in the pub lol

Edit: lmfao I just changed the TV 10m away, had Tour de France on, but now it's basketball.

TWeaK ,

Lol I do run Android without Google Play Services.

TWeaK ,

Run Magisk in Zygisk mode with the deny list hiding itself from banking apps.

However I would advise not using the banking app if you can help it, they're not clean. Hell, even accessing online banking via a website seems to require connections to google.com and gstatic.com to perform hidden captcha (you don't have to do the picture thing but it still does the server side tracking).

TWeaK ,

I'm in Europe, and I don't use banking apps. For the most part anyway, one of my credit cards pissed me off by switching to app only, then eventually I relented with one bank because I wanted a 2nd account that required the app.

Banks either verify by SMS (lol) or provide a passkey fob.

GrapheneOS should provide some measure of protection. You can also perhaps disable some tracking features using something like Warden (requires root) - although this hasn't been updated in years and probably misses stuff now.

Even if god exists religion can't possibly be the way to god

So I thought about this in the shower amd it makes sense to me, like praying and stuff never worked for most people I know, so a direkt link to god gotta be unlikely. That made me conclude that religion is probably fake, no matter if there's a god or not. Also people speaking to the same god being given a different set of rules...

TWeaK , (edited )

My go to phrase for Mormons is something like "I believe that, if there is a God, he wouldn't be so vain as to require constant worship, and instead he would just want us to 'live in his image'".

It's fun watching the cogs turn in their heads when you say something like that.

TWeaK ,

Book of Mormon

Dum dum dum dum dummm

TWeaK ,

Could well be needed. It's not fully understood, but human space travel - even to the surface of relatively nearby Mars - might not even be viable. Aside from the radiation issue after leaving the Earth's magnetosphere, zero gravity changes the body. When astronauts land they're carefully assisted to get out and placed onto soft bedding. From Chris Hadfield's autobiography, merely standing up after coming home from a few weeks/couple months on the ISS was like standing on a bed of needles. It took about 2 weeks to be able to move around again, which makes me wonder how we'll ever get people on the surface of Mars. The Moon is pretty easy in comparison, much lower gravity and not that far away.

TWeaK ,

Mexico is great, just stay out of politics.

TWeaK ,

Hasn't Telegram always been a Russian asset?

TWeaK ,

Not the one you replied to but they're probably talking about Kagi. I crunched the numbers a while back and the higher tiers were kind of hard to make worthwhile, however iirc they simplified the pricing slightly since then.

TWeaK ,

and it had not been made aware of its route.

As if that's an excuse, seeing as when people do notify them they end up getting killed.

TWeaK ,

Well normally they just tell you you aren't allowed to talk about the game period. This is a slightly relaxed position from that stance.

TWeaK ,

Yeah, I think they normally do full embargoes for that exact reason.

TWeaK ,

I'm a little gutted that I lost my Facebook account, if only because it was so old I had a username. Instead of my profile only being facebook.com/<number>, my profile was like facebook.com/tweak. People were really surprised by that.

However they blocked my account because I used 3rd party web wrapper apps and once had a poor internet connection in a remote location. It asked me to log in again, I did, then it said "you've done something strange" and demanded government ID. I actually complied (although I taped up most of the info, like it said I could) but it kept automatically rejecting it. I think it was because my profile used the shortened version of my name, which I go by on a day to day basis, while my ID uses the full version.

One of these days I might twist their arm with GDPR and get them to grant me access, however my local ICO has been pretty toothless under the current right wing government. I don't really miss Facebook, but there are friends and family on there I'd like to contact, and I was a member of a particularly good meme group.

TWeaK ,

Registration wall.

This article almost frames it as Ukraine's fault for changing. Ukraine shouldn't have to compromise with Russia at all.

TWeaK ,

So are they going to Mastadon or what?

TWeaK ,

I agree, that's what the BBC did.

TWeaK ,

So ideally these public broadcasters would make communities on the official Swiss instance.

TWeaK ,

I'm pretty sure they did, although I've used Mastadon even less than I used Twitter, so I can't be 100% sure. However I've read articles over the months saying they were introducing an instance as a trial, and then that they were keeping it running after the trial.

TWeaK ,

That's my go to, FOSS app that rivals the major apps.

There are other podcast apps on F-Droid also.

TWeaK ,

At least 3 backups, 2 different media, 1 offsite location.

So I finally did the math on data brokerage and worked out how much we're all being robbed

I know this isn't strictly piracy related, I apologise, but I think it is tangentally related in that piracy protects you from data theft by avoiding the services the biggest thieves operate. Also, I feel like people here might be very interested in this take....

TWeaK OP ,

Sure, it's not the hundreds of dollars I'd estimated previously. In the past I've said "the data brokerage industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry" and come up with figures ranging from $100-$700 per year owed to the user.

However, it should be said that this is just data brokerage. Not all businesses sell the data they collect, instead they keep it proprietary and use it themselves. Google, for example, sells advertising, not user data.

So I think my estimations here have been very conservative overall, and the real value may well be much higher.

Also, it's not just about it being a small amount from an individual, it's the fact that they're robbing everyone blind that really gets my wick. No one really understands the value of user data, not intuitively, and the whole transaction is done in a deceptive manner to abuse this fact.

TWeaK ,

It's not about chasing profit though, it's about getting to net zero as quickly as possible using finite resources. Any money that goes to nuclear could be going to renewables, which would get us there more quickly.

TWeaK ,

Oh, they’ll do the ad campaigns and raise the prices in the name of green-ness.

A classic example of this is electric utilities charging more and saying "all our electricity comes from renewable sources!" while ignoring the fact that renewable energy is typically cheaper for them to buy on the market.

TWeaK ,

You misunderstand. I'm saying the end user energy company justifies being on the more expensive side by advertising that they use renewables, but actually when they buy electricity renewables is cheaper for them. So they're paying less but charging the end user more.

The cost saving of renewables is rarely passed on to the consumer.

TWeaK ,

I mean there is some reason not to, at least until proper alternatives are set up. I work in the HV industry, and in my opinion we've rushed to close larger, relatively efficient coal plants and replace them with smaller, far less efficient diesel and gas generators that can be hidden behind tall fences in industrial estates. These pollute far more per MW than coal plants, but they're out of sight, out of mind.

We definitely should be going hard into current renewable technology to fill out demand. That's the fastest way to net zero in many regions. There is something to be said for big rotating generators though, ie large turbines, as these provide voltage and frequency stability - renewables are often inverter driven, even wind turbines, so these are always following the grid and can destabilise if voltage or frequency goes. Meanwhile, a large machine has inertia so it will want to keep spinning and maintain the same output when large loads switch in and out. This sort of thing can be provided by nuclear power. So if we build lots of renewables now to get clean, then build nuclear to fill out, that might be the best solution.

TWeaK ,

I mean, most of what I said is backed up by a Future Energies Study, that went into far more depth than you or I are aware of, but you go ahead and think you know better.

TWeaK ,

The logic is to destabilise public forums ahead of upcoming elections, so the wealthy can consolidate more power.

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