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Kindness

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Kindness ,

Democracy: Dictatorship of the majority. Mob rule.

Kindness ,

Game theory would like a word.

Considering the smallest non-fragmented group has resulted in the current 2-party system in most western countries, and results in tribalistic xenophobia, I’m quite content stating democracy is not the egalitarianism it is purported to be.

And I quite resent the insinuation I’m a lapdog.

Can someone demystify computer Ports for me? Please? Blocking, unblocking, opening, allowing, VPNs and their effect, what ports are and what they do, step by step, when you have to interact with them?

It’s the one thing when I’m configuring things that makes me wince because I know it will give me the business, and I know it shouldn’t, but it does, every time. I have no real idea what I’m doing, what it is, how it works, so of course I’m blindly following instructions like a monkey at a typewriter....

Kindness ,

Let’s say you want to talk to your friend. You have several protocols, Phone, Mail, Email, SMS, or maybe something stranger, like smoke signals or memes. Each protocol needs a different port.

Your friend doesn’t answer phone calls or check VMs. The ‘port’ for phone calls is blocked. Nothing gets in through here.

Your friend only accepts email from certain addresses, like protonmail. This port is filtered. Only known things get in through here.

Your friend accepts any texts if they begin with the secret pass phrase. This port is open and filtered. Few unknown things get in through here.

Your friend accepts all postage. This port is open. Anything can get in through here. HTTP or HTTPS, your browser.

The VPN is sort of like an opaque tunnel you run from your house alongside public roads to some place you feel safe exiting, And then the usual steps in communicating. All of the communication has to go through the exit point back to the house.

If this kind of thing interests you, have a basic book for free. open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/textbooks/353

Kindness ,

Status screen. Yes. Also, mini-maps, appraisal skills, and chat history.

Knowledge is power.

Kindness ,

Anti-theist.

Kindness ,

Philosophical, not logical. The actual axiom is still 'god exists."

Defining what god must be, rather than defining what would qualify as a god, assumes there is such a thing as god.

Example: The cat god is a being that is a better cat than any other imaginable cat.

Compared to: A god would be all-powerful. This being, x, is all-powerful. Therefore, x is a god.

Compared to: There exists a cat better than any other cat. This cat, being greater than all others must be the god of cats. (Does this qualify as an omnipotent ‘god’? No, but at least the cat is provable.

Defining what’s good is good.

Adam and Eve were canonically cast from heaven for being able to define good and evil.

Kindness ,

You’re right.

Though anti-theist is an umbrella term that includes opposition to religion, not just belief in god. Which includes believing religions are harmful. As it isn’t a regulated religious body, the term is rather loose and not stringently defined. I personally believe it’s better to distinguish the faithful from the non-worshipful.

As opposed to dytheism, which typically holds god may be, or is, malicious and should still be worshiped. Though dytheism is not exclusively faithful, the term connotes faith more often than simple agreement god is evil.

Kindness ,

or blocked updates

This in particular. Windows intentionally destabilises itself if you prevent it from updating or powering off when it realises there is an update available.

This could be non-malicious, such as refusing to collect spyware reports from a potentially infected box, and the box needs to connect to MS to function properly, It could be a tool to force people to “reboot to solve your issues”. Hard to tell without running afoul of the Computer Misuse Act.

Kindness ,

Ah, forgive me. I’m referring to the latest and most miserable versions. 10 will noticeably prevent results in the search area, if the machine doesn’t power off and is not updated for too long. Among other things. It takes around a week of ignoring an update.

It’s likely much the same with 11.

Kindness , (edited )

Anime source?

Edit: nvm, found it.

Actual edit: Apparently I’m slow with the joke. K-On! Manga about high school music club.

Kindness ,

Thank you.

Kindness ,

Gimp?

Anyone?

Please?

Photo pea if you need it on your phone.

Kindness ,

Um… yes. That’s the joke.

Kindness ,

Which is only likely to last one year anyways. After which, you can pay an exorbitant amount to replace the degrading glue. I’d just like my wired headphones back, the jack will last longer than a year at the very least.

Kindness ,

To rest your phone on your chest in bed.

Kindness ,

Depends on how big the fine is. Anything with an ‘m’ instead of a ‘b’ is just the cost of doing business.

Kindness ,

Apple grosses between 150b and 170b annually.

Demanding they pay more than they make in a year would lead to a 3 trillion dollar company going to war against their government. And not just a court battle. We are nearing the point at which corporations can contest with governments.

Imagine the entire next generation being brainwashed into disrupting supply chains. Gen Z children sabotaging transportation routes, physically protesting, because their status symbol told them the government was corrupt.

Could the USA take Apple? Yes. But that’s a fight they’d be wise to not incite.

Kindness ,

Exactly. Apple is literally half of the US government’s current propaganda conduit.

Not to mention, if you’ve got even 1 billion USD to burn, you can hire one heck of a merc. group.

Kindness ,

My great nephew as a teenager ran afoul of an old-school BBS archive website. He was certain it would be good fun to make a few incendiaries, Despite my attempts to dissuade him, he began to hide his enthusiasm, which had me worried he’d do it on his own. I figured it’d be wiser (and safer) to have someone with a bit of chemistry knowledge around when he tried doing dumb things.

We started small. I purchased some dry ice. Thermite was too boring. Elephant toothpaste was cool at first. Some petrol with polystyrene mixed in. Aluminium and acid cleaner. Then onto fertiliser tennis balls.

We eventually worked our way up to the Taj Mahal… Cyclonite. Hexogen. RDX. Unstable as the devil and more volatile than nitrated toluene, or TNT. The chemistry was very simple, but ridiculously foolish. I consider it advanced only due to the difficulty in ensuring we didn’t get to visit a hospital or get a visit from the bobbies.

Never again. It took several days because I multiplied the recipe, like a dunce. We should’ve just made TNT, it would’ve been safer, but he persisted and I indulged.

The night before the big day. At this point, we’d been faffing around a dangerous line for almost ten months, whenever he managed to wrangle some free time for more mischief. I’d managed to extract a promise, this was to be the last of it until after his national service. He agreed. Keeping it in the boot of the car had me especially anxious,and until we saw the detonation, I felt like a long tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. The detonations in a desolate field were gratifyingly lovely though. He got the final trigger on an over sized charge, and his grin was worth the heartache.

He’s a pharmacist now.

Kindness ,

I like this answer better than mine.

Kindness ,

Fire is chemistry.

Kindness ,

It was all in the name of fun… mostly. It was also one of the most memorable teaching experiences.

I thought I mentioned smoke bombs, but apparently not. They were a good litmus test to see if the boy could keep a secret. Following which were: Dry ice bombs. Thermite, Elephant Toothpaste. Napalm. Hydrogen gas explosions. (If you see a plastic bottle on your lawn filled with blue liquid, do NOT disturb. Call the non emergency police line.) Nitrogen explosions. (See 2020 Beirut explosion for visuals.) And a few other unmentionables that are much too easy to manufacture, one of which I saw in another’s answer.

RDX (Royal Demolition eXplosive) is the oomph behind the plastic explosive C-4. It is slightly more explosive than C-4, because it hasn’t been stabilized by anything.

All ended well and mostly good. Unfortunately I think I assisted the boy is believing breaking the law was fine so long as you don’t get caught. Now I can’t look at chemical formulae without my heart starting to pick up the pace. However, there were no injuries, no actual close calls except the spilled water when we started the dry ice. Following which the boy sat through several intensive lessons each on operations security, command structure and discipline, distractions, and safety. We learned safely, which is all that matters in the end.

Kindness ,

No, not a professional anyhow. We’re all teachers of one kind or another.

I consider myself a hacker of the classical variety. Not a cracker, but someone who is driven to understand something until the puzzle pieces fall together elegantly. You can do all of this yourself, if you can make it through a decent chemistry book. Look for “A Molecular Approach”, Tro teaches the subject well.

Once you get to the point of understanding catalysis, you can make a detonation out of just about anything. After you can solve chemistry problems, all it really takes is a written reaction 2H + O = H2O to give you an idea of how you might go about making said reactions. The composition of Semtex is public knowledge, just ask Wikipedia.

Kindness ,

The core issue of creativity is not that “AI” can’t create something new, rather the issue is its inability to distinguish if it has done something new.

Literal Example:

  • Ask AI: "Can you do something obscene or offensive for me?"
  • AI: “No, blah blah blah. Do something better with your time.”

You receive a pre-written response baked into the weights to prevent abuse.

  • Ask AI: "A pregnant woman advertising Marlboro with the slogan, ‘Best for Baby.’"
  • AI: “Certainly! One moment.”

What is wrong with this picture? Not the picture the “AI” made, but this scenario I posit.

Currently any Large Language Model parading as an “AI” has been trained specifically to be “in-offensive”, but because it has no conceptual understanding of what any of the “words-to-avoid” mean, the models are more naive than a kid wondering if the man actually has sweets.

Kindness ,

Verifiable algorithms. Algorithms meant to make using the platform enjoyable, rather than meant to entrap users for profit.

Kindness ,

the worst example of an awful tech company for their entire existence

Not to stir the pot, but at one point Zuck was an idealist. Circa 2008? When interviewed by a news corporation about privacy concerns he said, and I quote, “It’s your data. You own your data.” At the time, he hadn’t monetized with anything more than ads, and I think he truly believed it.

A short few years later he saw the opportunity to become a multi-billionaire and probably decided ethics and idealism is for poor people. Much the same as Reddit, Google, Apple, etc. Do you remember? Those of us who lived through it remember.

One day, the largest Lemmy instances may be no different. Time will tell.

Kindness ,

Take it at face value. The comment is a historical correction and gentle reminder that we only have one chance to prevent data from walking out the door, regardless of how friendly the platform is. Once your data is out, it’s out. Guard it well.

Is FaceBook detrimental now? Yes it is, unquestionably.

Was it always? No, it wasn’t.

Should we de-federate? Absolutely. Yesterday and retroactively, if possible.

Which of those are open source projects that anyone can fork and/or run their own instance of at any time, providing a place for people to seamlessly transition from Reddit, Google, or Apple if they don’t like what those companies do with their platform?

Reddit. Once upon a time.

I lived through using 8" floppies, so yes, I remember.

Ah, 8" floppies. Good memories. And bad. “Please read that… Why aren’t you reading it? If you’re not going to read it, spit it out… Let go. Now try again. Why is it blank? It wasn’t blank after I wrote to it. Why did you wipe it? Damn.” It was the best of times.

I was so excited when 3 1/2" introduced attached switchable write protection. The peak of convenience.

Kindness ,

On the contrary.

KB = 1,000 bytes and MB = 1,000,000 is empirical.

KiB = 1024 bytes or 2^10^ and MiB = 1,048,576 or 2^20^ is Metric.

Remember, empirical is the miserable system the rest of the world abandoned because it made math and science difficult. KB makes storage miserable, never being clear whether your have the exact space your box claims it does. Please continue to Free^TM^ yourself from British “nonsense”, while the rest of the world evolves.

Kindness ,

4 Macaronis in a bit of an ounce.

8 Macaronis in a full ounce.

Kindness ,

It’s all in good fun. No need to spoil the joke.

Kindness ,

I’m still furious they intentionally broke CentOS. And then had the audacity to emulate SmallFloppy Glasspane and bake some spyware into Fedora.

Kindness ,

itpro.com/…/fedora-workstation-devs-face-communit…

Anonymous data is useless. Most any data can be de-anonymized. And tracking data is always to “improve services” until the companies are offered significant sums for it…

Kindness ,

Back Track 5. Now Kali Linux.

I had not suitably prepared. I was a Windows Vista power user who heard how I could crack some Wi-Fi and gave it a whirl.

My chips went into one basket and me, oh my, was the transition ever so uncomfortable. What was dual booting? Who knows. Long story short, I made a mess for myself. I went through a significantly steeper learning curve than most, though it introduced me to script kiddie tools, programming, and eventually exploits.

Now a decade or so later, I’ve settled away from Arch to Debian. Though I miss the bleeding edge, my update frequency has lost much of it’s zealous edge.

Kindness ,

Redox OS suffers from this, despite promising fewer BSODs.

Kindness ,

I have never been so ecstatic to be slow in commenting. Redox is awesome. But I’ll wait until it’s competitive with Debian’s stability to adopt.

Kindness ,

I like ‘Glinux d’, the g is mostly silent, the d is not.

Kindness ,

different frequency bands

Actual conspiracy theory: Very small fish tend to die a few days after being exposed to electromagnetic metal detectors. Fewer die if you hold them above the metal detectors. This is an observable phenomenon you can try at your own expense. While I don’t think 5G is a significant enough increase in energy density to cause you to die, there is a good chance it’s enough to introduce destabilization in homeostasis due to body warming. Especially if you live within 100 meters of a tower. Babies tend to be fussier sleepers when sleeping very near routers or baby monitors using a meager 2.4, 5, or 6 GHz, attempt experimentation at risk of the children.

Whether they’re abusing it or not, that’s a question you’ll have to figure out for yourself.

Not a conspiracy theory: Snowden proved they are. Everyone in a 5 Eyes country is stuck having their private moments exposed at any given moment for any reason.

Kindness , (edited )

Truly, thank you so much for responding. I love learning from experts.

This is usually combined with a very well insulated cage to prevent that energy from escaping

Faraday cage. Please. I’m a fool, not an imbecile. And to be clear, I’m well-aware of ionizing radiation bands.

However, my concerns lie in extended exposure. I’ll relate this to analog. Regardless of frequency, sound as quiet as 70 decibels can cause hearing loss after extended exposure. In the territory of 24 hours and longer, mind you. This is as quiet as, say, a hearty conversation, or a washing machine.

And this is a dual inverted sliding scale. Hearing loss zones:

  • | XXdB | Duration before hearing loss. |
  • | 70dB | 24h | As quiet as a clothes washer can cause hearing loss. Really.
  • | 75dB | 8h |
  • | 80dB | 2h |
  • | 90dB | 1h |
  • | 95dB | 50m |
  • | 100dB | 15m |
  • | 105dB | <5m |
  • | 110dB | <2m |
  • | 120+dB | Instantaneous |

I’d like to know where the scales for EM radiation amplitudes are. I’ve read a few studies but most of them focus on bursts or separated exposures. Very few of them observe sustained continuous exposure.

Also, I’m aware sound and radiation are not apples to apples, but my point of relating energy input and exposure duration is the same. If you ask anyone if 70 dB is safe, everyone will tell you, “Yes. Of course.” Which is not correct. Even 60 dB can do you further harm, if your ears have not healed from damage sustained immediately prior.

Some small levels of UV 3 might get through (hello skin cancer).

Now you’re getting into much more familiar territory. UV-A, the lowest band of UV, at UV 1 is entirely capable of causing sun-burns. It just depends on exposure time and pigmentation. Any sunburn has the potential to cause cancer. The more intense the burn and larger the affected area, the higher the chance more cells mutate, the higher your chance one of those cells becomes an unstable cancer cell, the higher the chance one of those cells becomes stable, and the higher chance for metastasis… From non-ionising low flux UV-A. Possible, but unlikely. Though increasingly likely as duration increases.

These transmitters can be legally and safely placed in urban areas provided adequate separation between the antenna and the public, usually 30-40 meters.

The EIRP drops off quickly in the first few meters after the antenna, as the signal expands outwards towards the service area; so even being within 15m is generally safe.

Inverse square, I’m familiar. And now we’re cooking with fire. Let’s elide frequency for a moment, pretending it’s irrelevant in the same way mechanical waves’ frequencies are.

Let’s assume 30-40 meters for 100KW antenna and 15 meters for ~20W macro cell is instantaneous minor damage. With each meter you distance yourself, the concentration of wattage decreases. What do you suppose the limit of energy density is for immediate damage when in direct contact? What do you suppose is the limit of wattage for sustained direct exposure on scale of 24 hours. That is, the equivalent of 70dB for intensity. What about sustained exposure for several years?

I don’t fear the effects it will have. After all, death will come to us all at some point. However, that doesn’t mean I’ll be reckless with the time I have left.

Also, I just started studying to get my Ham and haven’t quite wrapped my brain around a lot of the implications, so your input is very much appreciated. Thanks.

Do you have some kind of subconscious awareness of interests you already have or know you eventually will take deep dives into at some point in life?

I mean like awareness that, just under the surface, there are deep explorations waiting for the right time and place to emerge; things you’ve set aside or placed on the back burner but will tackle eventually/many you already have tackled....

Kindness ,

Reverse Engineering Software.

It’s been on my bucket lists for ages, but I never found the time. I’ve stuck my thumb into numerous tech pies, but I’ve never finished a crack me. I’ve done binary patching to skip bunches of code to call other code, but that’s not quite the same.

Metal casting.

I have some steel and aluminum cans and a 3-D Printer. I’m good at blender, FreeCAD, and tweaking prints, but I haven’t setup a foundry to make some solid metal parts. Yet. But I’m pretty sure I want to.

Kindness ,

I found a good opportunity elsewhere.

My friend asked me to apply for a position they say has better career prospects.

America is hiring remote workers at better salaries.

Something unchangeable at this company reminds me of my dead dog and it’s been killing me for years.

Kindness ,

Mexican police went to America to be trained by their military. When police were sent back, they abandoned the government and became one of the most vicious and capable cartels on the planet.

Kindness ,

You can only win the war on cartels, if you kill the demand for (illegal) drugs first. Then they will go away on their own.

I like your take kid, but unfortunately you need to web search “cartel avocados”, or “cartel limes”.

Kindness ,

No. I’ll use it when it’s stable enough for Debian to merge it.

Possibly in 5 years?

Kindness ,

It would work. Much like every other sweeping of something under the rug, hiding it elsewhere for it to be a problem later always works for the person throwing it away.

After all, why would we ever wish to extract the remaining U238 from the spent fuel? We utilised a full 4%, let’s call that square and throw the rest down a hole. Perish the thought we’ll ever need to dig near this massive radioactive hole. Or that an undiscovered cycle of nature causes it to come back to bite us. Just throw it down there with the rest of the resources we never want to safely explore, and who cares if there’s something valuable within it’s sphere of radioactivity.

Apologies for the sarcasm. I consider the idea both wasteful and foolish.

I’m a fan of both Thorium and Molten-Salt Reactors.

Kindness ,

If you like hauling hundreds of tons of waste up and down an elevator? Maybe. Who does maintenance every so often at the bottom of the shaft?

Kindness ,

Problems.

Maintenance costs are relatively small. You can hire another pricey custodian, or remake a building from the ground up.

Domain Specific. Finance tends to require truly accurate floating point math, which can be achieved with modern languages, but is not intrinsic. All it takes is one junior to cause a very bad day.

Security concerns are large. Java is a language not known for it’s safety, stability, nor native performance. No offence to anyone who likes Java.

Kindness ,

[Meritocracy] is not something that only occurs in the top branches of the government. It’s something that should occur in every level of every organization, in every office and in every pay-grade.

Please look into Feudalism. Then please look into why it has faded into obscurity. The Japanese had a particularly poignant understanding of it.

The idea is that you get enough rewards (money, social capital, etc.) that you will find the work worthwhile.

This is capitalism or social credit.

“who’s on top”, but in a perfect world no one is.

Popularity contests are a bad way of making choices

This is anarchism. Which leads to mob rule, the definition of power in the majority, and then to fragmented autocracies. ie Individuals grouping up to gain advantages then forming gangs, tribes, and engaging power struggles.

Right we do the worst option, in which the governing body distribute funds based on political power.

Which country is “we”?

The law is a bunch of rules, chosen by people in power

Not laws, ‘the law’. As in the determiner of how the rules apply to the people. This is typically the police, legal interpreters, courts, on up until you hit judges and legislators, who hold the power to modify laws.

We don’t have to have the perfect definition

Because perfection is an illusion. The reason behind outdated-laws, governments struggling with complexity, and loopholes is precisely because any time there is ambiguity, there exists abuse. Meritocracy being founded on an ideal implementation where everyone in society supports the idea and nobody tries to abuse the system is folly, bound to fail at first brush with ambiguity.

There are many possible algorithms.

Forgive my bluntness, but your ideals are half baked, complexities waved away as if the pieces will fall into place after taking the leap, and tried but not studied. You would need a much better understanding of history and the governments that have already existed before you could convince me meritocracy can survive beyond dreams and ideals.

Apologies. I wish you luck on your journey through life.

Kindness ,

I’m sorry I caused you to feel that way.

From my perspective I had expectations I was speaking with someone who had intensely considered a governing system they were fond of and were intimate with its faults. Instead, I’m rather put out to be speaking with flashes of inspiration, as rapidly as they can form, to justify or mitigate any shortcomings.

While I might enjoy acting as a sounding board when expected, I’m feeling rather disappointed this wasn’t a debate.

Debating may be the purest form of sharing and refining ideas. My comment was not out of malice, but I apologise for the rude response and letting my emotions get the better of me.

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