ThePowerOfGeek

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 day ago (edited 1 day ago)

Oh he’s screwed. She’s going to sentence him to be hung hanged, drawn, and quartered for trying to kill her lord and savior.

ThePowerOfGeek , 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

Interesting article. But is that seriously the best AI-generated image they could find for this story?

Nevermind, I guess it probably is a real photo, just from a really weird perspective, so it’s like like the plane below it is merging into the plane in the foreground.

ThePowerOfGeek , 2 days ago

Oh, fair point.

ThePowerOfGeek , 4 days ago

This is exactly my situation. My kids and I could move over there easily and in an instant, legally. But I’m not sure what the process is for my wife.

Also, there’s more to moving to another country than just the legality (and that aspect alone is insurmountable for many unsuspecting people). You’re talking about leaving/moving/selling all your belongings, vehicle(s), possibly also a home. And going through the whole process of getting a new job, new schools, cultural shock for kids. And transferring money over, setting up be accounts, etc. And dealing with starting from scratch with credit scores and such. And all that would involve moving back to a country that has its own pretty profound struggles right now. It’s a massive headache. But it’s something we are definitely considering.

ThePowerOfGeek , 8 days ago (edited 8 days ago)

Me too. My initial guess is it’s something along the lines of a Stuxnet infection of the targeted pagers, which had the operating systems do something that caused the batteries to overheat and explode.

But the fact that they all exploded at the same time is very interesting. You’d think that do ing that by overheating the batteries would see them explode at slightly different times due to local environmental variables.

ETA: As others have pointed out, this must be more than just a lithium ion battery overheating/exploding. I read somewhere that Hezbollah inserts a self-destruct explosive into their pagers in case of emergency. And it sounds like the Israeli intelligence forces probably hacked into their network and triggered the detonations. So it’s probably a combination of Hezbollah’s paranoia combined with old school hacking from Israel.

ThePowerOfGeek , 8 days ago

Great point about the battery size.

ThePowerOfGeek , 8 days ago

That had one job to do, and they totally screwed it up!

ThePowerOfGeek , 8 days ago

The Kremlin must have stopped sending out payments to them. The dirty money dries up (presumably due to sanctions?) so Meta finally gets a conscience.

ThePowerOfGeek , 9 days ago

It’s interesting to me how Ackman was portrayed in the 2016 Betting On Zero documentary as some kind of social champion for the poor who wanted to end the exploitation of regular working/middle class Americans by Herbalife.

When watching that that depiction of Ackman rang hollow, no matter how hard they tried to push that narrative. It just seemed like a financial battle royale where both sides were scumbags. And now, of course, that’s been confirmed (yet again). He’s just another entitled ultra-rich asshole peddling bullshit for his own selfish, exploitative intentions.

ThePowerOfGeek , 10 days ago

“…And your wonderful corporate family takes priority over your shitty personal family!”

ThePowerOfGeek , 10 days ago

Grilling chicken in Ohio, eh? Hmm, I hear there’s a huge orange chicken who is scared to have a second debate because he got so badly humiliated in the first one. He might want to stay away from Ohio since they are grilling his kind.

ThePowerOfGeek , 10 days ago

They are too used to the typical news cycle where they bombard the public with lies to the point where everyone starts believing those are real. They’ve grown complacent.

ThePowerOfGeek , 13 days ago

Miller was so far out of his depth there. It was like a mini replay of the main event.

ThePowerOfGeek , 13 days ago

I find the fact that the Qanon loonies are appropriating the symbolism of legendary rock band Queen both hilarious and offensive.

ThePowerOfGeek , 13 days ago

Oh man, if word gets back to Trump that some of his advisors told CNN behind his back that they were stunned (in a bad way) by his debate performance, he’s going to completely lose his damned mind. It’ll push him into a massive paranoia complex. The screaming, the tantrums, the threats against his own team… They will be unreal.

So… Who wants to ping him on Twitter about this? 😈

ThePowerOfGeek , 14 days ago

How the fuck did she think this was anything close to a good idea?! This shows a profound lack of good judgement, and a huge failure of both respect for her job and for the safety of the crew.

ThePowerOfGeek , 16 days ago

No no, they just accidentally ingest some polonium tea… and then shoot themselves in the back of the head with a shotgun… and then jump off a roof.

ThePowerOfGeek , 16 days ago

I am totally fine with this strategy. My oldest just got his first phone, mostly so he could connect with his friends and contact my wife and I in an emergency. His school requires all students to put their phones in a container when they enter a class (they also have several charging ports available in each classroom, so students can charge their phones during class - a very considerate feature).

From what I can tell no kids or their parents have a problem with this. My wife and I certainly don’t. It helps instill sensible technology usage habits in our kid. And it gives him more independence from us. And in this case, kids can still use their phones during lunch and before/after school. But just not during classes. Not only is this a very reasonable requirement IMO, it’s an excellent way to get them to interact more.

Framing this requirement as “going back in time” is silly. Certainly in situations where kids are only banned from using their phones in class.

ThePowerOfGeek , 17 days ago

This happened to us when we wanted to get my son help for some behavioral issues. Trying to find a counselor who specialized in helping children was a nightmare.

Our health insurer’s website listed a few dozen, which was encouraging at first. But when I started calling them most were no longer in business, no longer accepted our health insurance (despite still being listed on the insurer’s website), or didn’t accept any new patients. And of the few who did have some availability, their evangelical Christianity beliefs were a fundamental part of their work - to the point where Jesus preaching was going to be a constant focus of the therapy.

We finally found someone (she was a devout Christian but it didn’t interfere with her counseling strategies, so that’s fine). But even she stopped accepting new patients soon after we signed up because she was so slammed with demand.

The state of mental healthcare in America is fucking atrocious. There are too few therapists in general, especially ones who help children. And as this article points out, health insurers deliberately make it so difficult for those counselors to use them that they refuse to work with with many insurance plans. And so many therapists are outside the pricing of families, even when they have insurance, and even with those therapists giving discounts.

A big part of this is the legacy that mental healthcare still isn’t seen as a legitimate practice by many in the corporate world, despite their false marketing claims. Considering how frequently big insurers screw people out of claims for physical illnesses (cancer, etc.), you just know they will screw people with mental health challenges at least as much. Because to some of them - especially older boomers who are still lingering in senior management rules - it’s all fud.

Another part of the problem (which relates to my previous point) is that mental healthcare isn’t as quantifiable as most physical healthcare (because the brain and feelings are very complicated), so corners are cut and the industry is seen with suspicion and frustration by insurers who are focused on making as much money from their customers as possible.

The net result? A ton of people who are struggling through daily life with their own challenges, and exhausted family members and friends who are having to try to help them as best they can.

Until we massively overhaul the broken healthcare/insurance system here, shit like these ghost networks and the underlying causes and their other effects will continue to break our society.

ThePowerOfGeek , 18 days ago

No. But they are at a decent level. And they are around the same level as Japan and South Korea. And all three of them are significantly above China in the sport.

ThePowerOfGeek , 20 days ago

Holy shit. That poor lady.

ThePowerOfGeek , 20 days ago

Putin conducts election interference as concerns of Putin’s election interference grow. Yup, sounds about right.

ThePowerOfGeek , 20 days ago

This is encouraging news. But don’t perovskite solar panels degrade much quicker than silicon ones? I know they had found ways of prolonging their life by using lasers to ‘smooth out’ and strengthen the crystal structure of the perovskite. But even with that the last I heard was that they would still only last few a few (2-7) years.

ThePowerOfGeek , 20 days ago

Oh wow, that’s a big step forward in longevity!

Thanks for the quote.

ThePowerOfGeek , 22 days ago

Nah, it’s a Scottish man describing a shot of whiskey.

ThePowerOfGeek , 24 days ago

The entire article is horrible. The writer repeats his opening points twice. He makes an opening assertion over the span of 3 or 4 paragraphs. And then he does it again over the next 3 or 4 slightly-reworded paragraphs.

ThePowerOfGeek , 24 days ago

I’ve had a similar experience. Except in my case I used lyrics for a really obscure song where I knew the writer. I asked Chat GPT, and it gave me completely the wrong artist. When I corrected it, it apologized profusely and agreed with exactly what I had said. Of course, it didn’t remember that correct answer, because it can’t add to it update its data source.

ThePowerOfGeek , 24 days ago

No Android version of it yet, eh? Damn.

ETA: I previously tried Vanced, but it didn’t work correctly.

ThePowerOfGeek , 24 days ago

Thanks.

I am trying Libretube via F-droid. So far so good.

ThePowerOfGeek , 25 days ago

Not a big surprise on the Huffman Shitshow. A lot of subs over there are insanely toxic. But yeah, a ban for that? That’s crazy.

I didn’t even know RuneScape had a subscription! I think I briefly played it about 15 years ago. Good game, I just don’t have the time to play it, unfortunately. I assume you play? What’s the community like over there?

I just looked up their pricing and it makes sense for them to have an optional subscription. $14 a month is in line with other similar games (e.g. wow). Would be nice if they had a couple of tiers of subscription. Maybe a $7 and a $14. But that might complicate things. How much can you do on the free mode?

ThePowerOfGeek , 25 days ago

Oh wow, that’s a huge monthly increase. Thanks for explaining the pricing system.

ThePowerOfGeek , 26 days ago

I’m a Gen-Xer who hates birds and squirrels equally. So I guess I’m your antithesis?

Though I don’t hate any of them to the point of harming any of them. That would be too much effort.

ThePowerOfGeek , 27 days ago

I was looking into something similar recently, and asked around on Lemmy. The general consensus I heard was that a Mini PC weren’t ideal, mostly I think due to the fact that they aren’t designed purely for streaming.

One think someone said piqued my interest, and I might try this. They recommended buying a cheap, Android TV compatible streaming box (like an Onn brand one), and side-loading an open source (and ad-free) launcher onto it.

I found this thread over on the Huffman Shitshow that had some good instructions.

ThePowerOfGeek , 28 days ago

He’s shaping up to form a truly unique cabinet…

• RFK Jr - Secretary of Brain Worms
• Tulsi Gabbard - Secretary of Bullshit
• Elon Musk - Secretary of Arrogance and Hubris
• Kari Lake - Secretary of Bootlicking
• Mike Lindell - Secretary of Shouting
• Roger Stone - Secretary of Crime
• Stephen Miller - Secretary of Child Snatching
• Donald Trump Jr - Secretary of Self-Loathing
• Eric Trump - Sturgeon General

ThePowerOfGeek , 28 days ago

Yup. As in: Eric is the king of the vacant-looking wet fish.

ThePowerOfGeek , 28 days ago

Surprised it took him this long to blame Biden and Harris. Pretty sure all the MAGAs had already shipped this stupid conspiracy to Mars and back. Their Mango Messiah needs to get with the program.

ThePowerOfGeek , 29 days ago

They are trying to flex their BRICS muscles and make themselves look like the new NATO.

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

It’s too late for us. We’re most of the way down that shit creek already.

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

Eartha Kitt was on his list?! WTF did she do? I skimmed through her Wikipedia page, and the only thing I could see was that she was an activist in helping underprivileged inner city kids, and she called out politicians for not doing more to help them as part of that work.

Was Fred Rogers also on Nixon’s list?

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

Sounds intriguing. But you have to be careful sharing info like this. Blizzard is ruthless when it comes to shutting down resources they consider to be a threat to their IP.

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

Yeah, this is a concern. I know lots of people say “just don’t connect it to the Internet” and turn it back into a dumb TV. And that works great right now. But the way things are heading I could see manufacturers requiring an Internet connection for it to work.

The recent Roku scandal (where they required users to agree to TOS changes before they could use their device in any way) was a wakeup call for many.

I’m hoping that a viable open source streaming device will become popular soon. I know there are solutions out there like hooking up an old PC or a Raspberry Pi as a media server. But I’m thinking of more of an out of the box solution for a set-top box solution, with a large computer monitor in lieu of a TV.

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

Next time I have to get a new TV I think I’ll just get a large computer monitor and stream content via an old mini PC with Linux installed on it. Not an ideal solution, but I’m so tired of this invasive bullshit. At least that will cut out some of its vectors.

After the recent Roku TOS fiasco I’m done with them. If manufacturers won’t give us a viable situation we will make one ourselves.

Anyone know a good OS setup for reduced ad streaming? I know about Pi-Holes, but I’m talking about a way of actually streaming content (in addition to blocking ads at our near the router level).

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

Given that they clearly live in a fantasy world, they probably think such a letter means robot Arnie will appear at their door in a few hours time with a shotgun, some banger soundbites, and an unyielding urge to kill them.

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

Lucky Brazil!

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

I get where you’re coming from. But she has popped a crotch goblin out in the past, which is a pretty good indication of womanhood. (Side note: I’m not saying if a woman can’t or won’t have kids they aren’t a woman, because they clearly still are. But if a woman does give birth to a child it’s usually a strong sign of that gender.)

ETA: If this prospective lawsuit can shut Rowling up long-term that would be fantastic. Like many others, I’m tired of her spewing hateful shit out.

ThePowerOfGeek , 1 month ago

That’s why I said it’s usually a strong indication.

ThePowerOfGeek , 27 days ago

Tip for those creating new communities: don’t slam your fresh community with loads of new posts all at once. Pace yourselves. Create 2 or 3 new posts initially. Then over the next day pop a new post every few hours.

The net result is the same (content!), but you greatly reduce the risk of people blocking your community. I look a lot in local, sorting by new. And when my feed is deluged by posts for the same brand new community, I tend to block that community because it’s smells like spam. And I’m probably not alone in doing this.