technology

It seems like it could be a really cool alternative to Signal, but wait, there’s more! It has a “Teams” feature that could make it a decent alternative to Discord as well. Only problem is I don’t know anyone else who uses it.

It's completely inconsistent with traditional Windows design language and there's no "Cancel" button or an X in the corner to click on so you can't cancel out of it with your mouse and have to reach for Esc on your keyboard

It also tries to funnel you into a shitty Microsoft service

https://theintercept.com/2024/01/12/open-ai-military-ban-chatgpt/

Tit-le.

Same goes for facebook and twitter

Note this write up is far from perfect buts it's a pretty good article to get normie coworkers a bit more class conscious

I hate the current YouTube thumbnail meta. I found this extension and it just takes a frame from the content of the video and displays that. I believe that is fair and more representative of the video. I have been using this extension for a while and I find myself paying more attention to the names of creator and then considering if I want to watch the video; rather than being enticed by some intentionally inflammatory image.

I find it just make YouTube more enjoy in combination with Ublock Origin and YouTube Search Fixer.

Just wanted to share this extension with any Hexbears who aren't liking YouTube's thumbnail arms race of increasingly distracting images. I didn't know if I should have put this in c/videos or c/technology. I rolled a D6 and odds was c/videos and evens c/technology. I rolled a two.

https://futurism.com/amazon-products-ai-generated

Ghouls be ghoulish.

This is an update to https://hexbear.net/post/281447.

So this past Christmas, I finally got all of the parts together and put together my new Team Red PC.

It's beautiful! All black parts (I don't like unicron vomit). I went with a Ryzen 5600X instead of the 5800X3D (cheaper) and got that RX 6700 XT. I'm rocking 16 GB of DDR4 3200 RAM.

For the OS, I'm running a variant of Fedora called Nobara, made by Glorious Eggroll. It's made for Linux gaming because I am a filthy . The default DE is KDE Plasma.

I ran Phoronix Test Suite and used the Unigen Valley benchmark. I consistently got over 248 fps at 1080p 60 Hz. Can't go any higher until I swap out my monitor (aka my TV).

Anyways, Cheers y'all! (Pardon the mess. Output from Neofetch. Edited of course.) (EDIT: Edited for grammar and readability.)

#####@super-beast:~$ neofetch
                                               #####@super-beast
    ⠀⠀⢀⣤⣴⣶⣶⣶⣦⣤⡀⠀⣀⣠⣤⣴⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣶⣤⣤⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀   -----------------
    ⠀⣰⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣶⣤⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀   OS: Nobara Linux 39 (KDE Plasma) x86_64
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀   Host: MS-7C95 3.0
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀   Kernel: 6.7.0-200.fsync.fc39.x86_64
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀⠀   Uptime: 15 hours, 43 mins
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠟⠋⠉⠁⠀⠀⠉⠉⠛⠿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣧⠀⠀   Packages: 2659 (rpm), 9 (flatpak) 
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠟⠁⠀⠀⠀⢀⣀⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠈⢻⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠀   Shell: bash 5.2.21 
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡏⠀⠀⠀⢠⣾⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⡄⠀⠀⠀⠻⠿⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀   Resolution: 1920x1080
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠁⠀⠀⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⣀⣀⣬⣽⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀   DE: Plasma 5.27.10
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⠻⢿⣿⣿⡿⠟⠁⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀   WM: kwin
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀   Theme: [Plasma], Breeze [GTK2/3]
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣤⣤⣄⣀⡀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀   Icons: [Plasma], Papirus-Colors-Dark [GTK2/3]
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣷⣄⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀   Terminal: konsole
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣇⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⢸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠀   CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X (12) @ 3.700GHz
    ⠀⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠟⠛⠉⠉⠛⠛⢿⣿⣿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠸⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠀   GPU: AMD ATI Radeon RX 6700/6700 XT/6750 XT / 6800M/6850M XT
    ⠀⠘⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⡿⠋⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠈⢿⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠙⢿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⣿⠟⠁⠀   Memory: 3504MiB / 15905MiB
    ⠀⠀⠀⠈⠙⠛⠛⠛⠋⠁⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠉⠛⠛⠛⠛⠉⠁⠀⠀⠀
                                                                       
                                                                       
 #####@super-beast:~$\ 

These AI generated products are clever attempts at trying to recreate a mind that will never exist again. Let's let the artist's work speak for itself. Humans are so afraid of the void that we can't let what has fallen into it stay there," she added.

On brand, but I guess SpaceX has no path to profitability (go figure), so Starlink has to launch thousands of microsatellites every year cause their orbit is so low that they burn up like right away

I didn't really have high expectations for them of course but they are way below the bar of what even Tesla brings to the table.

It is exhausting to deal with and clean up.

image shamelessly stolen from r/dumbphones and mostly unrelated

I feel like we could almost use a comm for this specifically but c/technology will do

Anyone else here have luck with cutting back on smartphone/technology use in general, or feel like they need to try a change in that department? Or even just social media? Chime in below I'd love to chat about it.

I'm avoiding work rn and thinking about smartphone use. I had an android phone for many years and I think it was a really negative force in my life. Sure there's lots of times it's useful as a one-off but overall I don't think it was actually good to have on me all the time. I think the overarching issue with a lot of modern tech is that it reduces or tries to eliminate intentionality on the part of the user, and make the user experience completely frictionless. But some of that "friction" is important, intentionality is important, without it we are just mindless consumers at the beck and call of marketers and big tech companies. Music apps don't need to decide what you listen to and in what order, being able to get a mix based on a song or artist is one thing, but the tiktok-ified endless autoplay of songs with no user input is... not good. especially when you grow up with that you lose so much.

Or social media I think we all know is a toxic time suck and honestly just a mindless addiction for many, even this place can take on that role, I know it does sometimes for me, it's easier to scroll than face whatever stressful thought or situation is at hand... and fine, maybe that urge to distraction isn't going away, but on reflection I find scrolling to be the least-soothing way of scratching that itch... So it would be better if it wasn't quite so frictionless, to help break the feedback loop.

Push notifications (for things other than messaging) are another insidious way that such behavioral patterns are fostered. For the computer nerds, I think of it as like an interrupt for my attention, it breaks the flow of what I'm doing and demands I look at it, and frankly 80% of push notifications just don't deserve that level of priority. But because exerting any control or intentionality over those notifications is made to be extra effort in the name of UX streamlining, most people just have these annoying interrupts conditioning their brain at the whims of whoever controls the apps.

In such a tech dependent world, user control over software is way more critical than it's ever been, and for all their annoyingness and often mediocre or bad takes on other topics, free software people have been hammering on that for years and building alternatives. All that to say: I've been using a linux phone (pinephone pro) as my only phone for the better part of 6 months now and it's been a breath of fresh air. I'm reading again for the first time in years, I'm building a music collection that I actually own, I'm starting to cut the tether to big tech spyware platforms, but I'm not disconnected from the world.

The point is: it's not a dumbphone, it just has some extra friction in places, and that has enabled me to be a lot more intentional about my use. It's slower, and the battery life is worse, and lots of other tradeoffs, but in practical terms mostly what that has led to is me being more intentional about my consumption. I can always just go on a computer and browse to my heart's content, or put videos on the TV all night, but the device that's with me all the time is optimized for the things I care about, not for spying on me and robbing me of my attention and sanity.

(and fwiw linux phones aren't really non-nerd ready yet unless your requirements are pretty basic, but I could see the next gen of them being much closer to linux-on-the-PC levels of easy. It's getting better every month)

But the lower tech alternative is what you are seeing more and more on places like r/dumbphones (and I have adopted pieces of this as well): purpose built devices. Instead of one device that does everything (including a bunch of stuff you don't even want it to and don't get any agency over as an end user), people are rediscovering the utility of having different tools for different tasks:

• A small notebook replaces a huge power-hungry phone screen+stylus for taking notes
• A digital camera replaces the AI-mangled modern smartphone camera for high fidelity photos.
• A little game system replaces the microtransaction and predatory-mechanic laden cornucopia that is mobile games.
• A book or ereader replaces the eyestrain-inducing, sleep-ruining experience of reading long-form text on a bright little phone screen.
• A watch keeps the time, even when your phone would have long since run out of battery, and serves as a superior alarm clock for many circumstances, etc.
• A wallet holds cash (okay and cards... and I guess most people haven't abandoned these yet) that can be used to pay for goods and services, without the limitations of battery, internet connection, spying, etc. of mobile payment schemes. venmo/paypal/whatever are good to have in your back pocket, but IMO are really only like, revolutionary, if you're comparing them to credit cards and bank transfers, especially in the US where there's no other good system for easily transferring money digitally.
• wired headphones/earbuds can be much more durable alternatives to made-for-disposal hermetically sealed bluetooth pods, they are cheaper, they can sound better, they are available in a plethora of options and repairable when they break. Not that bluetooth is verboten, many bt devices are better, but the airpods and those modeled after it are pretty trash.
• if you are picky about such things, a dedicated audio player can play music, audiobooks, podcasts, for longer, in better quality, with less interruptions, than a smartphone. I'm less certain about this one personally, as even dumphones can usually have headphones and play music for you (some even support FM which is cool and saves battery over streaming), but it all depends on your preferences!
• And the titular dumbphones hold the potential to be much longer-lasting, more reliable makers of calls and texts, by virtue of being simpler. having a phone's primary purpose return to being communication makes it better at that role...

Now none of this is to say you should carry all this stuff and more all the time. But it's something you can be intentional about and tailor to your needs!

Maybe you're a theory-head without a rigid schedule: skip the games, camera, watch, headphones, etc and just carry an ereader, a notebook and a dumbphone

Or you're more of a direct action andy, you can leave the dumbphone (the only one that can be used to track you still) at home, or skip it entirely, or get a device with killswitches! Much harder to do if you limit yourself to the Apple/Android dichotomy

So yeah, point is you can pick what things you actually care about and bring those, when appropriate, and use them when you want to rather than doing, like, everything everywhere all at once with your smartphone. Yes you can tweak your smartphone to avoid many of these issues, and maybe that's good enough for you, (I encourage it, just give it serious thought, be intentional about what you really want to allow), but some are just unavoidable, and much like you are not immune to propaganda, none of us are immune to the baked in effects of marketers, big tech addiction-mongers. The simplest way to step away from the all-encompassing absorption machines in our pockets is to not have one, and to consider their replacements carefully, even if other paths are workable.

I'm pretty sure originally got me thinking about "friction" in this context, and this has all been marinating and steering my choices ever since, culminating with this linux phone that I can customize to my heart's content and does not have any of the built in addictive/harmful/spying apps that all my android phones always did. Oh and I can repair it rather than it becoming useless, physically and software-wise, in just a few short years.

I'm still a tech dweeb, I just want it to enhance people's lives and liberate them not make them worse and more dependent.

I can never find any I like, can you guys find me some pretty ones?

They needs to be safe for work. Something cool and punky that doesn't make the icons hard to see.

1920×1080

Thanks you sexy nerds

https://futurism.com/the-byte/openai-copyrighted-material-parliament

tl;dr stealing for science.

Due to a power issue, it looks like the lander may now no longer have sufficient fuel to make a controlled landing on the moon. This was the lander that was set to carry human remains to the moon despite objections from the Navajo nation. Hopefully, this discourages any future attempts at such a stunt, since instead of a permanent mausoleum your ashes may instead be stranded in orbit or scattered amongst the moon dust if the thing crashes.

Last year, Big Tech companies (Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft) received about $3.04 billion in fines for breaking laws on both sides of the Atlantic. As of seven days and three hours into 2024, they had already earned enough revenue to pay it all off.

A little over a week of operations is all it would take if the companies tackled their fines one after another. If they each paid their fines simultaneously, Meta would be the last to finish after five days and 13 hours.

This shows how insignificant these fines are for companies whose revenues are often larger than countries’ GDPs. In fact, 2023 was the second straight year these five companies were fined over $3 billion, showing that they view fines as nothing more than the cost of doing business.

This also assumes these companies act in good conscience and pay their fines promptly. Unfortunately, there’s no late payment penalty for Big Tech — and they often delay for years. It’s just another instance of Big Tech using its overwhelming revenue to bend or avoid the rules that govern the rest of us. Clearly, the current remedies for antitrust and privacy breaches are not having the desired effect.

chose Mint with Cinnamon DE bc its easy. its been a great experience so far and i dont think ill ever look back. Victoria 3 works and thats the only game ill care abt before TES 6 comes out

So I hate Samsung with a passion as their components and after purchase support is typically terrible. Also I don't need to support an aristocratic Chaebol and supporting a worker owned company feels better. I hate to bother people here, but info online isn't very clear.

Sorry for a list:

1. So does Gmail actually integrate with HarmonyOS as well as Huawei promises?
2. Do Firefox extensions work the same as on Andriod? (I can't find this answer online)
3. Are there gonna be any serious disadvantages? I don't game on my phone. Nearly everything is Firefox, Gmail, and YouTube.
4. Will Xi be disappointed with the volume of anime that I'm watching? Can I just pay a fine or do I need to turn up at the closest PLA overseas internment centre?

Hello, everyone! I'm helping my mom debloat her laptop and there is just a ridiculous amount of epson software.

• Epson connect printer setup
• epson event manager
• epson photo+
• epson power engage
• epson printer connection checker
• epson scan 2
• epson scan pdf Extensions
• epson scan smart
• epson software updater
• epsonNet print

how many of these can i delete and still have a functional printer? or better yet, is there a libre solution to using all of this junk in one app? thanks comrades