Crypto is doing kind-of ok. But what about other blockchain apps and startups, or blockchain integrations into every tech imaginable? There were so many popping up, just like there are with AI now. Business models and use-cases that are based solely on the hype of the tech in question, without any consideration about whether it’s actually a good fit for the tech. That is the point, and what it has common with AI and other “buzzwords”.

That you should never use the same password for more than one site, especially some random Chinese eshop. I don’t get why people refuse to use password managers, ffs…

I’m not sure about other countries, but here in Czech we actually have a mandatory subscription, that’s absolutely bullshit.

So far, the law is that if you own any TV or radio, you have to pay monthly fee for public service broadcasters (national Czech TV). It’s bullshit, the channels are full of ads anyway, and the shows they run and create is insultingly bad. Sure, it is important to have public service broadcasters that are not dependent on the state (because state-owned TV is reeaallly bad idea), but FFS can they just reduce costs and stick to news, instead of doing another stupid series, and stop forcing us to pay for something I don’t care about or use?

You could just not pay the fee, if you state you don’t have a TV capable of receiving it (which I don’t). But now, they are changing the law that everyone who has any kind of internet-capable device has to pay the monthly fee, while also rising prices to something like 6 EUR per month. Fuck that and fuck them.

I self-hosted it few months ago, and it’s actually surprisingly easy! Someone has made an Ansible script for Matrix with Element and some bridges, that (at least a month ago, IaaC tends to be pretty fragile) worked out of the box on a first try. I just set up some config values (mostly about enabling bridges I want) based on their amazing documentation, and then ran it once and everything is working so far. I even updated it several times already, and every time it was smooth, and it was basically just running a single ansible command. Their documentation is pretty well written, and with my basic cloud, IT and Linux knowledge I had no issues with following it. All you need to know is how to set up cloud VM, get a domain and set DNS, and set up SSH keys to access the server.

In total it took me about two hours in total, from when I decided “I’m setting up Matrix tonight” without any prior knowledge, looking up my options and finding the ansible script, setting up cloud and getting Matrix up and running.

I’m renting a VM on Hetzner for like 6$ per month, and it worked without issues so far. I use it for Discord and Messenger, although the Meta bridge does have some problems, for example I didn’t figure out how to message someone with whom I haven’t had a conversation since I set up the bridge, since only then it creates the room for it. But that can be solved by keeping the Messenger app or usign the browser to send a first message, and it immediately shows in your Matrix bridge (and stays there forever).

Looks like I’ll finally get a reason to cut off another website I hate using, but never found the willpower to get rid off.

Good

This is actually a great question, in the context of the Fediverse.

Usually, every social network or forum has in their ELUA that anything you post is theirs, and you can’t do anything about i.e Reddit using your data to train AIs.

Hlwever, here, we’re on private instances of regular people. We can make our own rules, can’t we? If an instance would say that anything you post is copyrighted by the author, i.e by CC, would it be enforcable if someone would decide to scrape (or repost) the content for profit?

I suppose it’s written in a way to sound way worse and alarming than it actually is, due to the upcoming elections. It sounds almost unreal, i mean “EU secret plan to ban any kind of encryption or privacy” can’t be reallistically happening, right?

I know about Chatcontrol, so I wouldn’t be surprised, but this article sounds pretty overblown, to the point of sounding more like a wild conspiracy theory. Does anyone have more resources or info about this, that don’t read like an election ad?

I’m not trying to dismiss or disrespect the author, and I trust that it was written with best intentions, but it’s a really worrying topic about which I’d like to get more information about.

However, thanks for bringing it up, I contacted our local Pirate party about the topic, because they don’t have anything related to crime prevention vs. privacy in their programe. I suppose that I know what the answer would be, but getting a confirmation before I vote for them would definitely be nice.

Depends, assuming a fresh install, can you even create account on win11 without internet access? Last i checked, it wont let you start with local account and requires MS account.

Some kernel anticheats work too, I had no issues playing Helldivers and Hell Let Loose, both of which use EAC. Developers have to enable Linux support, which AFAIK is just one checkbox, so you still get games that don’t allow it (like EVE Vanguard), but most of them are OK.

League and Valorant is a different story, those don’t work.

Another one came to my mind - ROBLOX_OOF.mp3 by hbomberguy.

It’s really a wild ride. As traditional with his videos, it starts with a pretty innocent investigation into one of sounds popular on the internet, and then gets into a mindboggling rabbit hole about Tommy Tallarico, the guy behind Video Games Live, and how he accidentally discovered what an insane text-book example of pathological lier he is. It’s funny, and really absurd - I’d recommend it to everyone, because it’s really interesting insight into how bad can it get with pathological liers. It’s a roller coaster, and a really fascinating one. And I also learned that Guiness World Record is a scam and literally only an advertisement business, which I never realised before.

It’s a shame, I really liked Video Games Live, the live recordings of it’s shows are great. Assuming you skip the ego-trip monologues he interupts the concert with.

Down the Rabbit Hole for EVE Online is absolutely amazing. I’ve played the game here and there for quite a long time, and it’s one of my favourite experiences, that is however really hard to put into words.

That game is weird. I still can’t explain why it’s one of the best games I’ve played, but I always keep returning to it and love consuming content about it from time to time. And this document is amazing in explaining how extremely unique and cool the game is in it’s metagame and the stories it generates. The game has it’s problems, but I still think it’s one of the most unique lifestyles in gaming, that nothing ever comes close to. It’s the only MMORPG that’s actually literally roleplay, that basically forces you to roleplay without you even realizing it. Sure, you may not speak in character, but the fleet doctrines, logistics, corp organization, propaganda, corp-politics and everything around it people do - that’s literally roleplaying.

Another one would be B-Movie: Lust & Sound in West-Berlin 1979-1989. This document is really really hard for me to watch, because it’s a subculture that was always really important to me, to the point where I help with event promotions and DJ at local 80s goth/synthpop events and it’s my main hobby. But, since I’m now in my 20s, I’ve missed it. The way internet transformed music subcultures is terrible, especially so the alternative ones, but music consumption in general - sure, it’s really amazing to have every almbum ever in the palm of your hand, but there’s just so many that I don’t know any. If I talk to anyone who started with music with the one MC tape, and each new relleas was something hard to get that you actually treassured, I really envy their relationship with music. And that’s something that’s almost impossible to build in this day and age.

The fact that I’ll never get to experience the scene as it was in the 80s is one of the saddest things for me, and this documentary shows it in really genuine and amazing way.

And then there’s The Social Dillema, about the dangers of social networks. A word of warning from people who worked at large social network companies and left because the way they exploit users got too much for them, and now they are trying to spread the word. I really recommend this for everyone, it’s eye openning and really terrifying. It was one of the first impulses that got me heavy into privacy, and it everyone should see it at least once.

But… They said that privacy is the most important thing for them 0_0 https://about.meta.com/actions/protecting-privacy-and-security/

First thing I did after I got Kagi was to set lower priority for Reddit results. My search experience has been way better ever since.

Max Schrems, the Austrian activist lawyer whose 13-year legal crusade against Meta is what gradually removed those options

I wonder, does anyone know how would one go about acomplishing something like this? One of major websites here in Czech, and a major search engine, has started doing exactly the same thing - pay or agree. And I really don’t like that. Are there organizations you can contact, or do you have to have the resources to just sue them?

What’s really unhinged is the amount of resources invested into gaslighting Meta does. https://about.fb.com/news/2024/01/investing-in-privacy/

They even have a “Chief Privacy Officer”. They have brainwashed entire departments into believing that Meta actually cares about privacy, it’s so terrifying. I wonder if people working there realize that, or they have simply fell for the gaslighting.

I work in gamedev and its really baffling how rare is for someone to read the docs. I’ve already solved so many issues by just reading through the related docs and discovering a feature that does exactly the thing we’ve been trying to solve with a workaround, or had a overcomplicated process for doing, while it could have been a single function/API call.

Read the docs people! You probably have a lot of downtime while waiting for stuff to build/compile, and just rabdomly (or systematically) scrolling through the reference or docs of the library/tool your working with, even when not looking for something specific, may save you a lot of time in the long run. Knowing what are your tools capable off is well worth the effort.

This is definitely possible, since you can actually controll cars (at least some models) via a (non-public, but the capability is there) API. Two security researchers at defcon were able to find a way how to control a vehicle remotely, even including things like stopping or turning, and eventually made an exploit that could be used remotely to any car of the same model. So, if they wanted to, they were able to stop or turn the wheel of IIRC hundreds of thousands of cars around the world instantly, since the cars are connected to the network through GSM, so you don’t even need to be anywhere near them.

It’s been a few years since I saw the video, but IIRC the vehicle controls are on a separate board that should not be reachable from the other smart vehicle system. However, they were able to reverse engineer a way how to abuse framework update mechanism as a bridge, and use it to patch the framework to get it under their control. And then they discovered that they could actually trigger the update remotely.

I think that EEE would not be as impactfull here - I mean, at this stage, without Meta and already at small numbers, if they went through the EEE cycle we’d probably just be in the same position. Meta people came, and then left, nothing really changes. The people who are here are already decided to avoid Meta and other platforms, and they already have features Fediverse doesn’t.

My issue is that by Federating, Meta is stealing and monetizing our content we post here, to fill their bullshit Threads with content, which its severely lacking. I hate that and don’t want that in the slightest.

I’m glad to see my instance is part of the FediPact! Thanks for the link.

I did switch around a month ago due to a thread similar to this, and I have booted windows like twice since then, and im really glad I made the switch. So, yes, threads like this did help me, while also providing good starting tips.