iamalizard

The paper card 2FA seems better than SMS 2FA or an app 2FA if you're relatively sure your physical security is good.

The card shouldn't cost money or could cost 50 yen which would be more than enough to cover printing it.

You're not vulnerable to SMS interception or phone malware. You're also not forced into Google's or Apple's walled gardens.

I can think of a better analogy than littering for pirating an item at more than 1 place. When you litter, you add to the trash. If everyone littered, it would be awful. But if everyone pirated the same content on a different site/platform/protocol, it would still be 1 pirated item.

The better, IMO, analogy, is if you have an ad glued somewhere, say at a bus stop. Another person comes with their ad and wants to glue it. They glue it over the previous ad. The amount of ads visible remains the same. There's a negligible disadvantage for the city - they have to haul away twice as many paper. But most importantly, the amount of visual clutter hasn't been increased if the second ad is glued over the first one.

That analogy works if you're against piracy and ads on public places, of course.

Except for schools or where kids are likely to be like hotels it's a nanny state solution that forces unnecessary spending, unnecessary licenses and inspections and, most of all, people being told how to lead their lives.

Unrelated to that specific regulation, the US National Electric Code is made by a non-profit who, until 2016, didn't even make copies of the code freely available. That's crazy to me. What's also crazy is how the 2023 version I checked just now has 918 pages of dense regulations. Am I really supposed to believe all that is necessary?

tpb.party works without JS. It's the main mirror I use.

Don't give up hope, though. I've had torrents complete after a few years. I've long lost anything from 2010, though.

Try other protocols/services (listed in other comments in the thread) or maybe offer a bounty if it's something you can't buy.

SoulSeek was also pretty good for finding obscure music. I like collecting everything that was released (not live performances, though) and SoulSeek filled some, but not all gaps I had.

It's not E2EE IIRC, though, so use with caution.

But the people in each house would suffer from from asbestos in their own house. [0] If I bought a house in such a neighborhood, I'd have it checked from cracks or deterioration. If the results show a risk, I'd inform the neighboring houses, too.

Similar to how if you're using a insecure program written in C, whoever finds the bug should tell you immediately - don't use that program.

[0] You might say that asbestos from 1 house would affect the whole neighborhood but that would be similar to how a smoker smoking in the streets would affect the neighborhood. Second-hand smoking and second-hand asbestos are bad but they're negligible compared to living with a smoker who smokes indoors with the windows closed or smoking yourself.

The bunny suit for a child is the parents, teachers and social workers.

Like I said in another comment - if a parent is working 3 jobs and doesn't have time for their children, change the subsidies given to the parent for having children. Make child care free or really accessible.

A child needs a parent or at least a role model. If you ban social media, the children will still see random crap on the internet, whether it's YouTube videos or content from random sites too small or shady to be regulated. Do you want 100% of the internet regulated or do you want the government to empower the children and their parents? We have the resources, we just haven't allocated them correctly. Otherwise a parent would have time to spend with their children.

I am worried about this and completely oppose these subpoenas. In an ideal world all communications would be over a censorship/subpoena-resistant protocol and the government wouldn't try to infiltrate or stop any kind of online communication. I wish we can collectively ditch Meta, Google, Twitter, reddit and all the other centralized crap for something better. I don't have accounts there and if I had a company I wouldn't even make a company account there even it would mean I'd lose visibility and potential customers.

I hate those companies with a passion. I know most of us here do even if some of us work there (I don't and will not; I'm not even in IT right now). Yet I see how easily regulations against these centralized platforms will expand to regulations on communication in general, whether it's commercial centralized ones or an FOSS decentralized E2EE ones.

I get what you're saying but installing asbestos correctly is much easier than writing an app that could have security implications in C, is more easily detectable where things go wrong and it affects less people if things go wrong.

And the people using asbestos in their homes, or buying homes with asbestos, are endangering themselves. How likely is that an improperly installed or maintained asbestos is going to affect a whole neighborhood?

But this solution has several negatives that likely make it net negative.

It normalizes age verification online which will likely lead to a less free internet. We could wait for decades until a really privacy-preserving way of age verification will come but what will happen is we'll have to give up our privacy and anonymity to a few large governments and companies.

It opens to door for regulating any kind of communication channels amongst the people. It will start with big social media but it will likely expand to any kind of forums, chats and even open protocols like AT. It will normalize the government interfering in all kinds of online activities.

These may seem distant and abstract to most people but the people in power want or will want to get power over every kind of communication. We should oppose this now, not when it's normalized and has happened for "platforms bigger than X users".

The people should be able to form any kind of group where they communicate freely. If you want to regulate commercial addictive algorithmic content suggestions... OK, maybe, sure. Do it. Don't regulate where people communicate, how they do it, what they talk about and what they share. People who can use the internet, even children, need a way to share their ideas and concerns. They need to be able to belong to whatever community they please.

Wouldn't the correct solution be to empower those parents with subsidies or free child care? If you have to work 3 jobs, parent or not, there is something wrong with how we've structured our society. Banning social media in your example seems like a bandaid put on a person with external and internal bleeding. You'll stop some of the bleeding but the person will still suffer and die.

From what I know, asbestos is bad when it gets airborne. If it's installed correctly, if workers wear PPE when handling it and if there are periodic checks for cracks, leaks and so on, it's safe. From what I've read, at least - I'm not an expert by any means. I've removed asbestos from a few old buildings but wore PPE. It was very uncomfortable to have the masks and suit on. I even threw away the cloth bags I had to my tools in, just to be safe. We disposed of the asbestos as per regulation. I feel safe and would do it again.

So maybe banning asbestos altogether is overkill.

I'd love to be proven wrong. I don't have any financial interest in asbestos besides the few jobs I've done over the years removing it.

In the middle of season 2 now, I love it. Thanks again. :)

There were a few similar movies, most of which take place in 1 location.

Exam (2009)

The Belko Experiment (2016)

I forget some now.

Similar, kinda, is The Game (1997).

My point was different. I was just trying to compare China to other countries. If you just say "4000 dead per year", it seems awful. And it is - I agree. But in a country with 14 million people (instead of 1.4 billion in China; 100x less) we'll see a headline like "40 dead per year" (100x less). We might not bat an eye to that number. We should think in terms of probability or in terms of ratios like [dead people]/[all people].

We should try to bring that number (4000 or 40) down but if it's happens to be a very unlikely cause of death, maybe we should focus on more pressing things. Not ignore the 4000 (out of 1.4 billion), of course, just put it in perspective. I'm sure much more people in China die from other easily-preventable deaths. Road-related deaths are much more graphic and frightening than deaths from things like the quality of our food and water, contaminants in paints and construction materials, air pollution, infections, diabetes, cancer and so on. Most such deaths are not graphic, you won't see them on kaotic, but are usually far longer, painful and disturbing for the person and family.

To offer a personal rebuttal to you saying I don't care about those people as there are many that look like them, I love the saying "if you help a stray animal, you won't make a dent in the whole situation of helpless stray animals but you'll have changed that animal's life completely". So yes, 1 person or animal matters a lot. I've moved snails from the sidewalk back into the grass so they don't get stepped on. Likely billions of snails are getting crushed every year and what I do is not sustainable, but I still do it.

Here we are, but let's think of ways to change it. I hope that even if some people start thinking differently, in terms of changing the status quo, we could reach a better future.

Centralized controls are better if we assume the user is either technologically dumb (or uneducated, or naive, if you prefer other terms) or strapped for time.

Current users might be just that. I agree. But those same users decided to download dozens of hundreds of apps. They use each app much more than it would take for them to go to the settings (if such good settings exist) and take care of what is allowed and what isn't. It's their responsibility.

We've let users be treated as infants far too long. That leads to centralized decisions on behalf of these users, for their own good. Which leads to users being more and more negligent in their duty to govern their own digital selves. It's a vicious cycle.

Can we break it just by changing the way users manage their notifications? Likely no, sadly. We need a complete overhaul of personal digital responsibility. We need to remove (almost?) all safeguards and nanny-state (nanny-corp?) treatments the users get. Let them get hacked, let them lose money, let their digital lives, money, identities completely go to shit. They will recover but they'll have learned a valuable lesson - the computer in their pockets is their own computer, the apps they install could be malicious, the consequences are not artificially removed. I think the users will learn after a a while.

We don't install guards to prevent someone from poking into the outlets with a fork. We do it for small children. We don't put guardrails everywhere. If you're not careful where you go, you might fall or get hit by a car. Why is the digital realm so different? We've had computers for a while now, it's time to take responsibility for ourselves.

Otherwise we'll always treat users as infants or sheep or retards or whatever you wanna call it. That means making our safety and security someone else's problem, but that also means letting go of any agency we have. Letting others control our lives. And our digital lives are becoming a bigger part of our lives as times goes on.

I upvoted your comment, btw. You are right that now centralized solutions are better, but later that might change and we'll have no recourse. "We" as a people, not individuals.

> From my perspective, the more roadblocks the platforms put between unnecessary notifications and my phone, the better.

I know lots of apps behave badly when it comes to notifications but I'd still prefer if the apps controlled the level of notifications they sent. I could, of course, reduce that client-side, but I don't see why I'd want Google or Apple or any other intermediary see or control the notifications.

If an app behaves inappropriately, I could uninstall it. If a gatekeeper like Google or Apple prevent an app from sending me notifications, I'd have to change my OS, usually my hardware, too.

I think that stems from the format. It has to be video so they must show something. Better than a stock footage of a fire or, as South Park did, an "imagine if that school was full of rabbits".

We see the same useless media in thumbnails of text-based news and in the articles themselves with irrelevant stock photos.

Not only is it useless but it makes me consider the site/network less reputable if they're engaging in such attention-grabbing practices that tend to pander to idiots.

About suffering, it's everywhere, sadly. I think most of life is suffering. Our own life is likely a mix of suffering and pleasure but if we view all life (not only humans but other animals), most of it is suffering. I think the way out of this is by intervening in nature, as nature has a lot more suffering than humans themselves do or have even caused. Look up David Pearce or even Peter Singer. Pearce's "The Hedonistic Imperative" was written in a very hard-to-read way, at least for me. Like, I had to constantly re-read sentences and look up words. Nevertheless, I loved his ideas. Singer's ideas are also worth considering. What I remember from reading Pearce and Singer years ago is that there's a lot of suffering in the world, that humans' suffering is just at tiny bit of it and that we should strive to reduce the overall suffering. It might sound like a pipe dream to intervene in nature - someone will say "we'll only make it worse". And probably right now we will, but I believe we'll reach a point where we can actually intervene adequately.

Zapffe makes interesting points but are too close to what I consider attempts to describe human psychology through vague philosophy. Yes, isolation, anchoring, etc. may be useful things to talk about, but his philosophy, at least from the minuscule amount I've read, doesn't discuss suffering generally (using terms and ideas like qualia, etc.), doesn't extend suffering to non-human animals and doesn't offer much of a solution beyond some psychological changes we can implement (which could only benefit humans).

But I love that you're focused on suffering. It sucks and it's the thing that sucks the most and that could suck the most - by definition, even. I rarely find people acknowledging suffering as something to eradicate. It's usually something more specific, like a problem with economics or unions or tech or mental health. But all these lead to suffering and suffering is what matters in the end.

I have yet to reread the rest of your post and reply (as I don't like to just reply immediately).

When someone says "7/10", what do they mean? It could be "it's pretty good but not spectacular" or "it's barely usable but I've seen much, much worse". I agree that we need a new system.

I'd love to read even 10 minutes of that rant.

For the tools, I had a friend years ago who worked part time as a repairman and he said he always buys cheap as even expensive tools break. He viewed his tools as consumables, almost as disposables. He had a few of each type and said he didn't care when one broke. Not your philosophy or mine (buy expensive when you need to use it a lot) but it seemed to work for him.

I tried to DIY a bike stand. I wanted to make a truing wheel, too. I made something a very basic bike stand with spare materials lying around in less than an hour - just 2 metal desk legs bolted onto a piece of wood, as well as a couple of smaller pieces of wood to hold the front wheel in place (and a few smaller pieces where needed). It works for my bike only because of the geometry and it's definitely not great but it does the job! I watched some videos on how to make a good stand and it seems possible to DIY something really great for a fraction of the price. Sure, your time and labor costs money, but it would be satisfying to make something good yourself. I'm thinking of making another stand in a couple of months.

> Where I live (Texas), there is no state income tax. They make it up by having high property taxes.

I guess that makes some calculations quite different, like what rent should be, how much you can view a property as an investment, what types of businesses you can start there, and so on, compared to other states?

> You're charged by how big of a bin you get).

Are there no communal bins? Or is that for a closed community as opposed to a city? What would you do if you had to throw something out while you were walking around?

I've never been to the US so it's a bit of a culture shock.

Awful. I consider myself lucky to have never had the need to deal with these kinds of setups. At first I assumed "WiFi" was used to mean "broadband internet", as opposed to cellular, as I've seen Americans call it that, but it actually is just WiFi, nothing wired?

I've never had to deal with "X devices max", either.

What did you try to get around the limitation? What about a laptop that would serve as a proxy or a router or something?

The "X devices max" is so dumb, anyway. Shouldn't it be the total throughput that matters? It's like those electrical advices that say not to daisy chain power strips as it's dangerous, yet I've had 7-8 power strips daisy chained for decades with no issues. Obviously the issue is not to overload a single socket with too much power, but if you have 50 low-powered devices it's OK. Imagine if our electric company had a "X devices max" policy.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who forgets whether they watched something and who rewatches series after some time has passed. :D

> property taxes are often the largest source of income for a city budget

Hadn't considered that, thanks. :)

> I personally don't value faucets that much, but if I were replacing one, I don't see why I'd get a crappy one.

I realize I don't know how faucets cost in the US so 185 could be close to what one would pay even to DIY it.

> If someone said to me "I'll give you $400 to fly to Europe and cut down a large tree that's too close to someone's house without causing any damage and you must bring your own equipment, dispose of the tree, etc.." I sure as hell would not take that offer, especially if I knew how.

I'm not sure I'd literally fly over with equipment to cut down one tree, but from what I've seen (admittedly, not a lot), damage occurs when people are careless (want to do it quickly, don't secure bigger branches properly or are negligent in general) or try to cut from the base like a lumberjack in the movies. Of course anything could happen no matter how careful one is - I've broken lots of cups and plates - but it doesn't seem especially risky compared to other jobs. But again, I'm not a professional tree cutter - I've cut a few trees. I took my time to do it and was careful but they weren't huge trees right over someone's mansion.

> Quality work and good/better tools are worth investing in if you value them or their output.

Definitely. I regularly pay experts lots of money, like a week's salary, for a few hours of their time, and it's worth it. And when I'm looking to buy a new tool, I almost always select one with good specs from a reputable brand. Unless it's for a one-time job where I just buy whatever's cheapest (within reason). Not surprisingly, I have had to use such tools multiple times shortly after that "first and only" job was done. Yet surprisingly, the cheap tool usually does the job. But there's a big difference between using a tool 10 times a year and 10 times a day.

And when you invest in something because the landlord won't do it, then move to another rental for some reason, you may have to do it all over again. Especially for upgrades. When you own the logic is "I'll pay X for this and it will hold for ~Y years". When you rent it's "I'll pay X for this and if I leave before ~Y, I'll have overpaid on a per-year basis".

> the "included" maintenance is dog shit

In my experience it usually is.

> Right as I was moving out they wanted to add a $25/mo pet fee

If my landlord did that, I'd be quite surprised as he obviously knew I have 2 small dogs when I moved in and they haven't done any damage. Is your landlord managing lots of properties, not just your own? It's the type of added fee I'd expect from a faceless company, not a person I've had a relationship with for a while.

> they removed our cable modems and made everyone use wifi-only (limit 10 devices)

That would've driven me mad.