• 17 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: October 20th, 2023

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  • Apalrd has done some great “popular computer science” videos on the various remote KVM devices that is well worth looking up. One of them specifically goes into the ridiculously sketchy methods that are used to fetch and execute unsigned code in random buckets to handle firmware updates.

    But as for the mic? Honestly, if you open up a LOT of consumer devices you are going to find random microphones. Not because they are all secretly spying on you. But because they use “off the shelf” chips and boards that already have those embedded. Especially since microphones and speakers are kind of the same hardware in most cases and we ALL love a good beep.

    I 100% agree the software stack shouldn’t be on there. But, as the blog post points out, there is a LOT of developmental code and packages in that image that shouldn’t be. It is likely just a case of not removing unnecessary packages from the base image.

    Because… the entire point of a device like this is that you plug it in somewhere you aren’t. MAYBE JetKVM corp can hear me muttering profanity or wondering where I left that USB c splitter when I am trying to assemble it the first time. The rest of the time? It is plugged into the back of a server that I am booting up so that I can install proxmox without having to drag a monitor over. And while you can potentially get some juicy info out of that? It is not at all worth the hassle to set up fake companies and market a fake (moderately high demand in the right circles) device.




  • De facto, no.

    Yes, there are still some services where there are absolutely zero questions asked and all you need is a prepaid card that doesn’t need to be activated at all. Those are quite rare and have a very limited number of phone numbers allocated to them and pretty much are all flagged as spam/bots by every single system out there.

    The next tier up are services where you technically don’t need to provide any ID to use a prepaid card… but the store you purchased it from needs your ID/credit card to activate the card when you buy it. Those ALSO tend to have the same problems with burned numbers.

    What most people have as burners these days are just the same phone service as anyone else. They just pay a rebranded t-mobile at the start of the month rather than the end of the month. And those have all the same restrictions, and capabilities, as “real” phone plans.


  • Eh.

    Robots capable of melee combat are pretty much pointless. Melee is what you resort to when someone gets too close and you can’t point your gun at them because your reflexes are too slow or you are not strong enough to overpower them pushing it out of the way. Robots will always have faster reflex times, can physically attach the gun to their bodies, and are going to be stronger than a human trying to push their arm out of the way.

    This is just the cultural dance aspects of martial arts. It shows that the robot has dexterity and coordination and is capable of elaborate choreography.

    This kind of robot is genuinely a good invention for the purposes of elder care (something China is going to have massive problems with because of their one child policy fundamentally breaking multiple generations). For the purpose of slaughtering those pesky non-Hans?

    https://terminator.fandom.com/wiki/T-1 is a MUCH more effective design. Guns on a heavily armored weapons platform.


  • I had a Kobra Neo for like 4 years? And it drove me bonkers. It was somehow MORE jank than the random kit I got off aliexpress like a decade ago and I constantly had to retighten/tension everything and it somehow burned through three different nozzles.

    On the one hand? Enclosures and core xy solve like 90% of the problems 3d printers have by controlling environment and minimizing stress on the parts. On the other hand? You need quality parts and construction to begin with

    And if you are spending that much on a printer+multiple material system (that I will always argue home users don’t need and are just buying to subsidize it for print farms)? Check out the Qidi Q2. Even cheaper and it is telling that the vast majority of complaints about the Qidis are just “the exterior case is plastic and feels cheap”. Which is a death sentence for youtubers who can’t run a tool for a thousand hours during the one week review window but is also a hallmark of ACTUAL prosumer devices. Why use expensive aluminum for a part that has no functionality?



  • To be clear: I don’t give a fuck if someone identifies as communist. I disagree (more in the vicinity of demsoc, personally) but people have had more impractical ideologies.

    The issue is that dessalines et al are very much tankies. People who will say and do whatever it takes to say that china and russia are correct because both of those countries used to identify as communist (how long either actually was is up for debate). And that tends to manifest as actively supporting the invasion of Ukraine and the state sponsored ethnic cleansing by, among other horrors, rape of (among multiple ethnic groups) the Uyghurs


  • Yes. I bought one of those cheap sunlu filament joiners (I think CNC Kitchen did a video on it?).

    Basically, when a spool is at the point where I start caring how much filament is left on it? I put it off to the side. And two or three times a year I just listen to a podcast while I fuse all those spools (with the same material). Makes for some fun multicolor prints when one color ends and the next begins and basically means I have all the “infinite filament” benefits of a multi-filament system without costing hundreds of dollars.

    I don’t do much PETG but the sunlu has a setting for it (185C).





  • Ah. So graphene DOES have a system where it takes your entire existing OS, shrinks all the partitions on disk, installs itself around that, AND prevents the monitoring software from reporting that your 512 GB device is now actually a 128 GB one?

    Well color me surprised.

    Or, you know, more likely you end up wiping the existing OS by effectively factory resetting it. And then you ping the management software server saying “I need to reinstall your spyware” which triggers a flag that IT may or may not care about. Similarly, said spyware now wonders why your phone’s storage shrunk so massively and raises another flag.


  • Yeah… having to reprovision a phone because it just got reformatted is going to raise a red flag. And if you are installing a rogue OS on your work phone to prevent your employer from seeing what you are doing… I actually side with them when they fire your ass.


    Your nonsense makes sense if it is a personal device that you are using for work purposes. Which… I strongly oppose for a range of reasons. If your work wants you “on call” then they can provide a device. Otherwise you can never be off call.


  • And legit creditors just need your SSN, address, and maybe an old address. They run a credit check (hence why you freeze that shit) and then you are driving away in your 4k a month pickup truck.

    And less legit creditors… don’t ask too many questions other than where you live and where your loved ones love.

    But hey. Feel free to throw a hissy fit rather than think through why that plastic card actually doesn’t matter anywhere near as much as you thought it did. I mean, it would be nicer if you could actually sit and think and learn. But this is the 2020s. Ain’t nobody doing introspection.


  • Huh?

    If you go to a bar with an ID you cut out of printer paper, they are going to throw your ass out Jazzy Jeff style. The actual ID isn’t useful without a LOT of additional resources… at which point your photo means almost nothing.

    As for stuff like addresses? Again, that is basically EVERYWHERE because just about EVERY org has a data breach at least once a year. You might as well be saying people need your long form birth certificate to know what your name is.

    Like… I’mma be blunt with you. A lot of the “your photo ID is the most important secure thing ever” nonsense comes from republican chuds trying to disenfranchise voters who live in cities. It is the idea that your photo ID is some magical artifact that protects you when the reality is that it is basically just a way to tie your name to your face. All the pertinent information is everywhere else.

    Like… photo IDs tend to be one of those weird cases where we are ACTUALLY using biometrics (in this case, appearance) as a login rather than a password. Anything of value will just use that to cross reference you with an entry that is already in a system.

    And in terms of the actual avenues for fraud? That ID doesn’t mean shit.