Just a dorky trans woman on the internet.

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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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  • What is meant by “sensitive information” here? Browsers can’t just willy-nilly access your local files or something like that. The one thing I can think of is using JavaScript to collect information that can be used to identify you. (Is that “sensitive”? I’d put that in “identifying information”.) My honest suggestion is to keep using NoScript and just allow as few domains as possible. The next best option is to stop using websites that break without JavaScript when there’s no reason why they’d need it.

    I can imagine there being a plugin that spoofs some common ways that allow sites to identify you cross-sessions / browser / websites without your consent, but blocking JavaScript (by default) is likely one of the best ways to reduce the amount of information collected about you. When you do find such a plugin, check out one of the “browser fingerprint” testing sites to see how unique your fingerprint is.

    (That is, if I even understood the request properly in regards to the “sensitive information” bit.)


  • There is something called “local storage” that allows applications to store more information than just a cookie. Cookies are sent to the server, while local storage, as the name implies, stays local. (That doesn’t mean that this data can’t be sent to the server via JavaScript.) But local storage makes it possible to make 100% offline applications if the whole webpage is cached / downloaded (assuming no online functionality is required).

    edit: As for deleting this, if I click on the lock icon in the address bar in Firefox, I have an option to clear cookies and site data for the current site. I assume the “site data” is the local storage I mentioned. If you’re using a Chrome based browser, you can probably google how to do the same thing.



  • I happened across a podcast episode that was about AI, that I was listening to with friends. I don’t know if you want to take away anything from it but I figured I’d mention it here in case anyone wants to. Look for Serious Inquiries Only episode 477, “Debunking Bad AI Research, and Bad Coverage of AI Research”. For you it might not be super interesting, since it’s trying to explain the matter to those who might not already know much, debunking some bad studies, but towards the end they talk about the environmental impact. And this is with two experts, I believe.

    One thing that pops up there is that training a “moderately large” model requires produces twice the CO₂ output of an average American over their entire lifetime. They mention water usage is really bad, too. And “moderately large” refers to what a University research team might be cooking up. Big companies have magnitudes more environmental impact from training their huge models.

    (There is also a part 2, with the followup episode.)




  • copygirl@lemmy.blahaj.zonetoADHD memes@lemmy.dbzer0.comIf only people knew
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    1 month ago

    I’ve heard some scary numbers when it comes to waste, but I don’t have a source, nor do I intend to go digging for one because I’m already depressed enough. But you addressed neither of my other grievances. In the end I’d just prefer a future where work is automated, and not creativity nor thinking. I will speak up in this small space where I might be heard, when I believe corporations are betting on getting people hooked on AI because they’ve never learned to think or bothered to create for themselves, just so they can extract massive profits.

    By all means, keep investing and being interested in specialized AI, AI research and AI ethics. But stay away from generative (text/image/video) AI.











  • Presumably this is because a block is different from the content being removed. It simply means the servers stop communicating with each other regarding new communities, posts and comments. This could allow the instance to be unblocked and the old content to continue existing – say for example when an instance has been acting badly, but it gets fixed some time later.

    Blocked instances should probably not show up in search, but if you have a direct link to an old post, perhaps this should still be available? Not being able to block a community when its instance is already blocked makes sense, and probably doesn’t matter if you mostly check for new content, but I can see it being a bother when its shows up in other situations. One could call this a bug, or an oversight, but I suppose it depends on what the intended result is.


  • Politicians decide things, but to actually make stuff happen, the government needs to collect taxes to pay for services that are then provided to the public. I think the idea here is to take out the middleman. You won’t solve the problem country wide, but you’ll help some people, and that’s still worth it. Work together without like-minded people locally, be an inspiration, and show that it works. I’ve only been very briefly part of an activist group (specialized in food saving), so probably best to look elsewhere for good advice on how to do this well.