dev_null

@dev_null@lemmy.ml

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta illegally collected data from Flo period and pregnancy app, jury finds⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  English is not my first language, so had to look “diatribes” up. “a forceful and bitter verbal attack against someone or something”? That was not my intention, I’m trying to have a polite conversation, maybe I’m failing at it if that’s how it’s received!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta illegally collected data from Flo period and pregnancy app, jury finds⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  To be clear, I’m not saying secretly recording conversations with a mic never happens, just that it didn’t happen in this case.

  To the other story you linked, what we know happened is that some company had a slide deck claiming they have that capability. It could be that they really did and that it’s used everywhere. It could also be that they were judging interest and didn’t even look into the feasibility of building it. It could be that they wanted publicity by manufacturing some controversial news and never even wanted to build it. Or, again, it could be true. But all we know for a fact, in that case, is that a slide deck existed. Not that any product existed, let alone that it was deployed anywhere.

  Again, I’m not saying it doesn’t happen, it probably does, but that story doesn’t prove it either.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta illegally collected data from Flo period and pregnancy app, jury finds⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel this comment lacks some nuance. Someone who didn’t read the article might think microphones were involved, or that Meta recorded any conversations, which they didn’t.

  What has actually happened: The Flo app, as part of onboarding, asks the user about their goal for using the app, with possible choices being “I am pregnant” and similar sensitive info. They are using Meta’s analytics SDK for tracking what users do in the app, and they included an event for when a user selects the goal. All these events go to their analytics dashboard, which lives on Meta’s servers. Flo promised they are not sharing this information with third parties, but they clearly do. So in the end, information about someone being pregnant ended up on Meta’s servers. Meta later learned that this data is sent their way, and incorporanted it for their own use for advertising.

  Both Flo and Meta are clearly guilty here. But no eavesdropping occured here, “just” the usual event tracking of which radio button a user selected when installing the app. I.e. no conversation was recorded by anyone, which is what someone may picture seeing the word “eavesdropping”. Which doesn’t make this any better of course.

  What I’m trying to get to is this:

  they were found guilty of fucking eavesdropping. I can’t wait to see people defending this as not being true for advertising.

  This story is once again an example showing that your devices don’t need to listen to your conversations, and aren’t eavesdropping on you. Because all the apps you use are already tracking everything you do, and eavesdropping is not necessary.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Reminder that you do not own digital games⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Lots of game still have that, Satisfactory, Minecraft, Valheim

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft finally solve the Linux dual-boot issue after 9 months⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Grub did not detect your VM, it detected a bootable operating system on the drive because you passed it through to your VM

  Yeah, the bootable drive that contained my VM install, that’s what I’m saying.

  But i prefer using a raw disk file image

  I started that way, but I had a disk with a single partition that contained a single file - the raw disk image file, and eventually decided this is silly, the filesystem on that disk is useless.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft finally solve the Linux dual-boot issue after 9 months⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I did that, and since I got a dedicated SSD drive for it, I used it for the VM as a block device. Later after a GRUB update I discovered Windows in my GRUB boot menu. Turns out GRUB detected my VM, and now I can physically boot into my VM. Which I didn’t even know was possible.

  So yeah, I accidentally dual boot Windows without meaning to, even though it’s a VM. Except when I boot into it, then it’s not, apparently.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Indie devs have begun adding a no generative AI stamp to their store pages⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And programmers retain complete control of the output - it’s just a bit of text that you can adapt as needed. Same as looking up snippets from Stack Overflow. Programmers are used to finding some snippet, checking if it actually works, and then adapting it to the rest of their code, so if doesn’t feel like introducing media that you didn’t create, but like a faster version if what everyone was already doing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google Calendar removed events like Pride and BHM because its holiday list wasn’t ‘sustainable’⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  And Bezos with Amazon but people still think he’s the CEO.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Razer announced the Razer Handheld Dock Chroma for your Steam Deck, ROG Ally, Legion Go and more⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was buying a PC case and was surprised to find out it’s actually not trivial to find one without a transparent side panel.

  I don’t want to see the inside of my PC, ideally it should be hidden away as much as possible. My ideal setup would be to have the tower in a separate room with cables going through a wall so that only peripherals are anywhere near my desk.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FFmpeg devs boast of up to 94x performance boost after implementing handwritten AVX-512 assembly code⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It’s handwritten assembly as opposed to bytecode generated by a compiler, from handwritten higher level language.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  You do you, in this scenario I think the camera man shouldn’t be blamed.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twitch banned Dr Disrespect after viewing messages sent to a minor, say former employees⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I didn’t watch it, but based on the comment you are replying to, he did nothing wrong? He said he’s going to the bathroom, and went to the bathroom. His camera man got confused and followed him to the bathroom, saw he’s in a bathroom, and left. If anyone did anything wrong it’s the camera man, but clearly it was just a mistake.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Introducing Steam Families⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  If you have a Steam family with 4 members each owning a copy of a game, and the 5th member that doesn’t gets banned. Which of the 4 accounts gets banned?

  Since the game copies are “pooled” in the family, you are not sharing from anyone in particular, you have all games in the family available. So who gets banned?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Introducing Steam Families⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think it does. It allows 3 members to play if there are 3 copies in the family, but each account can still only have 1 copy. You can’t buy 3 copies for your account.