fun with loopholes

~ Brin ~ 1 Comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

brin-bellway:

maryellencarter:

heroofthreefaces:

riseofthecommonwoodpile:

riseofthecommonwoodpile:

smartphone storage plateauing in favor of just storing everything in the cloud is such dogshit. i should be able to have like a fucking terabyte of data on my phone at this point. i hate the fucking cloud

this is gonna make me sound very Old Man Yells At Cloud but i just hate how many things in my life assume i will always have access to a quick, reliable internet connection and almost cease to function without it. Obviously certain things Have To Have An Internet Connection, but i want to be able to listen to music if my service is bad. i want to still watch movies if Netflix is down. i want to have a working map when i can’t get a cell signal. nearly every tech product these days bears the fingerprint of the extremely internet-rich places they are developed, high rent offices in Seattle, San Francisco, etc.. I think often the idea of the internet not being available is so remote to them it doesn’t even factor in to development. i remember when the Xbox One was debuted and Microsoft was almost mockingly like “if you don’t have reliable fast internet, then don’t bother buying this”, and there was such backlash they completely went back on so much of that. But now that attitude is just the tech norm.

I don’t trust the cloud.

This makes me happy I don’t use my phone for going online

i mean you can get a terabyte phone but it costs like $1600 USD (give or take a couple hundred, idk, i’m not looking it up)

what really pisses me off is that the samsung flagship phones have completely phased out their sd card slots. you can’t get a cell phone with expandable storage anymore

Yeah, it’s such bullshit that it’s a whole ordeal to dig up a model with a microSD slot now.

I *do* have a 2020-model phone (a slightly different model of which is still in production) with a half-terabyte microSD† in it. (For CAD$155 instead of CAD$70 I could have gotten a full terabyte of microSD, but I didn’t have the budget. Mind you, I *could* upgrade later, without having to replace the whole phone…) But that’s because a microSD slot was my single highest priority when deciding what model to buy, absolutely non-negotiable: if I’d cared any less, I’d probably have ended up with a Pixel or a OnePlus.

—

Hmm, I wrote an extremely outdated guide to orienting your phone setup around not having reliable Internet access in 2015, and a substantially outdated guide in 2018, so it sounds like I’m due for another one. Be right back.

[three months of on-and-off tinkering later]

Okay, here’s “Tips on Offline-First Smartphones, 2023 Edition”.

—

†Some of the specs for that phone model you’ll see around will say it takes “up to 128 GB”, but don’t be fooled: 64 GB – 2 TB microSDs are the same backwards-compatibility tier. If a phone can take 32 GB, it might not be able to take 64, but if it can take 64 it can take 2048.

Tags:

#bringing this back since I’ve seen some of the more despairing versions of this thread being passed around again recently #and yes‚ I do have a copy of my Tumblr on my phone #multiple copies‚ in fact: [a tumblr-utils output] and [a scrape of my WordPress mirror converted to Kiwix format] #(and technically also the text-only export from WordPress but I *really* don’t want to have to bootstrap from that one) #(that one is very last-resort) #(cheap‚ though: 6.8 MB) #101 Uses for Infrastructureless Computers #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #proud citizen of The Future #Brin owns *two* 2010’s computers now #fun with loopholes #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

nextworldover:

mystery-moose:

Okay no for real this whole idea of Goncharov is very funny but get your fuckin’ timeline right, okay.

Martin Scorsese had made exactly two movies by 1973, he didn’t have the cachet to make a big budget or even mid budget crime movie about the Naples mafia. Certainly not the greatest mafia movie ever made! Further, he hadn’t yet developed his filmmaking style, let alone his fascination with the criminal underworld, and The Godfather had just come out the year before, so there wasn’t even time to get used to the romantic portrayal of gangsters that Scorsese’s films would act as revisionist responses to! The conversation had barely even started yet!

And then there’s the actors: Robert De Niro was a working actor then, not a huge star — he’d been in a few movies by then, including three from noted trash sommelier Brian De Palma and one from even more noted trash auteur Roger Corman — and he actually worked with Scorsese and Keitel that same year in Mean Streets! He got some acclaim for that performance but it wasn’t like, Godfather level, y’know? Not in terms of fame or notice at least. And Pacino? Pacino’s first major role was The Godfather the previous year! That was his third film ever! He did Serpico in ‘73! He hadn’t even done Dog Day Afternoon yet! And he didn’t work with Scorsese until The Irishman, which came out in 2019!

Really, y’all, what you’re imagining, the movie you’re all spinning out of thin air here, probably came out in like, 1983, not ‘73. Probably in place of Scarface or something (which for my money would be an improvement). You’ve got De Niro post-Deer Hunter and Taxi Driver, he’s worked with Scorsese before, you’ve had two excellent Godfather films to build a mythology of the romantic gangster around for Scorsese to play with. You’ve got Pacino after shit like Serpico and Cruising, he’s in his prime. You’re still pre-Goodfellas for Scorsese, so he hasn’t gone sicko mode yet, but he’s done great movies that got noticed and he’d be able to pick up a budget and a production company to go to Naples. He’s worked with big studios, he’s got some clout. Now is the time for Goncharov!

But nooo, all this happened before you were born so it’s all vague and nebulous “before-times.” What’s the difference between 1973 and 1983? Who cares? Well I do! And now you know! History matters okay!! Learn ya history!!!

df5493422a938acaa04da1db9e7678ba55162d22

i think this is my favorite reconciliation of established goncharov lore with scorsese’s actual film career

Tags:

#Goncharov #history #fun with loopholes #anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

pkann18:

Youtube vs. Adblockers

Copy and pasting from Reddit user Mike J Smith on the Reddit page for ublock origin, an adblocker extension:

Condensed Update for Newcomers:

  1. YT is making a concerted anti-adblock push via a tattler script tied to a “3 strikes and you’re out” style warning message.
  2. Each time you click on a video that WOULD have shown you ads, the tattler script detects that you blocked it and you’re given a warning popup. This can be X’ed out of quickly, it’s just a warning.
  3. After 3 warnings on a given account, it no longer allows you to close the warning popup, thus acting as a soft block on that YT account until YT’s tattler script no longer detects ad-block running. As of right now, it does not lock your other Google services and it does not count as a traditional account ban.
  4. To protect the new tattler script from our jamming efforts, YT is also updating it at least once a day and sometimes multiple times, basically trying to force us into a war of attrition in coding hours. This naturally has put a MASSIVE strain on the volunteer team and will probably result in extended outages on YT as they try to keep up. They are holding their own, but just barely.
  5. None of the uBO team are paid for this, they are volunteers with day jobs. The success of their efforts will depend largely on what YouTube decides to do next, because fighting their legions of paid coders off indefinitely would be impossible. If YouTube wants to kill adblock forever with sheer force, it’s within their power – we are all hoping they’re just “shaking the tree” to see what falls out and they’ll stop once their accountants are satisfied.
  6. The soft block is only tied to the individual account, not the IP. Thus, FreeTube still works fine and you can still view videos logged out. If you export your history, subs and playlists to Freetube, the only thing you’ve really lost is your ability to comment. I miss it, but not enough to give $20 a month to a pack of scavenging vultures.

So What Do I Do Now???

Look at the original post in the original thread, find the bold headline midway down that says “I followed the 4 steps, but I’m still experiencing issues”. Directly below that is a line that says “The latest fix for anti-adblock was made on [date] and currently corresponds to ID [xxxxxxx]”.

The ID refers to the version of YouTube’s tattler script that it is capable of defeating. Compare that number to the bottom line on this list: https://pastefy.app/G1Txv5su/raw. The listings look like: “https://www.youtube.com/s/desktop/ea2534f4/jsbin/desktop_polymer_css_polymer_serving_disabled.vflset/desktop_polymer_css_polymer_serving_disabled.js”. The bolded portion is the ID number you want to compare it to.

If the numbers are the same, then the tattler has been temporarily neutralized by the volunteer team. Once you purge and update your caches, soft locked accounts will be open again and no warnings will be issued. Use it while you can. Don’t forget to purge & update or it won’t work.

If the numbers don’t match, the volunteer team hasn’t caught up yet and the tattler script is still active. You will still be warned and soft-blocked. Give them 4-5 hours to catch up.

Tags:

#oh is *that* why I haven’t encountered the anti-adblock? #because I don’t leave my Google account logged in? #huh #the more you know #fun with loopholes #Youtube #disappointed permanent resident of The Future #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

{{previous post in sequence}}

brin-bellway:

bibliolithid:

brin-bellway:

brin_bellway | Extreme couponing

If we get everyone in on this we can cost them several million dollars!

#possibly hundreds of millions of dollars? Depending on who is eligible #assuming they have hundreds of millions of cheeze-its to sell

“Adult Canadian residents”, give or take, so maybe tens of millions of dollars.

I was going to say “and you have to live somewhere where food prices are low enough to make the math check out, so, like, not Nunavut”, but then I did some checking and…none of the grocery stores in Iqaluit seem to have online catalogues, but there’s a Real Canadian Superstore branch in Whitehorse, Yukon and it claims to be selling Cheez-Its for exactly the same price as the Superstore in Kitchener ($3.39 for one or 2/$5).

(I do kind of wonder if maybe it was too clever for its own good and ignored me asking for Whitehorse data, but OTOH I guess if any food *were* going to be the same price in Yukon it’d be a lightweight non-perishable like crackers. Hmm…okay, a 3L jug of store-brand apple cider is $3.99 in Kitchener and $7 in Whitehorse, so it looks like this is real price data. (Although I was honestly expecting the apple-cider prices in Yukon to be even worse.))

Maybe the main issue is *how many* grocery chains are in your area: the more options you have, the more likely one of them has a good sale on a given week. And since the receipt has to be from a (fairly long, but still) whitelist of specific chains to count, looks like the folks in Iqaluit are out of luck no matter how good a Cheez-It price they get.

#fun fact: I did the math after seeing a discussion of U.S. food stamps recently, #and in 2022 we spent USD$6.16/person/day on food + soda, #(I normally categorise soda under “recreational drugs – caffeine” rather than “groceries”, #~~in order to (not-so-)subtly express my disapproval~~, #but it does in fact contain sustenance), #((it’s USD$6.02 without the soda‚ and yes these two figures *do* count restaurant spending)), #apparently this is substantially less than a food-stamp budget, #but it requires more ability to exploit-sales-to-maintain-stockpiles than someone living paycheque-to-paycheque would have, #some fortnights I spend $350 at the grocery store and others I spend $100: depends on what’s cheap enough to resupply on this week, #(and how many loyalty points I had piled up from previous trips), #(I got over $800 of loyalty points last year‚ which I treat as a discount), #I still feel like we have a lot of room for improvement in our food spending, #(indeed‚ I’ve *made* improvements since 2022: things are shaping up to be cheaper this year), #((and not entirely because I’ve been getting more food as ~gifts‚ though that is also happening)), #but Vimes Boot Theory is nevertheless a hell of a thing, #as are the plans of a sublimated accountant

I *am* wondering now if Brother is obtaining a larger fraction of his own food than I’d realised. But even if 0% of my food spending were for him (*definitely* not true), that would still only be USD$8.21.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #oh look an update #food #fun with loopholes #is the blue I see the same as the blue you see #adventures in human capitalism #our home and cherished land

~ Brin ~ 2 Comments

{{previous post in sequence}}

bibliolithid:

brin-bellway:

brin_bellway | Extreme couponing

If we get everyone in on this we can cost them several million dollars!

#possibly hundreds of millions of dollars? Depending on who is eligible #assuming they have hundreds of millions of cheeze-its to sell

“Adult Canadian residents”, give or take, so maybe tens of millions of dollars.

I was going to say “and you have to live somewhere where food prices are low enough to make the math check out, so, like, not Nunavut”, but then I did some checking and…none of the grocery stores in Iqaluit seem to have online catalogues, but there’s a Real Canadian Superstore branch in Whitehorse, Yukon and it claims to be selling Cheez-Its for exactly the same price as the Superstore in Kitchener ($3.39 for one or 2/$5).

(I do kind of wonder if maybe it was too clever for its own good and ignored me asking for Whitehorse data, but OTOH I guess if any food *were* going to be the same price in Yukon it’d be a lightweight non-perishable like crackers. Hmm…okay, a 3L jug of store-brand apple cider is $3.99 in Kitchener and $7 in Whitehorse, so it looks like this is real price data. (Although I was honestly expecting the apple-cider prices in Yukon to be even worse.))

Maybe the main issue is *how many* grocery chains are in your area: the more options you have, the more likely one of them has a good sale on a given week. And since the receipt has to be from a (fairly long, but still) whitelist of specific chains to count, looks like the folks in Iqaluit are out of luck no matter how good a Cheez-It price they get.

Tags:

#reply via reblog #food #adventures in human capitalism #fun with loopholes #our home and cherished land #tag rambles #fun fact: I did the math after seeing a discussion of U.S. food stamps recently #and in 2022 we spent USD$6.16/person/day on food + soda #(I normally categorise soda under ”recreational drugs – caffeine” rather than ”groceries” #~~in order to (not-so-)subtly express my disapproval~~ #but it does in fact contain sustenance) #((it’s USD$6.02 without the soda‚ and yes these two figures *do* count restaurant spending)) #apparently this is substantially less than a food-stamp budget #but it requires more ability to exploit-sales-to-maintain-stockpiles than someone living paycheque-to-paycheque would have #some fortnights I spend $350 at the grocery store and others I spend $100: depends on what’s cheap enough to resupply on this week #(and how many loyalty points I had piled up from previous trips) #(I got over $800 of loyalty points last year‚ which I treat as a discount) #I still feel like we have a lot of room for improvement in our food spending #(indeed‚ I’ve *made* improvements since 2022: things are shaping up to be cheaper this year) #((and not entirely because I’ve been getting more food as ~gifts‚ though that is also happening)) #but Vimes Boot Theory is nevertheless a hell of a thing #as are the plans of a sublimated accountant

{{next post in sequence}}

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

shieldfoss:

c3101ef5f3bb5f0f7d404cbcbd0f2accf2f2d97c

​

fnord888:

Thought 1: Hey, yeah, cool.

Thought 2: Wait, do they use more electricity than the rendering the same scene without a lamp? Is it just the background effort of the having the computer on, not the lamp itself? Hmm.

Thought 3: Calculating real-time lighting is one of the computationally expensive parts of modern video games, and power draw goes up with computational load, so adding a lamp to a scene plausibly does make rendering that scene use more electricity. So, yeah, cool.

​

shieldfoss:

Even with the cheapest simplest light model: A lighter room draws a white, rather than black, screen – achieved with more electricity.

​

eggman-is-fat-mkay:

Only if you’re using an OLED or one of those fancy multizone LCD panels that are actually more trouble than they’re worth. OLED screens work by starting from black and adding light you do want. LCD screens work by starting out with a bright white screen and filtering out all the light you don’t. They’re not perfect at this which is why OLED screens get deeper blacks. Fun fact! This is also how those cool “snowblind” PC cases work – they’re just LCD screens without a backlight.

Your average run-of-the-mill LCD will use exactly as much power displaying a plain white screen as a black one.

Also, barely tangentially related, but I just want to share a fun fact. You know those blinking nametag keychains they sell in gift shops?

6303e63f4502d81f1c959e5bcd4bfd7b5b30be9e

these?

they’re actually LCD screens with a single massive segment! the name is actually a printed page behind the LCD panel, which applies power to turn the LCD cell opaque and make it black. that’s why if you cover the solar cell on the top with your finger, the name stays showing and gets dimmer, and doesn’t completely disappear unless it has power.

If your desktop’s LCD screen works the way these do (some draw power on white, some on black), a plain black screen may in fact draw infinitesimally more power.

​

shieldfoss:

HUH

Tags:

#fun with loopholes #the more you know #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

sigmaleph:

philosophically i’m against abusing the drawbacks systems in rpgs by looking for drawbacks that don’t actually impair you but the temptation is so strong sometimes. yeah my character is anosmic and ageusic. yeah this is enough to buy me a +4 to every social interaction roll.

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #games #fun with loopholes #this probably deserves some warning tag but I am not sure what #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

three-magpies-in-a-trenchcoat:

cosmicretreat:

a7eb3a29528dfe8f83314ef2997b8625f3904251

[image id: a screenshot of a tweet by @ renolunio that reads: whoever designed the arabic 7 up logo is the smartest person alive. the red circle is just the english word for seven spelled phonetically and the 7 is the word up ( اپ )they managed to keep the logo’s silhouette while making it read right to left.

Beneath the tweet is an image of an Arabic 7 up can. End id]

Tags:

#language #fun with loopholes #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

max1461:

clusterduck28:

hanavesinauttija:

7a9f2afa9ae3193e528122d051e185babd962c83

So how is one supposed to say this expression out loud? Like not just going EeEEeeEEEeee but in proper mathematical terms? Say if a mathematician was tasked with communicating this whole thing to another mathematician verbally (over a phone line for example) how would they do it?

“The integral from minus e to the e to e to the e of the integral from minus e to the e to e to the e of e to the e sub e times e sub e to the e minus e times e to the minus e sub e e to the e plus e over e minus e sub e times e to the e minus e times e sub e all times e to the minus e sub e, d e sub e e d e sub e” is how I would say it, with intonation clarifying most of the bracketing.

Tags:

#reading that meme feels like riding a rollercoaster #math #fun with loopholes #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once

~ Brin ~ Leave a comment

riflebrass:

eraserdude6226:

{{ https://va.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_rw3576HSHm1uo7oqq.mp4 }}

Just putting this out there to let people know to watch what they post because you can be found and if you think that the government can’t do this …

Well, you better think again!!

Reminder that in 2017 4chan played capture the flag with Shia LaBeouf. Without any kind of a retail store to use for landmarks they got a rough estimate of the flags location from a livestream. They used the position of the sun to narrow it down to a specific time zone, they tracked the flight paths of planes seen flying overhead to further narrow it down. Then someone in the area drove around honking his horn while viewers on the livestream told him if he was getting closer until he found and stole the flag.

Tags:

#anything that makes me laugh this much deserves a reblog #(the hacking montage) #fun with loopholes #fun with Google Maps #(mostly fun with OpenStreetMap) #(but it was already a tag) #stalking cw #this post was queued because my to-reblog list is too long and I didn’t want to dump it on you all at once