mctoasterson

joined 2 years ago
[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 9 points 1 day ago

A criminal could buy an Ender3 or other extremely ubiquitous, non-internet-connected printer. Maybe used, in cash, on various marketplaces.

Filament can be bought in cash as well from a bunch of retailers and the leftover stock (evidence) easily disposed by dumping or burning/melting after the "suspect objects" are created.

Furthermore, nozzles are like $1 apiece in some cases. Printbed replacements or sheets of glass (also often used as printbed surfaces) are like $20 and can be changed often and easily. Changing these two components completely invalidates the "match" of the toolmarks.

This type of forensics is only practical if the target suspect is dumb enough to use the same settings for everything, never change a nozzle or bed, keep all his empty filament spools and receipts, pay for everything with credit cards in his name, and have a bunch of cloud-saved bambu-sliced files called "super illegal weaponry.gcode" associated with his printer.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 5 points 5 days ago (3 children)

My regular Pixel 7 (not 7a) has a swelled battery and I can see the screen starting to separate from the rest of the case.

The phone would be otherwise still fine despite being 2 years old. I'm sure even if it was covered, Google would find some way to not repair it under the program because it is a carrier unlocked model running GrapheneOS.

I would opt for third party repair but the place I used for this exact problem before (replacing swollen battery on a Samsung phone) was a little sketchy and when I got it back, there was evidence they tried to rifle through my device.

Aside from taking this to Rossman himself, I'm wondering if there are any other reputable 3rd party repair options.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 3 points 6 days ago

I would assume this makes sense for adding extra storage to small form factor type of builds. I would be curious about the operating temps though and how that could negatively impact the drives lifespan.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 14 points 1 week ago (2 children)

As it stands, any company of reasonable size has its CEO comms ghostwritten by mid level marketing people or personal admins to the CEO. So statistically that means most of their written messaging is from a 27-year-old white chick with a either a comms, PR, or PoliSci degree who made $71K last year.

So in effect you could have AI churn out the same generic corporate platitudes for the CEO email, and that marketing chick can go back to whatever her actual job duties are supposed to be?

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 203 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (11 children)

For those who haven't been paying attention, it appears Amazon is trying to "disrupt" the grocery market. Anecdotally they have been selling shit for crazy low prices and they'll make like 30 separate trips to your house all on the same day with lined/insulated packing for the perishable items and frozen water bottles (no extra charge to the customer) in each bag to keep the food cool in transit.

It seems like there is no way they can be making money on this process, which tells me they are speedrunning Walmarts strategy of operating at a loss to force other grocers out of the market.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 1 points 2 weeks ago

Sure, although it requires a special kind of dedicated cynicism to not realize that technological capture of human capital with previously heinous associations, diverted toward inarguably more important scientific pursuits such as space exploration, is a net gain.

The US already had weaponized just about every other technology it had a reasonable grasp on, and had even used nukes by the end of WWII. So collaborating with former Nazis to develop peacetime rocketry for space exploration is pretty mild by comparison.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 2 points 2 weeks ago

My understanding is that, in broad strokes...

  1. Aurora acts like a proxy or mirror that doesn't require you to sign in to get Google Play Store apps. It doesn't provide any other software besides what you specifically download from it, and it doesn't include any telemetry/tracking like normal Google Play Store would.

  2. microG is a reimplementation of Google Play services (the suite of proprietary background services that Google runs on normal Android phones). MicroG doesn't have the bloat and tracking and other closed source functionality, but rather acts as a stand-in that other apps can talk to (when they'd normally be talking to Google Play services). This has to be installed and configured and I would refer to the microG github or other documentation.

  3. GrapheneOS has its own sandboxed Google Play Services which is basically unmodified Google Play Services, crammed into its own sandbox with no special permissions, and a compatibility layer that retains some functionality while keeping it from being able to access app data with high level permissions like it would normally do on a vanilla Android phone.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 42 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

Yeah we just need to proliferate wild guinea hens and other tick predators to knock their populations down. I'd rather the entire eastern US look like Kauai (random feral poultry) than have ticks take over.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 8 points 3 weeks ago (3 children)

If you want you can install Pixel Camera (official Google camera) from Aurora Store, and deny it Network permissions and any other permissions you want. It still works pretty well for point and shoot but I can't speak for every single feature. Also you can install simulated services that the Gcam requires to function, without having to run Play Services.

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 84 points 4 weeks ago (9 children)

To be fair, this federal program was a cluster eff since they started it in about 2010. It passed a bunch of grant money through to the states, which all did different "things" with it. Most held semi-public meetings and planning sessions for 5-10 years or wrote detailed planning documents but never delivered any physical infrastructure (actual results to the residents).

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 16 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

This is just another way of describing inflationary pressures, isn't it?

Many people I know may be "millionaires" by certain ways of calculating net worth, but it takes a lot more than $1M in assets to afford a lifestyle commensurate to what people envision when they hear the word "millionaire"...

[–] mctoasterson@reddthat.com 44 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

Maybe if they allow API access for alternative frontends that eliminate ads and block telemetry. Otherwise, not interested.

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