I agree. Whenever I get into an argument online, it’s usually with the understanding that it exists for the benefit of the people who may spectate the argument — I’m rarely aiming to change the mind of the person I’m conversing with. Especially when it’s not even a discussion, but a more straightforward calling someone out for something, that’s for the benefit of other people in the comments, because some sentiments cannot go unchanged.

You’re right, that is pretty funny. I didn’t notice until you pointed it out in this comment

You’ve bamboozled my attempt to make the same joke at your expense by only mentioning one number in your comment, giving me nothing to add to it. From this point on, I conclude we should only ever mention one number in each comment, for clarity.

Thanks for sharing that post, it was super interesting.

I wish I could see behind the scenes in the Windows UI discussions, to see how we get to what we have today

It reminds me of the recent Crowdstrike fiasco: apparently kernel level access was needed for their anti-malware to be able to properly work (because that way their net can cover the entire OS basically), but that high level of access meant that when CrowdStrike fucked up with an update, people’s computers were useless. (Disclaimer, I am not a cybersecurity person and am not offering judgement either way on whether Crowdstrike’s claim about kernel level access was bullshit or not)

In a similar way, in order for identity theft monitoring services to work, they surely will need to hold a heckton of data about you. This is fine if they can be trusted to hold that data securely, but otherwise… ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

I share your unease, though I don’t feel able to comment on the correctness of your mindset. Though I will say that on an individual level, keeping an eye on your credit reports in general (from the major credit agencies) will go a long way to helping there (rather than paying for serviced that give you a score and other fancy “features”, you can request either free or v. low cost report which just has the important stuff you need to know.)

I also know that if you want to be extra cautious, you can manually freeze your credit so basically no new lines of credit can be opened in your name. This is most useful for people who have already been a victim of fraud, or they expect to be at risk (such as by shitty family, or a data breach). I don’t know how one sets this up, but I know that if you did want to set up a new line of credit, you can call to unfreeze your credit, and then freeze it again when your application for the new credit is all done. I have a friend who has had this as their default for years now because of shitty family.

I agree that there’s a strong incentive for even entirely self-interested people to cooperate. I was listing altruism as one of many pro-social behaviours, not as a subset or requirement for cooperation

I’d argue that capitalism is unnatural because even if we work from the assumption that resource hoarding is natural, it’s also necessary to take into account the fact that evolutionarily, humans got to where we are via traits like altruism, cooperation and forming communities. Capitalism is far from natural — it’s an insidious subversion of human nature

I had to do it for the first time last year and I was slightly giddy from the novelty of it.

This is an excellent comment, thanks for writing this up

Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I never thought of this before, the parody song practically writes itself

Yeah, I agree with you. I should have elaborated in my comment. I’m not too opposed to Cloudflare (I even use them myself), but I sympathise with people who are concerned about how widely used Cloudflare is and that this risks making them a gatekeeper to the internet. My beef is more of an “all eggs in one basket” one, which feels especially relevant given that the recent (and in many cases, ongoing) Crowdstrike debacle was able to affect so many because of how the way enterprise level software often involves many eggs across not many baskets.

"Members of the Recording Industry Association of Japan had taken legal action in the U.S. to demand information on Hikari No Akari’s operator from California-based Cloudflare, whose content delivery network the site had used. […>

“We’ll use information that Cloudflare will disclose to hold the website operator responsible and take other legal action,” an RIAJ spokesperson said."

Obligatory “Fuck Cloudflare”.

It genuinely makes my skin crawl — reminds me of being nagged for sex from someone who hears “not now” when you mean “no.”

See, that’s what I thought too, but according to the Captchas, I don’t know what a motorcycle is ¯\_ (ツ)_/¯

What really stresses me out is the question of whether a human on a motorcycle becomes part of the motorcycle.

I agree that’s a better article, thanks for sharing

'[The Constable measures the sound level at 91dB, the max that his decibel metre can record]

This level of noise, the CDC writes, can cause hearing damage after two hours of exposure. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration advises that employees can only work in 90-decibel settings for eight hours a day and are required to wear ear protection. And Texas state penal code deems any noise above 85 decibels unreasonable. Over the course of 2024, [the Constable] has recorded a noise above 85 decibels coming from the plant more than 35 times. "

Whilst the health concerns reported are the thing that would make these complaints more serious (if true), this level of noise is also just insanely high from a nuisance perspective, even if the health problems of the town are unrelated.

“Technically there is federal mandate to regulate noise, which stems from the 1972 Noise Control Act—but it was essentially de-funded during the Reagan administration.”

Of course it was. It’s always fucking Reagan (or Thatcher)

You’ve got to be careful with rolling your eyes, because the parallelism of the two eyes means that the eye roll can be twice as powerful ^1

(1) If measured against the silly baseline of a single eyeroll