simplenomad, 2 days ago to random

In case you were wondering, I flipped off Kid Rock while out getting takeout. Or at least his tour bus, as it turned to head up to the stadium near my house. Don’t worry right wingers, I also flipped off Taylor Swift heading to the same stadium on her last tour so I spread the angst around.

I really need to pay attention to the stadium schedule to avoid getting pissed off by sports teams, musical acts, and whatever the fuck that idiot Kid Rock is.

simplenomad, 3 days ago to tea

That thing, where it is early in the morning, you've fixed your breakfast of a single packet of instant oatmeal and dry wheat toast, you've added the boiling water to the oatmeal, poured a mug of water with Earl Grey to steep, you eat the toast to allow the hot water in the oatmeal to expand a bit, you start eating the oatmeal, and then BAM. You didn't stir the oatmeal enough so halfway through you get all of the sugar added to the packet in one bite and your world is UPSIDE DOWN.

That will wake you up much quicker than the Earl Grey could ever hope for.

#FirstWorldProblems #EarlGrey #tea

pluralistic, 4 days ago to ai

The big news in search this week is that Google is continuing its transition to "AI search" - instead of typing in search terms and getting links to websites, you'll ask Google a question and an AI will compose an answer based on things it finds on the web:

https://blog.google/products/search/generative-ai-google-search-may-2024/

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/15/they-trust-me-dumb-fucks/#ai-search

1/

simplenomad, 6 days ago to infosec

I recently deployed Wireguard, and have a blog post about it. It's more of a "real world" blog post than instructional, but I do enclose details about what I did and how I did it.

https://www.markloveless.net/blog/2024/5/14/installing-wireguard

#infosec #HackerLife #hacker #security #OldManYellsAtCloudflare

simplenomad, 7 days ago to random

Outside of GPS on certain tractors that impacted farming (at least here in North American), were there other #auroraborealis impacts to our technological world? Other than the slightly increased load to social media involving #aurora posts? Curious...

https://www.404media.co/solar-storm-knocks-out-tractor-gps-systems-during-peak-planting-season/

simplenomad, 9 days ago to random

No pics of a rare (for this region) aurora light display due to clouds. And a long day, so I’m tired and not going to wait and hope for a break in the cloud cover….

simplenomad, 12 days ago to random

Every once in a while you realize how weird the Internet is in an unusual way. For my blog site I got a report showing the most popular page landings based upon search terms. Last month the number one blog post was a review I did of my HP Dev One. In the blog post I had a picture of the inside captioned "nerd porn". The popular search term that generated all those hits was "porn hp" aka HP Porn. Let me just say if you're a Harry Potter fan in a weird way, feel free to search for that term.

The blog post in question for the curious: https://www.markloveless.net/blog/2023/3/10/my-hp-dev-one

#nerdporn #HPDevOne

simplenomad, 14 days ago to random

My main use for Amazon is to find products. Once I've found what I want, I look up the seller directly and see if I can get them some other way - usually simply getting it direct from them. It is usually about the same price but as they are not giving a chunk of it to Amazon they are making more money. Yes, I rarely get free shipping or whatever, but it helps support what it often a small business. I encourage all of you to do the same.

#StickItToTheMan #SupportSmallBusiness

simplenomad, 15 days ago to ubuntu

Here's your every 24th month reminder that do-release-upgrade will not work until the .1 LTS release is out.

#ubuntu #linux #LTS

simplenomad, 17 days ago to solar

Two things I want from a cloudy day when it comes to my solar panels and various batteries I want them charging - the house batteries get charged, and the EV gets charged. The latter has happened today, the former should be there with an hour or two. This is important during storm season here in Texas. Since the EV is fine for several days, I'll leave it unplugged for a few days so I can prioritize the house batteries with any excess being sold back to the grid.

#solar #FirstWorldProblems #RaSunGod #OldManYellsAtCloudsLiterally

simplenomad, 18 days ago to random

Yes I am mature. Why do you ask?

mattferrell, 19 days ago to solar

Latest follow-up podcast is out! YouTube: https://youtu.be/m0GfWX5sT4o Audio version: https://share.transistor.fm/s/ce9cce2d Sean and I talk about whether or not the distrust in sustainable tech, like home solar panels, is based on fact or fiction.

#Solar #StillTBD #Undecided

simplenomad, 24 days ago to tea

I might have enough tea to get me through the morning.

#tea #SecuriTea #Friday

simplenomad, 24 days ago to infosec

I sort of have opinions about TikTok and the ban, but not like everyone else...

https://www.markloveless.net/blog/2024/4/25/the-tiktok-implications

#infosec #apt #TinFoilHat #privacy

simplenomad, 24 days ago to random

Across the street from the car dealership where I’m currently at is this fine establishment.

simplenomad, 25 days ago to infosec

Question for #infosec fam and friends. I am looking at replacing my old Sony "smart" TV with something less "phone home" and less broken from a software standpoint. Something that doesn't require its own VLAN and is the number one blocked device by PiHole in the house. I'm considering something using Linux, something using a Mac, or an Apple TV+ (for ease-of-use interface). Any thoughts, advice, or "if I could do it over" stories are welcome.

As an FYI, the old television's app system is increasingly buggy, especially after upgrades to the Android OS and/or individual streaming apps, to the point of madness.

#smarthome #smarttv #television #streaming #security

simplenomad, 26 days ago to tech

If you're looking for a way to irritate other #nerds, particularly #tech nerds, just say "What's the big deal about Al? Always in the headlines, who's Al anyway?" And don't say #AI as in "ai" say Al like "Al Capone".

mattferrell, 27 days ago to solar

Did I get ripped off and scammed with my solar?

Check out our video on it, here: https://youtu.be/BD7aCkLwR7U

Or check out the page on our website, here: https://undecidedmf.com/top-5-reasons-were-getting-ripped-off-with-solar-or-are-we/

#Solar #Undecidedmf

simplenomad, 27 days ago to ghost

When I first heard #Ghost was working on integrating with #ActivityPub I naturally assumed it was the band Ghost. Just me? Still cool news.

https://activitypub.ghost.org/

simplenomad, 29 days ago to SmartHome

After over 11cm (about 4.34 inches) of rain yesterday, area flooding in lower parts of the city, causing a few isolated and hard-to-repair-quickly power outages to small pockets of residents and businesses. There were a few "glitches" as power was re-routed to help restore things. Long story short, three power outages since yesterday afternoon, two of them overnight, and I only know this because my #smarthome told me so via alerts. Fortunately with the batteries only the non-critical-load circuits were down briefly. Weird seeing all the neighbors' lights go off on the outside cameras, then come back on.

So glad to have #solar and #batteries to keep things up and op as the #weather gets increasingly intense each season.

#solarpunk #climate

simplenomad, 29 days ago to random

In case you were wondering, FISA was a response to various federal agencies violating the privacy of citizens during the Nixon administration, and signed into law by Carter. After 9/11, Bush administration modified it. It’s a mess IMNSHO. Various agencies and administrations have found ways to repeatedly abuse it, I suspect this will continue to be the case.

https://mastodon.social/

simplenomad, 29 days ago to random

The good news about AI is the attention to its potential, which BTW has been there for years if not really decades. The bad news is that everyone assumes the LLM approach is the universal way to go. LLMs can serve a purpose in specific use cases quite well but certainly in not all the ways the people hyping it are.

I think once we get back to specific models for specific tasks, like we were doing previously before LLMs came along and began being “startup funded”, we will truly start seeing the real benefits.

And yes, we’ve all been using those limited AI/ML setups in tech for ages, we should just set up better models for those use cases and things could get REALLY cool.

simplenomad, 1 month ago to Dog

"It stopped raining!"

Thunderstorms and in general just constant rain for today, but in the middle of morning yoga there was a short window for the rain-averse #dog to get in short walk. We got about a 1/4 mile in, not much but enough to motivate a ceremonial dump on a neighbor's lawn that I bagged up (and no, dark-humored smartass, it was a dog dump not a people one).

For the #weather nerds, nothing of note from this area in Texas, mainly just rain.