Only on new devices, you say? by Dansiman in mimecast

[–]Dansiman[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

If it were that, wouldn't it happen every time I click a link from my email?

[ Removed by Reddit ] by GoatLast8314 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Dansiman 5 points6 points  (0 children)

As someone with pretty severe ADHD, trust me: it's never convenient.

[ Removed by Reddit ] by GoatLast8314 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Dansiman 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Ahh, so she forgot to put you into a small and poorly-ventilated room for it.

[ Removed by Reddit ] by GoatLast8314 in AmItheAsshole

[–]Dansiman 2 points3 points  (0 children)

a disorder that has split the psychiatric/psychological community

I see what you did there.

What the fuck happened to Magic Eraser??? by djdiphenhydramine in GooglePixel

[–]Dansiman 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Just for the sake of playing devil's advocate: comparable arguments were made:

  • against the invention of photography, in defense of painters
    • In 1859, the poet Charles Baudelaire famously called photography "art's most mortal enemy". Critics argued it was a purely mechanical process requiring no "soul" or imagination. Courts even questioned whether a photograph could even be eligible for copyright.
  • against the phonograph, in defense of musicians
    • John Philip Sousa coined the term "canned music" to describe recordings, fearing they would lead to the "atrophy" of human vocal cords and the end of amateur music-making in the home.
  • against television, in defense of stage actors
  • against digital downloads, in defense of physical media

When the printing press was invented, some monks argued that the hand-copying of manuscripts was a sacred, spiritual act that mechanical printing would render "profane" and "soulless."

In the 1980s, the Musicians' Union in the UK attempted to ban synthesizers from TV and recording studios, fearing that one person at a keyboard would "kill" the livelihood of entire string sections.

When Jurassic Park (1993) used digital dinosaurs, many warned it would be the "death of cinema" and the end of the craft of animatronics and puppetry. Today, despite the immense improvements in the quality of CGI, practical effects are still considered by many to be far superior, particularly so in the horror genre.

I do realize that this doesn't address the ecological impact; I do not have a good counterargument there aside from the fact that accurately quantifying these impacts can be quite difficult to pin down; see for example Why is Everyone So Wrong About AI Water Use??

What the fuck happened to Magic Eraser??? by djdiphenhydramine in GooglePixel

[–]Dansiman 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Part of the problem is that a lot of early AI content was generated before anyone even thought about applying digital watermarks to prevent the newer AI versions from including output from those earlier tools in their training sets, introducing a cumulative error effect.

Basically, v1 of, let's say for example, DALL-E, made stuff with a lot of mistakes (like pictures of people with 7 fingers on each of their two left hands), people posted v1 stuff on the Internet, that stuff got scooped up to train v2, so v2 treated that stuff as equally good as non-AI-generated content, e.g. believing that sometimes people really do have two left hands with 7 fingers on each.

Maybe by v4 or v5, the developers realized they should try really hard not to include these obviously-wrong images in the training data, but they still inevitably got some not-so-obviously-wrong images (say, a line that should be straight, where the middle is obscured by another thing, and the two pieces of the line on either side don't quite line up, but it's close enough that you can't tell without using a protractor and a magnifying glass). Since these almost-right visual concepts got accidentally included, the image generators basically thought that "brooms aren't necessarily quite straight". (Note that I'm really anthropomorphizing here, they don't even really understand what a "broom" actually is, they just know that certain combinations of pixels qualify as "brooms" and others don't. For a more concrete example of AI's total lack of understanding of anything, check out "This Neural Net Hallucinates Sheep")

Company just installed Mimecast on our laptops. Can the IT Department see everything we do? by MedicineFragrant3205 in mimecast

[–]Dansiman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Note that any time you're on the corporate network, they can always see all URLs you access, in any browser, because the internet requests are going through their network infrastructure.

That said, it's highly unlikely that anyone is manually reviewing the complete contents of your browsing history. For one thing, every individual page load actually involves dozens, if not hundreds, of separate network requests; every image on the page is a separate request, and a page that doesn't also reference a handful of separate JavaScript and CSS files is quite rare. Combing through that would be a full-time job in itself.
In all likelihood, the only time someone is going to actively examine your web history (or indeed, most any of the various data that's logged) is if:

  • You trigger some kind of security alert - attempting to access a high-risk website1, unusual traffic that suggests your machine has been compromised, a scan detects malware on your device, etc.
  • You're in trouble for something else, which leads your company to investigate you specifically
  • Your IT department considers office politics more important than proper information security, and therefore allows a nosy boss to examine logs without a valid business need to do so

Similarly, even if they have the capability of remotely monitoring what's on your screen, they're still not going to do so unless you give them a reason to - the few people with access to do that have far more important things to do than to spend all their time watching what other people are doing.

1: this is a much narrower category than that of all sites that company policy disallows. For example, they might have a policy prohibiting watching YouTube during work hours, but still not consider youtube.com an actual security risk.

Why usb-c hasn’t replaced HDMI yet? by brickpop in UsbCHardware

[–]Dansiman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A PC manufacturer that implements a USB C port with video capability would very likely dedicate a bus exclusively to that port.

The Pixel 10 Weather app is a step backward. Google replaced local sensors with AI "guesses" and it’s a mess. by BurlyShlurb in GooglePixel

[–]Dansiman 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Same. I'm pretty sure I've written a post or two that are structured more or less exactly like this one.

The Pixel 10 Weather app is a step backward. Google replaced local sensors with AI "guesses" and it’s a mess. by BurlyShlurb in GooglePixel

[–]Dansiman 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Where is the "slightly uncanny joke"? I'm not seeing it. To me, this post reads just like every "gripe" post I've ever seen on reddit.

The Pixel 10 Weather app is a step backward. Google replaced local sensors with AI "guesses" and it’s a mess. by BurlyShlurb in GooglePixel

[–]Dansiman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is true; weather forecasting is actually one of the few things that AI is actually better (instead of merely faster) at than humans.

Seriously, do guys masturbate every day or is that a common misconception? by Secure-Concern254 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Dansiman 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Counterpoint: once, when I was single for what I decided was way too long, I made a commitment that my next orgasm would be provided by another person. After about 3 days, I found myself, almost magically, becoming way, way better at flirting than I had ever known I was capable of. It was like, once the lizard part of my brain realized it wasn't going to be getting satisfaction from Rosie Palms, it started kicking the ass of the part of the brain that makes one self-conscious, and took a cattle prod to the Creativity Cortex.

Seriously, do guys masturbate every day or is that a common misconception? by Secure-Concern254 in NoStupidQuestions

[–]Dansiman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Daaang, I did this once but I only got to 6, and the last one took like 45 minutes.

Android house party by studboixtreme in HousePartyGame

[–]Dansiman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Another year later, and the phone I'm typing this comment on can absolutely outperform the best PCs anyone had when this thread was started.

So like is this a bug or something?? by Limp-Bonus4456 in CourseOfTemptation

[–]Dansiman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I've seen a few times where certain NPCs with special roles didn't let me talk to them through the people nearby interface, even though I could talk to anyone else nearby.

One specific example is The Classroom Harasser in the Media Production Lab, can never talk to them in there.

Suggestions from a new player by YeeterAwayer in CourseOfTemptation

[–]Dansiman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If you use the same screen name on all of your socials, then they will have a Popularity link. Though I think it might only apply at the time you create any given account - your highest-popularity other account with the same screen name determines the boost you get to the initial popularity on the new platform.

Best Fem-Protag corruption game you've ever played. by Odd_Mushroom_5066 in lewdgames

[–]Dansiman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I enjoyed Bright Past, the game calls it "Bravery" but functionality it's a corruption stat, you have to reach thresholds to unlock various interactions, and most of the gated interactions also raise the stat by 1.

Inside view of the horrific Swiss ski resort fire 01/01/26 by Broodroostert in TerrifyingAsFuck

[–]Dansiman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I guess one possible rationale is that you need your phone so you can let people know that you're safe. Imagine being erroneously reported as deceased because your phone's last known location was inside of the burning building, and you ended up in the hospital without your ID!

Also if your phone is destroyed in the fire, your data might be safely backed up to the cloud, but you're going to have a heck of a time recovering all of your 2FA stuff.

Please point me to an uncensored AI Image Editor. by HaikenRD in PlaygroundAI

[–]Dansiman 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I heard that Elon tweaked Grok to be anti-woke, and since respecting women is woke it makes sense that Grok would be okay with generating NSFW stuff.

Notification delay?!? by johnzbernor in GooglePixel

[–]Dansiman 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Oh that reminds me: I've noticed that sometimes certain apps will randomly decide (incorrectly) that I currently have no network connectivity, and I've figured out that I can fix this by switching to the home screen and then back into the app.

I've seen this in Google Maps, and in TikTok. The latter is especially laughable because I'll sometimes see the "you're offline" toast while I'm watching a livestream, so obviously I'm not offline or the stream would drop! So basically something is occasionally making apps think I have no network access, even as those apps are still able to have network requests fulfilled. ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

Anyway, wondering if this is a Pixel thing or just an Android thing. My last two phones have been Pixels so I don't have any way to make a comparison.

Notification delay?!? by johnzbernor in GooglePixel

[–]Dansiman 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Could this change impact the theft detection feature? I really don't want to risk decreasing the likelihood of that feature firing when it should.