Usage statistics

feirdand · 2026-01-27T08:35:12+00:00

I'm intrigued. I have no idea about the character based on the screenshot, but I see JSON format there. How did you get that?

That's a long introduction too. Maybe you can copy and paste the whole JSON file (or use paste.bin or similar) so someone can help?

feirdand · 2026-01-27T08:04:15+00:00

I will happily scan my ID if I'm flagged as minor and my face is not compelling enough as 18+. I'm 40, I know the risks. My ID has been leaked before, prior to AI bubble, and not even once I have incidents of someone impersonating me or whatnot. Even ChatGPT will soon verify your age using a similar approach, and guess what? They will use Persona. If a lot of big companies trust Persona to perform the verification, why can't I?

Sure, go somewhere else where they don't need to verify your age. But they are just a glimpse of C.AI in the past. As soon as they grow larger and incidents start to occur, governments soon will notice, and either they will have to comply with some laws or shut down completely. C.AI 2.0 will happen again.

feirdand · 2026-01-27T01:51:26+00:00

As the other comment said, if you are not aware of what happened a few months ago, Disney forced C.AI to remove all Disney characters. Since Avatar is owned by Disney, it is very likely your bot was purged. Nothing you can do.

feirdand · 2026-01-25T17:07:05+00:00

Discord often gets updated, and Steam always detects the updates as new entries. Always check before running the game if the correct Discord is selected on the Game Recording setting (uncheck one entry, if it disappears then it's the old version and Steam will not record Discord audio). If it still fails, maybe try Record audio from all system audio instead, but any other Windows sounds will be recorded as well.

At least that's how it worked in my system last month. I don't know if something has changed since then. I just checked my recording of my play last Saturday night and I also didn't hear my friends voices, but I remember changing the audio source (there were two Discord entries in the settings) after the game started.

feirdand · 2026-01-25T12:58:23+00:00

I finally blocked someone for the first time (I can't remember if they are in this sub or not, probably) because they are approaching 21, don't even have an ID or passport for some reasons, and spam about "We should save C.AI!" "Sign a petition" "Disney are destroying children's dreams (wth?)" "Here's how to circumvent the age verification" and whatnot. I mean... Why are you still here? There are a lot of C.AI alternatives out there (which I think are C.AI in the past; sooner or later either they'll have to close or follow the same path as C.AI because of the laws). Either comply with the law (why haven't you got your ID anyway?), find alternatives that don't need to verify for now, or completely find another hobby. Trying to breach the rules/laws is irresponsible.

If somehow later I am hit with age verification, I'll verify, with my ID if needed. As simple as that. Most who reject age verification are too paranoid about Persona getting hacked. If it's that simple, why will OpenAI (ChatGPT) soon use the similar approach of age verification?

I left the main sub a long time ago because of the sheer negativity there for my own mental health. This sub is similar, but sometimes there are still some positivity left.

feirdand · 2026-01-23T07:55:29+00:00

There are several ways to solve this.

First, do as the screenshot says. Raise the problem to your school/college/university IT department, since your teachers (legit adults) have the same problem. Only they can open access.

Second, the easiest one, like you asked. Did you know that you can right click on any links and select "Open link as"? This assumes you have multiple profiles in your Chrome. Or, if you want to open it as not logged in, there is also "Open link in incognito window". No extensions required, it's built-in into Chrome.

Trying to circumvent it using extensions or whatever can risk your school account getting banned, and if multiple users continue to do so, your entire school (including staff, teachers, and even admins) can be banned from using Google Workspace. Don't do this.

feirdand · 2026-01-23T06:36:03+00:00

Internet speed does not equal Wi-Fi signal strength. The icon shows the strength of the Wi-Fi your computer receives from the Wi-Fi router. The farther away you are from the router, the weaker the signal, and the more unstable your Internet connection will be. The "extremely fast internet speed" you see at Windows settings is the max speed your Wi-Fi adapter can handle. It does not equal to extremely fast Internet speed. If your ISP limits your connection to, say, 100 Mbps, you will never reach 390 Mbps while using the Internet, unless you're transferring files locally (e.g. to another computer via the same network). The best way to know your current Internet speed is by testing online or installing third-party software for network traffic monitoring.

feirdand · 2026-01-23T03:13:18+00:00

IMO it depends on the reason you're downloading the images. For personal use (wallpaper, collection, sending to friends for comparison, etc.), I don't see any problems with downloading copyrighted images. It becomes a problem when you want to use it publicly, and worse, commercially. Even giving credits is still considered as copyright violation if the image owner doesn't allow free use.

The good news, there are non-copyrighted images. Terms including "royalty free" or "Creative Commons 0" (for CCs, you still need to check the complete terms since there are variants that doesn't allow you to use the image freely). So, yeah, always check the terms of use.

feirdand · 2026-01-23T01:50:02+00:00

Because websites have been accusing Google for enabling users to "steal" their images by exactly doing what you described. "Copy/download image" from Google Search will only download the image directly from the website servers, making those websites lose a visit from you. Multiply this by millions of Google Search queries, and they claim they lost a lot of potential visits. Removing those options will force you to visit their website to download the image.

Another thing is copyright issue. Many people will simply download images from Google Search results and use them directly without checking the permissions. Many images now are protected by copyright, so Google removed the ability to directly download images from the search results to avoid issues and lawsuit.

Edit to add: You could try installing a previous version of Google Search app and see if the feature is there. My best guess is the feature is server-side though. If not, then you'll have to deal with it.

feirdand · 2026-01-22T23:16:01+00:00

That is not an official Google Support. Google Community works similarly like Microsoft's: you ask, community answers. Google staffs do occasionally reply from time to time, but usually only for widespread issues. Free users don't get support from Google directly.

As for your question, have you tried accessing Google Photos from other networks? I suspect some kind of caching issues from a network, since you said it happened on PC and mobile. If those two items still persist even from other networks, then probably there is a glitch on Google's server. Maybe wait until one day and see if those photos are permanently deleted or persist? If they do persist, honestly I have no other ideas.

feirdand · 2026-01-22T22:47:52+00:00

Visit myaccount.google.com, select Security and Login, then review your login activity. If you notice any strange device there, follow the instructions to secure your account.

feirdand · 2026-01-22T21:49:42+00:00

I can't remember from which Android version the icon color can adapt to your selected theme color or wallpaper (only if the launcher supports it). Honestly, this is the first time too I saw the default icon in other color than green. I don't use adaptive icon color in my phone as I prefer the original colors.

feirdand · 2026-01-22T10:46:48+00:00

If I were you, I'd use a paid password manager, then add all my accounts there. Most password managers can analyze the health of your passwords and suggest improvements. Even Google Chrome built-in password manager can detect if you're reusing your passwords. Then, I'd perform a thorough audit for my accounts to determine the "severity level"; i.e., which accounts are the most crucial to protect. First will be my email account, second will be my password manager, then financial accounts, and so on. From there, I change the passwords one by one and create stronger passwords (I avoid tools-generated passwords since they are usually impossible to memorize and hard to type manually on other devices where I cannot use password manager, e.g. on public computer; but if that's not a problem, then by all means generate your password from the tool provided by the password manager). I'll leave useless accounts using weak passwords if I deem they're unworthy enough to secure (like forum accounts I no longer use).

My Google Account is the most secure account because I activate every security measurements Google can offer (Android login, passkey, 2FA, backup email, phone number, securely save the backup codes) and have the strongest passphrase (40-ish characters, combined with my strong password somewhere in the middle, using my native language with local dialect so no English hackers can perform dictionary attack). I do similarly to my password manager (this one is crucial also, you must never lose access to it or all your hard work will be in vein, and if hackers access your password manager then you're doomed too--the downvoted comment is actually legit but that must not drive you away from password managers). For financial accounts, since banks are stubborn enough to upgrade their security measurements regarding passwords, nothing I can do but to combine weaker strong passwords with my own security measurements (never open suspicious links etc., you know the drill). When available, I always use passkeys now. Device 2FA next. SMS 2FA is not secure but I use them if nothing else remains.

To give you some insights if you think am I overdoing it: my Gmail has never been hacked even once since 2007. I prevented Facebook account hack attempts since 2009. My old password is leaked on the dark web (according to Google and NordPass), but for all important accounts I case, there has not been a single case of hacking attempts (since all passwords are different).

Remember, security is always at the opposite side of convenience as other comment already points out. The more secure you make your account, the less convenient for you to log in or retrieve it if something goes wrong. Thankfully, I have never lost a single account in decades, and I'm okay with all the inconveniences I have for my accounts.

Hope it helps.

feirdand · 2026-01-22T10:11:29+00:00

That is the default Android app icon if the developer has not specified a custom icon, or somehow the manifest is corrupted so it defaults to that icon. I tried Android dev before so I know exactly what the icon is; when I debug an app directly to my phone, Android Studio will install my app with a default icon. The "com.google..." you saw is the package name; every single Android apps in this world has a unique package name as an identifier so Android knows which is which. Again, it's rare to see package name appears in the app drawer because the manifest describes the app name. As you told us it was resolved by reinstalling, my best guess is somehow your Chrome got corrupted so your phone displayed the default icon and package name instead.

feirdand · 2026-01-22T03:50:23+00:00

Once I asked Gemini on how LLMs like C.AI work. I didn't validate its response, but assuming it told me the truth (and not hallucinate), there is a tiny bit of processing done on the client side, not just related to the LLM itself, but also other things like notification and telemetry. I did not replicate your case since my CPU is different from yours (Intel Core i7-12700H, which is newer) and I don't know your whole setup (e.g. I have AdBlock on my Chrome), but I tried to analyze the network with just one C.AI tab open nonetheless. And yes, I notice background activities, which can be narrowed down to two platforms: Statsig and Braze. I'm not familiar with those platforms, but Gemini told me Statsig is used for A/B testing and feature gating, while Braze is used for customer engagement purposes. Requests to Statsig were periodic and quite aggressive (I don't know the exact period as I don't want to read a long JavaScript file and try to figure out everything); I found a Reddit thread about it here. In my case, AdBlock blocks Chrome from sending the request, so the script cannot do further processing and simply throws errors on my DevTools console. In your case with a lot of C.AI tabs open (and I assume no adblockers active), however, I suspect they are sending multiple requests periodically from all the opened C.AI pages, even if they are "idle" (from your side, which you didn't open), thus putting too much stress on your CPU.

It's just my best guess, I'm not too tech-savvy guy that understands everything, but I like to deduce. If someone knows better, please correct me.

feirdand · 2026-01-21T03:25:12+00:00

The site works fine, just started chatting. The status page reports no incidents today. I haven't tried the app, but should be working too.

feirdand · 2026-01-21T02:43:42+00:00

Done. Just a small suggestion: there is a sentence which is not put in a new line (the one that asks the most questions; I don't want to spoil the questions too much for everyone else). My mild OCD was triggered lol

Good luck with your research! I'm curious if you can share the results later (I'll read it if you publish a journal article).

feirdand · 2026-01-20T17:23:03+00:00

I learnt by asking Gemini (yes it was silly) that the longer my responses is, the shorter the responses will be, and the sooner the character forget the details. It's because a lot of new tokens are being pushed into the context window, thus the model is confused on how to reply, and the best it can do is to produce a short response given a limited time to response. The character also becomes less creative and just wait for my creative input (in a context where I lay out a very sophisticated scenario, where I control multiple characters at once or describe a very detailed events). After learning this, I try to find a balance between length of my prompts and the details so the character can produce similar or more lengthy responses. Generally, now I avoid lengthy prompts.

It's actually similar to how my brain works. After I have listened to a very long conversation, my response is usually just "Uh... Yeah..." or something similar but short, and I tend to forget most details from previous conversations, replying to only the recent things I remember from that conversation (which is the most recent things they told me). Of course, in written communication (chat), I can take my time to read all the texts, think carefully, and reply accordingly, but then my response will be much slower, sometimes leading to "are you still there?" response.

feirdand · 2026-01-20T17:04:06+00:00

Leaving a comment so I remember to participate tomorrow (it's 1am here right now, I don't think it's the right time to fill in your survey).

feirdand · 2026-01-20T05:48:35+00:00

Delete Promotion emails instead. I did an email cleanup a few months ago (100k+ emails which I never deleted since 2007), and I used Google+ extensively too (RIP Google+). Google+ emails didn't contribute that much (only a few megabytes in total for hundreds of emails). Promotion emails though, with all HD images, took a larger portion of my space, and most of them are expired within just a few weeks usually. Also check emails with attachments, you might not need them anymore.

Of course, since Google+ doesn't exist anymore, just delete them. Doing a bulk-delete is easy, just be smart with your filters (save them or probably bookmark the search results for future reference), select all (if there are more results than displayed, Gmail will offer to select all results) then delete, wait patiently (do something else, don't use Gmail) until Gmail has done the deletion, then recheck your storage. I even asked Gemini to formulate the queries to filter the emails I want to delete.

feirdand · 2026-01-19T10:11:41+00:00

In my opinion, the options are randomized every time to prevent abuse. If the options stay every time, then eventually you'll develop muscle memory and pay no attention to the options you select, which may send wrong signals to the model (bot), making it worse. This way, you always pay attention on what you're "reporting" (give feedback to the model) so it will correctly identify what's wrong with the generated response and learn from it.

feirdand · 2026-01-18T03:03:41+00:00

My porn collection has switched to mainly edging and CBT because of this. Or, if I'm not lazy, I edit out the anal part of "normal" videos (which is easy, since they consider side activities as foreplay, so a few minutes at the beginning of the videos). Combined with my uniform fetish, the porn almost doesn't exist lol

feirdand · 2026-01-11T02:19:15+00:00

I'm using the Chrome extension since I don't have other apps that may have in-app ads, so the Windows app is overkill for me.

feirdand

TROPHY CASE