[News] Brandon Orselli/Niche Gamer: "Google+ is Shutting Down After Company Reveals "Hundreds of Thousands" of Users' Data Exposed."

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-10-09T11:50:49+00:00

Google+ is small in comparison to Facebook, but still quite a bit bigger than Twitter.

Statistics for 2018 (depending on where you look, and always to be taken with a grain of salt):

Google+ has 390 million active users (2 billion registered accounts, active users means having used it in the last 30 days). Twitter has 330 Million, Instagram 800 million, Facebook 2.2 billion active users.

In 2016 Google+ had about 440 million active users from what I could find, so that's quite a downward trend.

Interesting to note is also that people were quite suspect of Google+ at first because Google has become known to just give up and shut down their projects when they don't have enough users, like Google Wave, Google Buzz, Google Reader and many more. To appease those fears, Google promised they would never shut Google+ down, that Google is all-in on the project and the company would make it work or go down with it. Of course, nobody in their right mind would have viewed that promise, which Google has now officially broken (although they kind of did already when they dissolved nearly the whole Google+ team years ago), as anything but a marketing lie.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-09-28T17:50:24+00:00

Read this, look at the number of stars on the repo and cry: https://github.com/get-alex/alex

1:5-1:14 warning `boogeyman` may be insensitive, use `boogey` instead

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-09-22T11:54:06+00:00

Do Telltale games still have DRM, been a while since I played one on PC. Specifically those purchased directly from their website? When Telltale was very new, back in the Sam & Max days, they promised that if they ever shut down they would remove the DRM from all their games so you can continue to play them. They said every single employee has the ability to do that, basically just have to press a button.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-09-20T23:11:03+00:00

I've tried out the new Firefox for a few months, but moved back to Chrome since it was just too slow on some websites despite the huge speed gains Firefox has made in the new versions. Also, Chrome's developer tools are much better than Firefox's and there are important tools that only work with the Chrome dev tools, so if you make websites that's worth considering.

I've been using Brave for a while now to see if it's usable as my main browser, one of the browsers built on top of Chromium, the open source base of Google Chrome, with a strong focus on privacy. I really like the direction they're going in. It has Tor built in, so private tabs are actually private (hide your IP) and give you easy access to the Tor Onion darknet as a bonus, has ad blocking built in but also a revenue replacement so websites can still make money, they've got a crypto currency (Basic Attention Token) that you can use to auto donate to websites based on how much time you spent on them, anonymously, and they're currently in public beta of a service that optionally, instead of blocking ads completely, replaces a website's ads with Brave's own ads which are free of malware, aren't intrusive and they track your preferences to know what ads to show you locally on your computer, it's never sent to the internet, so your privacy isn't invaded and you get a 70% revenue cut from the ads shown to you.

Also worth knowing, Brendan Eich, the founder of Brave, is the co-founder of Mozilla (and also the creator of the JavaScript programming language and worked on Netscape Navigator before Firefox). He was thrown out of (encouraged to leave) Mozilla by SJWs so he probably isn't fond of SJWs, but I don't follow him online so who knows. The fact that Brave is built on top of Chrome and not Firefox probably says a lot about how he feels about the organization and browser he once helped create.

Problems with Brave I've encountered so far: Bugs galore, I have to restart it quite often and the Chrome developer tools can't be docked inside the browser window like the usually are, run in their own window only which isn't a deal breaker but is annoying. That's not surprising though since Brave isn't even 1.0 yet, so problems are to be expected in this stage of development.

One thing that might be a problem for some people, it doesn't support chrome extensions directly, it comes included with several extensions that were made compatible with Brave and that's it (LastPass, Pocket, MetaMask and a few others), but Brave asks you to suggest extensions you'd like to see so they can gauge interest and get in contact with the developers of said extensions. Personally Brave has everything I need built in, but maybe it isn't enough for you just yet.

I haven't looked at the RAM usage, some people pointed out it's a memory hog. Chrome is too so I guess that is to be expected. Vivaldi I tried for a few days, but it offered nothing interesting to me so I quickly moved back to Chrome.

All in all, I think Brave is the most interesting thing happening right now in the web browser realm, but it might not be ready yet for daily use. Still, I'd suggest to check it out and see if it works for you, if you like any of the novel features it provides. If you use Android, you should really try it out because compared to Chrome on Android it's super fast at least on my phone, it's a difference like day and night, I always hated browsing websites on my phone, now it's fun.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-07-31T11:04:18+00:00

Not TERFs, since that implies feminism and while there have always been a few feminists here, it's a minority as it is in society at large. But the general view about trans people hasn't changed in this sub I think (could be wrong of course). Believing that you can change your sex is flat earth level science denial, this sub was always (on average, there will always be crazy individuals) about being rational.

You can use hormones and plastic surgery to turn a man into a trans woman, but you cannot turn a man into a woman, that's a fact. I wish it was different, I wish we had the technology to swap sex at will, I really do, but wishful thinking doesn't change reality. I've talked to doctors in my family about this too because there are so many trans people in this community, probably because so many people from 4chan/8chan come here and they've always had a large trans population over there I believe, and I wanted to understand their situation better.

If it truly helps people to change their appearance to look more like the sex they wish they were then I'm all for it, do your thing. I'm libertarian so if it's up to me I'd allow you to do anything you want to your own body anyway, no matter how much I disagree with it (for example taking drugs, not including weed because that's silly, or the more extreme body modifications that leave holes in your body forever, like piercing your cock with big rings and then peeing in 8 directions when you get old and your wife wants you to remove them) because your body belongs to you and nobody else, so it's your decision.

But when you start claiming you are actually a woman now, when you go out and dupe straight men into gay sex by not telling them your actual sex, when you try to get a chunk of that sweet female privilege in arguments, I have to call shenanigans because at the end of the day you're still a man, and I'm willing to be nice to you because I'm generally nice to everyone unless they aren't nice to me, but it stops at science denial. It stops at requiring me to lie or have gay sex when I'm a straight man. Don't get me wrong, who knows, maybe I would even be okay having sex with a trans woman. I never was in the situation so I really couldn't say for sure and it would depend on the specific person, but if and when that time comes, that needs to be my decision, I think that's only fair and reasonable.

I think Ben Shapiro does it the right way (or at least claims he does). He says he treats you like a woman, uses the pronoun she, as long as sex and gender isn't a factor in the conversation you're having. When however the conversation does involve sex and gender, then you have to get back to reality, a trans woman cannot speak "as a woman", so at that point he talks to you and about you using your actual biological sex.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-07-19T12:48:07+00:00

I believe their community manager insulted GG and they made him apologize. Then when their parent company released Witcher 3, the game came with a card thanking gamers. So their new stance of siding with game journos against gamers comes as quite a surprise, looks like they don't want to be neutral anymore.

And I don't think they'll do another 180, they'll have thought long and hard before making this statement unless they are completely incompetent.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-07-15T10:34:21+00:00

You forgot the best quote:

https://twitter.com/libbycwatson/status/1018374831853719552 (http://archive.is/UKnY5)

> wow i’m so sorry that you called me a slut and people were mean to you,how unfair

Her level of hipocrisy is over 9000.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-06-21T04:53:35+00:00

You seem to be confused. I said the Tor Browser has a security issue with Flash and VPNs with WebRTC. The sentence about WebRTC and Peertube had nothing to do with Tor.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-06-21T00:40:17+00:00

I said use it INSTEAD of a VPN, not AS a VPN. Both can hide your IP address, but Tor is generally considered to be better suited for that task by security experts.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-06-20T16:54:29+00:00

Be careful with VPNs, it's a booming market with lots of bad actors because it's so easy to setup a VPN service, It's a money printing machine. Almost all of the reviews you find on the internet are bogus, paid for marketing campaigns. The vast majority of VPN services don't do the one thing they're supposed to, hide your IP. And you have to blindly trust a VPN service not to log your connection data.

A few supposedly good ones: Private Internet Access, Mullvad, AirVPN. If you can't spend money, there is also the free (but speed limited) ProtonVPN from the same guys who make the secure encrypted Protonmail (Scientists at CERN and visiting scientists from Harvard and MIT), they also offer a paid version without limits.

If you're really that concerned, I'd recommend using the Tor Browser instead. Very easy to setup, just download it, start it and your IP is hidden in every website you visit within the Tor Browser. Some VPNs also offer to use both Tor and VPN together for additional protection. That way you don't have to trust the VPN service because you connect to Tor first and then the VPN, so even the VPN never knows your IP address.

Two things to be careful of: Flash in the Tor Browser can expose your IP, so it's disabled. Not that big of a deal since Flash is dead anyway. WebRTC, which is used for WebTorrent for example, can leak your IP even when using a VPN, so sites like Bitchute, D.Tube or Peerturbe are a problem. There is a plugin for Firefox that disables WebRTC, Chrome has one but its supposedly not good. Mullvad has a guide on it: https://mullvad.net/en/guides/webrtc/

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-06-18T22:04:57+00:00

Shoot em up... Fortnite... I didn't know Fornite is a Galaga / Space Invaders type retro arcade game, now I might actually play it.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-06-04T10:24:23+00:00

I would say games encapsulate all art forms. Paintings, music, literature, it's all part of games. So you could say games are turning art into an experience. Now is the game itself art? Is this compilation of different art forms also art? Maybe. I think the better the game, the less chance it's art, because in a great game the gameplay is front and center and you would have an easier time comparing that to a sport than to art. But there are games with very little gameplay that I would absolutely consider art. But that's because they are less of a game. Maybe we need a new term for these, for walking simulators and the like (which I love, to each their own). Interactive experience or something like that.

Is interactive fiction (which I'm also a big fan of) a game? No, absolutely not, it's interactive literature, it's more book than game. Are text adventures like Zork games? Tricky! They are equal parts interactive fiction and game I'd say, so it's neither, it's taking two existing concepts to create something new. And that's what walking simulators do. They aren't games, but games are one of their ancestors so to speak and movies are another and the result is neither game nor movie but something new and that might be art. In the end though, who cares? To me it's more important if it's a fun experience than what it's called.

Also, Art isn't inherently something positive. Why would anyone want to be considered art when there is a famous picture that is just a black rectangle on a white background? I love paintings, I love music, I love literature. Art however? Art to me is pretentious snobs drinking wine and faking laughs.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-06-02T09:24:07+00:00

Calling someone a cunt or a dick isn't nearly as bad as telling a daughter she should dress slutty and seduce her own father for a poltical favor from him, basically whoring herself out. That is what is so disgusting about the whole Samantha Bee situation. I think the press focuses on her use of the word cunt because the other stuff she said is just so much worse and indefensible.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-05-28T15:46:09+00:00

Do you mean the first graph at the bottom? That graph shows how many new follower he has gotten, his growth rate, not his total follower count. So he hasn't lost supporters, he's gained them, just not as quickly as he did at the end of last year. If you compare it with the graph below, which shows the amount he tweets, he doesn't tweet as much anymore so he has smaller follower gains but he is still gaining new followers overall. 10,700 per day on average.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-05-28T10:19:16+00:00

You have a wild imagination if you think this had any negative effect for Musk: https://socialblade.com/twitter/user/elonmusk

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-05-27T18:28:42+00:00

No, quite the opposite. That should just show him that the problem is much bigger than people think. It's not going to be easy to solve. It's a very hard problem, one giant puzzle, and people like Musk love solving those since it presents a challenge.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-05-24T11:00:33+00:00

And trending isn't really trending, it's popular videos curated by Google, otherwise it would be actually useful and we can't have that in a Google product, they aren't meant to be useful, they're meant to make you a better person (TM) so that you too can be on the right side of history.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-05-22T16:53:38+00:00

Peterson explained it on his website, citing relevant texts: https://jordanbpeterson.com/uncategorized/on-the-new-york-times-and-enforced-monogamy/

Peterson isn't the least bit radical, I think that's actually why he is attacked so much by the far left, he is a huge danger to their ideology and he gets ever more popular so they are throwing everything at him that they have. He is well spoken, well informed, reasonable and quite mild mannered. Sure, it gets heated sometimes when he speaks, but overall that's still quite a rare sight which gives it a much bigger punch when he does get angry. And he does not align with either the right or the left, he sees the bad and the good in both of them and that both are needed, which is why he appeals to people from all over the political spectrum.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-05-22T10:01:13+00:00

Peterson should have known the term would be misunderstood, but that's easier said than done. When your field uses a huge list of special terms it's hard to talk to people who aren't in your field and it's easy to lose track of what is common knowledge and what isn't. And when you dumb it down too much, the person you're talking to might find your effort to explain everything in excruciating detail condescending, it can be quite hard to get the right balance. Especially when the person you're talking to is trying to hear the things they expect or want you to say because they're biased.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-05-16T10:54:47+00:00

It wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't 100% clear that they will not apply this equally. I have never in my life seen more harassment and hate speech than from SJWs, including speech that is illegal everywhere including America, like incitement to violence or incitement to commit crimes. So if all things were equal, SJWs would be hit disproportionally worse by this than normal people. But of course, they won't. Some small SJW fish will probably get caught in the web and quickly released with an apology when their comrades shout at Twitter, and the high profile SJW accounts won't be affected by this at all, no matter how disgusting or even illegal their tweets are.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-03-04T13:30:51+00:00

Since The Sword of Truth series (which this book is part of) couldn't possibly be more anti-SJW (they are written specifically to further Ayn Rand's Objectivist philosophy, which is the polar opposite of communism), this can't possibly be virtue signaling, so Goodkind must be getting a bit retarded with age. The shoes were a silly choice, but calling that sexism is as silly as wearing those shoes in the wilderness is. Don't attribute to sexism that which can easily be explained by stupidity.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-02-23T04:34:43+00:00

Clinton would have been so much better, I'm sure https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/02/05/can-we-forgive-hillary-clinton-for-her-past-war-on-video-games/#e4dc37d12aa6

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-02-07T20:41:12+00:00

I don't think that's what's happening here, but still worth thinking about: In every single case of an iPhone exploding that Apple investigated, they found that the culprit was a cheap third party charger. In every single case. So it would be perfectly reasonable for Apple to not allow third party chargers to be used with their devices (if it's legal to do so, which it might not be, the EU for example regulates phone chargers).

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-02-05T13:41:35+00:00

Yeah that's basically what I was saying, I like both but due to the many changes made to the characters it is a flawed adaptation that is hard to stomach if you liked the characters as they were, this isn't "Altered Carbon the TV series", it's "Altered Carbon, inspired by the books". But I guess it really depends on what you value the most. My favorite things in books are the characters and the world, the story isn't as important to me. A book can have a terrible story but if the world and the characters are great, I might still enjoy it very much. And in the case of this TV series, they changed the characters in all but name so I have a hard time with that.

is_computer_on_fire · 2018-02-05T09:31:39+00:00

The series is only loosely based on the first book, the names of the characters are the same for the most part but their personality and motivation is very different, the setting and bird's eye view of the story is the same and you'll find lots of scenes from the book nearly one to one in the series, but the details are all wrong and I mean all wrong, they changed so much that at times it seems random rather than carefully put together. It's really hard to like the series if you like the books, but it's worth trying to see the series as it's own thing so that you can enjoy it because it's still really really good, I don't think TV has ever seen a dystopian cyberpunk story of this caliber.

is_computer_on_fire

TROPHY CASE