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itgrrl

@[email protected]

#CyberGardener 👩‍💻🪏🌱🚿☀️🪴🌿🌳👩‍💻🔒 : #InfoSec : #privacy : #tech : #space : #astronomy : intersectional #feminist : #LGBTIQA+ : #AntiFascist : striving to be #AntiRacist : #StarTrek : #musicals : I fight for the users : crypto means #cryptography : #CyberPunk : #SolarPunk : #HopePunk : #aphantasia 🫥 : opinions mine, not employer's 🦄🚀📡🛰✨🎶🎭💾👾🦎🏳️‍🌈🖖

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@jerry@infosec.exchange avatar jerry , to random

I tried recording a photography video in my kids bedroom turned studio and the echo was so bad that the audio was unusable. So I am putting these felt panels on the walls (got most of the easy parts done) and they’ve already made a huge difference.

itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@jerry @paul_ipv6 I’ve used a thin white plastic laksa container (geodesic half-dome shape) as a diffuser for fill lighting before, it worked very well duct-taped over an elevated regular desk lamp 💁‍♀️

@TomF@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar TomF , (edited ) to random

Recent discussion about the perils of doors in gamedev reminded me of a bug caused by a door in a game you may have heard of called "Half Life 2". Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin.

A Combine soldier threatening with a baton, in front of a door. Which one is a greater menace in gamedev?
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itgrrl ,
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@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar itgrrl , to random

I discovered when I went to look up the definition of a word on my phone that the (tricksy, unwanted) update to had nerfed all my on-device dictionaries, so I had to download them all again. even the default “Apple dictionary” 🤦‍♀️

great work, ! just spectacular 👏👏👏

itgrrl OP ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar itgrrl , to random

I discovered when I went to look up the definition of a word on my phone that the (tricksy, unwanted) update to had nerfed all my on-device dictionaries, so I had to download them all again. even the default “Apple dictionary” 🤦‍♀️

great work, ! just spectacular 👏👏👏

itgrrl OP ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@static except it didn’t do a lookup from an online dictionary, it just gave the usual “No Content Found: Search Web | Manage Dictionaries” error screen – and then I had to choose “Manage Dictionaries” realise that none were installed, & then download the ones I wanted (which are all then stored locally)

if there was some reason that the update actually required deleting the old dictionaries (incompatible data structures in dictionaries? ¯(ツ)/¯), then the update workflow should include noting the dictionaries currently installed locally & bundling them into the update package so the new versions are installed & ready to go when the update is done

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

Nintendo Gamma Boy.

A picture of a Nintendo Gamma Boy. It's kind of a geiger counter but looks just like a nintendo Game Boy. It has a Select, Start, and a knob to select options, and a Beta and Alpha button in that reddish pink. On screen is a little needle showing up to about 3.6 roentgen. to the left of the screen is a Battery and a Drop & Run indicator.
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itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@NanoRaptor

Nintendo High-Gamma Boy 💁‍♀️

@briankrebs@infosec.exchange avatar briankrebs , to random

The term "personal firewall" might for some conjure quaint memories of using stuff like Zone Alarm. But I suspect this term will be resurrected in the not-too-distant future to describe pricey wearable technology designed to project a stealth mode that can confuse ubiquitous AI-based security and surveillance systems.

itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@briankrebs like many such things, that sort of tech will be made illegal (for citizens to use) & its use will be considered grounds for LE attention. you can’t tech your way out of structural oppression 💁‍♀️

@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar itgrrl , to random

Wes Smith ❤️‍🩹

my 90 year-old dad died last night after a very long life, a long decline, multiple hospitalisations, and the last couple of months spent in hospital & a repat facility

lots of complex feelings for me, but I’m glad he no longer needs to struggle in difficult circumstances (largely of his own creation, but still ❤️‍🩹)

when he was young, he travelled the world in the Merchant Navy in the loud, hot bellies of large cargo ships amongst the enormous engines with pistons several times taller than himself. he only spent a short time in each port – a tasting menu, you might say – but he felt that he had seen the entire world by the time he got married

he worked many jobs in his long career, most of them spent bending metal to his will, often shaping machines into new forms to perform tasks for which they were never originally designed. he worked long hours to provide financially for his family – which he saw as his main duty in life – but also because he loved working with machines & solving engineering problems born of metal. grease. electricity.

he was a fitter & turner, a boiler-maker, a repairer & maintainer, a “keeper-runnerer”, a tinkerer. he used tools to design & make other tools to make machines. I’m sure that some of my own interests & skills were influenced by growing up watching him execute his craft, hearing him talk about his work, & being dragged along to yet another industrial robot exhibition 😩😜

he was a life-long learner, and my own love of 🤔 – or at least facility with – computers & electronics & code (oh my!) were things he saw (and understood) and supported. in the late 1970s or very early 1980s he took a programming course (which was the spelling at the time 😜) at the local TAFE, and he took me along – a rare opportunity in that era. my first hands-on experience with code at 11 or 12 years old was in the form of mapping out & writing programmes down by hand on graph paper & then encoding them on a stack of mark sense cards with a B2 pencil to be fed into a card reader (and drawing that all-important diagonal line down the side of the stack with said pencil – 😆)

it wasn’t long until I had begged sufficiently & got my very first computer (that we absolutely couldn’t really afford), a – the original model in “battleship grey” with 16K RAM 😲, later upgraded to a whopping 64K 🤯 🤯

I still have that computer over 40 years later 😊

after he retired, he always had several ambitious plans on the boil (less charitable folks might call them “hare-brained schemes” 🙃), including a petrol-powered all-terrain tracked wheelchair for a friend who wanted to be able to travel off the beaten path under his own (metaphorical) steam. it would have ended up weighing about a tonne & absolutely would never have worked (safely), but he was determined to “help” a friend & excited to work on solving an interesting engineering challenge, once again bending metal and machinery to his purpose du jour

he was happiest noodling in his workshop, oil- & grease-stained hands deep inside a machine, wielding – or welding – a new tool of his own design. I always associated the smell of machines and ozone with his presence. until after he retired I never saw his hands unstained by years of ingrained, immovable grease

in his later years he discovered and became a journeyman of sorts. he was exceptionally proud (and a bit obnoxious) when he was able to “teach the professionals at a thing or two” about his new hobby. his idea of a conversation had always been (impatiently) waiting for you to take a breath so he could tell you the next thing he was interested in – usually unconnected to whatever you’d shared 💁‍♀️

he used a succession of smallish 3D printers to make many, many Japanese-inspired lanterns (into which he stuffed various strings of coloured flashing lights) and Chinese-inspired dragons, amazed & delighted that additive manufacturing was able to create interlocking objects right off the print bed – after having spent a lifetime creating sometimes-intricate interlocking components using tried-and-true subtractive manufacturing processes. he gave most of these prints away to others – whether they wanted them or not 😆

he was a fitter & turner, a boiler-maker, a repairer & maintainer, a “keeper-runnerer”, a tinkerer

and he was my father

Wes Smith ❤️‍🩹
1935-2025


itgrrl OP ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@bittner thank you, David 💕

my dad also became a boiler-maker & machinist over the years, accreting skills as he went – as is the Way of our people 🙃

@SeaFury@aus.social avatar SeaFury , to random

Watching TRON legacy. It’s a 2 hour DAFT PUNK music video ☺️☺️☺️

itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@static @SeaFury oh, nvm, I did a search – ick 🤮

@SeaFury@aus.social avatar SeaFury , to random

Watching TRON legacy. It’s a 2 hour DAFT PUNK music video ☺️☺️☺️

itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@static @SeaFury oh the cinema was almost empty 🙃

we treated ourselves to “IMAX VIP” – we were the only ones in the VIP section & there were only maybe 10 ppl in the cinema all together (this was a session @ 18:30 though so ¯(ツ)/¯)

I’m not plugged into celebrity things, what’s the reason for “JL = poor box office”? 🤔

@SeaFury@aus.social avatar SeaFury , to random

Watching TRON legacy. It’s a 2 hour DAFT PUNK music video ☺️☺️☺️

itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@SeaFury @static following on from this, I went to see tonight – thoroughly enjoyable & so.many. easter eggs for fans of both (1982) & 👀👂

I went in cold & I think that’s probably the best way to do it. I’ll go back again in a week or so for are-watch to catch some more “homage” that I’m sure I missed 🙃

I didn’t love the soundtrack nearly as much as Legacy (or the original, for that matter), but it was OK

I really like Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross’ soundtrack for The Social Nerwork but this one was more NIN-ish (I think? 🤔) & I’ve never really explored their stuff that much so maybe that’s why it didn’t grab me ¯(ツ)/¯

@SeaFury@aus.social avatar SeaFury , to random

Watching TRON legacy. It’s a 2 hour DAFT PUNK music video ☺️☺️☺️

itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@SeaFury if you don’t already have the : Legacy (complete edition) soundtrack, I can highly recommend it – it’s high up on my focus playlist 🎧🎶🔈🔉🔊 👩‍💻👩‍💻👩‍💻

the R3C0NF1GUR3D album is pretty great too 🤘

…and you might also enjoy the TRON Tribute EP by 8 Bit Weapon 🎶👾🎶👾🎶👾🎶👾 🎶

@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar pluralistic , to random

Sometimes, you really can vote with your wallet. I know, I'm generally pretty down on this kind of thing, but sometimes, it works!

https://pluralistic.net/2025/09/13/consumption-choices/#marginal-benefits

--

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/2025/10/10/synology/#how-about-nah

1/

A massive goliath figure in a loincloth, holding a club and sitting on a boulder; his head has been replaced with the head of Benjamin Franklin taken from a US $100 bill. He is peering down at a Synology NAS box, festooned with Enshittification poop emojis, with angry eyebrows and black grawlix bars over their mouths.
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18+ itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@alan @pluralistic

has entered the chat…

https://github.com/revk/ESP32-Faikin

Daikin enshittified their aircon firmware in one fell swoop with their 2.9.0 (IIRC) update, breaking the local API – which worked perfectly well with – and forcing people to use their (shitty, natch) app instead^

their shitty app periodically forced you to apply their “optional” firmware update (even when you’ve explicitly set the “automatically upgrade firmware” toggle to the “fuck no” position) by preventing you from even using the app to control your device until you submitted to installing the upgrade (i.e. they bricked their own app until you agreed to brick (more or less) your aircon) 😡🤬

in the case of the module though, it has to be installed inside the aircon head unit, which involves touching (in AU) 240V mains power – and in AU you can’t do that (legally) unless you’re a sparky 💁‍♀️

plus, I expect that an insurance company might decline to pay out if your house burns down as a result of a fault in your aircon & they discover you had a non-vendor-approved hardware mod installed 😤

it’s neat little bows all the way down… 😕

🐢
🐢
🐢
🎀
🎀
🎀
🎀
🎀
🎀

^ which also strongly encourages you to sign up for & use their cloud platform so you could send a packet around the world to change the temp on your aircon & if you lost internet connection, welp, sucks to be you 💁‍♀️

@georgetakei@universeodon.com avatar georgetakei , to random
itgrrl ,
@itgrrl@infosec.exchange avatar

@georgetakei great news! 💕✨

and it has 🌈 rainbows✨ and 📚 education✨ and 👨🏽‍🦱👩🏾‍🦱👩🏼‍🦳🧑🏽‍🦱👩🏻 diversity✨ (oh my) – I hope all the racists and “anti-woke” (🙄) crowd are choking on their rage 🌈🌈🌈

@NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

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    itgrrl ,
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    @NanoRaptor hmm, I always assumed that the space jockey ships from the Aliens universe travelled with the prongs of the horseshoe forward… 🤔

    @NanoRaptor@bitbang.social avatar NanoRaptor , to random

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    itgrrl ,
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    @NanoRaptor @nygl tbh that sounds like you’ve done entirely too many things since your last shower… 😜