@meltedcheese@c.im cover
@meltedcheese@c.im avatar

meltedcheese

@[email protected]

#HoldFast #Resist

The Edge: There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. - Hunter S. Thompson
Banner: a screen grab from “The Matrix” when Neo finally realizes his power and confronts Smith. You can do this too!
#AI #Robotics #Technology #NASA #JPL #Entrepreneur #Maker #Politics #Climate #science #Weird #Swords

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@briankrebs@infosec.exchange avatar briankrebs , to random

Really enjoyed this scoop from the Financial Times, where a team of reporters identified 48 seemingly independent companies working from different physical addresses that appear to be operating together to disguise the origin of Russian oil, particularly from Kremlin-controlled Rosneft. The kicker: The network was discovered because they all share a single private email server.

From the (paywalled) story:

"The FT was able to identify 442 web domains whose public registrations show they all use a single private server for their email, “mx.phoenixtrading.ltd”, showing that they share back-office functions."

"The FT was then able to identify companies by comparing the names in the domain to those of entities that appear in Russian and Indian customs records as involved in carrying Russian oil."

"For example, Foxton FZCO, a Dubai-based entity listed as the buyer of $5.6bn of oil in Russian export filings, matches “foxton-fzco.com”. Similarly, Advan Alliance, an entity listed in Indian filings as having sold $1.5bn of Russian oil into the country, can be linked to “advanalliance.ltd”. "

"Filings linked by the FT to the domain list show oil exports from Russia amounting to more than $90bn."

https://www.ft.com/content/4310f010-2b3c-493e-ba0a-26dc6d156b2e

meltedcheese ,
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@briankrebs @tchambers Yes. Me too. Some of those criminal masterminds ought to be worried about the Mission Impossible team (or whatever the real-world equivalent is called) paying them a visit.

@Alice@beige.party avatar Alice , to random

I was watching the Olympics and this event came on called the Biathlon where people shoot rifles and then go cross country skiing and I've been pondering the origin story ever since.

Were they like "shooting a dumb gun isn't a real sport so let's add some slow-ass cross country skiing to the end just to make it qualify" or were they like "cross country skiing is BORING so why don’t we add a part where they're all shootin' some guns just so it's not completely mind numbing" or was it something else in general?

meltedcheese ,
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@Alice I was wondering too. It seems like the only event where your heart rate is very high — skiing — and then it has to go very calm when you shoot. That’s hard!

@georgetakei@universeodon.com avatar georgetakei , to random

Well played.

Screenshot of a tweet jokingly naming a band “The Klanberries,” showing a collage of four blonde conservative women commentators and officials in separate headshots side by side.
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meltedcheese ,
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@georgetakei The Spite Girls

@404mediaco@mastodon.social avatar 404mediaco , to random

Chatbots provided incorrect, conflicting medical advice, researchers found: “Despite all the hype, AI just isn't ready to take on the role of the physician.”

https://www.404media.co/chatbots-health-medical-advice-study/

meltedcheese ,
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@404mediaco I could have, and did say this alongside many others. One again, I remind everyone that large language models DONT KNOW ANYTHING. They are faking it. Everything they produce is intended to superficially emulate real human behavior. They have NO expertise.

This has gotten so out of hand that I had to chastise my own doctor the other day for using a (bogus) tool to look up relevant medical literature. To the tool company’s credit, they included a disclaimer on their website that the output of the tool could be a fabrication and should not be used for actual medical reasons (!). For some astonishing reason, medical groups are paying big money to make the tool available to doctors. Big trouble ahead.

@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar futurebird , to random

I swear to god I love how liberals overthink everything. But I also hate it so much. It makes me want to die.

You know what's "performative" ? The most performative thing in the world?

Talking about what's performative is SO performative.

And here's the spicy take: performative isn't bad.

doing good things performativly is far far better than not doing anything and better than participating in harm.

meltedcheese ,
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@futurebird I had always equated “performative” with the doing of something just for show with a fraudulent motive of deception. Moreover, such performance would be ineffective as well as insincere.

Now you have pointed out that performance in and by itself has positive social value by normalizing certain behaviors. The better the performance, the more indistinguishable it is from the real thing. Although I wish people were more pure of heart, I can’t fault them for doing the right thing.

I guess that I am against poor execution of performative behaviors because that might poison the well and demotivate others.

Something to think about. Thanks.

meltedcheese ,
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@irmadlad@lemmy.world avatar irmadlad selfhosted@lemmy.world icon Selfhosted That is precisely the challenge. I’m not sure it is possible.

meltedcheese ,
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@irmadlad@lemmy.world avatar irmadlad This what I want too. It’s farther down my to-do list, but I’ll be sure to let you know if I discover anything. Good luck!

meltedcheese ,
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Dylancyclone selfhosted@lemmy.world icon Selfhosted This looks very useful. I will study your docs and see if it’s right for me. Thanks for sharing!

meltedcheese ,
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curbstickle selfhosted@lemmy.world icon Selfhosted Awesome list! I could have really used this a year ago. 😒

meltedcheese ,
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phant Pi-hole is super easy to set up and easy to build on. It’s been very robust for me and also eye-opening due to the excellent UI. About 5% of the network traffic in my house is now blocked. Thousands of DNS requests per day. Most of that is trackers. Apps and “smart” devices are very determined to phone home so you’ll have to block many of these domains manually as they show up. Be forewarned, some apps and web sites will simply stop working if you block their tracking and other info gathering on your network. Luckily, there is good to substitute.

meltedcheese ,
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shads selfhosted@lemmy.world icon Selfhosted Agreed. Words carry baggage and has a lot of baggage.

meltedcheese ,
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potatopotato selfhosted@lemmy.world icon Selfhosted Black Ice exists. Software is hand-to-hand combat. The most sentence I’ve read today:

“There are also various poison and tarpit systems which will serve scrapers infinite garbage text or data designed to aggressively corrupt the models they’re training. “

meltedcheese ,
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utopiah yaroto98 re integrations, you can also look at what is available under library, search or ask for help in any of the community forums for such as https://community.home-assistant.io or on reddit, discord , git hub. It integrates nicely with and also with containerized systems e.g., docker, portainer.

@stux@mstdn.social avatar stux , to random

The US gov is shutdown but the idiocrats are getting paid, yikes

Isn't it an idea to collectivly stop paying taxing?

If the gov doesn't wanna do shit, why should you..

meltedcheese ,
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@stux @StillIRise1963 No taxation (spending our tax payments) with representation (elected representatives doing their jobs). We should not pay a dime during government shutdowns.

meltedcheese ,
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FreedomAdvocate That must be exhausting, for everyone involved.

@inthehands@hachyderm.io avatar inthehands , to random

I see that “3.5% of the population” figure starting to wander into my TL (understandably) and soon (understandably) the backlash to it, and…OK…look…

No, I don’t think any switch magically flips when exactly 3.5% of a population joins the opposition to authoritarianism.

Yes, I think that threshold matters.

A thought here — not an expert!! grain of salt! — but here’s a thought that might help clear things up:

1/

meltedcheese ,
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@inthehands More than just engaged and doing stuff, what people do must be disruptive. The status quo is not acceptable. No more “business as usual.” This goes for those who finance the fascist coup, the enablers, and elected/appointed officials. Whatever is done must hurt them financially and disrupt their daily routine.

@skeletor@mas.to avatar skeletor , to random
I mean, it's a drag, and we're all really busy, but there's going to need to be some kind of revolution. Says Skeletor flying a flag with his favorite leader in it - himself.
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meltedcheese ,
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@skeletor @alpenglow It’s been almost 250 years since the last one. I’d say we are overdue.

@Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar Daojoan , to random

Things that are fake:

  • Alpha males (debunked by the original researcher)
  • MSG causing headaches (never replicated)
  • Learning styles (no evidence)

Things that are real:

  • People will believe anything if it confirms their priors
meltedcheese ,
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@Daojoan Absence of proof is not proof of absence. The most you can say (logically) is that the answer to your question (e.g., does MSG cause headaches) is “unknown.”

meltedcheese ,
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q7mJI7tk1 I have and both running on an for over a year. Solid as a rock although new domain lookups take much longer the first time. After that they’re cached. About 6.5 to 7.5% of the queries get blocked. I’m super happy with the setup.

@georgetakei@universeodon.com avatar georgetakei , to random
meltedcheese ,
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@georgetakei @tankgrrl Stephen Miller would be the first to show up as a murderous psychopath. That is, if the AI is any good and that is an expectation too high.

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

UK users of Reddit, X, Insta, FB, Bluesky, TikTok, and many other popular platforms are now facing problems. They are being forced to verify their age using government issued IDs and a selfie. All of these for-profit corporations may use this information further for profit or may not even store user information securely. This is a nightmare scenario for many, and I wouldn't be surprised if other governments adopt similar laws.

meltedcheese ,
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@nixCraft This is absurd and intrusive. I’m in the US where authoritarianism is taking over. I will not comply.

@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar dangillmor , to random

Someone in an online group I follow just posted this in a thread:

"I asked AI, and it said" -- words followed, and some were incorrect.

This person was demonstrating total trust in a system that is totally untrustworthy. The hype is working, and the result is going to be terrible.

meltedcheese ,
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@dangillmor People need well-calibrated trust. That requires information and judgment. It is up to the developers to make machines that are “trustworthy “ and also “trustable” i.e., provide us the information we need to make an informed decision. Today, we see only deception.

@RememberUsAlways@newsie.social avatar RememberUsAlways , to random

billionaires can buy as many media platforms as they want.

It will never change the fact in my mind that they all said nothing and elected a Pedophile.
The worst part about this is that they knew what they were paying for.


!

meltedcheese ,
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@RememberUsAlways All Republicans who voted for Trump are OK with his pedophilia, racism, sociopathy, dementia, stupidity, lying and authoritarian beliefs. They are ALL responsible for not just enabling this disaster, but enthusiastically supporting it every day.

meltedcheese ,
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@tenebrisnox@feddit.uk avatar tenebrisnox Teppichbrand Would you recommend for a Zero running a slim that will be dedicated to drive a kiosk? (no camera feeds)

@wonderofscience@mastodon.social avatar wonderofscience , to random

A group of butterflies is called a kaleidoscope.

video/mp4

meltedcheese ,
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@_elena @rudytheelder @wonderofscience That is a healthy perspective, but yes, annoying too.

@w7voa@journa.host avatar w7voa , to random

Variety - Bill Moyers, who was a White House press secretary under LBJ and then became a PBS and CBS journalist, has died at the age of 91. https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/bill-moyers-dead-pbs-journalist-1236442118/

meltedcheese ,
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@w7voa I remember Bill Moyers as trustworthy, insightful, and a model of journalistic integrity. I didn’t always agree with him, and sometimes he was boring. That’s on me. We need more people to step up and follow his example.

meltedcheese ,
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EncryptKeeper That’s my experience. Zombied home computers are big business. The networks are thousands of computers. I had a hacker zombie my printer(!) maybe via an online fax connection and it/they then proceeded to attack everything else on my network. One older machine succumbed before I could lock everything down.

meltedcheese ,
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kattfisk That seems to imply that you cannot personally listen to or watch recordings that you have made in public. In doing so, you are abstracting personal details that you might have missed before, refreshing your memory, and so on. What is the material difference between you doing this without machine help versus with automation that makes it ethically problematic? What if a friend helped you, not a machine?

@w7voa@journa.host avatar w7voa , to random

Fox News - President Donald Trump recently vetoed an Israeli plan to assassinate Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. https://www.foxnews.com/live-news/israel-iran-missile-strikes-tehran-tel-aviv#post-a37d479

meltedcheese ,
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@w7voa 4/ Lying Machines (cont.)
In his # book, “The Windup Girl,” writer Paolo Bacigalupi tells of a world where genetically-modified human robots are indistinguishable (to our senses) from ordinary humans and this is a problem. A rule is made that all such entities are compelled to signal their non-human status through easily observed jerky movements. There are many fascinating themes in the story, but this one is very important because we have a pressing need to identify simulacra and their outputs (e.g., school report essays).

What ways can you think of for an to be recognized?

@mcc@mastodon.social avatar mcc , (edited ) to random

For three full years now I've been semi-daily posting a music recommendation in a big long thread, but it turns out 300-post threads kinda break Mastodon, so I have to restart the thread every so often.

This post is a placeholder. I normally make a YouTube playlist for the previous year to put at the top of the thread, but I've had an awful month and haven't finished that yet.

But if you want to see year three's posts, they're here: https://mastodon.social/@mcc/112356066616688565

And here's year four:

meltedcheese ,
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@mcc Now you have me thinking about Frank Zappa, a classic prog rocker.

Wondering, was Mozart a Math Rocker?

All music is math. Everything is math. Even if physics tells you something is possible, without the math you have nothing. Took me a long time to understand this. Now I look around and just see mathematics. I’m not saying I understand it, but it does seem a bit like Neo’s epiphany in “The Matrix”.

@davidgerard@circumstances.run avatar davidgerard , to random

LLMs exist to crush labour. That's not even my surmise, the people paying billions of dollars to fund this stuff are extremely open and explicit that this is their goal.

There are no ethical use cases for LLMs at this point in time. Maybe when the bubble has popped thoroughly. Not before.

meltedcheese ,
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@davidgerard Agreed, that is why LLMs exist — a [threat] to labor. However, I’m not sure there are no legit use cases. Are there any use cases for LLMs which are analogous to calculators, i.e., where they assist people who don’t have the same ability or resources to hire labor? Students who “need help” writing an essay, for example (noted, other ethical problems). Also, consider non-language automation applications of LLMs which use essentially the same technology and are not amenable to human labor solutions , e.g., vision for object recognition in automated driving or defect detection on high-speed assembly lines. [edited: typos corrected]

meltedcheese ,
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@davidgerard Point taken. Is any technology by itself ethically good or bad? The Torment Nexus implies the answer is yes. The ethics of technology wasn’t really a question until the atomic bomb came around; nobody could imagine an ethically “good” use for the bomb. I lean towards the position that people bring the ethics to technology via how they use it; people and the applications can be judged on ethics, not the technology by itself. Now we are having the same conversation about the ethics of AI.

meltedcheese ,
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@aaribaud @davidgerard That’s right. Start of industrialization sounds about right. It just wasn’t as huge a social debate until the bomb. The context is key. There is a concept in philosophy called the “Neutrality thesis.” Historically, the ethics of technology has primarily taken an instrumental perspective that implies a positive ethical assessment of technology: Technology increases the possibilities and capabilities of humans (good). Technology itself is neutral: humans may put technology to bad use or hubris. Undesirable consequences are attributed to the users of technology, not to the technology itself or its developers.

meltedcheese ,
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tofu I like it. Your “for now” comment is on point; there is always more to do!

For comparison, here is my 19” 15U rack , also a work in progress: PDU, ventilation, 16 port switch, 2U mount for up to 8 Raspberry PI s or NAS., and a 8x KVM HDMI/USB switch to connect the RPis to a small monitor, keyboard and mouse on top. I use one RPi for , another for home security cameras and other video, one for HomeBridge, one for Pi-Hole, and other for experimentation and testing. A UPS is in back. I Iove that the rack is on wheels because I frequently move it to get access to the back.
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meltedcheese ,
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tofu UPSs have some glitches, but the benefits of the power conditioning they do (the good ones) outweigh the trouble of the rare glitch. For example, reducing wear and tear on the electronics they power. Also, the performance of some electronics is highly sensitive to the quality of power provided (e.g., no under- or over-voltage conditions). I don’t rely on the UPS for surge protection. For that, I use upstream Tripp-Lite outlets.

meltedcheese ,
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tofu It depends on your local power system. At my house, I see frequent under voltage conditions. Also, some devices are more tolerant than others. You’ll find power conditioning in pretty much all data centers.

Your recommendation for smart plug

I'm tinkering with our ventilation over-pressure function in combination with an inline fan I run when 3D printing or soldering, to get the fumes and particulates out while simultaneously not creating a massive vacuum inside. The plan is to control it with MQTT from HA to a PLC that controls the ventilation via RS-485. ...

meltedcheese ,
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Bronzie I’m partial to the smart outlets outlets, model mss315 in particular. Zigbee set up is super easy, highly reliable, and you get good energy use data from each one that works out of the box.

meltedcheese ,
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muusemuuse essell Maybe this? There seem to be a number of possibilities. Let us know what you find out.

@ProPublica@newsie.social avatar ProPublica , to random

A DOGE aide was told by ethics attorneys that he held stock in companies that Consumer Financial Protection Bureau employees are barred from owning — and was advised not to participate in any actions that could benefit him personally.

Days later, he helped fire 90% of CFPB staff anyway, including the ethics lawyers who warned him.

https://www.propublica.org/article/cfpb-gavin-kliger-doge-conflict-of-interest-consumer-financial-protection-bureau?utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=mastodon-post

meltedcheese ,
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@ProPublica DOGE is a collection of willing to do for and some weird kind of prestige among a very small cadre of wannabes. Emphasis on the word “evil.”

meltedcheese ,
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Showroom7561 You are referring to incoming IPs? I get around 50 to 100 per day as well. Easily blocked. My bigger concern is outgoing connections by home automation devices on my network. I have over 200 lights, switches, and sensors of various brands, most of which try to “phone home” anywhere from daily to every few seconds. They are reporting (something) to data aggregation businesses that presumably are selling. Blocking some devices from Internet access (e.g., my Leviton light switches) causes the device to fail! Yet another case of companies stealing our personal data.

@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar dangillmor , to random
meltedcheese ,
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@dangillmor I don’t think Fascist Barbie would sell well.

@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar nixCraft , to random

😂

Social media post saying "Zoom sucks, we started having editorial meetings in Red Dead Redemption instead. It's nice to sit at the campfire and discuss projects, with the wolves howling out in the night."
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meltedcheese ,
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@nixCraft Sounds great. I have participated in meetings in Second Life. I much prefer it (or any other MMPOG) to typical videocons

meltedcheese ,
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@irmadlad@lemmy.world avatar irmadlad Yes, and keep a copy offsite! A good friend’s house burned down in the recent Eaton Canyon fire. He and his family lost absolutely everything. Photos, letters, memorabilia — the story of their lives. A devastating loss. He had plenty of backups, but none stored elsewhere and the ones in his house were also thoroughly toasted. Friends are working to find copies of photos, but that is just a fraction of what was lost.

It isn’t hard to do backups, just a chore. I by a thumb drive every few months. A few terabytes is not too expensive and it is small. I backup to it and mail it to a family member. I know it is safe. Daily backups are better but more cumbersome. I back up weekly to hosted disk drives at a small Internet service provider.

Stubsack: weekly thread for sneers not worth an entire post, week ending 6th April 2025 ( awful.systems )

Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret. ...

meltedcheese ,
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@hub@cosocial.ca avatar hub @sailor_sega_saturn@awful.systems avatar sailor_sega_saturn BlueMonday1984 Is it too early for head jokes?

@briankrebs@infosec.exchange avatar briankrebs , (edited ) to random

Someone riddle me this: Why would Trump's Jan. 29 Executive Order on "Additional Measures to Combat Anti-Semitism" be given the executive order number it has, which is 14188? Surely, even with the flood of EOs this POTUS has issued already, we're not up to that number.

So where did it come from? Check out the Wikipedia entry for "fourteen words," also abbreviated 14 or 1488), which says it is a reference to "two slogans originated by the American domestic terrorist David Eden Lane, one of nine founding members of the defunct white supremacist terrorist organization The Order, and are accompanied by Lane's "88 Precepts". The slogans have served as a rallying cry for militant white nationalists internationally."

"Lane used the 14-88 numerical coding extensively throughout his spiritual, political, religious, esoteric, and philosophical tracts and notably in his "88 Precepts" manifesto. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, inspiration for the Fourteen Words "are derived from a passage in Adolf Hitler's autobiographical book Mein Kampf."

"The Fourteen Words have been prominently used by neo-Nazis, white power skinheads and certain white nationalists and the alt-right. "88" is used by some as a shorthand for "Heil Hitler", 'H' being the 8th letter of the alphabet,[16] though Lane viewed Nazism along with America as being part of the "Zionist conspiracy."

[edit: several readers have rightly pointed out that this is likely just a coincidence, and that the EOs are cumulatively numbered already into the 14,000s. still, it's unfortunate]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteen_Words

A screenshot of a Federal Register entry for EO 14188 Federal Register Presidential Documents Vol. 90, No. 21 Monday, February 3, 2025 Title 3— Executive Order 14188 of January 29, 2025 The President Additional Measures To Combat Anti-Semitism
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meltedcheese ,
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@briankrebs Regardless of “why” 1488 was used, the shoe fits. There is meaning in the universe.

@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar arstechnica , to random
meltedcheese ,
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@arstechnica What could possibly go wrong?

I thought the hope was to invent ways for nature to degrade plastics.

meltedcheese ,
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spitfire I said that but the fact is I don’t really know. But I’d like to know. I know can launch apps and select channels on so I think it should be possible on iOS. Using webhooks maybe.

@meltedcheese@c.im avatar meltedcheese , to random

@Oldmikie @briankrebs I understand your position. I do not advocate giving up, not at all. We should keep pushing in all the ways you say. In the last three days, since I wrote the toot to which you responded, events have moved very fast and the situation is even more dire. There must be quick and direct action to stop the injury they are causing before it gets much worse. can sort it out later, as they do, in the fullness of time. That might take years. Right now, in the US does not have the luxury of time.

meltedcheese OP ,
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@briankrebs @Oldmikie “Direct Action” doesn’t equate to violence against people. I agree with you on non-violence, but not unconditionally.
Direct Action in my mind is primarily directed at property and processes. Blocking roads for example, or defacing billboards. The general idea is disruption; to make business as usual impossible.