cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/19832693

Full Document: https://cdn.cloudflare.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/steamworks_docs/english/steam_brandGuidelines.pdf

Pretty much the only thing I think AI could be useful for - forecasting the weather based off tracking massive amounts of data. I look forward to seeing how this particular field of study is improved.

Bonus points, AI weather modeling, for once, saves energy relative to physics models. Pair it with some sort of light weight physical model to keep the hallucinations at bay, and you've got a good combo.

One of my new friends is/was a cop. Just found out about it. I genuinely believe ACAB, and this news has me conflicted because my new friend seems really cool and super nice. I don't know him super well yet, though. He's a big part of this new friend group and I don't know how to process this and how to deal with the fact he's a cop.

I don't want to look past the fact he's a cop, but I want to stay his friend and stay in this friend group.

Any advice for dealing with this shit?

I can't talk to my therapist about it until Thursday.

The article has full details, excerpts below

The week before Thanksgiving, Marshall Brain sent a final email to his colleagues at North Carolina State University. "I have just been through one of the most demoralizing, depressing, humiliating, unjust processes possible with the university," wrote the founder of HowStuffWorks.com and director of NC State's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. Hours later, campus police found that Brain had died by suicide.

Marshall David Brain II established HowStuffWorks.com in 1998 as a personal project to explain technical topics to general audiences. The website grew into a major success that Discovery Communications acquired for $250 million in 2007. He later expanded his educational reach through books like The Engineering Book and television shows on National Geographic Channel [...]

Brain was also well-known in futurist and transhumanist circles. In 2003, his "Robotic Nation" essay, published freely on the web, predicted that widespread automation and robotics would cause a massive labor crisis by 2050, warning that up to half of American jobs could be eliminated, leading to unprecedented unemployment and social upheaval. [...]

At 4:29 am—just two and a half hours before he was discovered dead in his office, Brain sent a final email, obtained by Ars Technica, to over 30 recipients inside and outside the university. In the detailed letter, Brain disputed an announcement made by his boss, Stephen Markham, executive director of NC State's Innovation and Entrepreneurship program. Markham had told staff Brain would retire effective December 31, 2025. Brain wrote that he had instead been terminated on October 29 and was forced into retirement as a face-saving option.

The termination followed Brain's filing of ethics complaints through the university's EthicsPoint system about an employee at the university's Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. The complaints stemmed from an August dispute over repurposing the Engineering Entrepreneurs Program meeting space.

"What got us to this point? The short answer is that I witnessed wrongdoing on campus, and I tried to report it," Brain wrote in his email. "What came back was a sickening nuclear bomb of retaliation the likes of which could not be believed," Brain wrote in the email. He stated that the accused person "excommunicated me from my department for reporting my concerns to her."

In his email, Brain wrote that the school's head of the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering later informed him the department would stop recommending students for Brain's Engineering Entrepreneurs Program. According to Brain's account, this led to disciplinary action against Brain for "unacceptable behavior."

"My career has been destroyed by multiple administrators at NCSU who united together and completely ignored the EthicsPoint System and its promises to employees," Brain wrote. "I did what the University told me to do, and then these administrators ruined my life for it."

[...] Dror Baron, an NCSU professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, wrote on X, "A professor I know died following various investigations. I know the people mentioned here, and call for a transparent and independent investigation."

So far, that investigation has not been forthcoming. University spokesperson Mick Kulikowski declined to comment to The Technician about Brain's death or the allegations. To date, the university has not issued a public statement about Brain's death.

Barry and Kashani expressed disappointment in the university's lack of public response. "It's been six days now," Kashani said at the time to the school newspaper. "There hasn't been any acknowledgment of mistakes that were made, systems that failed, no resignations, not even a call to celebrate Marshall's achievements."

Jebus, it's a freaking bloodbath for the gaming industry.

No matter what browser I use, every time it states my browser has unique fingerprint for Mull with uBlock and Badger installed and "randomized" with Brave. I don't even know if there are any other than unique or randomized. It will be more of an OPSEC post rather than referring to Cover Your Tracks in particular.

I got the worst results in

1. Screen size and colour depth

• one in 92k with Mull
• one in 200 with Brave and Vanadium

2. Http_accept headers

• one in 3k with Mull
• one in 6k with Brave
• one in 2,1k with Vanadium

3. Language and time zone (target's community is located in the same country as mine, so score above 200 doesn't bother me much)

4. Touch support

• one in 143 with Mull
• one in 4.35 with Brave and Vanadium

5. User agent

• one in 151.26 with Mull, probably bad, cause Chrome and Chromium browsers have nearly 70% market share in my country.
• one in 44 with both Brave and Vanadium

6. WebGL Vendor & Renderer

• one in 8.58 with Mull
• one in 314 with Brave
• one in 604 with Vanadium

7. Hash of WebGL fingerprint

• one in 8.81 with Mull
• one in 3.27 with Brave
• one in 939 with Vanadium

The rest of categories has score <10. If you think others will be crucial in my case, feel free to ask what score they got. The post would get too long if I were to list all results.

Device:

• Pixel 6 Pro with GrapheneOS
• Optionally I can look up for my good old Oppo A52 (slow af but has OEM Android 12 if remember right)

Browsers I tried:

• Vanadium 131.0.6778.104
• Mull 132.0.0 with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger
• Brave 1.73.91, Chromium 131

Is there any way to make sure I am not recognisable by my browser data? I can't block every single cookie or data requests, as I am sure too many rejections of them will probably result getting flagged as a shady user, then admins will personally inspect fingerprints of all my accounts. This is just a downward spiral to me getting banned for making multiple accounts (my target). The goal is not to make me as anonymous as Snowden, but to spoof my fingerprint so good to get unrecognisable from the typical mouth-breathing internet users who don't give a flying fuck about so called, broadly understood online privacy. Ironically, that's pretty much reverse goal than when I was installing GrapheneOS.

Threat actor: discussion forum with invite-only registration. Something like Reddit, but they take multiple account prevention seriously. I am 99,9999% sure they ban all access via VPN, proxies and TOR in advance, so those are out of discussion. Burner SIM cards with internet access are the solution here, both for getting unique IP from LTE provider and for SMS verification during registration. Furthermore, different providers will probably give every single account's fingerprint a pinch of uniqueness (if admin staff has any way to see which mobile comm provider I used)

There's a catch: if I switch my SIM card to another one and the second one will get the same IP address as the previous one - I have to get in radius of another BTS and get different IP, or It will look like one person is using the 2 (or more) accounts. The inviter and all his invitees will get banned. Tbh I don't know how big chance there is for this making happen.

cross-posted from: https://sopuli.xyz/post/19842291

It happens to me fairly often. Usually, it's with food I find less than appetizing, but it's not bad by any means. I think the problem stems from the fact that I cooked for about 8 years for my job. There was a lot of standing and eating, tasting dishes as I went, cooking food that I was never going to eat while I was hungry, etc..

Does anyone else share this problem?

TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — Georgian police on Wednesday raided the offices of an opposition party and arrested its leader in an apparent attempt to squelch a wave of mass protests triggered by the governing party’s decision to suspend negotiations on joining the European Union.

During the past six nights, riot police used water cannons and tear gas to disperse the demonstrators, who threw fireworks at police officers and built barricades on the Georgian capital’s central boulevard. More than 300 protesters have been detained since Thursday and over 100 people have been treated for injuries.

On Wednesday, the Coalition for Change opposition party said that police raided its offices and detained its leader, Nika Gvaramia. It shared a video showing several officers dragging Gvaramia into a car.

Georgian media reported that police also raided the offices of several other opposition groups and non-government organizations.

Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze of the Georgian Dream party said the raids targeted those who encouraged violence during protests in an attempt to topple his government. “I wouldn’t call this repression; it is more of a preventive measure than repression,” he said.

The ruling Georgian Dream retained control of parliament in the disputed Oct. 26 election, which was widely seen as a referendum on Georgia’s EU aspirations. The opposition and the pro-Western president have accused the governing party of rigging the vote with neighboring Russia’s help and boycotted parliament sessions.

Without a doubt a 1970s rockstar