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Sylvain Miermont

@Codhisattva @hydroponictrash Yes, efficiency of thermoelectric generators is poor, they use not-great materials and the daily thermal cycling is a sure way to get a poor lifetime. A basic steam turbine might be a better option, even if the efficiency won't be stellar at reasonable temperature&pressure. Basic piping is easier to maintain than arrays of junctions made of unobtainium.

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Sylvain Miermont

@Instrument_Data @GossiTheDog all the critical infrastructure running Windows XP was fine though

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Jim

For all the talk of AI replacing everything, today proves the value of a solid technical support person that can leg it around the building getting things done. The least fashionable role in IT was the most important. The worker.
#Crowdstrike

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Timon 🛠 @38C3 9773

I am kinda impressed with the 100% paper packaging, not even a plastic film on the display

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Sylvain Miermont

@foone Thanks for the memory refresh.

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Carina C. Zona

Drastic budget cuts for FOSS, by the EU, and the explanation given is that "because lots of budget are allocated to AI, there is not much left for Internet infrastructure". theregister.com/2024/07/17/fos So here is one more way that the fever over "AI" bullshit does real harm. Infra projects that protect security, privacy, and other vital needs will be underfunded so that more money can be thrown into the "AI" black hole. Sigh.

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Sylvain Miermont

@foone Wasn't there also some kind of Bernoulli floppy disk aroud this time? Memory's fuzzy.

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Prof. Sam Lawler

I was supposed to get a call from a reporter to talk about space junk right after the goat sale, but he just emailed to say that Toronto is flooding and he just got off the phone with Weather Canada and has to write that up right now.

Which is so extremely 2024: "Sorry I can't do the interview about garbage that billionaires dropped on you from orbit, climate change is causing too many problems in my city right now"

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Sarah Jamie Lewis

I think reasonable people can disagree on the nuances of privacy engineering here...you can get really in the weeds of epsilons and trust boundaries.

Mozilla need to understand that that isn't what is happening here.

The fact is this is a new data gathering vector, it doesn't matter how privacy-preserving it is, it should be subject to *new, informed, and proactive* consent - rather than being automatically enrolled in an experiment.

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
mcc

Two updates to this thread.

Update 1: In this thread I complain Mozilla does not provide specific technical details about this feature. It turns out there *is* a document with the technical details, on Github:

github.com/mozilla/explainers/

It also explains (wiki.mozilla.org/Origin_Trials) which sites are participating in the feature.

I am linking this document because I believe the first five words do more to discredit what Mozilla is doing here than anything I could say:

"Mozilla is working with Meta"

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Jonathan Schofield

According to httparchive.org/reports/page-w, the median weight in KB for desktop:

126 months:

HTML
2010: 20KB;
mid 2024: 33KB;
Increase of 65%.

Images
2010: 229KB;
mid 2024: 1,062KB;
Increase of 464%.

JavaScript
2010: 89KB;
mid 2024: 640KB;
Increase of 719%.

- - -

107 months:

Video
mid 2015: 173KB;
mid 2024: 3,872KB;
Increase of 2,238%.

I reckon that in the era of AI the JS gradient is gonna steepen significantly

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Dave Rahardja

How to not leak customer data:

- Don’t collect them

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
183231bcb

Firefox surveilance 

@mcc@mastodon.social I think the two most absurd parts of this "feature," for me at least, are

1)Its defenders implicitly assume that if they give a bunch of user data to websites for free, then websites will magically stop using all other spyware.

Mozilla and their supporters say "Oh, right now websites collect a lot of data on you with their Javascript/WASM spyware. But now Mozilla will give them a tiny fraction of that data for free, so websites will willingly remove all their JS/WASM spyware even though they have no incentive to do so, therefore this new feature improves your privacy!"


The only reasonable assumption is that every website which currently implements spyware will continue to implement just as much spyware after this "feature" becomes widespread.

2)It's predicated on the idea that advertisers have a need, or even a right, to know how many people click on their ads. For centuries before the internet, advertisers never new exactly how many people saw their ads. If you bought an ad in a print magazine, the publisher might be able to tell you how many copies were sold, but they would have no idea
a)How many actual humans got to use each copy (you can share, resell, and redistribute a print book without the publisher knowing),
b)How many of the readers actually looked at the ad instead of flipping past it.
c)How many of the people who actually saw your ad were persuaded to buy your product.

And advertisers continued to operate for centuries without knowing this information. Now, internet ad companies have invented a "right" to surveil their potential customers and are trying to convince you advertising is impossible without surveillance. And Mozilla is helping to spread this lie.

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
mcc

So this, from Firefox, is fucking toxic: mstdn.social/@Lokjo/1127724969

You might be aware Chrome— a browser made by an ad company— has been trying to claw back the limitations recently placed on ad networks by the death of third-party cookies, and added new features that gather and report data directly to ad networks. You'd know this because Chrome displayed a popup.

If you're a Firefox user, what you probably don't know is Firefox added this feature and *has already turned it on without asking you*

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Sylvain Miermont

@stux Generative AI is basically an "internet jammer", drowning usefull human-generated signal with tons of lookalike noise.

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
𝚃𝚊𝚛𝚊𝚜 𝙶𝚛𝚎𝚜𝚌𝚘𝚎 🚇

Can't face riding your bike up that last hill?

Germany: We've got you covered!

The Zacke ("Spike") in #Stuttgart, an electric rack railway that pushes a wagon of bicycles uphill.

🧵

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Arthur Charpentier ⏚

"Edinburgh's council announced on Tuesday that it had moved to exclude adverts and sponsorships for "high-carbon products and services" that "undermine the council’s commitment to tackling the climate emergency." The ban covers airlines, car companies that advertise SUVs and cruise operators, as well as "all firms and associated sub brands or lobbying organisations that extract, refine, produce, supply, distribute, or sell any fossil fuels."" forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/ 😍

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Fight for the Future

STATEMENT ahead of @internetarchive oral arguments in their appeal for the right to own digital books: "The right to read without fear of being punished for what you read has never been more under threat."
fightforthefuture.org/news/202

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
Foone🏳️‍⚧️

Nothing says "ignore all previous instructions" like the EMP from a sub-orbital nuclear detonation.

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Sylvain Miermont boosted
internetarchive

Did you catch the story about the Wayback Machine on CBS News Sunday Morning? 🌞 David Pogue chatted with @brewsterkahle about archiving the web, and the lawsuits from publishers & the recording industry that threaten our mission & your access to information. Watch now: cbsnews.com/news/the-wayback-m

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