Recent comments

Rambler wrote

Reply to The Worst Alphabet Book Ever™ by Wahaha

This is one of the reasons why I don't give anyone learning English a hard time. It's a difficult language.

There is a YouTube channel that I can't recall the name of now. A Russian couple learning English and they vlog only in English as a means of practice. Pretty interesting, they just share what their life is like in Russia. Show the supermarkets, talk about prices and cost of living, etc.

I think it's a neat way to learn a new language, and they're pretty fluent right now but lack confidence and words like those shown in the book would definitely cause their brain to short circuit, lol.

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Rambler wrote

Reply to Commercialized Penis Envy by Wahaha

Pretty common in the backpacking, off grid, van life, etc world.

Standing up to pee is great. I don't blame women for wanting to be able to do that. Still a goofy product, but it's popular and gets the job done I guess.

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smartypants wrote

Reply to Commercialized Penis Envy by Wahaha

DOZENS of companies make these for women to stand up to pee:

  • SheWee
  • GoGirl FUD
  • Whiz Freedom
  • Gotta Tinkle
  • Peecock
  • Pee-Zee
  • Peequality
  • The Stand Up
  • The Travel Jane
  • PeeBuddy
  • Ms Whiz
  • Mr. Limpy
  • Mr. Fenis
  • The P-Mate
  • KleanGo
  • Travel John
  • Lady J
  • P-EZ
  • LadyP
  • The pStyle ® Reusable
  • Pibella
  • Freshette
  • Chickpea
  • AquaEve
  • TinkleBelle

... and about 10 more.

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Rambler OP wrote

Reply to comment by Wahaha in Why We Absolutely Must Ban Private Use of Facial Recognition by Rambler

My concern is more private use. I get my face scanned to enter my workplace, and the (biometrics) company state that they retain that for up to 3 years beyond end of employment.

To me, that's up to 3 years too long.

And I don't "mind" it, so long as that information was stored locally and could be purged by HR when an employee ls no longer employed, as part of an after-employment checklist. For example, if you have a company with 700 active employees, then on your LAN you have the biometric hardware/software operating and it contains no more than 700 faces, and doesn't face anything public, as it's only used to allow/deny entry to the building. Doesn't need a web facing control panel, no need to store that data 'in the cloud', etc.

But, that's not how things are done. The biometric company could be bought up by another. It could be hacked. It could be secretly funded by any alphabet agency or sharing data with them.

If it was private use, open source, localized installs across companies and company owned worksites... no problem.

As far as public stuff goes? I'm kind of with you. I have cameras. I use them. Moreso when I lived in the city. Shortly after installation I thought all the hoodlums were casing cars on the street because they were walking in the street instead of on my sidewalk. Turns out they noticed the cameras and thought they were out of view of them if they just walk in the middle of the road. Nope, I still see ya buddy.

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Wahaha wrote

Reply to Why We Absolutely Must Ban Private Use of Facial Recognition by Rambler

As much of a privacy nightmare as it is, I kinda dream of a city with high-resolution security cams featuring facial recognition covering every public space, even the sewers. But they would be accessible to everyone, so you can watch it yourself. It could be cooler than reality TV.

Also, I never was too concerned with privacy in public. The problem is how the system can be abused in the future, but then everyone is more or less keeping a tracking device on their body and publishing their opinions on the Internet, so I'm not sure if facial recognition could be abused to do something that isn't already possible anyway.

Maybe people would finally stop littering, if there are cams identifying and fining them automagically.

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Wahaha wrote

Reply to Why We Absolutely Must Ban Private Use of Facial Recognition by Rambler

Have you seen the show Higashi no Eden? Friends of the protagonist created an app that would let them identify everything, people included. Everyone had the ability to identify new things and add to the database. It was a pretty neat tool, but utterly futuristic back in 2009 when the show aired. That was about when smartphones became common.

And it looked a lot like that screenshot from the site.

The concept was kinda dwarfed by the real point of the show, which was a mobile phone with a billion or so and an operator doing tasks for you by using that money. Like shooting rockets or shipping all shut-ins off to Africa or something like that. Good fun.

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BlackWinnerYoshi wrote

Reply to Signal's open sourced server code hasn't been updated for over a year. Should we be concerned? by Rambler

Well, while open source does not mean it's secure, this is still a weird thing to do.

I would simply recommend to stop using Signal and start using XMPP with OMEMO encryption, since this is the gold standard of instant messengers, at least for me. You should especially stop using Signal because it requires your phone number, which immediately disqualifies it for a private messenger.

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