Just a guy shilling for gun ownership, tech privacy, and trans rights.

I’m open for chats on mastodon https://hachyderm.io/

my blog: thinkstoomuch.net

My email: nags@thinkstoomuch.net

Always looking for penpals!

  • 6 Posts
  • 64 Comments
Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: December 21st, 2023

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  • I’m a week into using GrapheneOS and its been great. It is a little restrictive in that I seem to have to explicitly allow apps to run and apps like my Bank app or Spotify don’t work.

    However, most apps are just Web Apps at this point and I’ve noticed very little difference in the use of the app versus the pinned browser version.

    I’m also trying to curb a phone addiction so Graphene + Lemmy + Mastodon + Jellyfin is all I’m using on this thing.

    I assume google headphones would cease to work if I degoogle the device

    I’m using my Pixel Buds. They work just as well. Remember, its just a Bluetooth device just without all the QOL stuff like voice control.

    I recommend trying it. Graphene OS install also has instruction ions to revert if you change your mind. And it’s pretty easy. Maybe a touch harder than installing Linux generally, but if your dailying Debian, you’re fine.






  • I am a fan of LLMs and what they can do, and as such have a server specifically for running AI models. However, I’ve been reading “Atlas of AI” by Kate Crawford and you’re right. So much of the data that they’re trained on is inherently harmful or was taken without consent. Even in the more ethical data sets it’s probably not great considering the sheer quantity of data needed to make even a simple LLM.

    I still like using it for simple code generation (this is just a hobby to me so Vibe coding isn’t a problem in my scenario) and corporate tone policing. And I tell people non stop that it’s worthless outside of these use cases and maybe as a search engine, but I recommend Wikipedia as a better start almost Everytime.











  • Personally I’m a huge fan of the Alcoholics Anonymous understanding of “god” and I think it applies more widely.

    In AA it is supposed to be A-religious so as to accommodate as many people as possible. To them, god is whatever higher power you need to put your faith into to do better. An entity who you are striving to make proud or you are asking for guidance or help, etc.

    This genericized god idea kinda gives up the game to me as an atheist, but it doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact it’s made me believe in god as an idea.

    There are plenty of studies on “manifesting” goals and how saying out loud to yourself or to someone at all substantially increases your chance of succeeding in your goal. This is just prayer or a magic spell or whatever else you wanna call it. I call it a ritual.

    The fact that god is a made up idea has been uncontested in my mind for eons, however the psychological power of a belief in god is new to me and makes me appreciate the systems of religion more (doesn’t excuse a lot of their bullshit).





  • The biggest perk for me for a dedicated NAS is redundancy and hot swap ability.

    It is inevitable that a few of your spinning disks will die and need to be replaced, a proper dedicated NAS box will let you pop out and swap that drive and then the NAS software will rebuild the array for you with no data loss.

    Obviously you can do most all of this with a normal desktop, but it’s generally easier with the right hardware.

    I custom built mine running Truenas which was way cheaper then a dedicated NAS, but also I’m an IT turbo nerd so I wanted to do the whole thing myself.