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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 13th, 2023

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  • All those folks in the 50+ age group that grew up with “Russia is enemy #1” are probably cycling through waves of intense work and prolonged orgasm.

    I wouldn’t be surprised if one of the first things considered in strategizing any armed conflict is whether they want Russia and China to know that we have X or are capable of Y. Russia has shown their hand. If they could do more, they would have by now.

    It has also taught NATO that Russia is still in the barbaric tactics mindset. Hospitals, schools, churches, shipping centers - they’re all valid targets. If Russia wants a position, they’ll level the entire town. That certainly changes the plans, of anyone thought they would abode by the Geneva Conventions.



  • Generally, if someone’s being a total asshole so severely that they have to be yeeted with several thousand other unaware bystanders, I expect to see a bunch of examples within the first… 2, maybe 3, links.

    If someone can point me to a concise list of examples (actual data), I find it more disturbing that an admin on another server can yeet my account because they make noise on a discord server.I mean, yes, federating is a feature, but why even offer the ability to enroll users? Maybe for a group of friends, or something, but just rando users is nothing but a liability to everyone involved.




  • I almost thought I had written your comment and completely forgot about it. No, I just almost made the exact comment and want that hour of my life back.

    If there was some over the top racist rant, I sure didn’t see it. And the admin pushing for the defederation sounds so bizarre. Bizarre is the best word I could come up with because “petty” makes me think it was like high school politics. This is closer to a grade school sandbox argument.

    The worst I saw was “defedfags” and it was used in a way that was meant to highlight how they never said anything offensive. Like saying, “If you thought what I said before was offensive, let’s see how you respond to something intended to be negative.”

    The crazy thing is that the decision is being made because the admin just liked a post. It’s not even because of the post content - which has nothing controversial and appeared maybe 8 times in my Lemmy/kbin feed yesterday.

    Editing to add that this is the article: https://kbin.social/search?q=wakeup+call




  • True. They created their own problem by trying to up each other’s lumens claims over and over to the point where decent flashlights are claimed to have 5.6 million lumens and included 25000mAh 18650s.

    Most of the $5+ flashlights are probably fine for most people’s needs. I have several and they’ve been fine for me. Different models, similar modes, similar brightness, and all fine for walking the dog or if the power goes out. Now, if I were relying on them for survival, I might think twice. All have held up fine, including the 12 year old one from dealextreme (pre-alibaba). But, since I don’t know if people are asking for recommendations where spec accuracy matters, I’m hesitant to recommend them to random people on the internet.

    (I had to check, just for fun, and there are 18650 batteries listed as 19900mAh. Pretty impressive, since Panasonic is capped out at 3500-3600.)


  • Yeah, it really caught me off guard the first time I used the site. It was during one of those special celebration discount days where they had the audacity to mark items as literally $0.01 when basically nothing was that price.

    For 3D printer filament, which is usually bought in 1kg/2.2lb spools, most places list a 2m sample or a 250g spool to game the search. And my other favorite is the whack-a-mole shipping setup where on variation might be free shipping, but choose a different color and the shipping jumps to $300+.

    With Amazon, I’m seeing a ton more overpriced items discounted to still higher priced than their competition. If you look at their deals pages, you can find things like portable monitors for $70 (down from $150), but checking that category shows the same monitor (same specs under a different name) for $60.

    Here’s as close as I can find right now, since all the lightning deals are ending for the day. There’s a USB laptop docking station that’s “discounted” from $139 to $70. There isn’t an exact match (there usually is), but similar products go for ~$60-$70 (2 HDMI, 4+ USB3 ports, 100W PD, ethernet). What’s funnier is that the specific company’s Amazon site has at least 4 identical docks at slightly different prices.


  • I just tried it again on desktop and it worked, but the reason was that I downloaded an extension a while ago and forgot about it. When I disabled the extension, it stopped working.

    There used to be a way to enable installing any extension on mobile FFx Dev, but I’m not sure if that still works. The desktop extension just changes the user agent string, so that might be another route to enabling it.



  • I use AliExpress for electrical parts (except anything with memory), 3D printer parts, and small crap I don’t mind waiting for, but never anything I would be angry about if it never arrived. Also, nothing I consume or wear or need for safety, and I’m wary of anything that’s supposed to be plugged into the wall for long periods of time unattended.

    I wouldn’t say I’ve been surprised, but my expectations are low. It’s all cheap stuff, but as long as you’re not needing the stuff you buy, it’s fine. Dollar store quality with the scent of plastic and cigarettes.

    That being said, beware of scams. The one that seems acceptable to them is to list one cheap part for the listing, along with variations of the full device. That way it looks like the lowest price in search results, but when you click it, the selected variation is the cheap part. Like, you’ll search for “pliers set” and see a listing for $1, compared to others around $15. When you select it, the product page will have a carrying case for $1 and the various pliers for twice as much as the competition. What’s better is that the case will be selected automatically, not the thing in the picture you clicked on or the picture you see first in the product pages’ gallery.

    There are also scam stores that pop up with super low prices compared to others on the site can disappear overnight and the cancellation/refund process is a super pain. Contact customer service once and just submit a claim with your CC company. Their refund process will try to keep telling you to wait for another week, and that includes the reps you get on chat. If you’re suspicious and still order, always follow the shipping info. They will estimate a reasonable delivery date, you’ll get a shipping notification, but it will sit in limbo. The shipping folks are separate from the scammers, so if you see the package actually move towards a shipping center, you’re in the clear. If it says they received shipping information for over a week, you got screwed.

    Ignore flash drives/SSDs, batteries, and assume any flashlights are 1/100th the brightness claimed (literally). Oh, and watch shipping costs. Something with free shipping can be 10x the price of the product if you add a second one to your cart.


  • I looked into this before with a similar deal by a 3rd party seller on Amazon. The enterprise drives (I was looking at those EXOS drives, too) must be sold by the manufacturer certified reseller or you run the chance of getting zero warranty. That being said, I’ve seen plenty of conflicting stories by people that bought them and needed to submit an RMA. I’d say it was a 60/40 split of honoring the warranty to not honoring it.

    Long story short, it’s a gamble. They’re likely good drives, but you’re rolling the dice if something goes wrong with them.




  • If the surface is flat enough, start with a scraper. One of those single edged replaceable blade deals. That’ll quickly take off 90%, if not all of it. If the blade gets sticky and you want to made another pass, wipe it off with some oil (basically any, even olive oil). Then go for the other suggestions, like rubbing the sticker with oil and alcohol.

    This works much quicker than just oil and alcohol, BUT the surface has to be flat. If it isn’t flat, it has to be non-razor-blade-damage-vulnerable material.



  • Good point. I think they could navigate around most of the trouble if they get some distance from the protest.

    One of three things could happen:

    1. Reddit buckles to unhappy investors (whom doubt Reddit brass has control) and actually hires a small group of moderators for subs with X million users or Y activity.
    2. They slowly remove them one-by-one, replacing them with mods from other subs. e.g.- Contact the mods of r/(some other picture subreddit), sent them a DM, “We noticed your sub is very similar to r/Pics. To make the community blah blah, we’re trying to expand the mod teams of our most active subreddits. Would you be willing to help mod r/Pics some small amount, and in return we’ll help recruit more mods for r/(some other picture sub)?” Or they’ll frame it as a test strategy or test of new mod tools.
    3. Same as #2, but quickly and all protest supporting mods at once. Take the PR hit, counter with “new tools”, ignore the backlash.

  • The article said that r/Pics and r/military have surrendered for the good of their communities. I mean, r/Pics could make that mistake, but r/military??? You understand it’s MUCH easier to just execute your POWs than treat them humanely, right? Unfortunately, the mods are about to discover there’s no Geneva Conventions for Reddit to prevent just that. Maybe they meant for this to be a teaching moment?

    Within the year, once the protests have really died down, those mods will be purged. 100% guarantee it. The ONLY case where they survive is if Reddit wants to show how fair and magnanimous they are to the community. Of course, any further test of that will be get them nuked from orbit.