Sven Slootweg (soft-deprecated) @joepie91@pixie.town

Site needed an update

- Bigger is not better. A wifi antenna on a router is internally just a stick of wire that's a *specific length* for a particular frequency. Plastic over-moldings styled like evangelions are just there to look cool.

- Antennas might advertise themselves as "+3.6dB gain" or whatever, but that's a measurement of directionality, not efficiency or power. (Properly the unit is dBi, or "decibels over isotropic".) Unless you specifically desire a directional antenna, you rarely want a higher figure there.

- The relevant measure of antenna efficiency is VSWR (voltage standing wave ratio) or s11 (return loss). These are both different ways of expressing how well an antenna is matched to a specific frequency of interest. For VSWR, 1.0 is ideal and larger numbers are worse. For s11, numbers that are more negative are better. Consumer hardware rarely indicates those specs tho.

it seems like techbros think "infosec" means "it's okay to access personal information without consent, so long as i'm using a TLS connection to read it."

"De man bleek nog een boete open te hebben staan en kon die niet betalen. De agent wilde daarom zijn autosleutels omdat hij zijn auto niet mocht gebruiken totdat de boete betaald is. De man weigerde die sleutels af te geven. Ook toen de agent zei dat hij dan aangehouden zou worden. De man bleef zitten in zijn auto. Toegeschoten assistentie moest een stroomstootwapen inzetten om de man alsnog aan te houden."

(Bron: https://www.omroepbrabant.nl/nieuws/4388372/112-nieuws-fietsers-botsen-politie-gebruikt-stroomstootwapen#14.29)

Wat was dat ook alweer over hoe een taser alleen als vervanging voor een pistool gebruikt zou worden, en niet tot toegenomen inzet daarbuiten zou leiden?

Moet ik daaruit afleiden dat een agent iemand neergeschoten zou hebben om z'n autosleutels te stelen?

*proprietary software shoves ads in your face, implements dark patterns everywhere and does everything to keep your attention*
"Well, but it's free to use and everyone uses it. It's not that bad."

open source software shows a sidebar on the right instead of left side
"Literally unusable garbage."

Do any IP experts know if there are any copyright problems if I publish something on the Fedi and somebody else takes it and displays it somewhere else with ads? Is that, in US legal terms, "fair use"?

Is there a way to flag my posts as CC-NC or prevent people from using them commercially?

Also: this COVID safety presentation is maybe the best I've ever seen.

It's a fairly comprehensive guide for people who aren't as into the research as we are, and has none of the bad/false info you get from public health sources.

If we could replace every public health COVID guide with this, it would be a huge improvement.

cc @CovidSafeFurs

https://covidsafefurs.org/Covid%20Safe%20Furs%20@%20BLFC%202023.pdf

@CaribenxMarciaX mmhmm, I'm seeing a lot of such takes and it's disconcerting to see how little people have apparently learned from years and years of exploitative tech companies doing their thing: and how little work the tech companies have to do in PR terms, because people are going round doing the work for them, FOR FREE

This is clown logic, sorry not sorry

We're here *because* it is not Meta

https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/111591822065763831

#LeatherKink #StadlerKink #CuddlyCorner

We call on both cons and attendees to do more to protect those in the furry fandom who are particularly susceptible to severe outcomes from Covid. Many furries fall under this category, and they deserve to participate in our community without having their health be endangered.

Large gatherings like conventions are inherently risky, and it is not possible to completely eliminate risk. However, we have tools such as masks, tests, and vaccines that can lower the risk and make it safer for members of vulnerable populations to attend.

If we have the tools, the right thing to do is to use them. It is not inclusive or just to leave vulnerable populations to fend for themselves. A collective commitment to Covid safety is the best way to ensure that all members of our community are able to participate.

#Fediblock mastodon.social for federating with threads.net who is a known propagator of hatespeech

In disagreement with the take that there's nothing to do about Threads.

Right now Facebook gets a lot of power out of saying "You consented to this," because it's an open protocol and by default Masto will federate with them.

There is a solution to the technical problem, which is to block federation with threads.net. Then Facebook has to at least admit they're doing this without consent.

That's the tech problem. There's also a people problem.

I think that Threads users don't benefit much from being connected to me, but they want things that are totally inconsistent with my happiness. So I see them as purely taking from Masto as it exists.

I think infosec.exchange's stance of "we won't decide for you if we federate with Threads" is completely inadequate in the face of this problem because Facebook is introducing a giant coalition of which, presumably, many will want voting rights.

I can't see an outcome where people who oppose Facebook aren't marginalized off the instance by a massive, semi-astroturfed coalition of people who think Zuck should have another private beach. The members of this coalition will be a mixture of Threads.net users and infosec.exchange users who have realized they like some Threads users.

I expect this to be the outcome for Hachyderm too.

My goal is (1) to make it technically possible to express nonconsent to this in an unambiguous way (2) to create implicit social threat against joining the coalition Facebook is trying to create.

Specifically, I want to support this in cases where there aren't instance-level blocks on Threads. This is likely to happen a lot in cases where Threads bribes instance admins with money or promises of power.

I do not know if this will work. But I hope something does.