secabeen (u/secabeen)

secabeen commented on Discord Alternatives, Ranked taggart-tech.com/discord-... · Posted by u/pseudalopex

BowBun · 12 hours ago

They have >200 million DAUs and guesses say they have >10K servers with >10K users. Assumptions from a tech crowd who were used to IRC should be taken with a grain of salt.

Now if we're just looking for alternatives for ourselves, cool. But I think the reality is that most normal users do fully lean into the social aspects of Discord. A server like Marvel Rivals has literally millions of users. Players join that discord to socialize with all of those players and build a community around the game.

secabeen · 8 hours ago

> A server like Marvel Rivals has literally millions of users. Players join that discord to socialize with all of those players and build a community around the game.

That is totally true, but is that server really going to be one with NSFW content or channels? Those huge servers are great spaces, but every one I've been on is fully functional if you are on a "teen account" without doing ID/Age verification.

secabeen commented on The TSA's New $45 Fee to Fly Without ID Is Illegal frommers.com/tips/airfare... · Posted by u/donohoe

lotsofpulp · 8 days ago

And also provide an API for online services to use so we are not beholden to Alphabet and Apple.

And while they’re at it, provide an electronic money account that allows for free and instant transfers.

But then how would we waste so many societal resources letting investors profit from basic infrastructure?

secabeen · 8 days ago

> But then how would we waste so many societal resources letting investors profit from basic infrastructure?

That, and Millenarian Christians would object to its being a required "mark of the beast." That bit from Revelations has held us back for quite a while.

secabeen commented on English professors double down on requiring printed copies of readings yaledailynews.com/article... · Posted by u/cmsefton

zkmon · 9 days ago

>This academic year, some English professors have increased their preference for physical copies of readings, citing concerns related to artificial intelligence.

I didn't get it. How can printing avoid AI? And more importantly is this AI-resistance sustainable?

secabeen · 9 days ago

You can't easily copy and paste from a printout into AI. Sure, you can track down the reading yourself online, and then copy and paste in, but not during class, and not without some effort.

secabeen commented on Tesla is committing automotive suicide electrek.co/2026/01/29/te... · Posted by u/jethronethro

Analemma_ · 12 days ago

I have a 2022 Model 3, and the hilariously tragic part is that the voice assistant was great and basically never gave me any problems until they shoved Grok into it, whereupon it broke completely. I never use it anymore, they effectively removed a feature from my car.

secabeen · 12 days ago

I have an older X, and I'm kind of happy that the AP and Infotainment hardware in it is largely deprecated, and they are unlikely to be able to shove Grok crap into it. It will stay largely the same for the life of the car.

secabeen commented on White House alters arrest photo of ICE protester, says "the memes will continue" arstechnica.com/tech-poli... · Posted by u/wmeredith

secabeen · 16 days ago

Slander and libel laws are complicated, but she should have a pretty good case:

- The defendant knew or should have know that he or she was making an untrue or defamatory statement about you. (Yes, they edited the photo.)

- The false statement must clearly identify you. (It's a clear photo.)

- The defendant must have spread the false information to at least one third party who is not the target. For a libel case, they must do so in print, and for a slander case, they must do so verbally. (They posted it on Social Media.)

- The false statement must have damaged your character in some way. (Probably? This is the hardest one, but it's reasonable that the message that a "Far-Left" agitator would cry when arrested, rather than being stoic and strong could cause damage to her reputation or character.

https://askalawlibrarian.nycourts.gov/legalresearch/faq/3677...

secabeen commented on What a year of solar and batteries saved us in 2025 scotthelme.co.uk/what-a-y... · Posted by u/MattSayar

Veserv · a month ago

What do you mean? It did pan out for Tesla. Faking a single demo granted them 75% more ZEV emissions credit government subsidys [1]. That increased their profits by hundreds of millions of dollars.

All they had to do was go on stage and “swap” a battery without any clear video of the process and never “demonstrate” it ever again.

This is a company known for faking prominent demos like the FSD demo (where it crashed into a wall during filming), the solar roof demo (where they used regular roof tiles and claimed they were solar panels), the optimus demo (where they were teleoperated), etc.

Assuming they even did a battery swap, for which the official demo presents no clear video evidence, preferring overhead views over a close-up of the process or a glass enclosure to see the inner workings, it was at best a one-off custom-made device at the time. The one battery-swap station they claim existed has zero stories of any actual battery swaps, instead only evidence of it operating as a regular Supercharger [2].

[1] https://thewaroncars.org/episode-88-tesla-is-a-fraud-with-ed...

[2] https://slate.com/technology/2022/05/elon-musk-tesla-twitter...

secabeen · a month ago

Battery swap was and remains really risky for anyone doing it. You're taking a $10k asset, and swapping it for another $10k asset of unknown provenance. Does anyone really want to be in a situation where they purchase a new Tesla with a brand new, max-range battery pack, then swap it once on a road trip and get one that's been used for 300k miles and is at 75% of original capacity?

secabeen commented on A faster heart for F-Droid f-droid.org/2025/12/30/a-... · Posted by u/kasabali

skiing_crawling · a month ago

A "single server" covers a pretty large range of scale, its more about how F-droid is used and perceived. Package repos are infrastructure, and reliability is important. A server behind someone's TV is much more susceptible to power outages, network issues, accidents, and tampering. Again, I don't know that's the case since they didn't really say anything specific.

> not hosted in just any data center where commodity hardware is managed by some unknown staff

I took this to mean it's not in a colo facility either, assumed it mean't someone's home, AKA residential power and internet.

secabeen · a month ago

The F-Droid repos are provided by redundant mirrors: https://f-droid.org/en/docs/Running_a_Mirror/

If this is the hidden master server that only the mirrors talk to, then it's redundancy is largely irrelevant. Yes, if it's down, new packages can't be uploaded, but that doesn't affect downloads at all. We also know nothing about the backup setup they have.

A lot depends on the threat model they're operating under. If state-level actors and supply chain attacks are the primary threats, they may be better off having their system under the control of a few trusted contributors versus a large corporation that they have little to no influence over.

secabeen commented on The U.S. Is Funding Fewer Grants in Every Area of Science and Medicine nytimes.com/interactive/2... · Posted by u/karakoram

gosub100 · 2 months ago

It can be proved by deduction based on the rate of increase in tuition

secabeen · 2 months ago

Which tuition are you referring to? Nameplate tuition is like the sticker price on a new car; few to no people pay it. Net tuition is the number that actually matters, and it's been largely flat the last 8 years.

secabeen commented on Coursera to combine with Udemy investor.coursera.com/new... · Posted by u/throwaway019254

azangru · 2 months ago

> Those courses that were basically “we’re a top university and we let someone record the class from the back” were a literal life changer. Honestly, that was all I wanted.

Does anyone remember what happened to UC Berkeley? They had a lot of their courses recorded and uploaded to youtube; an absolute joy. Then, some [beep] sued them for not making the recording accessible enough, i.e. not providing captions alongside the recordings. And they had to take down all their published courses! Because if someone cannot make use of those courses, then no-one can! Such a shame! Especially considering how these days, captions can be generated automatically for anyone who really needs them.

secabeen · 2 months ago

It's going to get worse, ADA Title II updates require that by April 2026 all PDFs and documents be used by UCB be accessible to the WCAG 2.1 AA standard. I expect a lot of third-party content currently hosted on University of California websites will go away.

https://dap.berkeley.edu/documents-forms/pdfs

https://dap.berkeley.edu/ada-title-ii-updates/title-ii-ada-w...

secabeen commented on Yep, Passkeys Still Have Problems fy.blackhats.net.au/blog/... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

secabeen · 2 months ago

The "Vendors Can Lock You Out" part is what makes passkeys entirely a non-starter for me. Especially the additional risk when someone passes away and the heirs are trying to get access to the deceased's accounts. Vendors are well known for saying "we had an agreement with Samantha, and with her death, that agreement has terminated, and no one can be given access that was not pre-designated."