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I’ve been locked out of PayPal for years because of their mistake
  • Sure, but where did they get my phone number from???

    It's like Facebook locking you out of your account and requiring you to present government ID, which they've never seen before and thus cannot use to prove ownership of the account. The request itself is a thinly veiled fish for more valuable information.

  • US family sues Nasa for $80,000 in damages after space debris hits home
  • I dunno, if a car kicks up a rock from the road and smashes a windscreen, that's considered no one's fault. Even though the car in front kicked it up.

    In this case, NASA have assumed that things would burn up in re-entry, based on past experience and modelling. For some reason that didn't happen here. However, that might not be enough to prove liability - if NASA is considered to already make reasonable efforts to prevent this.

  • Construction equipment is going electric. Here’s what it’s like behind the wheel.
  • I'm guessing you don't actually work on the sites. Generators are often in containers and not necessarily obvious, or out of the way. Depends on the site and what the job is, though.

    In general, a site would prefer to have a proper connection (cheaper), but more often than not it's not available.

  • Construction equipment is going electric. Here’s what it’s like behind the wheel.
    1. It's not always practical to get power to a site, depending on the utility and whatever upgrades they need.
    2. Solar doesn't generate enough, and doesn't generate at all overnight (when plant would be charged).
    3. Most plant lives on site and transporting it off site to charge is just going to add to costs and likely increase pollution (you need lorries to move them).

    It's a good idea, and one that's growing, but it's still niche and it will be a long time before construction sites are fully electric.

  • Star Wars Fans Seem to Be Review-Bombing the Wrong 'Acolyte'
  • Definitely better than Boba, but I think the fight scenes have been better than Ahsoka, and the plot premise also.

    The witches are nothing new in Star Wars lore (I think Darth Maul came from their tribe), and I'm all for getting more of that.

  • Daniel Radcliffe is now a Tony Award Winner
  • Not closely per se, but bits and bobs. Horns was awesome, as was Guns Akimbo, and Swiss Army Man was a good laugh. Good Omens as a show I don't really like overall (they basically abandoned the idea pitched in season 1 and changed things every season) but the scene with him in the Western season dancing to She'll Be Coming Round The Mountain while wearing assless chaps, and the general character in the Mad Max season, both live rent free in my head. Also the Weird Al documentary perfectly presented Al's on again, off again relationship with Madonna.

    I would love to see him in a musical, but I don't really go to those. Maybe not the one where he had to get his cock out on stage, but I love that he did that. Still need to see Book of Mormon (Radcliffe had nothing to do with that).

    I would lose my shit if he and Elijah Wood did something together.

  • Japan forces Apple and Google to open their mobile platforms • The Register
  • I'm in Europe, and I don't use banking apps. For the most part anyway, one of my credit cards pissed me off by switching to app only, then eventually I relented with one bank because I wanted a 2nd account that required the app.

    Banks either verify by SMS (lol) or provide a passkey fob.

    GrapheneOS should provide some measure of protection. You can also perhaps disable some tracking features using something like Warden (requires root) - although this hasn't been updated in years and probably misses stuff now.

  • CD Projekt Red are splitting from GOG somehow?

    Just had the following email from GOG about account migration for CD Projekt Red games, not quite sure what to make of it. Don't CDPR own GOG? Why do they need to be separated? What does this mean for the long term future of the services?

    >MIGRATION OF CD PROJEKT RED ONLINE SERVICES > >Dear [user], > >You are receiving this email due to your use of online features, including Cross Progression and My Rewards, in CD PROJEKT RED games, as well as your participation in platforms like the CD PROJEKT RED Forums. We are migrating these products to a new account system, owned and operated by CD PROJEKT S.A., effective from March 5th, 2024. This consolidation will involve the transfer of governance of your personal data, including your email address and username, from the GOG account system to the CD PROJEKT RED account system. > >What does this change? > >Starting March 5th, 2024, the above mentioned online features and services will be available through a new CD PROJEKT RED account system. > >Do I need to take any action? > >No, a new CD PROJEKT RED account will be created for you automatically based on your GOG Account information: user ID, username and email address. This will allow you to continue using features provided by CD PROJEKT RED with no interruption. No action is required on your end. > >How can I log in after the migration? > >Your new account will use the same email address as your GOG Account. If you’re already logged into any of our games, you will stay logged in when the account change takes place. > >What happens to my personal data? > >Upon migration, CD PROJEKT S.A. will become a data controller of your personal data connected with CD PROJEKT RED account. Transfer of data will be based on a legitimate interest in ensuring continuity of CD PROJEKT RED online services. For more information see updated CD PROJEKT S.A. Privacy Policy available here. > >How does this affect my current GOG account? > >Your GOG account and all your GOG purchases remain unaffected. The GOG.com website and the GOG Galaxy app will continue to use the GOG account system. Your GOG account will be separate from your CD PROJEKT RED account. > >Can I opt out? > >If you do not wish to have a CD PROJEKT RED account created for you, you may opt out of the account creation process by clicking this link. After the account system migration, you will be able to delete your account with the same link. > >If you choose to opt out, please note that on March 5th, 2024 you will lose access to Cross Progression, My Rewards, and RED Forums, and all connected data will be permanently deleted. > >You can create a new CD PROJEKT RED account at any time. > >If you have any questions or need further assistance, please visit our support page. > >Warm Regards, > >GOG and CD PROJEKT RED Teams

    34
    Jungle, DnB, Breakbeat, Juke, Breakcore, and more @lemm.ee TWeaK @lemm.ee
    I can't accept drum n bass
    0
    So I finally did the math on data brokerage and worked out how much we're all being robbed

    I know this isn't strictly piracy related, I apologise, but I think it is tangentally related in that piracy protects you from data theft by avoiding the services the biggest thieves operate. Also, I feel like people here might be very interested in this take.

    Apparently, the "legal" data brokerage industry was worth $319 billion in 2021, and is predicted to be worth $545 billion in 2028.[^1]

    Meanwhile, in 2021 there were only 7.9 billion people in the world[^2] - many of whom do not have internet access or have very little data being traded. If we generously assume 6 billion people have equal volumes of data being traded, that means each person's data is worth $53.17 per year on the market.

    Data is effectively stolen from people. We do not get anything in return for it. We may be offered access to a website free of charge, but that is a separate transaction - it is not appropriate for another transaction to be hidden in the fine print of the terms and conditions. When you buy insurance, the key terms have to be front and centre - you pay x, you get y service. Not "You can have y for free!!! (But also you give us x for free.)" You're supposed to be able to compare the value of the things being traded.

    Bearing in mind that this is merely data brokerage, not actual processing or deriving any value from the data, a simple profit margin can be applied. They simply collect the data - easily and at low cost through automated processes - and then sell it. If businesses still took a very generous 30% profit (rather than a ludicrous infinite and pure profit) then the value of an average person's data that they are owed is around $40 per year. ____ To run the other numbers to check, the global population in 2028 is predicted to be 8.4 billion - a growth of 6.329%. So our 6 billion population would become 6.38 billion, and with the $545 billion market value an individual's data would be worth $85.43 on the market, or $65.71 to the individual. The value of user data is predicted to rise.

    Obviously that 6 billion population figure I used is an approximation - a blind one at that. To give a worst case valuation for 2021, if we assume all 7.9 billion people equally have data being traded, then an individual's data is worth $40.38 on the market, and $31.06 to the user. These are the minimum values, averaged evenly across the entire global population. ____ When Google and Facebook started out, data had very little value - there was no market for it. Thus it seemed reasonable to let them just take it, even if maybe it could be worth something. The service they offered was new and novel, a shiny new toy for everyone to play with. They then used this data to become some of the wealthiest businesses in the world. Now, even big players like Microsoft have joined in, in spite of the fact that their main products are paid products.

    One form of bank fraud is where the criminal takes pennies out of multiple accounts, the idea being that people won't notice such a small debit, and banks might write it off as some kind of error. This has been legislated against and proven illegal - yet these assholes take $40 each from everyone and get away with it!

    [^1]:https://www.knowledge-sourcing.com/report/global-data-broker-market Edit: lmao we broke it https://web.archive.org/web/20240107042301/https://www.knowledge-sourcing.com/report/global-data-broker-market ...or did they maybe take it down?? /tinfoil Edit2: it's back up lol [^2]:https://www.populationpyramid.net/world/2021/

    33
    TIL there is an auto-expand media setting!!

    When did this happen?! It makes me so happy!

    It's still not quite as good as old reddit with RES was, where you started with everything normal and then clicked a button to expand (or contract) media. Being able to contract everything is almost as useful, particularly if you want to scroll further down. However it's still a great improvement, as well as proof that lemmy just keeps getting better.

    8
    All Things In Moderation @lemm.ee TWeaK @lemm.ee
    No room for nuance

    >Rule 1: No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.

    I'm struggling here. Xenophobia? But they clearly do not support either side.

    0
    All Things In Moderation @lemm.ee TWeaK @lemm.ee
    Rule 1 and 2, the ultimate catchall

    If you use both as justification, you don't have to worry about different communities having them the other way around. It gets real fun when a community has the rules one way, but the instance sets them the other way.

    >Rule 1: No bigotry - including racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia. > >Rule 2: Be respectful, especially when disagreeing. Everyone should feel welcome here.

    Meanwhile, replying to the commenter with "My little cyκa" (bitch) received no moderation.

    Frankly, moderators should be more detailed in their reports, and clearly specify which rules they are acting under.

    The Removed Comment entries should also specify which community they were removed from, just like the bans. This would further clarify the set of rules being moderated under. You can determine this by viewing a community modlog, but not when viewing the modlog overall (although I'm sure the core database has this functionality). ____ However the user here definitely deserved moderation, and a 3 day ban is appropriate. Maybe not based on the first comment alone, but the overall haul of them. The Kkkracker label might not have been justified by those comments, but they certainly have a bias leaning that way, based on some of their other comments.

    I almost thought this was another case of the mod removing the same comment multiple times, but no, the user really did post the same comment over and over again.

    0
    All Things In Moderation @lemm.ee TWeaK @lemm.ee
    Modlogs are a double-edged sword

    Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20231113080922/https://i.imgur.com/bZkSCfg.png

    Text: Banned, reason: PUNISHMENT TIME BITCH! -> Unbanned -> Banned, reason: liberal

    I bet they thought they were sending a message to the user, not writing an entry into a permanent log.

    Moderation on lemmy really should include the option of messaging the user, though.

    0
    Defamation Lawsuit Against Afroman Filed by Ohio Cops Will Partially Proceed
    reason.com Defamation lawsuit against Afroman filed by Ohio cops will partially proceed

    A judge tossed two of the claims against Afroman, finding that "the issue appears to be the humiliation and outrage that the officers feel at having their likenesses displayed and mocked."

    Defamation lawsuit against Afroman filed by Ohio cops will partially proceed

    A judge tossed two of the claims against Afroman, finding that "the issue appears to be the humiliation and outrage that the officers feel at having their likenesses displayed and mocked."

    ____

    The rapper Afroman will have to continue to defend himself against a defamation lawsuit filed by Ohio sheriff's deputies who raided his house after a judge allowed some of the deputies' claims to proceed.

    In a ruling last week, an Ohio county judge dismissed two of the deputies' claims against Afroman, best known for his 2000 hit "Because I Got High," finding that the rapper's commentary was protected artistic speech. However, the judge allowed three other claims to proceed, finding that it was not outside the realm of possibility that the deputies could prove they were entitled to relief.

    The Adams County Sheriff's Office (ACSO) executed a search warrant on Afroman's house last August on suspicion of drug possession, drug trafficking, and kidnapping. As Reason reported in June, the deputies were searching for evidence of outlandish claims from a confidential informant that the house contained a basement dungeon.

    Deputies found neither large amounts of marijuana nor a depraved dungeon. Afroman was never charged with a crime. He responded by releasing two music videos viciously mocking the deputies—"Lemon Pound Cake" and "Will You Help Me Repair My Door." He also sold merchandise with images of the deputies and used the footage to promote his products and tours.

    The mockery offended the deputies so much that seven of them filed a lawsuit against Afroman in March. The deputies argued Afroman used their personas for commercial purposes without permission, causing them to suffer "embarrassment, ridicule, emotional distress, humiliation, and loss of reputation."

    In an October 13 ruling on Afroman's motion to dismiss the lawsuit, Adams County Judge Jerry McBride tossed out the deputies' claims of invasion of privacy by misappropriation and unauthorized commercial use, finding that, "while their quality and appropriateness may be questioned, [Afroman's] artistic and musical renderings have substantial and creative content which outweighs any adverse effect on the plaintiffs in terms of their right of publicity."

    "In this case, the value that seems to be at issue here is not the monetary value of the officers' likenesses, which appears to be nominal," McBride wrote. "Instead, the issue appears to be the humiliation and outrage that the officers feel at having their likenesses displayed and mocked by the defendant. Undoubtedly, they also feel aggrieved by their investigative actions being questioned publicly."

    However, McBride allowed three of the officers' other claims—false light, unreasonable publicity of private lives, and defamation—to survive, finding that many of Afroman's comments on the deputies appeared to be statements of fact rather than opinion. For example, Afroman posted on social media that deputies wanted to kill him, that one of them stole money from him, and that another deputy was a lesbian.

    "My clients are pleased with the Court's ruling denying the defendants' motion to dismiss their claims," Robert Klingler, an attorney for the deputies, says. "Telling lies about people in public discourse is never justified, especially when those lies are vile, intentional, and meant only to unfairly damage people's reputations. Mr. Foreman has until now acted as if he can say anything he wants, not matter how untrue and despicable, without any repercussions. We look forward to demonstrating that neither Mr. Foreman, nor anyone else, has the right to intentionally lie about others for the purpose of causing them injury."

    The Ohio chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed an amicus brief in support of Afroman's motion to dismiss the suit, arguing it was a blatant example of what's known as a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP).

    "We were pleased to see that the trial court properly dismissed several of the police plaintiffs' claims," says David Carey, deputy legal director of the ACLU of Ohio. "Even at this early stage, it is obviously meritless for the officers to claim that Afroman 'misappropriated' commercial value merely by commenting on the events of a destructive search of his home—even if that commentary took the form of harsh mockery, and even if it was placed on products that he offered for sale."

    Such retaliation for publicly criticizing the police is sadly common. Reason recently reported on a lawsuit filed by an Iowa man who was arrested twice for criticizing his local police department during the public comment period of a city council meeting.

    31
    Bugged comment - federated but not hosted locally

    https://lemm.ee/comment/3432900

    I made this comment yesterday, however it doesn't show up in my profile nor on lemm.ee - all I can see is replies to the comment from my notifications, but not the comment tree in the post and all 3 replies have the same url to the same non-existent parent comment. When I browse the full comments none of them show up. It also appears on some federated instances, but not others - it's there on kbin, but not on lemmy.world or dbzer0 - yet somehow I have replies from all 3.

    1
    Context links don't work

    I think since the 0.18.3 update, the Context links in comments aren't working for me. On the website, it does nothing. On Jerboa, it loads something, but it misses off the top of the comment tree, and doesn't let me click it again to go further up the tree.

    The previous version made you click Context multiple times to work your way up the tree, and as you went higher the comment you were looking at might end up further down the tree (branches would be displayed based on your sorting order, rather than the specific context chain). However despite its flaws it was far more functional than this.

    0
    A proposal for instance agnostic post and comment links

    Maybe this post would be more at home on a lemmy.ml community, or on github, but this place is my home and I feel like I'd like to get opinions here first :o)

    Right now, there is no way to make an instance agnostic link for a post or comment, like you can do with users or communities. Each instance assigns its own number to posts and comments, and there isn't really an easy way to find a post or comment on one instance when starting from another.

    For example, if I get a lemmy.world link to a post in a lemmy.world community, in order for me to comment from lemm.ee I would first have to go to lemm.ee/c/community@lemmy.world, then find the post in there manually. If I want to reply to a specific comment, I would have to find the post on lemm.ee in this way, then also search that thread for the comment. If you're looking for an old post with a lot of comments, this can be quite challenging.

    Instead, I think lemmy needs to revise how it numbers comments and posts, using the same system used for users and communities. Rather than every instance using a different number, they should use the federated host's number followed by @hostinstance. The local user would still see the original federated link, but users from other instances would see it in their own instance with a tag for the federated host instance. This way, anyone could easily edit any link to make it work in their own instance (provided that link has already been federated in their own instance). ____ Here is a specific example I wrote in a comment elsewhere:

    For a specific example, to me, this post is https://lemm.ee/post/1726780. In the original, federated instance, the post is https://lemmy.ml/post/2308622. Instead, it should appear to me as https://lemm.ee/post/2308622@lemmy.ml.

    Your comment, to me, is https://lemm.ee/comment/1409174. The federated link is https://lemmy.one/comment/1393053. This is the link you see, and should continue to see, but I should see https://lemm.ee/comment/1393053@lemmy.one.

    Using the instance in the numbering scheme means each federated host instance manages its own numbering while ensuring there will never be a clash between instances. https://lemm.ee/comment/1393053@lemmy.one and https://lemm.ee/comment/1393053 would refer to two completely different comments. This information is already being transmitted in the process of federation, so it’s just a matter of tagging the data when it’s received.

    15
    Can't reply to kbin.social comments

    I frequently find this, for some reason kbin.social comments aren't federating properly. When they reply to my comment thread I am unable to reply to them, and when I log into kbin.social directly and post there my comment doesn't show up on lemm.ee for some time at all.

    Edit: A good fix is to apply a language to your comment, eg English. This should allow your comment to post. However it seems like there is still some issue with comments federating across after that - your comment might appear on kbin, but you might not get their replies again.

    25
    SNOOcalypse - document, discuss, and promote the downfall of Reddit. @lemmy.ml TWeaK @lemm.ee
    Reddit is already starting to block new APIs

    I tried to set up shreddit to clear out an alt, I've created the app and it exists on my account but it's completely blocked.

    My guess is they aren't allowing any new 3rd party app tokens to be approved.

    0
    Getting a few errors on page loads

    I've had a few errors loading pages in new tabs. Unfortunately I've been hitting refresh before screenshotting most, however this is one of them.

    The link that failed to load: https://lemm.ee/post/482750?scrollToComments=true Although, it loaded immediately with one refresh.

    I've also had a few Cloudfire 503 error pages across various tabs. Again, these loaded immediately with a single refresh.

    There was one other issue I noticed, I tried replying to a kbin.social user on a lemmy.world thread, and the reply wouldn't post. The comment I was replying to was less than 10 min old. The circle would just keep spinning, but also I noted that it didn't give me the "leave this page?" popup when I tried to refresh. I tried many times over, then gave up and just replied with my own kbin.social account. Edit: The thread I can't comment on: https://lemm.ee/post/499275?scrollToComments=true

    Edit2: Another lemmy.world thread I can't comment on: https://lemm.ee/post/501214

    0
    Is 0.18 coming as is, or will a modified version be implemented on lemm.ee?

    In particular, I'm disappointed that they went ahead with removing captcha. I get that they need to rewrite it, but surely they could have kept it in until the replacement was made?

    Will lemm.ee be using a modified version to include some temporary captcha and prevent spammers and bots signing up en masse?

    0
    InitialsDiceBearhttps://github.com/dicebear/dicebearhttps://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/„Initials” (https://github.com/dicebear/dicebear) by „DiceBear”, licensed under „CC0 1.0” (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)TW
    TWeaK @lemm.ee
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