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Joined 1 month ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2025

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  • I know, it’s just kind of laughably shouting they don’t know what either an audit or conflict of interest actually are.

    The hardest part some times is finding an audit firm that isn’t stupid expensive, but also won’t do a shit job and give you a report that looks like some knock-off free LLM didn’t write it to maximize their own payday. I love a good audit report with findings, it means I didn’t waste money. But my shit is (well, was, at another place years back) locked down tight, so we didn’t ever expect anything terrible.



  • I’m sorry - paying for an audit is somehow a conflict of interest? How exactly is that?

    As someone who had to contract auditing firms every year, and personally sign off in their report as part of our compliance, I would love to hear how I should have …what? Won the audit lottery? Applied for some sort of government assistance? Prayed to an audit fairy godmother?

    Who the F else is paying for our audit? I want free audits! I bet everyone does.



  • The pets do need the training to understand that the sounds, when the button says them, mean communication to the human. It’s actually a pretty sophisticated intellectual jump, and not all pets necessarily get it.

    Typically one starts with “outside” as a non-food common request (for indoor peta). So an owner starts by saying “outside” and associating just that word with going outside (not the full “you wanna go out?”). Once the pet gets past the conceptual hurdle is the button means the thing, after that it’s much easier to add new words.



  • Random smattering of Eurovision picks, Who The Hell is Edgar by Teya and Salena (Austria) is a hilarious banger and commentary on Spotify profits to artists. Also, No Rules by Windows95man was pure brilliance.

    Power metal classics and a few covers of 80s hits.

    TV theme songs, but the full full 3-4 minute song.

    Weird Al’s Hamilton Polka is top tier.

    Plus some Disco era A and B sides, West African old school “palm wine music,” songs from a few musicals including the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode.

    You know, just, like, normal stuff.











  • It’s worth it to pay extra for anything that doesn’t need an app or WiFi connectivity.

    Those are huge red flags. Avoid anything “smart” like the plauge.

    Appliances with “smart features” are simply scraping your whole home, not just your phone, for data to sell to advertisers. Very often the app or even the company won’t outlive the appliance itself, so as happens frequently, in 2 years you’ll be stuck with a perfectly workable appliance that refuses to work because some server in China went offline.


  • Aside from the Ars Technica article in the xpost, there’s a lot of “it depends.”

    It depends on not just the OS, but if it’s a custom image built for Dell or HP or Asus etc. computers, what settings are on, what settings were on by default, what bloatware is pre-installed, etc.

    Typically, all MS or Apple really want are to know what apps you have installed, zip code, email address, IP address, crash reports, and possibly keywords they can associate with advertising. That’s their baseline wish list, which is all advertising fodder, and depending on your settings, that can quickly expand to “anonymized” (it’s not) cookie use, tracking of websites visited, etc.

    If you have a custom image (i.e. a Dell specific version of Windows) the laptop manufacturer will look for access to roughly the same data.

    With the whole Copilot fiasco, recording things like keystrokes and screenshots really are potentially in play now. But, again, only if you have foolishly installed Copilot and turned that stuff on. And that only after huge public outcry. So there’s always a non-zero risk of that, but do your due diligence to know you settings.

    Can you strip out bloatware and tighten down Windows to a reasonable degree? Sure. But because MS can and does change system settings without your consent, you might find in 6 months an article about a setting you turned off, that they turned back on and you had no idea.