I have not heard one good thing about India. Please share. As far as I can tell only China has blossomed and it’s incredibly striking. India? … I guess capitalism just doesn’t work. Let’s check back in maybe… 100 years? How long does it take for a capitalist nation to build itself up? 500 years?

Everything’s wrong on your list my dude.

We were all panicking a bit about this one. Glad it turned out to be nonsense. Full steam ahead–er… full oil burn everything!

Umm… You’ve seen NSA’s data centers?

“No way every domestic telephone call is being recorded and transcribed!”

Next moment:

“Woah! Gnarly dude! A.I. that’s been trained on ludicrously large datasets! It can mimic your mom’s voice, dude! Here, check it out! It can also write e-mails like a human!”

All the leaked intel points to: this is a very real and possible situation. Better not think about it and stick your head deeper into the sands.

On a technical level Google knows where 80% of Americans are, because they’re using Google’s Android. It could report back what cell-tower their mobile-computer is using, or it could be using the mobile-computer’s GPS, or it could take the SSID of any nearby WiFi or Bluetooth device and compare it to a map that’s diligently updated daily by every Google Android user. To say Google knows where every Google Android user is is very technically possible. It’s also technically possible to infer other things with a satisfactory probability, like where the other 20% are.

The NSA, CIA and FBI were the data harvesters. The solutions to their needs were financed by them and we got… for instance, Google. They had vasts amounts of data and needed a way to search through it. Likewise the intelligence-agencies wanted ways to impersonate others digitally and… oh look, we have live ‘deep-fakes’. I won’t bother espousing how the economy serves the state’s needs first and any consumer commodities are second- or third-order artifacts, but really? You don’t think the very thing advertisers are doing now–in no way secretly either–are not technically feasible for the rapacious, infinite-money pits of the secret-police?

Right–I forgot! Only communists have secret-police!

Is there really a point to this? Similar time-frame as you. Old CPUs are pretty much trash. It works. No one would buy it though. Applying thermal-paste would do what? Make it run a bit cooler? I don’t even monitor the temperature… I’m writing from a place of ignorance. I do think things should be properly maintained; I just hadn’t thought of reapplying thermal-paste before.

It must be stated: Google is malicious! The language used here and elsewhere conceals the fact that: a) Google is a for-profit company with no morals (they work with militaries and surveillance-agencies to kill); b) they operate in a monopolistic manner; c) they’re eroding control of your personal-property.

This is just another move by Google to consolidate control over the AOSP. It doesn’t matter that this convoluted sequence can temporarily ‘bypass’ Google’s wishes–in fact I would state this is clearly worse. Removing the ability to install non-Google-endorsed software on your own private-property could be illegal. This is perhaps the only thing they could do to prevent lawsuits, only they’ve made it so asininely convoluted that only 0.01% will actually complete the process that it should be illegal monopolistic behaviour. American courts have absolutely failed everyone by allowing this rampant malicious behaviour to be the norm in American-software.

Google’s Android already created friction for installing software outside their ecosystem. There is no justification for this behaviour. It cannot be defended. Stop following their market-speak. This is belligerent and malicious behaviour!

To put a finer point on this: Google is charging a recurring fee to anyone who wants to distribute software to phones–Android-phones. If you have a need to distribute software to your organisation’s mobile-computers you now need to pay a recurring fee to Google, or… jump on one foot, spin around, touch the ground and hope Google doesn’t bully you further. Oh, and you have to do this dance personally for all 438 mobile-computers you manage. The absurdity of the situation is appalling! The fact you have users defending–and that is what these sort of responses are doing: defending one of the most profitable companies in existence–“oh, just do the dance now so it won’t inconvenience you later”.

The “escape hatch” is down that corridor, to the left, left, right, left, left, up, right & behind the book-case; take the stairs up, down five flights; depart at Washington D.C. and on arrival you’ll see a button. Press it. It might not do anything.

–Google

Aatub

I’ll get back to you, probably over the weekend.

Sorry, I’m convinced meta analyses are garbage written by the least capable academics. They create yet another “study” that supports X or Y position without testing anything at all–that outsiders use to further an X or Y agenda. More meta-studies based off other meta-studies! It’s mountains of useless bullshit.

For example, a more recent meta-analysis by Wykes and colleagues (2008) examined controlled trials of CBT for schizophrenia and confirmed findings from previous meta-analyses (e.g., Gould et al., 2001; Rector & Beck, 2001), suggesting that CBT had a small to medium effect size as compared to control conditions on both positive and negative symptoms.

How brain-rotted do you have to be to think this says anything? “We reread the articles and they still say the same thing… because… they’re written.” Maybe we should perform another meta-analysis on the same articles! Third time’s the charm!

The underlying papers are of no use at all:

CBT for depression was more effective than control conditions such as waiting list or no treatment

Like holy shit, really? This is your foundation of evidence that CBT works? Just look at the proponents of CBT–it’s a magical, effective treatment for everything under the sun! I can’t take it seriously, especially when it’s pushed as being as effective as medications.

I had some blood work done and it indicated that I would likely have a negative or poor response to an antidepressant I’d been taking for nearly a year. I’d tell the doctors that it does absolutely nothing, but they kept increasing the dose and insisted it would do something positive. It never did. These are the same disinterested, bullshit doctors that would tell you to engage in CBT.

All the therapists would gaslight you into believing it’s all your fault: just think your way out of it. Fucking bullshit. Absolute puerile bullshit.

The reality is I suffer from something that has a genetic component to it: crippling depression that runs in the maternal family. No. Talk therapy doesn’t do shit. No. CBT doesn’t do shit. Appropriate drugs actually work and I’m now in a so much better place after living my whole life with crippling depression, anxiety and panic attacks. I finally feel able to live a normal life. Do you know how much money and time I’ve wasted on talk-therapists? They’re not doctors. They’re complete time-wasters. They should be banned as I’m convinced they perpetuate harm.

Even proponents of talk-therapy have that fundamental caveat that absolves them of everything: it could take years before you see any results. It’s all con-artists selling snake-oil. Psychology is such a bull shit field.

Is there actual evidence that CBT actually works? It’s always thrown out there as something that helps, but it doesn’t. It doesn’t work.

Added some subtle context.

However, he noted that the US government and intelligence apparatus have “not been organised for espionage to gather technological secrets for decades”.

So… what has it been doing the past few decades?

Why does capitalism always need state handouts? Eventually the capitalists will run out of other peoples’ money. What then?

Absolutely not. The assumption for telephone networks is this: every call is automatically transcribed and recorded. Further autonomous analysis is done on that transcription and if flagged a human would start listening to the recordings or ask for a live feed. Your telephone is a hot mic.

Americans would point to legal protections, but the intelligence agencies don’t care. If it can be done it is done. Outside of America you’re open game. The NSA has always put forward that autonomous collection by computers is not ‘surveillance’ and therefore not illegal anyway. Other jurisdictions will be using similar arguments.

(If you’re an American and you still want to believe your laws protect you then consider America’s five eyes program and other such intelligence sharing programs. The Australians can surveil the Americans and the Americans can surveil the Australians and it’s all within a legal framework. Then they can share intelligence with one another.)

Public prosecution is often a news item and sometimes the evidence can be enlightening. E.g. the evidence is a recording of a telephone call years before prosecution even began. It’s a rather mundane prosecution too. Nothing remarkable that would warrant elevation towards state actors and their capabilities.

I want to press a point: the apparatus of mass-surveillance is owned by the state, but the products that are generated via that apparatus trickle down to smaller state actors like your local police and the private market. To frame things statically is wrong: my threat model doesn’t involve state actors so I can ignore this. Well, the private market now sells services that previously only state-actors could do.

There’s water in the windows?

There is no link between sweet foods and being sated? Sugar makes me feel ill. I dislike confectionery. I’ve tried some imported American products and the Americans are just a different breed. If I were in America I think I’d die. Their food is inedible.

I’m using this strategy too. I have bladders of water around and my water consumption has increased, but that’s more an addition to the soda consumption.

Yea. After being prescribed lisdexamfetamine I’ve begun to gain weight and I need to reassess what I’m consuming. I feel I need to provide context for people who aren’t reading the entire post: gain-weight doesn’t mean obesity. In this context it means not being skin and bones.

I’ve likewise taken breaks, but always relapse. Even after that period of caffeine withdrawal ends you don’t feel any ‘healthier’. During that period I will vomit. Once that’s all settled you’re annoyed, because you feel the same, only know you have a nagging thought that doesn’t go away: I want caffeine.

Thanks for the links. I’ll give them a read through.

They didn’t separate artificial sweetened beverages from those with sugar in the article about gallbladder cancer. That’s sort of… important from my perspective. Cancer and gallstones are different things anyway. I’m confidant my issues were with malnutrition over my gallbladder and the problematic gallstones.

Likewise, obese people consume “diet” sodas in an attempt to diet. Even in that review it has garbage conclusions like “consumption of any type of soda”. Yea, that’s real helpful in figuring out if aspartame is a carcinogen–let’s sample people who don’t drink aspartame exclusively to collect two data-sets: those that drink water exclusively and those that drink sugar-soda exclusively. That says nothing about aspartame.

A lot of this is garbage. I hate meta-reviews. They’re always garbage.

Like, I’ve already stated I’m not obese, yet people keep bringing up obesity and sugar-related diseases. Thanks for not reading.

Salt always seems to be added to fizzy water. There’s probably a reason. It’s very noticeable and unpleasant. In other carbonated drinks the saltiness is masked. (All carbonated drinks seem to have salt.)

I’m not convinced drinking seltzer is any better than a no-sugar cola. One still has the concerns of carbon dioxide making bones more brittle. Issues about artificial sweeteners and over consumption of caffeine are removed, but at that point just drink water.

Water isn’t addictive, neither is seltzer, but caffeinated drinks are. This advice to just drink seltzer/water is just as helpful as telling a life-time cigarette smoker, “just suck on a stick and pretend you’re smoking”.

Waaa!~ Why won’t people give me free compute and storage. __{Waaaa!_}

Keep a backup of your important contributions. Easy. You could even mirror whatever lemmy instance you’re scared will disappear. Easy. Don’t delete the memes you upload. Easy.