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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 10th, 2023

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  • This message is displayed in the browser because Google asked your browser to do it, and your browser got the message and put it there.

    When displaying ads, the end user experience is 100% client-side. You are using your screen and speakers to observe it. You can turn off your speakers and screen if you want, which will effectively “block” the ad.

    But that is silly. Not only do you own your screen and speakers, but you have control of what you’re browser is doing, too (if you use a respectable browser). When HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and other content is downloaded, just that happened: file downloads. After it has been downloaded, your browser then consumes it.

    When it is consumed, a lot happens, but ultimately, the code in the browser displays content. Your (respectable) browser does all of this, and will change the look depending on local fonts, accessibility options, etc. With an ad block add-on, it will also remove these ads.

    However, when ads are removed, the DOM is mutated with deleted or replaced content. It is possible for a website to then write ad block detection scripts to see if the ad contents have been removed or not. There are many ways to do this, and this screenshot is the result of one way of doing it.

    However, enter the cat-and-mouse-chase of ad block block blocks. You can block your ads, then block the ad block block like this screenshot. These types of ad block rules are less common, but many public ones are available. Check the uBlock Origin lists in the setting page. By default, only about a third of the lists are enabled, and these extra blocks are in there.

    Another avenue of determining that ads were not loaded is for the server to inspect if client-side (you) requests were made to fetch the ads. Even if this is in place, the server cannot determine if you have actually watched the ad or not. It could try to do more client-side attempts at validating that you somehow displayed it, but again, that’s client-side.

    Imagine if you were sent a letter and a pamphlet in the mail. Imagine if the letter said that you could mail them back for a free sample of their product, but only if you read the pamphlet. They would have to trust that you read it, because you are reading your mail in the privacy of your own home. However, you could opt to toss the pamphlet (like an ad blocker) and never read it. It’s your mail, your home, and your choice.



  • Some printers detect when cartridges have been refilled by the user and are programmed to stop working then.

    This is absurd. I would like to hear how this benefits the consumer without attempting to talk about “quality” or something. This would be like my car not starting cause I didn’t use Shell gas.

    What’s more upsetting is that printers are client side all the way. There is nothing about them that needs to reach out to the Internet to print pages. The printer itself handles the “letting you print.” So the thing sitting on your desk, that you own, is choosing this for you.


  • I agree. That would be absurd.

    However, I don’t like not having the option of using HTTP if I want to use it. It’s okay if the webserver redirects me, but I don’t like if my browser does it when I didn’t tell it to. I might want this when doing development, port tunneling, VPN stuff, etc. In most cases, it won’t matter, but when it does, it will be a pain in the ass.


  • I disagree. While in practice, this is often the same website, it is a different protocol and a different port. It just happens to use the same DNS address. You’re explicitly giving your browser a FQDN, and it is ignoring it and doing something else.

    I hope this feature can be disabled. Google has been ignoring the W3C and has shipped proprietary, insecure features in their chromium engine for a while now, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they made it permanent 🤷







  • This is my opinion, too. Their “autopilot” feature is a glorified driving aid. It’s not self-driving. It’s supposed to help with driver fatigue, and you’re supposed to keep both hands on the wheel. If it makes a mistake, that’s okay, because you’re driving the car, right?

    Traditional cruise control without radar will maintain the speed you asked and it won’t stop for emergency vehicles, but we don’t blame that. Even though the “autopilot” feature does more automation, you’re supposed to drive the car in an identical fashion with identical attention compared to traditional cruise control.

    But safety is still what matters first. If you’re sending a freeway-speed land missile into motorcyclists and police cars, I don’t care if you were driving a 90s Civic or a car with automated driving features. The car hit someone. Fix that problem first, then figure out who to blame later.

    In my option, until we have cars that are guaranteed to function as a completely autonomous experience, and the manufacturer of the car doesn’t tell you to keep your hands on the wheel, you’re still driving it. It’s your responsibility. You can still steer, brake, change lanes, evade, etc. That’s on you. As far as I’m concerned, anyone who thinks otherwise might as well blame their heated seats or radio station.

    I understand that Tesla would be improving their software, and I agree with this, too. It’s not great that they are fudging things quite a bit by pushing the self-driving rhetoric. They should focus on this, and it should be improved. But I still think that negligent drivers are at fault.







  • The sad part is that inkjets aren’t inherently bad. They’re just a different way to print. They can make some fantastic, deep, high-resolution colors. It just so happens that this type of printing is being ran in such an anti-consumer way that it’s borderline unbelievable.

    Ink is cheap. It’s INK. I can go to the art store and find thousands of different types of ink. It’s just water with coloring in it. It’s not special. However, HP sells their ink at a cost that is about 4x the cost of gold by weight. I can understand it being a little more expensive than just ink in a tube, but this is insane.

    We should have inkjet printers that have caps on the top of the cartridges to let you add your own ink. No DRM. Buy common ink at the grocery store, and it’ll work with most vendors. Open the lid, add your ink. Dried up? Wash it under the sink. Really dried up? Buy an empty cartridge for $6.

    Our society has advanced enough to where this is a solved problem. We have figured out INK of all things. We know what ink is, and we know how to put it on a sheet of paper. Civilization hasn’t been stumped on how to put ink on paper for decades, and it’s not like we’re in a position where only vendors like HP can save us. It’s 100% greed, all of it, and it’s so shameless that it reads like something out of Snow Crash or something.

    Imagine if you bought a ketchup bottle from the grocery store, and refilled it with more ketchup when it was almost empty. Then, the ketchup bottle phoned home and figured out that you missed a ketchup subscription payment, so it refused to squirt ketchup. Ain’t it silly when I compare HP’s model to ketchup, yet both circumstances are literally dispensing a liquid?