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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 19th, 2023

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  • I remember having a conversation with a former friend a while ago, and he, as a guy who worked for a certain company that makes most of its revenue from delivering ads, spoke about requiring use of front facing camera and using eye tracking technology to ensure you’re actually watching the ads and not going somewhere else while the ads play. If you aren’t looking at the ad, it will play another ad afterwards.

    He spoke about it as something he is looking forward to, since it would increase revenue. Pretty sure he was pitching this idea to his boss hoping to get a promotion.





  • My first time trying to get my mother to switch from Windows to a Linux based OS wasn’t successful because there was too much friction and inconvenience for her, and she wasn’t willing to even entertain the idea of Linux for years after that. My second attempt was successful because Linux is much more user friendly than it used to be 13 years ago, and I changed my approach to make it as frictionless as possible.

    Firefox just set to block 3rd party cookies + some basic extensions like adblocking and some easy privacy stuff is a good way to go about it, because it’s better than what she used previously and it doesn’t become inconvenient to her. She doesn’t know what an operating system is, or what cookies are… She just uses the computer to browse the web, emails, and light office work. She even says she prefers the current setup (though that’s because her old computer was chugging with Windows and runs smoothly now with a less bloated OS)

    No need for noscript, deleting cookies, fingerprinting, or user agent stuff… Only introduce these to them if they express interest in privacy and are interested in learning more. If you try to thrust it upon them too suddenly they will just think “Linux isn’t a good user experience and is only good for tech enthusiasts and programmers”.


  • At least 60% of my internet time is YouTube. I rely on it for entertainment, news, education, discovering music, technical help, ETC…

    Could I live a meaningful life without it? Probably, people have been living meaningful lives before the invention of the computer in general… But I wouldn’t give it up because there is an immense amount of incredible content there that genuinely makes my life better.




  • I know what industry they work at, but if they switched to a different employer, I might only find out months or years later sometimes because we almost never talk about work outside of work unless someone asks for advice.

    Birthdays are actually quite easy, every time I learn of someone’s birthday, I put it on an app called Birday and I get a notification two weeks before their birthday. Before that, I missed people’s birthdays regularly.

    I know if they are single/have a partner/married, have kids or not, or are divorced, but I might not know if they have had an argument with their partner and are sleeping on the couch or something.

    At the same time, I have a lot of personal things I don’t share with anyone, and I don’t expect them to share it with me. I just prefer it this way.


  • Trying to get people to change problematic behaviour, language, or opinion through yelling, or shaming is ineffective most of the time. Obviously I can’t expect people who belong to minorities to not be angry, not everyone can be Daryl Davis, but if you are white and don’t have a personal trauma, you should use more effective methods to correct people’s problematic behaviour.

    Source: I was able to get my family to stop using the N word, and even my elderly father who doesn’t actually remember that it’s bad to use the N word has stopped using it thanks to this very simple technique: every time he says that word, stop the conversation and explain why this word is harmful and dangerous to use, don’t let them steer the conversation back. Being visibly angry with them will only make them dig in their heels and seek comfort with other people who are racist, making it more difficult to get them out.

    Eventually they will subconsciously stop using that word, simply because this causes the conversation to be interrupted every time. So while I don’t punish them (can’t exactly tell my father to go to his room or something), the repeated inconvenience of having the conversation halted every time will get it in their head eventually.

    I think this is the most effective method to correct problematic behaviour in adults.