Lou Katz @lou@entropyservice.com

Twice in the past month I've purchased Samsung 500GB Evo 870 SATA SSDs at Best Buy for $54 to upgrade old computers. I bought another one there today, and didn't realize until payment that the price at Best Buy is now $85. Not such a great deal. I swapped for a 1TB for $99.
The 500GB can still be found from other online stores for $54.

An interstitial page popped up upon login to https://microcenter.com/, demanding that I provide my mobile phone number. Skipping this step was not an option. I don't give my phone number to sites that demand it, so I contacted their customer service via chat and asked them to delete my account. They asked for the email address associated with the account and then deleted the account without first sending me email to confirm that I'm the legitimate owner of the address. #smdh
#ChangeOfAddress
🧵

Reposting a link to my blog about role models from a few years ago. It is as relevant as ever. Things aren't improving, and the tech bros (ever hear the term "tech sis"?) rise to ever greater, unstoppable power and influence.

https://commandcenter.blogspot.com/2017/02/the-power-of-role-models.html

This is absolutely maddening to me!

So I have struggled to find USB-C to USB-C cables for some months now and I assumed, when I cleaned the office today, that the missing cables would reveal themselves, but this did not happen and so now I am developing a theory that the stronger cables have actually been eating the weaker ones, so as to absorb their powers

Seriously though: I want (okay, demand) a version of Firefox with the "AI chatbot" functionality removed. Not disabled. Removed. I want all code which is specifically designed to connect to OpenAI removed from my computer completely. I do not care if the vampires have promised not to suck my blood. I do not want the vampires in my house in the first place.

https://mk.nyaa.place/notes/9xvolkux40ok0n1m

#Harvard authorities earnestly speculating about whether a mezzuzah was torn from a dormitory doorpost or whether it fell or detached itself and walked three doors down before laying itself gently on the floor.

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/9/4/hupd-investigating-mezuzah-incident/

> #Microsoft confirms that #Windows 11 Recall #AI is not optional — a glitch made it appear so in the Windows 11 24H2 KB5041865 update
https://www.tomshardware.com/software/windows/microsoft-confirms-that-windows-11-recall-ai-is-not-optional-a-glitch-made-it-appear-so-in-the-windows-11-24h2-kb5041865-update

But don't worry, the company that is unable to correctly implement a toggle switch assures us that they definitely implemented this new immensely complex piece of technology nobody asked for directly in the operating system in a way that is secure and under no circumstances puts anyone in danger in ways security researchers said it will.

Also
- they get bonus points for the "Please enter your full name." when there's a é in your name. Stéphanie is my full (first) name.
2024, time to start accepting special characters in your forms?
- no field is marked as mandatory, but they all are, so you need to guess that you need to fill them all and that the save is disabled

Gosh, next person who tells me "UX is common sense" gets 2h of me ranting about forms in 2024.

As a teenager in Neustrelitz (East Germany), I painted small stones purple and left them all over town. Did it for years. It drove the police and Stasi nuts. It meant nothing. It just felt good to do something they couldn't control or understand.

Nobody should need a credential of their personhood, EFF’s Jacob Hoffman-Andrews told @cnet. “Your personhood is an innate feature of your being. It can't be granted to you by anyone else."
https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/personhood-credentials-everything-to-know-about-the-proposed-id-for-the-internet/

Very sad to share that the three year battle to enact the #MandelaAct to severely restrct solitary confinement in CA prisons has failed in the face of repeated veto threats by Governor Gavin Newsom. https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/california-solitary-confinement-19665403.php?

In the last days of Trump’s presidency, Trump commuted the life sentence of a guy convicted (as a drug kingpin, not the shooter) of cop killing. This guy did not go through the normal pardon vetting process (it looks very sketchy—for example the prosecutor was not consulted).

After the dude got out, the dude strangled his wife. (She survived.)

https://popular.info/p/murderer-whose-life-sentence-was

ETA: I originally said pardon not commutation, added that he was the shooter. Thanks to those who corrected me.

My enthusiasm for Fediverse remains massively constrained for one very simple reason: when I click on someone's post I don't see all the replies unless I click a different button, and if I click that one it becomes much more difficult for me to reply to any of the replies, and I am *not* going to reply to anything without checking that I'm not repeating something someone has already said so I simply don't reply

Israeli Treatment of Palestinians Remains Unchanged Over 75 Years https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/09/03/israeli-treatment-of-palestinians-remains-unchanged-over-75-years/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon

In California prisons, forced labor lives on. This summer, lawmakers voted against a proposal to remove the remnant of slavery from the state constitution. And most states still have this vestige of slavery written into their state constitutions. https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2022/08/05/california-prisons-forced-labor-lives-on

Trump Gets Pissed Off at Melania and Barron for Speaking Slovenian Around Him: ‘He Has No Idea What They’re Saying’ https://www.politicalflare.com/2024/09/trump-gets-pissed-off-at-melania-and-barron-for-speaking-slovenian-around-him-he-has-no-idea-what-theyre-saying/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=mastodon