Since Microsoft, among others, won't let up on the AI nonsense, I made a public list of my baseline list of privacy apps and services: github.com/Inf0squit0/p...
privacyguides.org is a more comprehensive resource, my list is more of a quick & dirty checklist for hardening your personal device.
YES THANK YOU.
Every time I see someone trying to sell a cybersecurity thing "POWERED BY AI" I have to stop myself from saying "it's just pattern/anomaly recognition that has bruteforced the realization that a workstation that starts running MS Word macros at 3am has probably been compromised"
The revolution of computing was being able to reference and refine verifiable facts at increased speed. Generative AI is about fabricating barely plausible bullshit at extreme cost. It's a big step back unless all Gen AI output is handled as 'toxic waste data'.
Every genuinely interesting application of llm ai that I have seen involves having a distinct and richly meaningful dataset that the software can navigate. Medical histories and journals, ferinstance.
Just lumping all conceivable data into one lump seems like a basic mistake.
Evidence that she is mentioned in the book
Characters from Better Call Saul: Jimmy McGill, Mike Ehrmantraut, Chuck McGill, Kim Wexler, Howard Hamlin, and Nacho Varga.
I hope Jimmy and the Hamlin Hamlin & McGill law firm can lawyer and/or scam me out of being kidnapped. Otherwise it might get messy if Mike and/or Nacho have to intervene.
I'm also interested in hearing actual lawyers weigh in on this, because I know several countries and US have it illegal to record someone without their consent—which Clips is ripe for doing. Add in users from multiple countries in the same call, and just how illegal and messy does this get?
I haven't tested it yet but it appears LibreTube is an Android app for blocking ads and preserving privacy on YouTube, similar to FreeTube on desktop: libretube.dev
Ditto with NewPipe: newpipe.net
Life Pro Tip: if you have to force your shitty products or ideologies (which Copilot is ultimately is an extension of) on ppl instead of letting them choose, it's a sign most ppl don't want your shitty products or ideology. If it's that good your zealots will fund it. arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024...
Discovered this last night:
freetubeapp.io
An application for Windows, Mac, and Linux to protect you from being spied on by YouTube.
If you don't want Microsoft AI spying on you, an easy way to prevent that is to run this freeware application and apply recommended settings.
www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
The freeware application O&O Shutup 10++ will also turn off all Copilot/AI stuff if you apply recommended settings.
www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
A "No devices, no distractions" policy is also a common discussion point I hear about offline groups and is loosely in effect at my own table. So printable character sheets are also helpful for offline groups that don't want to open the door to distractions for players.
This feels a critical hit in regards to the issues with corporate-driven fandom cultures - we're at a point where all the big "nerd culture" fandoms are owned by megacorps and relatively few customers admit that. What worries me is that the non-admission may be core to a lot of fans' experience.
I've definitely had "This couldn't possibly have been playtested" experiences with games from some of the biggest shops. It leads me to worry that skimping on playtesting is distressingly common at all tiers of the TTRPG industry.
I've found your advice has worked for every non-D&D game I've run - including Call of Cthulhu, Mage: The Ascension, Death in Space, Exalted, Pathfinder 2e, Shadowrun, Adventure!, and Things from the Flood. D&D being used in your examples has never made applying your advice to other games any harder.
I have a degree in Creative Writing. I went into IT help desk right out of college (I had experience from a campus job). Across 15 years, I've moved up from help desk to Linux sys admin, and then into information security. Currently, half of my job is hacking and the other half is writing reports.
One of my favorite campaigns I ever ran involved a group of evil PCs fighting against stuff that was way worse than they were - the PCs were ruthless and self-serving, but the villains were world-ending horrors.
The PCs' pitch was basically "Call us when fighting fair doesn't beat Cthulhu"
This talk is fantastic. CTI isn't even my specialty and I still got a lot out of it.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXw9...
Sumatra is so far above anything else I've ever tried for reading PDFs (especially graphics-heavy TTRPG book PDFs) that when I switched my daily driver laptop to Linux, I installed Wine just to use Sumatra. It's the only PDF reader that's fast enough when I needed to look up a rule while GMing 🤣
I cannot express how strongly I agree with this. I've never written or bought a scenario that was so airtight that my players didn't find some undefined but interesting thing that I needed to detail on the spot.