• 37 Posts
  • 906 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 7th, 2023

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  • Absolutely!

    And I’ve had companies offer me a discount on product, rather than a full refund or replacement. I always refuse and state how disappointed I am. They pretty much always follow up with a full refund or new product.

    Hell, I even ordered an indoor spin bike, complained that it used non-standard crank arms, and they refunded me $100 to replace the crank arms and pedals! Just for stating that I was unhappy with one aspect of an otherwise great purchase.


  • I’ve had Amazon listings where the title, description, specs on the box, specs on the product, and the reviews ALL had different information.

    Who creates these listings? AI?

    That said, I strongly encourage anyone who shops on Amazon to complain about issues in your reviews, and contact the seller if ANYTHING is wrong with your product. I have a 99% success rate of getting replacements or a full refund while doing this (resulting in basically a free product), even if the issue is cosmetic or a personal dislike. Just be honest.







  • Ontario, Canada (Near Toronto).

    Our previous insurance was by far the least expensive, so I know it could have been worse. But over the pandemic, where we didn’t drive much, it pissed me off to have to pay insurance and not even need it.

    Then, when I started cycling more two years ago, I just stopped using the car for pretty much every trip that’s less than 30 km way.



  • I have a pay-as-you-go insurance in Canada, and they explicitly say that they “… will not use the data to cancel or refuse an automobile insurance policy; to apply surcharges to your current or future automobile policy or for marketing purposes.”.

    Apparently, they only use it to confirm the mileage. It does capture your GPS tracking, and will alert you of any issues, like a low car battery (which I’ve had a few times because I drive so little!).

    Honestly, in this case, I don’t care. I drive too infrequently, and this saves our family thousands a year, so it’s a net benefit for me, and I choose to opt-in.


  • If you’re on the sidewalk in public, you have no expectation of privacy.

    Under normal context, that’s correct.

    But if you are purposely being filmed as part of a movie, project, “prank” or anything else that makes you the “talent”, it moves into a commercial licensing/permit/consent realm.

    I’ve been to loads of public events where I’ve had to sign a release form acknowledging that my photo may be captured and that those images may be used in marketing/social media posts, etc. That’s because being at the event makes me the subject. While this wouldn’t be a concern if other people in the group are taking photos/video for their own personal use, the fact that those images may be used for commercial purposes changes the context.

    If social media asshats want to use someone’s photos or video for their own commercial purposes, they should be following the same rules as any other professional.

    For clarity, we aren’t talking about randos being filmed while on a walking tour of a city; we’re talking about specific people being targeted and recorded as the main subject without consent and with the explicit purpose to use their video for commercial content.

    Nearly every country has laws protecting people from having their images used for commercial purposes without consent.


  • Generally speaking, it is “OK” if you happen to capture people on video while you are recording a public space.

    However, the article is referring to situations where people are being video recorded, without their knowledge, as the main focus of the video.

    In this case, it should be treated like any TV or movie set, where consent must be given.

    I see it as video recording for commercial use, so permits should also be required by these social media degenerates, before a single frame is captured.


  • LOL. Yeah, sometimes, answers can be very much “I’m winging it today”, but certain prompts, especially for story ideas, can be very interesting and usable.

    I’ve always said that if you know a lot about a subject, you can easily spot how AI generally tries to fake it until it makes it.

    But if you have no idea about something, the answers you get are certainly better than what your buddy might tell you 😂

    But to my point, it comes up with long form content so fast that you wonder how the hell it actually processed the question that quickly.







  • Floccus is what I use for bookmarks.

    Works across pretty much any browser and on Android (maybe iOS, I’m not sure). I’ve got it set up on my Synology NAS through webdav, and it’s been reliable.

    I do also use Linkwarden, but that’s more to collect web pages, and not just bookmark them. The archive feature is great, since it doesn’t rely on the page still being live to work.

    Linkwarden and Floccus are very different, IMO.