Notices by Reay Jespersen (reay@mastodon.social)

@eff @arstechnica Side note: “Smart” things tend to not have their software update much, often not at all, and the manufacturers are under zero obligation to do so, ever.

So also so be aware that if you connect any smart device to your home network, it immediately becomes the weakest link in your chain of defence against any cyber attacks.

I believe it was a casino whose digital network was compromised by a hacker getting into it via a smart thermometer in a fish tank. 🤷♂️

@eff @arstechnica “Smart” everything seems to be how it’s going. When we did a home reno recently, we went out of our way buy appliances we liked but that weren’t made to connect to the internet.* Had we needed to settle on any, we simply wouldn’t have connected them to our router.

*This included a “smart” dishwasher. How we ever survived for decades with dishwashing technology that wouldn’t ping your phone with a text that the cycle is done, or whatever, I’ll never know. 🙄

@historleans @aral … makes one wonder how much it would’ve cost them to just pay their workers a decent wage. 🤔

@ben @aral Also, the irony seems to be lost on them that their slowing load times on their services for those not bending to their will can only speed up people’s efforts to de-Google their lives.

The tighter they grip the universe, the more star systems slip through their fingers.

@wonderofscience I can’t stop watching this.

SO good.

@wonderofscience I love that it keeps getting up to see if it worked. 😂

To whoever thinks that people lean more to the political right as they get older: Im over 50 and bust my butt at work for $3/hr over minimum wage, where even if I worked full time hours (not often scheduled), I couldn’t afford the average rent for a one-bedroom apartment in my city, let alone eating or paying any other bills.

If anything, I’m seeing the downside of capitalism better as I age and thinking that our union isn’t doing enough.

“You know how those bleeding heart lefties said that the best president we’ve ever had and still legit sitting president, Donald J. Trump, was guilty of inciting a riot and attempting a coup *just because he incited a riot and attempted a coup*? And they impeached him over just THAT?
Well ladies and gentlemen and whatever you other types call yourselves, Hunter Biden uses cocaine and has sex with multiple women, which makes Joe Biden EXACTLY as impeachable!”

- House GOP leadership, basically

@aral Can you imagine how much more popular he would be, how much more relevant and contemporary, if he’d simply asked how much all this would cost and then instead had a simple ceremony and instructed that exact amount of money be given directly to these people who need and deserve it?

You want people under 50 to care about the monarchy? Show people under 50 that the monarchy cares about them.