sabreW4K3

I randomly got recommended Hipyo Tech on YouTube one day and since have been watching his videos. I haven't got a clue about mechanical keyboards, but I have strong tastes in terms of aesthetics. Long story short, I kept checking shit out and stumbled across a keyboard he hasn't reviewed yet and I think I'm in love. But I don't know if it's any good or is even Linux compatible. So… is the ATK V75X a decent purchase? Or does it suck?

https://www.atk.store/products/atk-vxe-v75-x-mechanical-gaming-keyboard

The look I'm interested in, is the all matte black oka Gunmetal. I don't have the foggiest about the difference between the switches.

Cross posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/18002119

One of my favourite songs of all time.

Original toot:

There are no more open issues in the #ActivityPub issue tracker!

Thanks to all, but mostly to @evan who diligently and tirelessly did much/most/all of the work!!

Onwards!

The founder of AdBlock Plus weighs in on PPA:

Privacy on the web is fundamentally broken, for at least 90% of the population. Advertising on the web is fundamentally broken, for at least 90% of the population.

Yet any attempt to improve this situation is met with fierce resistance by the lucky 10% who know how to navigate their way around the falltraps. Because the internet shouldn’t have tracking! The internet shouldn’t have ads! And any step towards a compromise is a capital offense. I mean, if it slightly benefits the advertisers as well, then it must be evil.

It seems that no solution short of eliminating tracking and advertising on the web altogether is going to be accepted. That we live with an ad-supported web and that fact of life cannot be wished away or change overnight – who cares?

And every attempt to improve the status quo even marginally inevitably fails. So the horribly broken state we have today prevails.

This is so frustrating. I’m just happy I no longer have anything to do with that…

Original toot:

It has come to my attention that many of the people complaining about #Firefox's #PPA experiment don't actually understand what PPA is, what it does, and what Firefox is trying to accomplish with it, so an explainer 🧵 is in order.

Targeted advertising sucks. It is invasive and privacy-violating, it enables populations to be manipulated by bad actors in democracy-endangering ways, and it doesn't actually sell products.

Nevertheless, commercial advertisers are addicted to the data they get from targeted advertising. They aren't going to stop using it until someone convinces them there's something else that will work better.

"Contextual advertising works better." Yes, it does! But, again, advertisers are addicted to the data, and contextual advertising provides much less data, so they don't trust it.

What PPA says is, "Suppose we give you anonymized, aggregated data about which of your ads on which sites resulted in sales or other significant commitments from users?" The data that the browser collects under PPA are sent to a third-party (in Firefox's case, the third party is the same organization that runs Let's Encrypt; does anybody think they're not trustworthy?) and aggregated and anonymized there. Noise is introduced into the data to prevent de-anonymization.

This allows advertisers to "target" which sites they put their ads on. It doesn't allow them to target individuals. In Days Of Yore, advertisers would do things like ask people to bring newspapers ads into the store or mention a certain phrase to get deals. These were for collecting conversion statistics on paper ads. Ditto for coupons. PPA is a way to do this online.

Is there a potential for abuse? Sure, which is why the data need to be aggregated and anonymized by a trusted third party. If at some point they discover they're doing insufficient aggregation or anonymization, then they can fix that all in one place. And if the work they're doing is transparent, as compared to the entirely opaque adtech industry, the entire internet can weigh in on any bugs in their algorithms.

Is this a utopia? No. Would it be better than what we have now? Indisputably. Is there a clear path right now to anything better? Not that I can see. We can keep fighting for something better while still accepting this as an improvement over what we have now.

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/14965748

Archived version

The self-driving taxis have become popular — with Baidu offering super cheap rides to win customers — and the company is eyeing expansion into other Chinese megacities as local governments rush to issue policies in support of the new technology.

But the robotaxi revolution is also causing some public concerns in China, with the issue blowing up on social media after an Apollo Go vehicle ran into a pedestrian in Wuhan last Sunday.

Footage of the incident spread online has sparked a wide debate about the issues created by robotaxis — especially the threat the technology poses to ride-hailing and taxi drivers.

Authorities in Wuhan have felt the need to respond to the “rumors” about problems caused by robotaxis. The city’s transportation bureau told domestic media that the local taxi industry is “relatively stable”.

[...]

In response to video clips showing a pedestrian lying on the road next to an Apollo Go robotaxi which began trending within hours, a Baidu spokesperson told domestic media that the accident was a “mild” collision that had occurred because the pedestrian had been jaywalking.

[...]

In 2019, Baidu was among the first companies to obtain a business license for operating autonomous vehicles in Wuhan. Then, in 2022, it was granted a license to operate its vehicles on public roads without a safety driver.

[...]

But the robotaxis’ growing popularity has also sparked backlash. Wuhan residents have been complaining for months that Apollo Go cars cause traffic jams by driving slowly and stopping unexpectedly. Viral clips on social media show long lines of cars forming behind an Apollo Go vehicle that is blocking the road.

[...]

It’s unclear whether the controversy will affect China’s plans for autonomous driving. Beijing recently issued a draft guideline that would allow self-driving vehicles to be used in the public transportation and ride-hailing industries. Cities including Changsha and Jinan have announced plans to conduct robotaxi testing schemes.

[...]

So far, the publicity appears to be providing an unexpected boost to Baidu’s stock price. The company’s shares achieved their largest daily gain in over a year on Wednesday, and are still up for the week as of Friday afternoon.