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• If you know what you're doing, AI can be a very useful tool. However, a lot of people have no clue what they're doing and they use AI to amplify their incompetence.

  on AI/LLM Usage Becoming A "Denial of Service Attack" On Open-Source Project Maintainers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 26 Aug 2026

• Systems that circulate ' freon' are fairly common in commercial buildings. They are complex to build and so don't really make sense for houses.

  on [Technology Connections] My water heater is cooler than yours in c/technology@beehaw.org · 23 Aug 2026

• By the time you can verify the child is in danger odds are more than 3 hours have passed.

  Many claims of child endangerment are really a parent (or grand parent) trying to mess with their EX who currently has custody of the child. The child is not in danger at all. The system needs to spend time verifying that the report is real before bothering thousands (or likely millions) of people.

  on Do Amber Alerts for Missing Kids Actually Work? | The Walrus in c/technology@lemmy.world · 21 Aug 2026

• Yes, but not as an out of the box solution. Tape drives use standard sizes, and standard interfaces (often serial attached SCSI). You can buy a tape drive and a USB encloser that lets you put your own drive in it and the tape drive will work. You need to make sure the USB encloser provides enough power, is big enough, and has the correct interface, but it will "just work" if you select the right parts and plug them in. Do make sure you read the spec - some cheaper enclosers may not support USB3 data rates which you tape drive may need to work well.

  The USB designers made the decision back in the day that they would not design a protocol for CDrom (then important), tape, or other such things. Instead they designed a "here is how to transmit SCSI over USB", which makes it cheap to design USB to SCSI adapters and that is what has been done.

  on Is there any tape media backup system that works through USB? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 21 Aug 2026

• Do you need tape? Do you really need that much data? Archival grade DVDs can store a few GB (an order of magnitude less than the TBs you asked for!), and probably easier to find/source.

  on Is there any tape media backup system that works through USB? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 21 Aug 2026

• Large companies still use tape for their large data sets. Tape has some useful advantages that make it worth it in very specific situations.

  The first is when you have a lot of data - if you have several hundred of even thousands tapes (likely including duplicates!) then the quantity of data you have backed up is large enough the tapes are the cheapest.

  The second - as hinted above - is duplicates. If you don't want the data lost a tape is a good answer to have several copies. While a disk might be cheaper, they are fragile and computers are not designed to swap disks that often. Even USB which is designed for swapping isn't that good: the connector will physically wear out a lot faster than you would expect making the costs much higher to manage this. Plus the labor to plug/unplug a lot of drives will get you.

  Third, some tapes come in a write once form. If you have data that (often for legal reasons) you need to store such that it cannot be modified later then tape is often you best answer to ensure the data really wasn't changed. (either by an executive hiding their tracks, or an attacker trying to put ransomware on you).

  That said, for most reading this, a few disks in a NAS is better than about 98% of people have and if you have snapshots on the NAS probably good enough for everything (your only risk is fire or theft of the NAS - if you cannot live with this get a second NAS elsewhere, or a cloud backup), similar cost, and has enough other useful features that you want it anyway.

  on Is there any tape media backup system that works through USB? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 21 Aug 2026

• I haven't got an amber alert in a long time. Probably because the first woke everyone up at two AM. Next morning the child was found safe with the parent who had legal custody the whole time. Now they have so many checks in place that the alerts are almost never worth sending

  on Do Amber Alerts for Missing Kids Actually Work? | The Walrus in c/technology@lemmy.world · 21 Aug 2026

• There are in the US. However what those rights are is something courts agree we all have, but generally hate to state.

  on Roblox argues 8-year-old waived rights in wrongful death lawsuit in c/technology@lemmy.world · 20 Aug 2026

• There needs to be strict scrutiny applied by courts to TOS. And other similar legal terms (ask a lawyer what they are, not me) which all say basically only the obvious things that shouldn't need to be stated at all can be put in them.

  If you need more than the basic protection the law already provides for you, then you don't use a TOS, you need a real contract signed by both parties, with both parties having a lawyer on hand to ensure the terms are understood and really agreeable.

  on Roblox argues 8-year-old waived rights in wrongful death lawsuit in c/technology@lemmy.world · 20 Aug 2026

• Since 2015 I have only upgraded my phone because the previous one broke, and I didn't notice any difference. I had the first android, and it was slow enough that whatever I replaced it with (I don't remember what) was better because of the speed. Getting waterproof (resistant, but proof for practical purposes) was a big win. Only other time an upgraded helped was when the camera lens was so scratched that pictures improved. Every phone upgrade has been because the last one broke and so had to be replaced. My current phone is 4 years old and still works fine.

  on There's No Reason to Buy a New Phone Anymore in c/technology@beehaw.org · 19 Aug 2026

• Only far right? I get the same type of garbage from both the far right and far left. I stopped using Facebook a year ago in part because I couldn't block it all.

  on How ‘For You’ feeds amplify outrage: A study of X finds that engagement-based feeds are more likely to push provocative content than posts aligned with users’ stated values. in c/technology@lemmy.world · 19 Aug 2026

• History has always had some threat. The exact threat has changed over time, but there was always something.

  on Kansas Schools Now Collect Phones at the Door – Spends $180K On Smartphone Lockers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• Cardboard boxes are $2 each (go price them at the local home depot). Figure 20 teachers per school (this seems low), and 10 schools per district (this is low), and we are already at $400. Cardboard boxes will not last very long, so we are also replacing them 5 times a year: $2000/year. I expect this lockers are higher quality and will last for a few decades.

  on Kansas Schools Now Collect Phones at the Door – Spends $180K On Smartphone Lockers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• It was awful. We had to walk to school uphill both ways, and since this was pre global warming the snow was higher than our heads. You kids don't know how good you have it. \s

  In all seriousness, life is better now that my kids have phones. However it is only slightly better. My school had a phone students could use to call their parents - for all the times my kids use their cell phone to call me - we just had to wait in line for your turn.

  on Kansas Schools Now Collect Phones at the Door – Spends $180K On Smartphone Lockers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• The job market is not dead. It is slightly down, but there are still a lot of jobs. There have been recessions before. History supports the idea that there will be a recovery in the near future, and then a few more years latter another recession.

  Of course if you are the person without a job it does suck. However for the majority things are okay.

  on Kansas Schools Now Collect Phones at the Door – Spends $180K On Smartphone Lockers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• An emergency means the kids needs to call 911 not the parents need to contact the student. Most schools have a phone/intercom in each classroom which is close enough though. (Back in my day we did have to use this once when something happened, the teacher dealt with the main issue and assigned a student to push the button to alert the office. I wasn't in that class so I don't recall details)

  If dad has hours to live you call the school office - you will need to sign them out anyway so they need to know. (plus they need to know because the school has counselors trained dealing with emotional issues like this who need to be at that school when the kid returns).

  Which is to say I can think of no reason a kid needs a phone during class hours. They are sometimes useful after school hours.

  on Kansas Schools Now Collect Phones at the Door – Spends $180K On Smartphone Lockers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• Why is 180k too much? I expect the school to be spending the money to buy something of quality that will last for a few years, and they likely have several thousand students. At $100 for each this would cover 1800 students. Even the $30 pouches mentioned only covers 6000 students - I would expect they have spares in each school.

  on Kansas Schools Now Collect Phones at the Door – Spends $180K On Smartphone Lockers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• It worked, but not well. I remember standing in line for 20 minutes waiting on the one phone to call my parents so they knew my after school activity was done. (while other students were calling their parents).

  on Kansas Schools Now Collect Phones at the Door – Spends $180K On Smartphone Lockers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 18 Aug 2026

• People who insist on domestic flights in Germany are really critiquing the train network which is vast, but way to slow and the on time performance is terrible. If they would fix the trains there would be much less call for flights.

  Better than the US is not an endorsement.

  on First test flight of largest all-electric aircraft used just $5 of electricity in c/technology@lemmy.world · 15 Aug 2026

• All of it has parts I hate there is a lot of boring code I've had to work on. And sometimes the fun code is things I finish and say nobody should every do that...

  on "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 10 Aug 2026

• Writing code was never more than 20% of what I do as a programmer. All those other things are where I have always spent me time, and those are the hard part.

  on "Code was never the hard part" is an insult to all programmers in c/technology@lemmy.world · 10 Aug 2026

• Not what you are asking for, but maybe what you want: https://invidious.io/ is a youtube front end with some features that might or might not make it what you want.

  on Anyone know a good Selfhosted yt-dlp manager? in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 10 Aug 2026

• Even hand coded projects need more than 6 months before I'll replace anything in my stacks. Too many projects start with great intention but then the founder gets bored (life gets in the way?) and they go unmaintained. Really I'm looking for projects that enough developers have got involved in that I can be confident it won't go stagnant. I could be one of those developers, but I don't have enough time to contribute to all the different projects I use (I barely have time to contribute to the one project I maintain)

  on Self-Host Weekly (7 August 2026) in c/selfhosted@lemmy.world · 7 Aug 2026

• The system is working: nobody is perfect, but we have redundancy in place to detect problems and fix them latter.

  The real dangerous systems are the ones where problems are covered up and ignored. You will get a false impression that they are safe until it is too late.

  on Boeing 737 Max operators told to check fuselages for cracks in c/technology@lemmy.world · 7 Aug 2026