no te hagas ilusiones
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I’m getting close to the end of my BOTW adventures, it is making me reflect and giving me feelings I didn’t expect.
Speaking as someone who has written web crawlers for non-evil reasons...
I like how all the platforms (twitter, reddit) are destroying their APIs to kill "bots" but the fun thing about APIs is that only the good guys use them. They're like door locks: they only keep out honest people. Someone wanting to steal your TV will just put a brick through your window.
Similarly, people wanting to flood a platform with spam and pornbots will often just not use the API, because it makes it too easy to track them down. They'll instead write a program that pretends to be a browser, and clicks on links just like a human does.
Fun fact: that's an "API" that exists for every website, and for a long while it was the only API that any sites ever had. So when you're trying to automate using a site (for good or evil), the "api-zero" of just doing web scraping and user-agent-impersonation is always there. That's what the bad guys will use, and that's what the good guys are sometimes forced to use.
Anyway the end result of this sort of API monetization/destruction nonsense is that you're only killing the bots that were written with good intentions. You're killing the haikubots and that "THERE ARE FIVE LIGHTS" twitter bot. you're killing the reddit bots that help moderate submissions by automatically applying flair or timing out replies after too long has passed.
But the bots that are just there to send you crytypocurrentsea scams and entice you in with stolen porn? They don't use the APIs. They won't be affected. They'll keep on working. The people scraping your site for AI research? they won't even register an account, they'll just request the plain HTML contents of your pages.
So once you know that, locking out users from your APIs seems like a real bad idea, doesn't it?
[Image description: First image is a tweet by bolty @/AmbJohnBolton, which contains the single word "bustacean" (intended to rhyme with "crustacean"). Attached to the tweet is a photo of a bus station with a gigantic statue of a crab perched over the roof.
Second image is a gif of a person reading a publication titled "Sensible Chuckle"; the person is chuckling. /End description.]
there is no end to human hubris
i think it’s funny to frame this as ‘human’ hubris but more notable is how ingrained the logic of capital is. at some point “safety is just pure waste” because the expenses necessary to make a submersible safer to inhabit cut into profits. at what point? as soon as it’s convenient. it’s just a simple, wretched arithmetic to them
also it helps me walk or whatever
[ID: a digitally drawn two-panel comic. / Image 1: Text reads: “How I expected using a cane would feel:” Panel depicts a miserable person in tattered clothes, hunched over a cane and shaking as she walks. / Image 2: Text reads: “How it actually feels:” Panel depicts the same person, now standing tall and wearing flowing wizard robes and a long white beard. Her cane is at her side, glowing with magic, and she looks confident and powerful. /End ID]
Ooooh, can you do one for wheelchairs except it’s a throne? Because I definitely feel like I’m cruising around on a throne.
How I think a wheelchair will make me feel:
How my wheelchair actually makes me feel:
That’s it! That’s it exactly!
I haven’t gotten a wheelchair yet (blargh hoops) but I’ve rented and used scooters at places and
how you think it’d feel:
how it actually feels:
If I may add,
How I thought forearm crutches would make me feel:
How forearm crutches actually make me feel:
[ID2: A woman sitting in a wheelchair at an airport looking at something in her lap vs a video game character with purple hair leaning back casually while flying around in a throne-like one-person open craft.
ID3: An old man on a mobility scooter vs a person in racing gear and a helmet whizzing by on a four wheeler.
ID4: A person with forearm crutches staring off into the sunset vs an anime character standing on rock outcrop wielding two swords.]
I feel like an armoured behemoth with my braces on and its great
How I thought using a rollator walker would make me feel:
[ID: A stock image of an old person walking down the sidewalk using a rollator walker aided by a younger person.]
How it actually makes me feel:
[ID: A stock image of a large red truck outfitted with a snow plow attachment on the front barreling down a snowy road.]
Rollator Walker but it’s also a war rig
Reddit admins are using chatgpt bots to spew pro Reddit responses to people criticising spez this is actually so goddamn pathetic