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Everything I own, owned

schlarp.com

51–60 of 367 posts

Re: Everything I own, owned

#51
post #10

Key takeaway: > And the existence of WebUSB, WebHID, and WebBluetooth mean that for some devices, depending on the specifics of which classes are used, a moment of user indiscretion in accepting a permissions prompt could permanently backdoor one of their attached devices.

The preceding sentence is equally prescient:

> Operating systems aren’t really equipped to work with the user to ensure that a microphone stays a microphone, and doesn’t spontaneously turn into a keyboard that hits Win+R and drops a payload to steal all your data when the room is quiet enough that it can assume you aren’t watching.

In a world of USB-C everything we no longer have power supplies that are physically bound to power delivery, HDMI or DP display connections that have constrained data channels, or analogue mics, headphones, and speakers. Any device can dynamically change what it senses, does, or emits.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#53
post #35

> My ASUS ROG Swift PG42UQ monitor was actually where I started, because I got annoyed at the pop-up overlay that comes up every once in a while that tells me to run “pixel cleaning”. I have never intentionally run pixel cleaning on this monitor and I never will, I don’t care, and I would like for that overlay to go away forever. Maybe there’s a debug menu or something that can turn it off, or worst case we patch a b…

> You could probably ask the AI to look at the firmware and describe what it does.

Or ask for a patch so it runs after the monitor has been powered off for a while...

I use an LG OLED 42inch TV as a monitor and it has a setting to do just this.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#54
post #35

> My ASUS ROG Swift PG42UQ monitor was actually where I started, because I got annoyed at the pop-up overlay that comes up every once in a while that tells me to run “pixel cleaning”. I have never intentionally run pixel cleaning on this monitor and I never will, I don’t care, and I would like for that overlay to go away forever. Maybe there’s a debug menu or something that can turn it off, or worst case we patch a b…

Yeah, you actually want to do this with monitors of that generation to make them last.

You could argue that there should be an option to disable it for people who don’t care.

Refusing to take 1 minute out of your day to learn the reason for the alert is a strange self-defeating protest next to the explanation that it was a pretty expensive monitor.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#55
post #35

> My ASUS ROG Swift PG42UQ monitor was actually where I started, because I got annoyed at the pop-up overlay that comes up every once in a while that tells me to run “pixel cleaning”. I have never intentionally run pixel cleaning on this monitor and I never will, I don’t care, and I would like for that overlay to go away forever. Maybe there’s a debug menu or something that can turn it off, or worst case we patch a b…

> You could probably ask the AI to look at the firmware and describe what it does. Or ask for a patch so it runs after the monitor has been powered off for a while... I use an LG OLED 42inch TV as a monitor and it has a setting to do just this.

I looked it up, his monitor does do it automatically after it's been powered off for a few minutes. He's getting the nag message because the monitor has been on and displaying a picture for over 8 hours.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#56
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I kinda remember that the counterargument Google used is that only devices with a special attribute would ever be available through WebHID, ensuring that such older devices would never be exposed. Cue my surprise when it turns out you can use WebHID to program a Minidisc / Net-MD device [1], so.. they never did implement that filter, apparently. I mean, certainly it is useful, but ... What The F., Google? [1] https:/…

The user has to first specifically pick the device from the list and grant the website access. If a user is confused by a permissions prompt and has no idea what is going on, the default path is to reject the permission.

In the real world the default action for a user when presented with a permissions popup is to accept it because they get asked 20 times a day, have no idea what the implications of it are and just want to get on with their day.

So software designers need to avoid asking the users to approve potentially highly dangerous things.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#57
post #35

> My ASUS ROG Swift PG42UQ monitor was actually where I started, because I got annoyed at the pop-up overlay that comes up every once in a while that tells me to run “pixel cleaning”. I have never intentionally run pixel cleaning on this monitor and I never will, I don’t care, and I would like for that overlay to go away forever. Maybe there’s a debug menu or something that can turn it off, or worst case we patch a b…

Every 8 hours is insane, though

Re: Everything I own, owned

#58
post #35

> My ASUS ROG Swift PG42UQ monitor was actually where I started, because I got annoyed at the pop-up overlay that comes up every once in a while that tells me to run “pixel cleaning”. I have never intentionally run pixel cleaning on this monitor and I never will, I don’t care, and I would like for that overlay to go away forever. Maybe there’s a debug menu or something that can turn it off, or worst case we patch a b…

Yeah, you actually want to do this with monitors of that generation to make them last. You could argue that there should be an option to disable it for people who don’t care. Refusing to take 1 minute out of your day to learn the reason for the alert is a strange self-defeating protest next to the explanation that it was a pretty expensive monitor.

Eh I think the monitors should just handle this automatically - mine do. I basically have no idea that they do any cleaning cycles except when I check their “advanced” menu and it says it’s run 1200 times or whatever

Re: Everything I own, owned

#59
post #35

> My ASUS ROG Swift PG42UQ monitor was actually where I started, because I got annoyed at the pop-up overlay that comes up every once in a while that tells me to run “pixel cleaning”. I have never intentionally run pixel cleaning on this monitor and I never will, I don’t care, and I would like for that overlay to go away forever. Maybe there’s a debug menu or something that can turn it off, or worst case we patch a b…

Yeah, you actually want to do this with monitors of that generation to make them last. You could argue that there should be an option to disable it for people who don’t care. Refusing to take 1 minute out of your day to learn the reason for the alert is a strange self-defeating protest next to the explanation that it was a pretty expensive monitor.

I understand what it does, I think the alert is annoying. It takes at least five minutes and automatically runs when the monitor is off. I’ve had it for a few years and have no burn in issues despite not doing this every eight hours on command.

Re: Everything I own, owned

#60
I have been tinkering with various firmwares of devices around the house lately as well. I have an agent hooked up to various GPIO pinouts and play lab monkey for it. Honestly they are getting better and better at exploratory research and self-supervision for these kinds of tasks and it's fun to watch. I don't often have to interject, though sometimes I do.

I watched an agent identify and find the correct firmware for a device by taking photos of its circuit boards and comparing them to those found online in internal documentation, patents, parts sheets, etc.

It's pretty fun! If you have your HAM license you can do some fun stuff letting an agemt control an SDR, too. Still a lot of fun to be had even in passive mode.

It will be interesting watching what kind of tinkerer/hacker/enthusiast cultures arises from these new paradigms. Wait til people start suping up their vehicles with natural language agents that have access to subsystems. Imagine entire automated labs hooked up to agents.

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