@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

danlyke

@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host

Software developer, bicyclist, woodworker, urbanism enthusiast, resident of Petaluma California, blogger since 1998. Started an ISP circa 1993, credits in IMDB, worked on products that have touched your life. he/him, on unceded coast Miwok territory.

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danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

I mean, the numbers don't lie, but Google's AI summarization could probably use some context. https://www.flutterby.net/Image%3a2024-05-27HealthBenefitsOfEatingAss.png

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

> Look, I'm no luddite…

First of all, why do tech writers feel they need to be apologetic when criticizing bad technology decisions by Big Tech?

I don't see similar hedging when the piece is about the tech underdogs – say, small FLOSS projects. Being a vicious critic is then somehow okay?

Secondly, just embrace your inner Luddites. Luddites were not against all technology per se, they were against how technology was being used to abuse people:
https://techwontsave.us/episode/187_the_real_history_of_the_luddites_w_brian_merchant

Sounds damn valid to me!

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@rysiek have to hedge, because the advertisers pay the bills...

J12t, to random
@J12t@social.coop avatar

Imagine two identical #social #networks with mainstream users. Same number of users, same connectedness of the social graph, same demographics etc.

Social network A only has an algorithmic feed. Social network B only has a chronological people-I-follow feed.

What would the usage numbers look like in comparison? Numbers of posts, numbers of likes/replies/boosts, growth trajectory, etc?

I would expect somebody has done some research on this. Anybody know of any public results?

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@J12t Seems like this question is largely analogous to "would you like salad, or would you like a burger and fries?" We all say we'd like a healthy meal, but not enough of us actually order it to make it a viable option when we're road tripping.

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@J12t yes, and... a couple of people I really wish would come over to the Fediverse have talked about "I don't have the bandwidth to check yet another site", so some of what people are looking for is all of those things on the same site.

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@LazaroDTormes @JohnJBurnsIII Yes, although I have also found the local restaurant only to have the "salad" option be some wilted iceberg lettuce with a few sprinkings of carrot grating, drenched in Ranch...

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

So I turned on the https://udm14.com/ hack in Firefox to take the summarization out of my Google results. Last night we got home from an event and realized we needed distilled water for Charlene's CPAP, so I went searching for who might be open after 11PM. A lot of grocery store web site information design really sucks, and Google is better than I thought at extracting information from their web pages.

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Apparently the Kagi/Vlad thing is up again, and I'm thinking about some discussion in the local political scene, where someone is very vested in the process they participated in 2+ decades ago, and I'm like "dude, look at the outcomes".

If the response is "yeah, that's why we need more of the process that got us here", then we're not going to find agreement.

https://hackers.town/@lori/112491062169046101

rasterweb, to random
@rasterweb@mastodon.social avatar

If you wanted to explain to a 10 year old how a button or switch can change between two things, like AM or FM on a radio, but didn't want to use a radio because it may be outdated... what example might you use?

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@rasterweb I'd start with a light switch, and then... maybe a hair dryer, because that usually has an on/off switch, and then another switch or two for hi/lo (both fan and heater)?

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

The existential risk from "AI" isn't "are they going to become hyper-intelligent and wipe us out", they still need us to do the work.

The way that Meta's algorithms have fueled the rise of fascists, humans are already doing the work. The existential threat is here. Now.

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Holy crap. Why does every web browser think it can do better than the damned system printer dialog? Holy crap stop fucking things up and just give me the real damned thing.

the_etrain, to random
@the_etrain@beige.party avatar

The Scoville scale, but for how spicy a hot take is.

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@the_etrain you can measure my social media posts in IBUs.

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

I'm so old, I remember when web developers tried to get a page's initial load size under 40k so that readers would see content in less than 30 seconds...

Now "Waiting for www.google-analytics.com..." is up long enough for me to look around a bit, get bored, grab a screenshot, and post snark. https://www.flutterby.net/Image%3a2024-05-18WaitingForGoogleAnalytics.png

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Just realized that I'm so old, I remember when AI was going to be the sorts of information models and "expert systems" and knowledgebases that people are now saying is the necessary technology to tie to LLMs to give them the reasoning ability...

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Yesterday's LLM goofiness, and various stuff about the value of "prompt engineering", is definitely a window into how much humans will contort their own mechanisms for interaction in order to support the social biases around them.

In other news, I'm filling out my profile on Wellfound, and open to new opportunities.

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Inspired by https://toot.cat/@devopscats/112445057997076822 I asked Gemini to help me get a man and his 5 chickens across the river on a boat. https://g.co/gemini/share/547a3f1855a5

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Unclear whether "plant-based barista milk" is milk from plant-based baristas, or...? https://www.flutterby.net/Image%3a2024-05-12CreamyDreamyPlantBasedBaristaMilk.jpg

gsuberland, to random
@gsuberland@chaos.social avatar

holy shit I can just see the aurora in Nottingham! that's wild.

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@gsuberland what's your latitude? Trying to figure out if I drive to dark skies tonight...

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

It is hogwash like this rant on design which show that it was a mistake to ever give designers control over colors on the web, and CSS is awful, and we should go back to HTML v1 and let users set their own colors.

https://uxplanet.org/basicdesign-never-use-pure-black-in-typography-36138a3327a6

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Attempting to create a Bing API key for some work stuff. Holy shit, does Microsoft just not employ anyone who's ever thought about user experience, or has this shit been A/B tested in order to extract the maximum revenue?

It's hard to believe the latter, given how hard it is to get to a point when anything's usable, even having given them my credit card...

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Holy crap. Nixle alert warning of an AT&T 911 outage at 9:13 on May 1st, alert clearing that warning today, May 7th, at 8:40. I can hear the collective eye-rolling of my friends who've provisioned mission critical systems...

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@JohnJBurnsIII those five nines are all to the right of the decimal point...

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

I occasionally wonder if I'm falling behind on software development process stuff, but every time I read a book on the topic it feels like it's rehashing stuff that was pretty settled 40 years ago (and coming to the same recommendations, which, still, nobody's actually implementing).

Which... walking by the movie theater shows that they're rehashing TV shows from 40 years ago, so maybe I'm not falling behind.

I do need to catch up on syntax, but doing that for all of the languages is tiring.

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

Unicode is fun!

int main(int argc, char **argv) {
int ２= 4;
printf("%d\n",２);
}

danlyke,
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

@revk I don't know. I've kinda been looking on with mixed shock and admiration at the ability to use emoji for variable names(😜=7!), but it's only now that I'm thinking about parsing that I've started diving into "what does that mean, really?"

Which I think means "assume ASCII for punctuation/operators, and numbers, and whitespace". Which feels US/Euro-centric, but the alternative is that the language behaves locale specifically? That doesn't feel right either.

danlyke, to random
@danlyke@researchbuzz.masto.host avatar

So the legit uses for Bitcoin and cryptocurrencies at this point have been pretty much reduced to malware and helping North Korea and Russia evade sanctions.

I've been thinking about LLMs in the context of cryptocurrencies, how much of the early hype was in glossing over the core flaws which make both technologies unsuitable for purpose.

And realized, with the rise of automated spam from LLMs, that the end uses of both technologies are the same. The parallels run deeper than I thought.

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