@gregly@retro.pizza
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

gregly

@gregly@retro.pizza

Ruby dev. Previously embedded-dev. Former “gifted” child. Frustrated creator. 45. Married, heteroflexible, cis, he/him.

You have nothing to prove. Be unapologetically yourself, for one day you shall die.

#fedi22 #fish #dogs #music #gamemusic #gamedev #programming #ruby #videogames #tech #electronics #retrogaming #retrocomputing #startrek #doctorwho #scifi #adhd

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gregly, to iOS
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

You know, as much as I am vehemently for open computing, I realized that I used to be generally okay with Apple’s walled garden, when it was actually maintained. When you could go on the App Store and find quality software that didn’t require a hidden subscription or IAPs to unlock 99% of its functionality and/or disable the endless ad spam.

What benefit does the walled garden provide us now? It’s full of weeds that have choked out everything else. Practically useless.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@trixter In the early days, it was phenomenal… it’s a lot like Amazon in that regard, actually.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

27: How do you feel about the use of AI in writing?

I refuse to set up an account to use ChatGPT even for my own amusement, because sooner or later their customer database will be leaked on the internet.

I'm trad published by Tor and Orbit. Author/publisher contracts include a clause asserting I am the sole author and have the right to license the work for publication. Any hint that I used an LLM for my writing without my publishers' knowledge could be fatal to my career!

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@cstross I suppose one could theoretically train a model entirely on one’s own previous work, and use that… but then it wouldn’t be an LLM (and I wonder exactly how useful a neural network that would be, since it would essentially regurgitate stuff you’d already done in the past).

gregly, to random
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

Apple’s “support” of right-to-repair is the textbook definition of “malicious compliance”

https://www.theverge.com/2022/5/21/23079058/apple-self-service-iphone-repair-kit-hands-on

gregly, to random
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

Walgreens had these and I was so excited; I haven’t seen these since I was a kid!

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

Trying not to name names while I'm being grumpy but just overall one of the very worst things about programming overall is that it seems like there are entire industries full of people who either cannot, or choose not to, write good comments. For example this program does not comment anywhere to explain what the Scene object is or what it does (scene.rs has literally not one comment) but it does helpfully comment the line "scene.draw();" to tell me that this line "Draws the scene". Thanks

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@mcc And at some point teaching people to write good comments was too hard, so the standard advice became “don’t write comments, your code should be perfectly self-documenting” and I hate it

LeftistLawyer, to Law
@LeftistLawyer@kolektiva.social avatar

To paraphrase Forest Gump:

"Dumb is, as dumb does."

Hey, smart guy, nobody is regulating intelligence

It's not the that needs to be regulated, per se. It's the grifter tech-bros trying to sell Parrot Tech as intelligence

But, I'll give the author a little grace. He is a student. When law students give advice ...
RUN!
@cstross
https://davidaw.ad/posts/11-06-regulating-intelligence-is-dumb/

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@LeftistLawyer @cstross Big companies would love for the tech to be regulated, because it would require a massive surveillance state (a plus for them) and basically the end of personal general computing (also a plus for them). It would ensure the tech stays firmly under their control.

But as you say, regulation of the sale of that tech as a service is something they’ll always vehemently fight against, because now you’re endangering their ability to extract profit from the people.

gregly, to random
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

Totally random, but a while back I read Lucifer’s Hammer because (a) I like realistic post-apocalyptic fiction and (b) I remember my dad had a copy when I was young.

And HOLY SHIT is that book racist and sexist. It includes a man literally becoming the chieftain of a harem of Girl Scouts he had been chaperoning on a field trip. This is presented as a good thing for the character, who had been desperately lonely and saddled with debt before the disaster.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@trixter It was really jarring. I almost recommend reading the book simply out of morbid curiosity about how cringy it is.

Meanwhile, “Earth Abides”, written nearly a half-century earlier, was WAY better handling issues of race and gender.

textfiles, to random
@textfiles@digipres.club avatar

I recently digitized a master tape of Jerry Lee Lewis and Ron Wood performing at Woody's on the Beach in 1988.

The video is at https://youtu.be/0nQw4bWomjo

The video has already hit a bunch of copyright IDs and it's interesting to me where they come from.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@bryansmart @textfiles Not a bad idea, but this doesn’t fit his main mission, which is to preserve old video clips in their original form. Copyright claims are increasingly destroying all attempts to create meaningful archives of the past, and that is extremely concerning.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@textfiles And of course unless an organization with a TON of money and power finally sues Google over this crap, nothing will ever change. And we can try to create alternative sites for sharing video, but if they get too big to be noticed they’ll quickly run into the dumpster fire that is the DMCA themselves.

I can’t believe we’re living in an age where archiving the past has essentially been made illegal.

gregly, to random
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

Oh hey I’d forgotten that proselytizers canvas the area on Halloween because they know people will answer doors

🙄

KimPerales, (edited ) to random
@KimPerales@toad.social avatar

, the🔫IDU with support from MOC & activist judges -overproduced AR15s, Republicans' failed laws didn't prevent🔫violence... ME doesn't *Require background checks on🔫sales *Have a🚩law *Prevent dom. abusers from accessing🔫s *Ban assault🔫s *Limit mag cap. *Req. concealed carry permits *Restrict open carry & have a waiting period: Card: firearms instructor, mental health issues, made threats to shoot the NG base, spent 2 weeks at a mental health fac... https://www.sunjournal.com/2023/10/25/multiple-victims-reported-following-shootings-in-lewiston/

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@KimPerales @wdlindsy There is something to be said for the argument that they explicitly want those “beneath” them to kill themselves and each other with guns. Oh, they’d never say that out loud, but it fits the social-Darwinist view that’s so prevalent among members of the Republican Party.

nixCraft, (edited ) to random
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

😅

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@nixCraft @mempko My biggest gripe: WHY ISN’T IT CALLED LINUX SUBSYSTEM FOR WINDOWS

davidnjoku, to ArtificialIntelligence
@davidnjoku@mastodon.world avatar

I asked Dall-E to give me an image of "A Black African Doctor looking after a starving White Caucasian child."

Looks like the AI thought I was hallucinating.

A white doctor looking after a black child
A white doctor looking after a black child
A black doctor looking after a black child.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@Sonikku @davidnjoku @lisamelton @_L1vY_ This example also demonstrates how stupid (as in “not intelligent”) LLMs truly are. It doesn’t know that “black” refers to “doctor” or “Caucasian” refers to “child” in the prompt. The relative distances between tokens help guide it to results, but that’s it, and since its training data almost certainly has way more examples of the opposite situation in it, that’s what it gravitates toward. It will always reflect training biases.

eniko, (edited ) to random
@eniko@peoplemaking.games avatar

articles are like "the economic cost of long covid is too high, we need a cure!!!"

i mean a cure would be rad but we already know how to prevent long covid:

  1. vaccination
  2. ventilation & filtration
  3. masking

society is currently so disinterested in the ramifications of long covid we can't even be bothered to prevent it using cheap and effective methods

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@eniko I could see 1 and 2 happening if we had actual, competent, non-corrupt leadership. While I absolutely support 3 — and it’s the cheapest of all the options — it’s also the one I don’t see happening, because the western world has been trained over time to equate masks with suspicion and fear. Faces are so deeply ingrained in our social interactions and behavior that many people have this knee-jerk disdain for covering them up, resorting to fatuous paeans to “freedom” and “bravery”.

ryanhoulihan, to random
@ryanhoulihan@mastodon.social avatar

No matter how the Fediverse turns on me, I will never stop saying that APPLE SUCKS https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/19/23924549/jon-stewart-apple-ai-china-cancel

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@ryanhoulihan This floors me given that John Oliver routinely bashes HBO (or Max or whoever the hell they are today), but they know a good thing when they see it so they allow it.

_benui, to random
@_benui@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

Getting rid of 3.5mm jacks to sell expensive easily-lost annoying-to-charge bad-quality always-disconnecting Bluetooth earphones was a stroke of evil genius

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@_benui HARD agree. I don’t know what it is about my body, but Bluetooth audio devices have never worked well for me in areas with a lot of RF clutter, like downtown; I need to be in suburban or rural areas for them to maintain a connection. This has been the case with multiple phones and headphones, so I don’t think it’s a hardware thing… 🤔

futurism, to random

Adobe Shows Off Dress That Can Change Its Pattern on the Fly https://t.co/x7RQ12kO5s

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@futurism @cstross First thought: this is extremely cyberpunk
Second thought: it’s made by Adobe, so we’ll need to figure out how to pirate it to avoid paying huge dress subscription fees

rasterweb, to random
@rasterweb@mastodon.social avatar

I’ve added an old Quadraflex stereo to my shop computer, which replaced the old Onkyo I found in the trash. This one belonged to my uncle for many years.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@rasterweb Ironically, that Quadraflex looks a whole lot like the old Onkyo my dad used to have! (I’ve always loved that particular silver knobs-and-toggles look of electronics of that time.)

gregly, to retrocomputing
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

I enjoy because I too am over 40 years old, dirty, temperamental, and often malfunctioning

gregly, to retrocomputing
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

So glad to see that Adrian (of the YouTube channel Adrian’s Digital Basement) is able to become a full-time YouTuber! He seems like literally one of the nicest guys on the planet, and absolutely deserves to do what he loves.

Also, I really hope he can find a Marketplace health plan better than COBRA, because holy hell does COBRA suck. 😅

sarahstierch, to random
@sarahstierch@sfba.social avatar

Observation car time as we speed through the shrub land from Reno to Winnemucca.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@ai6yr @sarahstierch IMO, we could all use a much slower pace of travel. My family took us on long road trips, and I will treasure them forever (even the boring parts).

Unfortunately the cost of Amtrak makes it out of reach for myself and many others. Heck, even when my parents managed to take us on a train trip back in the 90s, we couldn’t afford a sleeper; today, even standard coach fare is simply too much to justify.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@ai6yr @sarahstierch I do have to say, though, that I don’t think you can make a direct comparison between a sleeper on a train and a first-class ticket on a plane, simply due to the difference in travel duration — but I’m very glad to see that the price difference isn’t as bad as the last time I checked. 🙂

TucsonSentinel, to Tucson
@TucsonSentinel@mastodon.tucsonsentinel.com avatar

Traditional downtowns are dead or dying in many U.S. cities − what’s next for these zones? https://www.tucsonsentinel.com/opinion/report/101323_downtown_growth_op/traditional-downtowns-are-dead-or-dying-many-us-cities-8722-whats-next-these-zones/
Many cities are confronting the prospect of an urban doom loop, with a massive oversupply of office and retail space, fewer commuters and a looming urban fiscal crisis, and the growth of commercial office complexes that has long been promoted has probably come to an end.

gregly,
@gregly@retro.pizza avatar

@TucsonSentinel My prediction is that downtown offices will slowly convert more and more into luxury condos and apartments, with city centers gradually becoming fortified, isolated compounds for the rich (but not über-rich) while the rest of the world slowly crumbles. Hell, we may even start seeing modern equivalents of “city walls” to keep the unwashed rabble like us out.

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