@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

ralfmaximus

@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social

49% Evil Is Not Half Bad

Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Multi-fandom nerd but lots of Star Trek.
Multiple careers, but centered around software & technology & public healthcare especially EH.

I write sometimes, mostly science fictiony things.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Gift link wasn’t available. Sigh.

Justice discloses two 2019 trips paid for by Harlan Crow

2023 financial disclosure reports for Supreme Court justices also show six-figure book payments for Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Jackson

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/07/supreme-court-financial-disclosures-gifts-thomas/

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

> Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was granted an extension to file his report

Extension granted by Samuel A. Alito Jr. perhaps? Hmmmmm

Also, link didn't nag me with a paywall, but just in case: https://archive.ph/zzruf

GottaLaff, (edited ) to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

FINALLY! ! Belated

Judge rules must go to prison by July 1 while appealing contempt case
The former adviser is challenging a four-month prison term for contempt of Congress after failing to appear before a House panel investigating

Gift: https://wapo.st/3X9kc6M

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

Yayy! Belated WompWomp better than no WompWomp

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

Periods are starting earlier, becoming less regular, iPhone study finds

Earlier and irregular periods are both linked to poor health outcomes.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/periods-are-starting-earlier-becoming-less-regular-iphone-study-finds/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@arstechnica

71,000+ participants shared their complete demographics + menstruation data.

Was the data anonymized? How secure is this data? No chance of (say) Texas acquiring it?

GottaLaff, to Canada
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Ahem. Attention please.

I am now in . 🇨🇦🍁

That is all.

👏🏻💃🏼🥳💥‼️‼️‼️‼️

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

Congratulations!

jasonkoebler, to random
@jasonkoebler@mastodon.social avatar

Scoop: I obtained the contract Samsung requires independent shops to sign to buy phone repair parts from them.

It requires:

  • "Daily" dumps of customer data
  • The "immediate destruction" of any phones a shop comes across that has third-party parts

https://www.404media.co/samsung-requires-independent-repair-shops-to-share-customer-data-snitch-on-people-who-use-aftermarket-parts-leaked-contract-shows/

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@nightdream @00Aaron @jasonkoebler

Me: Here, please fix my phone

Authorized Repair Guy: downloads all my contacts, emails, SMS, photos

Authorized Repair Guy: drops my phone into an industrial shredder

Authorized Repair Guy: That'll be $199

mentallyalex, to random
@mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

Cybertrucks are vulnerable to rusting in the rain, correct?

A flatbed was stranded on the side of the road as it was raining on it and the cybertruck it carried.

I'm curious what this means. If the truck rusts, did the owner strike it lucky by being able to hold the tow truck liable? IS the truck liable?

I imagine the situation is a bad to worse, typically people do not have flatbeds towing their healthy vehicles.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@mentallyalex

US commercial tow trucks are required to carry liability insurance (up to $750K I think) should they be deemed liable for damages inflicted during a tow.

One could argue the Cybertruck should have been covered with a tarp (same as if a convertible was towed with the top down, or windows rolled down in the rain) so making a claim should be pretty straightforward. Assuming the cybertruck melted or whatever.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@mentallyalex

Oh I thoroughly agree. ANY vehicle should endure being outside without damage, especially something marketed as a rugged truck.

Having said that, tow truck operators do try to protect the vehicles they tow via a collection of straps & tarps if required. Flatbed drivers especially. That's just part of the job.

KNOWING that a cybertruck needs special treatment? That's iffy. I mean anybody can claim damages for anything, but whether or not they're successful? Who knows.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

is planning a primetime special about ’s New York criminal trial, which will wrap up in the coming days.

The special, Prosecuting Donald Trump: Witness to History, will debut Sunday June 2 at 9 p.m., streaming on Peacock the next day.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/msnbc-primetime-special-prosecuting-donald-trump-witness-history-1235905538/

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

Excellent news. I'm still encountering people on the daily who don't even know Trump is on trial. More primetime shows like this please.

KathyReid, to microsoft
@KathyReid@aus.social avatar

Why does want to implement ? It's not about images. It's about modelling what workers do on Windows, and then replacing them.

The most expensive part of a computer is the fallible feelings-filled unpredictable meat sack that operates it.

Google has YouTube, Google Photos, Maps, and a bucket load of search data, Google Analytics, advertising, as well as it's data (e.g. transcriptions). And a bunch of data from Android services. From this data they can model speech, model videos and model advertising systems, and how humans respond to them.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Amazon has Prime data, and a bucket load of compute. But no operating system data. They can build models based around e-commerce and advertising systems.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Meta has waves hands enough analytics to model human behaviour in the Metaverse.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Microsoft has GitHub.
Microsoft has LinkedIn.
Microsoft has SharePoint.
Microsoft has Teams.
Microsoft has Dynamics.
Microsoft has O365.
Microsoft has Windows telemetry data.

Microsoft can model what people do on (Windows) computers. Like fill out spreadsheets.Write emails. Synthesize web pages of research. Interact with colleagues on Teams. Create and edit documents.

Microsoft wants data so they can model what people do with operating systems.

Then replace them.

Imagine a CoPilot that doesn't just write buggy code. Imagine one that also does spreadsheets. That creates documents on SharePoint. That communicates with colleages on Teams. That has a customer pipeline on Dynamics.

That's what Recall is about - 360 degree surveillance of the worker, to model their functions, make them fungible, replicable - and replaceable.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@KathyReid

There is absolutely zero doubt that MS would love to model human workers as you suggest.

However, from my understanding of how Recall is implemented, all that history data is encrypted & stored locally on the machine. The OCR is handled by a local Copilot instance. MS says they are not uploading any of that to their cloud. For now, anyway.

So assuming this is correct, how could they build anything with Recall data? I'd just assumed it was a workplace turbo-surveillance tool.

_L1vY_, to random
@_L1vY_@mstdn.social avatar

Will current Windows desktops be forcing us to "upgrade" to the screenshot surveillance nightmare? Or is it only new machines?

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@_L1vY_ @Nonya_Bidniss

Y'all, you can probably keep using Windows 10 for the foreseeable future. While Microsoft End-Of-Lifes it in 2025, all that means is that Windows Update will stop rebooting your PC against your will every two or three weeks.

So long as you keep a malware program installed (I like Malware Bytes Premium) and avoid opening phishing emails, you'll be fine.

dpnash, to random
@dpnash@c.im avatar

After a period of relatively restrained handling of "AI" topics, my division at work decided that all the developers, designers, engineers, whatever, ... need to "use AI more in our everyday work". (Oh, joy.) This included a series of workshops designed to introduce everybody to some representative examples.

One workshop involved Github Copilot, and the following things happened to one development team, all senior developers:

  • Copilot generated a unit test case that was hard to get to pass.
  • When asked to generate empty test cases, Copilot generated the same (irrelevant) code over and over again.
  • Copilot stopped giving suggestions to one developer after a while.
  • Getting useful information out of Copilot frequently required a lot of fussy or non-obvious prompt editing and tweaking.

I won't supply direct quotes without the explicit consent of the people involved, but there was a very clear general sense that Copilot was not fit for purpose -- even when it did produce something not totally wrong, it was not a useful timesaver for the types of work this team was doing.

It wasn't just Copilot that seemed half baked. The workshop's guidelines (which are themselves part of a fairly polished Github repo) were poorly proofread. One example had a prominent typo in some HTML you were supposed to generate: '<button class=""btn" ...>' (note the extra double-quote). A newbie to web development would very likely add the spurious double quote mark to otherwise ok Copilot output to make sure it matched the instructions.

Finally, our IT department disallows results from Copilot that come from training on "public" code, for what should be fairly obvious legal concerns regarding copyright and similar issues. For one developer, Copilot repeatedly started to generate a result but then stopped, with an alert that the result appears to match known "public" code.

If it wasn't clear before that Copilot's basic mode (no "private code" option) is a copyright-laundering and license-laundering tool, it's really obvious now.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@felyashono @dpnash

^^This. Before you use a LLM to generate output for actual use, test it by asking it to generate stuff YOU are an expert in. Often the results will be shockingly bad.

The fact this test never goes well should be a HUGE red flag.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@resuna

I once asked Bing "who is ralfmaximus?" and it did a terrifyingly accurate deep dive into my writing, but then informed me I live in Dusseldorf Germany. Which I do not.

@felyashono
@dpnash

paninid, to random
@paninid@mastodon.world avatar

All the details of this story lead me to say:
https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/40162983/scottie-scheffler-detained-police-prior-start-pga-championship

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@paninid

Wow. The details are chilling. Way worse than the headlines suggest.

Apparently the only people more powerful than cops are white pro golfers.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Worth emphasizing this, because most news outlets did not:

“Rep. Matt #Gaetz (R-Fla.) on Thursday ominously invoked Donald #Trump’s call to far-right violent extremists while joining the former president at his criminal trial in New York.

“Standing back and standing by, Mr. President,” Gaetz wrote on social media, along with a photo of himself positioned behind Trump at his trial.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/matt-gaetz-stand-back-stand-by-proud-boys_n_66462d52e4b0dd63cd2ba653 https://uk.news.yahoo.com/stand-back-stand-matt-gaetz-174110101.html

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

He realllllly wants that VP slot. A magic wand to make his own criminal problems go away.

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