Seirdy

Seirdy, 1 month ago to random

I think that AI being synonymous with gen-AI is a huge disservice to actually useful topics: compression, machine translation, text-to-speech and speech-to-text engines, upscalers, forecasting algorithms, etc.

Seirdy, 4 months ago to random

I admit that I feel salty about the word “enshittification” taking off instead of my phrase for the same thing: “user domestication”. I prefer the latter because it emphasizes the gross disrespect so many platforms show their users, and how the lack of autonomy/mobility naturally leads to enshittification.

Any platform able to get away with enshittification will do so when given the incentive. Enshittification emphasizes the process of a platform’s downfall; we should be taking steps to prevent that from happening in the first place by keeping platforms open. Vigilance against enshittification is misplaced when better spent against user domestication.

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Originally posted on https://seirdy.one/notes/2024/01/11/enshittification-and-user-domestication/ (POSSE). #enshittification #UserDomestication

Seirdy, 6 months ago to random

I am once again begging everyone to understand that verified boot, enforcing app signatures, TPM, etc. are actually good if they protect the user. In the status quo, they tend to protect the vendor from the user.

If the user defines what’s allowed to run, then there’s no problem.

Seirdy, 4 days ago to random

• What a week, huh?
• Captain, ISO-8601 weeks start on Monday

Seirdy, 6 months ago to Blog

New #blog post just dropped! Proposal: an HTML element for spoilers. The case for including dedicated elements for spoiler tags in HTML. An informal proposal describing use-cases, syntax, semantics, and recommended user-agent behavior. Here’s an excerpt:

While browsing the WICG discussion forms, I stumbled upon a proposal for a standardized . I made two comments, and stopped myself before writing a third; this called for a blog post. I think HTML should have a spoiler element.

RE: https://akko.wtf/objects/8fd2f79b-9529-441d-8b6f-079ac4a8f599

amy, 1 month ago to random

Regular reminder that if you don't run your site on HTTPS you're doing yourself and anyone who visits your site a disservice.

This is double extra true for anyone doing ANYTHING related to sex. Even if your hosting provider is cool with what you're hosting, you owe it to the people who use your site to protect their privacy by preventing their ISP and any intermediary from knowing what they're looking at.

Seirdy, 1 month ago to random

First version of my badges page is up! https://seirdy.one/meta/badges/

lmk if your site has a badge that you want included. no guarantees.

Seirdy, 1 month ago to Blog

New #blog post: MDN’s AI Help and lucid lies.

This article on AI focused on the inherent untrustworthiness of LLMs, and attempts to break down where LLM untrustworthiness comes from. Stay tuned for a follow-up article about AI that focuses on data-scraping and the theory of labor. It’ll examine what makes many forms of generative AI ethically problematic, and the constraints employed by more ethical forms.

Excerpt:

I don’t find the mere existence of LLM dishonesty to be worth blogging about; it’s already well-established. Let’s instead explore one of the inescapable roots of this dishonesty: LLMs exacerbate biases already present in their training data and fail to distinguish between unrelated concepts, creating lucid lies.

A lucid lie is a lie that, unlike a hallucination, can be traced directly to content in training data uncritically absorbed by a large language model. MDN’s AI Help is the perfect example.

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Originally posted on seirdy.one: see original. #MDN #AI #LLM #LucidLies

Seirdy, 5 months ago to random

An alternative to controversial recommendation algorithms is timeline-filtering algorithms. Feeling pressured to scroll through too much is unhealthy and lends itself to addiction; filtering things down once a user scrolls down far enough should be a welcome opt-in feature.

For example, a mutuals-only filter combined with a minimum-interaction-count filter could be a good way to “catch up” quickly after a long absence. Only showing posts common across a set of timelines is another; for example, I would like to see a filtered view of Akkoma’s bubble timeline restricted to what’s on my home timeline.

Conditionally showing reblogs is another way to filter. Unread reblogs from mutuals should be the only visible reblogs I have scrolled down far enough.

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Originally noted on https://seirdy.one/notes/2023/11/30/ideas-for-filtering-fediverse-timelines/ (POSSE).

Seirdy, 1 month ago to random

mail servers phasing out tlsv1.0 and tlsv1.1 sounds like a great idea until your landlord wonders why you didn’t receive emails from their tlsv1.0-only server about them increasing your rent, or until you never get the offer letter from the place you applied to, or 500 other things that most people have to deal with at some point.

Seirdy, 5 months ago to random

you should NOT be renewing your TLS certs manually. Renew your three-month certs automatically every month or two. With an ACME client like lego and a CA like ZeroSSL, you can even set a notAfter parameter to shrink the lifetime down to something smaller. Automation makes this doable.

Seirdy, 14 days ago to random

New static site hosting provider hit my radar: statichost.eu. Ticks all the boxes, plus offers custom headers, OCSP Must-Staple, etc. which half the providers don’t do nowadays. I like how they do manual review and start conversations with customers for traffic spike billing instead of automated flagging and expecting users to reach out.

Seirdy, 5 months ago to random

If your office bans extensions such as adblockers, just set your volume to max. Every time you click a porn ad by accident, let the management know. Let everyone know.

Works especially well during presentations.

Seirdy, 4 months ago to random

TRON is a film about disabling SELinux

Seirdy, 10 days ago to random

An incomplete list of expensive fads in Silicon Valley:

• Tablets will replace PCs en masse instead of complement them (the “Post-PC era”).
• Blockchain (cryptographically-verified, decentralized pyramid schemes) will replace databases.
• Prompt engineering would replace creative labor.

What came before the Post-PC era?

Seirdy, 1 month ago to random

In light of recent events, some people asked me for VPS advice.

uh

i don’t know what I did to deserve this reputation; it’s been years since i’ve rented from a new provider. i will say:

go wild for your fun projects, but if it’s important:

please oh please check the ToS, SLA, customer support, staff hours, data processing agreement (if it exists), and user reviews (paying special attention to how different providers cancel service) before you pick that too-cheap-to-be-true VPS provider to host your most important projects. If they’re a small provider, see who else uses them (you probably don’t want to share a box with someone too shady).

if you’re hosting a large community or your livelihood, talk to staff before you commit to an upstart provider. ask about any of the above you couldn’t find on your own.

Oh, and use a custom ISO if you’re not familiar with your provider’s customizations to OOTB images. Providers nowadays preconfigure their images a lot with questionable regard for security.

With that preface out of the way: Server Hunter is a great resource for finding new low-cost providers. Remember that below a certain price (like $3/mo), you probably get what you pay for. I won’t pay less than that for anything important with a fixed IPv4.

Seirdy, 5 months ago to random

Some #FediBlock entries, roughly in descending severity:

cottoncandy.cafe: pro-contact MAPs.

• pro-contact MAP admin, ditto for a local user.
• You may have already blocked their local bubble instances for similar reasons.

guns.krackhou.se: racism

• Admin makes a blatantly racist TND post, and a second such post.
• More racist slurs.

styxhexenhammer666.com: far-right MAGA peertube instance.

• Sample videos: “Elon Musk Deemed Antisemitic For Daring to Support Freer Speech”, some nonbinary hatred.
• Instance TOS.

#FediBlockDetails

Seirdy, 5 months ago to random

everyones talking about finding alternative bloggy platforms with fewer paywalls wnd dark patterns and i’m all like

you know you can put words on a webpage right? no CMS, no SSG.

Seirdy, 28 days ago to random

Some user-agents that hit my site this week:

“W3C standards are important. Stop fucking obsessing over User-Agent already.”

sorry.

“I met a traveller from an antique land, Who said–\x22Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand, Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown, And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things, The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal, these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my User-Agent, ye Mighty, and despair! Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

i’m happy for you, or sorry that happened.

“loli_spider”

um.

Seirdy, 28 days ago to fediverse

New bookmark: ActivityPub on a (mostly) static website.

There have been other attempts to document the process of bringing ActivityPub to a (mostly) static site, but this is my favorite so far. I wonder if I should give it a go, if POSSE ever stops serving my needs.

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Originally posted on seirdy.one: See Original (POSSE). #IndieWeb #Security #Web

Seirdy, 20 days ago to random

Anybody know of (ideally mobile-friendly) FOSS forum software (besides mailing lists) that doesn’t have a copyright-granting CLA or open-core model? Discourse, Flarum, and Nodebb require a CLA.

I’m aware of phpBB and bbj (read-only web UIs are available; no read-write web UIs).

Seirdy, 5 months ago to random

@jlsigman if you are on Substack:

Get off Substack.

You’re on a platform that unapologetically thinks that financing the Nazis is taking the high road, and repeatedly defends this stance.

RE: https://mstdn.games/users/jlsigman/statuses/111619548223844702

Seirdy, 1 month ago to random

ACAB includes the Paw Patrol

Seirdy, 3 months ago to random

Share your favorite open issues on any ticket tracker related to browsers and the Web.

Seirdy, 13 days ago to random

Apple apologizes for iPad ad

“Creativity is in our DNA at Apple, and it’s incredibly important to us to design products that empower creatives all over the world,” said Tor Myhren, the company’s VP of marketing communications. “Our goal is to always celebrate the myriad of ways users express themselves and bring their ideas to life through iPad. We missed the mark with this video, and we’re sorry.”

Interestingly, Google used the same language to conclude its apology for its generative AI’s historical depictions of race. It explained its intention with flowery language and then said “But it’s missing the mark here”.

I wonder if we’ll be seeing more of this type of response to corporate tone-deafness (a generous term) going forward. Big “I’m sorry you feel that way (but this isn’t indicative of any problems with me)” vibes.