@alcinnz@floss.social
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

alcinnz

@alcinnz@floss.social

A browser developer posting mostly about how free software projects work, and occasionally about climate change.

Though I do enjoy german board games given an opponent.

Pronouns: he/him

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

ianrosewrites, to random

People in security and computing have been saying for years - there's no cloud. There's just someone else's computer.

Right now, there's no AI. There's just someone else's work.

Stop calling generative text and image programs AI. It's inaccurate and insulting. They are just the evolution of corporate creative theft that's been going on as long as media corporations have existed.

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@bmreiniger @alessandro @ianrosewrites Maybe, I'm not convinced. My point still stands: There's something qualitatively different about how effectively we learn from each individual example as compared to AI neuralnets. This has been shown imprically!

drewdevault, to opensource
@drewdevault@fosstodon.org avatar

https://writefreesoftware.org

Introducing Write Free Software: A comprehensive educational resource for the free software community

https://writefreesoftware.org/blog/introducing-writefreesoftware.org/

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@jfred @drewdevault @polezaivsani I like that phrasing better! +1

shoofle, to random

i wish people more broadly understood the difference between "the people of this group each individually and knowingly desire this action for shared reasons", "the people of this group each have incentives that make them likely to desire this action, although probably for different and individual reasons", "the group's summed incentives drive it collectively in this direction", "the structure of the group and its bylaws and decision making process make it inevitably prefer this action", and "this group is being steered in this direction by specific members" because i don't think you can really understand. anything about large groups without understanding all of those

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@shoofle Sounds like a perfect use of jargon! To ease distinguishing those...

yatil, to random
@yatil@yatil.social avatar

Coming to your iPhone in September or October, thanks to self-proclaimed “open web” people. And nothing is stopping Google to require Chrome for their services. Which most people will do because services are more important than browsers which are similar on the surface.

It’s not good for the web. https://hachyderm.io/@rmondello/110379170621774721

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@yatil Chrome devs would refute this assertion...

That was a frustrating conversation!

lightweight, to random
@lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nz avatar

Free AWS or Azure training... it's a trap. Don't fall for it. They want you to learn their non-transferable, proprietary interfaces so that you're trapped in their monoculture, and recommend their vastly overpriced services to your customers. Many people who work with these technologies as consultants can make a lot of $ because their fees seem low compared to the massive costs of those cloud services (compared to competing services). They're exploiting the broad ignorance of the market.

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@lightweight I suspect the skills are more transferrable than they let on...

Judging by my experience listening to others speak AWS jargon!

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@lightweight At the same time I'm sure there's people who say I'm not embracing change when NFTs or metaverse or GPTs fail to excite me...

Or when I insist there has to be a technical (not financial) reason why some software should be made a service.

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@lightweight Honestly, I can't blame them. But it does make our job harder!

cypnk, to random

Oh neat

Google is going to delete "inactive accounts". Including everything in their Gmail, Drive, Docs, YouTube etc... starting December 2023

What could possibly go wrong?

https://www.blog.google/technology/safety-security/updating-our-inactive-account-policies/

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@cypnk I believe Tom Scott (YouTuber, started Computerphile) gave a talk about exactly what could go wrong...

alcinnz, to random
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

Google Bard's vulnerabilities and other links - Baldur Bjarnason: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/google-bard-keyword-vulnerability/

Some links from that blogpost:

Death Of A Meta Tag - Danny Sullivan @ Search Engine Watch (2002): https://12ft.io/proxy?&q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.searchenginewatch.com%2F2002%2F09%2F30%2Fdeath-of-a-meta-tag (via 12ft.io)

The Algorithm is a Lie - Entertainment Strategy Guy: https://entertainment.substack.com/p/the-algorithm-is-a-lie?s=w (Substack)

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

@apophis I'm sorry, no idea!

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

More links from that blogpost...

Google wants to take over the web - Paris Marx @ Disconnect: https://www.disconnect.blog/p/google-wants-to-take-over-the-web

Understanding ChatGPT: A Triumph of Rhetoric - Geoffrey Moore: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/understanding-chatgpt-triumph-rhetoric-geoffrey-moore/ (LinkedIn)

Fake Pictures of People of Color Won’t Fix AI Bias - Leo Kim @ WIRED: https://www.wired.com/story/synthetic-image-media-bias-artificial-intelligence/

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

ChatGPT is powered by these contractors making $15 an hour - David Ingram @ NBC: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/openai-chatgpt-ai-jobs-contractors-talk-shadow-workforce-powers-rcna81892

Google’s AI Hype Circle - Cory Doctorow: https://scribe.rip/googles-ai-hype-circle-6158804d1299 (Medium via Scribe)
Great commentor!

Amazon Is Still Running an Injury Mill for Workers - William Banks @ Jacobin: https://jacobin.com/2023/05/amazon-warehouse-workplace-injury-shareholder-meeting/

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

A last couple...

On browser compatibility and support baselines - Molily: https://molily.de/browser-compatibility-baseline/
I don't trust Google to write a baseline I find reasonable, but I'm sure same applies vice-versa!

Humans and algorithms work together — so study them together - J. Nathan Matias @ Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01521-z

I've been quite selective, so lots more great links at: https://www.baldurbjarnason.com/2023/google-bard-keyword-vulnerability/

alcinnz, to random
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

The thing which amuses me most reading Cory Doctorow on Google's embrace of AI: The characterization of managers!

'While this would be a rotten movie, it could certainly be pleasing to an exec who’s tired of writers pushing back against their “brilliant ideas.” It could satisfice quite well. Small wonder the studios are so in love with the idea of chatbots.'

https://scribe.rip/googles-ai-hype-circle-6158804d1299 (Medium via Scribe)

1/2

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

In my experience ideas are a dime a dozen, execution are where it counts! So I'd sympathize with any writers who face such an executives!

Also I'm amused to see this article quoting Craig Francis suggesting that C-suite managers are the best suited to being replaced by ChatGPT!

'After all, “confident liar that doesn’t know when it’s lying” is a significant fitness factor for tech’s most successful executives.'

2/2

alcinnz, to random
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

There was some interest in my rambly-spoilery review yesterday, & I'm not sure what else to discuss today, so: Horror!

Honestly this is a genre I've struggled to engage with. I want the scares horror promises, but until recently I rarely feel more than a physiological jump. (Though I do know people who enjoy the cheesiness)

Jonathon Simms on the other hand...

He consistantly mixes a perfect concoction of the supernatural, mundanity, unsolved mystery, & skepticism for 200 episodes!

1/?

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

By their 20s Raimi & his friends had made several short films, one of which ("Within The Woods") they wanted to remake into feature-length. So in 1980 they raised 90k from their local Michigan community (not quite as much as he hoped) & filmed in a cheap & lenient if miserable Tennessee location.

Co-producer Bruce Campbell was the lead & only actor willing to stay the entire shoot.

Acting's quite poor & it's hard to say whether the humour was intentional, but it did succeed in the frights!
2'/

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

Out of that The Evil Dead got positive critical reception (including from the likes of Steven King) & greater funding for an international debut, which Shapiro was keen to help Raimi take advantage of.

With this newfound fame Raimi wanted to make a medieval comedy-adventure for a sequel, but producers first wanted to see him make sequel/remake with a decent budget. There it's clear the comedy is intentional!

He still needed to push, but he did make a few 1990s small budget films.

4'/5'

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

The thing I like about the answer to the mystery (past Leitner's eldritch cop-out) is that it works non-diegetically as well as it does diegetically. It helps explain how Simms (diegetically creditted to famous London architect Robert Smirke) subdivides horror.

Then the show ends in hell-on-Earth pulling off a classic internet "now you've heard this it's already too late, that's how the horror spreads"!

https://rustyquill.com/show/the-magnus-archives/

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

The Magnus Archives are 200 (mostly british urban) horror short stories, framed by a librarian audio-recording & organizing these eye-witness testimonies. Whilst he & his colleagues try to figure out what is going on. The show is mostly episodic narration, with gradually increasing amounts of dialog as they drip-feed the overarching mystery.

The sound effects & music are subtle, & perfectly suited to the show.

The research which went into this makes it feel very real!

2/3

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

Going a tad more mainstream regarding horror, I recently watched Evil Dead Rises & loved it! Extremely freaky whilst being simultaneously funny (not as funny previous entries), bit of a surreal emotion! Most other films alternate between the 2, or fail hard at being scary.

I'm interested in the history of the franchise, because it's how Sam Raimi bootstrapped his way into Hollywood. And is now being used to welcome Irish horror director Lee Cronin.

1'/?

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

Bruce Campbell continued to have at least a cameo in every one o Raimi's films.

In the early 2000s Columbia Pictures gave Raimi the opportunity to adapt one of his favourite childhood comicbooks. Yielding the much-beloved (including by me) Spider-man trilogy which helped launch the superhero boom we're currently living. And being a popular early 2000s movie, I see it heavily meme'd online!

Moral I want to highlight: Chase your dreams! See whether you succeed. Computers make this cheaper.
5'/5'

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

Oh, and the camera work was inventive! (Kodak 16mm)

Raimi gave the film to a Detroit firm for editing, where it helped launch the career of then assistant-editor Joel Coen of the later Coen Brothers.

He had a gimmicky premier in 1981 at a local theatre, and showed it to everyone in the film industry he could. One Irvan Shapiro (who produced a film which inspired this one) convinced them to change the name to "The Evil Dead" & got them a screening at Cannes Film Festival.

3'/?

alcinnz, to random
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

Hmmm, interesting... I just noticed: Mojeek has indexed my sites! I did a search for "Haphaestus", tells me their index is reasonably up to date.

https://www.mojeek.com/search?q=haphaestus

Mojeek is the only general-purpose search engine that isn't just a frontend on Google or Bing. I might start using it!

alcinnz, to random
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

Ugh! Playing with implementing shorthands, & I think I need to tweak my utility (risking infinite loops) to aid creating shorthands for shorthands!

That'd necessitate a new Stylist-Traits update already... I'll release that tomorrow!

alcinnz,
@alcinnz@floss.social avatar

I guess I'll need that update anyways, they support code I'm looking at wouldn't even work!

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