@datarama@hachyderm.io
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datarama

@datarama@hachyderm.io

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datarama, to random
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

Move carefully and fix things.

mhoye, to random
@mhoye@mastodon.social avatar

As someone coming off a decade of working there, I can tell you with some confidence that “you should use Firefox despite Mozilla’s leadership” is far more true and has been true far longer than you realize.

But you should also understand that original market-share vs ceo salary meme is a creation of Brendan Eich, presumably born of a grudge, and notably elided his tenure as CTO, during which the worst of that decline happened.

You should still use Firefox though.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@mhoye I've used Firefox since back when it was named Phoenix, and I'll continue to do so for as long as I can.

My own frustration with the Mozilla leadership is about specifically this: I want to keep using Firefox (and I don't want to use Chrome!), but they seem to keep making decisions that make me worry they're going to destroy it.

emilymbender, to random
@emilymbender@dair-community.social avatar

I would like to remind the world that you actually don't have to get into bed with OpenAI. StackOverflow was a beacon of resistance, but I guess their principles were for sale after all.

https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/artificial-intelligence/stack-overflow-bans-users-en-masse-for-rebelling-against-openai-partnership-users-banned-for-deleting-answers-to-prevent-them-being-used-to-train-chatgpt

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@emilymbender StackOverflow's community moderators were. Their owners made it quite clear that they were hopping on the AI bandwagon last year.

It is all so depressing.

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar
  • Let's write a web browser.
  • In order to write a web browser, we'll first need to write a programming language to write the web browser in.
  • We started writing a programming language for web browsers, but our programming language turned out to be so good at writing operating systems that now we're rewriting the Linux kernel in it, and that's taking up enough time we had to put the web browser on hold

Hold on is Rust just the grandest exercise in yak shaving ever committed

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@mcc See also: The entire esteemed career of Donald Knuth.

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

2008, me: I love the idea of cryptocurrency

BITCOIN: The word "cryptocurrency" now means "financial scams based on inefficient write-only ledgers"

2018, me: I love the idea of the metaverse

FACEBOOK: The word "metaverse" now means "proprietary 3D chat programs with no soul"

2022, me: I love the idea of procedurally generated content

OPENAI: From now on people will associate that only with big corporations plagiarizing small artists and turning their work into ugly content slurry

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@mcc There is no such incentive. There is a very, very strong incentive (namely, not wanting to empower the worst scumbags in tech) to not share your work publicly anymore.

This, to me, is the most harmful effect so far of generative AI.

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

Remember: They're not AI PCs, they're Surveillance PCs https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/112475611939997391

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@garrett @mcc And again: The end-goal of all the AI training is Mass Layoff as a Service. Even those of us who opt-out (perhaps by not using their product at all) will be screwed by that, inasmuch as they succeed.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@mcc Short-term: I am personally lucky that I live in a country that has some fairly restrictive regulations on workplace surveillance. I'm sure that this will spawn even worse spyware, but there are upper limits to how much of it I can legally be forced to use.

Longer-term: The end-goal of all the AI training is of course to build the Mass Layoff Machine, and that's going to fuck people here over too, if they can just get enough data from people in countries without a history of strong unions.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@mcc Of course it won't be kept local. Same with the "we'll listen in on your phone calls to check for scammers!" features Google is hawking.

"We're running out of high quality language data!" ... "It's a total coincidence that we've made this decision right now, but we've decided to listen in on every phone call / watch every software interaction anybody ever makes ever again".

They're after more training data.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@mcc Remember when people were saying "you're not the customer, you're the product"?

You're not even that. You're the raw material for the product.

inthehands, to random
@inthehands@hachyderm.io avatar

Less about tools that boost productivity, more about tools that reduce total workload.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@inthehands I don't think tools can reduce total workload. That is not what tools can do, so the people selling tools are necessarily selling increased productivity. It only functionally leads to reduced workload when a tool has become so effective at increasing productivity that the human has been automated away almost entirely. (Eg. a washing machine).

What reduces total workload when total automation isn't possible or desirable isn't tools - it's social processes.

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Long before the current wave of , we were being groomed for automation panics with misleading stories. Remember this one? "'Truck driver' is the most common job in America. Self-driving trucks are just around the corner. How can we prevent America's army of truckers from turning into a howling mob when the robots steal their jobs?"

https://futurism.com/millions-of-jobs-are-at-risk-but-their-loss-could-be-for-the-greater-good

1/

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@pluralistic I would argue that they have already turned AI into a Paperclip Maximizer.

Power-hungry and water-thirsty AI data centres are being built in a world that's in the middle of a climate crisis. Google is planning one in Uruguay, where potable water has been so scarce that salt water is being mixed in the tap water. And all that so we can generate corporate word salad and phishing scams at the touch of a button.

How is that not Paperclip Maximization?

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Trump vowed he’d ‘never’ help Europe if it’s attacked, top EU official says:

https://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-vow-never-help-europe-attack-thierry-breton/

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@cstross i am so fucking tired of living in Interesting Times.

lauren, to microsoft
@lauren@mastodon.laurenweinstein.org avatar

Imagine what an anti-abortion red state or a fascist Trump administration (or some other future evil administration) would do with features like 's "recording everything you do on your PC" and the and Microsoft plans to listen in on your private phone calls.

I don't give a damn if these firms claim the data is stored on the devices. Devices can be confiscated, stolen, or courts can order pretty much anything done with that data.

These firms are selling us all down the river with this stuff.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@lauren Also, does anybody really believe that they're not going to extract whatever they deem valuable from data and use for more AI training?

"We're running out of high-quality language data" -> "It's a total coincidence, but from now on we're going to be listening in on every phone call and watching every desktop software interaction anybody ever makes ever again".

gvwilson, to random
@gvwilson@mastodon.social avatar

If someone is starving and you're not, you don't get to criticize them for making poor food choices. Similarly, if you work in an organization that can afford to upgrade its systems regularly and hire people who understand security (who aren't cheap, even by tech standards), you don't get to snark about the lapses at the British Library that opened them up to a ransomware attack. 1/

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@gvwilson Back in the 90s, just before Google appeared on the scene and ended the discussion on what web search engines could be like, there were serious discussions in Denmark about trying to build a public-funded and run search engine, which would be managed by the libraries. Librarians, people figured, had the expertise to deal with large-scale information management. (And they ran our first cybercafes, back when that was a thing.)

I think of the future we gave up on, and I could weep.

datarama, to random
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

Where do people who self-host their websites, mastodon instances etc. actually host things these days?

(Hetzner are villains now, and so are DigitalOcean I gather?)

ColinTheMathmo, (edited ) to random
@ColinTheMathmo@mathstodon.xyz avatar

There's an interesting question by #FOTSN over on the site formerly known as (and to be honest, still known as) Twitter:

Right, in need of some #MondayMotivation

Can you provide us with the most unnecessary fact you've learned recently? Let us absorb your knowledge ...

So ...

Anything?

(Edit: Boosts for reach very welcome. I'm sure there are many people out there who have recently learned apparently useless or unnecessary things)

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@ColinTheMathmo The fastest-moving reptile in the world is a turtle. The leatherback sea turtle can swim at just over 35 km/h, just beating out the black iguana which sprints at 33 km/h.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@ColinTheMathmo The platypus does not have a stomach; its esophagus connects directly to its intestine.

There you go. I hope that's enough useless knowledge to last you a while.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@ColinTheMathmo More time passed between the building of the Egyptian pyramids and the reign of Cleopatra than has passed between the reign of Cleopatra and today.

(Speaking of Cleopatra, she spoke eight languages and was the first of the Ptolemaic dynasty in Egypt who actually spoke Egyptian at all. The stories about her beauty are a modern invention; contemporaries mostly noted her wit and intellect, and described her as plain-looking if they even mentioned her physical appearance at all.)

thomasfuchs, to random
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.io avatar

Boeing managers: "We don't sell planes, we're an airframe infrastructure provider. While we personally do not like badly designed parts and dangerous engineering just as you, we believe that providing a platform for all designs and engineering provides a level playing field in the marketplace of transportation."

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@thomasfuchs

tired: "Uber, but for..."
wired: "Substack, but for..."

drahardja, to apple
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

I reflexively cringed when I saw this ad. Not only is it wasteful, the message sent across appears to be that Apple literally crushes all the things you like to make the new iPad.

Tone-deaf.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@drahardja They appear to have made the perfect anti-advertisement - not just against themselves, but against the entire tech industry.

"We will crush everything you love and value, and we will sell you a piece of glass in its stead."

Richard_Littler, to apple
@Richard_Littler@mastodon.social avatar

One of the most depressing ads I've seen, and yet it perfectly captures the presumptuousness and obliviousness of 21st C 'tech bro' culture, which seems hellbent on running roughshod over, well, any kind of creativity that it can't exploit financially. https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1787864325258162239

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@Richard_Littler They have unwittingly created a perfect anti-advertisement for the entire tech industry.

codinghorror, to random

current status of Texas

Bugs Bunny making Yosemite Sam dance

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@codinghorror Fun fact: In Norwegian, if you want to say something is crazy (in the sense of "chaotic" / "wild" / "out of control"), a common idiom is to say that it is completely Texas.

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

Streaming this SUNDAY at 3 PM EST (noon PST) with @christinelove and @spookysquid: After a four year haitus due to something weird that happened in the year 2020, the "Squidcast" is back!

We're going to be streaming "Heart of the Alien", the widely-forgotten Sega CD sequel to Out of This World/Another World, plus Flashback, a spiritual sequel by OOTW's publisher. (Picking up right where we left off in 2020.)

I will find a time next week to finish Toki Tori 2.

Watch at: https://www.twitch.tv/spookysquidgames

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@mcc @christinelove @spookysquid

The most odd piece of very local retrogaming culture arcana from my part of the world: All the C64 kids here thought Mario Bros was a cheap rip-off of the clearly superior original, Giana Sisters.

(That misunderstanding lasted until Nintendos started seriously taking off here - and even then it took a while.)

SallyStrange, to Economics
@SallyStrange@eldritch.cafe avatar

"Debunking degrowth" or trying to, anyway

"In the degrowth literature, a caricature of the typical economist is presented as believing in unlimited economic growth, and that growth should be pursued regardless of its environmental impact. This is a straw man. It would be a naïve economist who did not recognise that constraints exist. And economists usually limit their projections to a few decades to come, rather than to the infinite future, in which they supposedly believe in unlimited exponential economic growth. Certainly, there are theoretical economic growth models which portray the possibility of exponential growth into the infinite future, but economists have had enough common sense not to assume stylised theoretical models are the be-all-and-end-all when it comes to public policy."

Then why, Mr. Tunny, is it so hard to find an economist who can tell us when the economy should stop growing?

#degrowth #capitalism #Economics

https://www.cis.org.au/publication/debunking-degrowth/

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@simon_brooke @HeavenlyPossum @SallyStrange @mwt But sometimes, improving efficiency makes the overall system worse.

Consider the internet: A smartphone is a much, much more power-efficient internet access device than a desktop computer. But the total consumption of billions of smartphones is worse than that of millions of desktop computers - access habits change, and more infrastructure is needed.

Steam engines followed a similar trajectory: The more efficient they got, the more were built.

mhoye, to random
@mhoye@mastodon.social avatar

I'm idly waiting for the iPad Mini refresh that's probably not coming, the same way I was waiting for the iPod Touch refresh that never came and the iPod refresh that never came, as is my habit.

The iPad Mini, neglected black sheep of the lineup, is the purest and most honest expression of what an iPad is and what it's for: a small, incredibly portable computer for doing one thing at a time, where rough edges of computation are polished smooth and the interface falls away and disappears.

datarama,
@datarama@hachyderm.io avatar

@mhoye I read a while ago that perhaps the reason retrocomputing has taken off so much in recent years is that it takes us back to a more innocent time, when we could all still imagine computing as personal empowerment rather than bleak people-farming, dehumanization and surveillance feudalism.

But perhaps what we should be thinking about is less retrocomputing and more retrofuturistic computing. What would a 2024 Oberon successor be like?

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