@localzuk@ohai.social
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

localzuk

@localzuk@ohai.social

All views my own. IT Manager in UK MAT.

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localzuk, to random
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

My go-to cleaning product, though? For day to day? Koh. Incredibly effective for normal day to day cleaning. It's pretty cheap, too. Great at degreasing.

And the house doesn't smell of vinegar.

But honestly, I think often it isn't the product that's important, but the cloth/scourer/tool.

Koh + those little round plastic non-scratch scourers? Work wonders.

localzuk, to random
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

Always impressed how good bicarb and vinegar are for cleaning. They often outperform all the fancy purpose made products on the market.

Stubborn stain in shower tray, commercial products failed miserably. Bicarb + vinegar and a cordless drill with a brush? Stain gone in 2 minutes.

Only downside? My home smells of vinegar now.

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

How can we prevent Wikipedia from crumbling under the weight of "AI" garbage spewing, and disinformation specialists' gleeful use of the garbage?

@molly0xfff says you can help best by becoming a Wikipedia editor.

It's not difficult. We all need to participate.

https://www.citationneeded.news/become-a-wikipedian-in-30-minutes/

(I'm assigning this to my students.)

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@dangillmor @molly0xfff I edited for years, totting up thousands of edits over time. But then the culture got worse and worse. It became a bureaucratic mess to do even the simplest of edits.

So I gave up. Unless the accusatory, passive aggressive attitude of those with elevated powers on the site is sorted out, many good editors will not return.

localzuk, to random
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

Does this not indicate that effectively, Russia needs to escalate?

Is war with NATO inevitable?

The other part of it, will they try and widen the conflict so it has more allies on its own side? So it isn't just Russia vs everyone?

Iran is a likely ally. North Korea also. Could they convince China? With promises of Taiwan?

The big question is when?

Russia's economy is so driven by the war in Ukraine that it cannot afford to either win or lose, economist says
https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/russias-economy-driven-war-ukraine-012303820.html

localzuk, to politics
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

One of the biggest flaws in modern technology is lack of diversity.

Not racial diversity. No.

I'm talking about class and wealth diversity.

How many working class people are involved in creating AIs? The answer is simple - not many. Simply because that's how our education systems work.

You can follow this lack of diversity back to government. Look at your representatives. Are they from the working class? Do they even understand working class people?

I doubt it.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@tuban_muzuru you hand entirely missed the point. Working class people are unlikely to be working in big tech. This means the development of tech like AI is inevitably biased because the people making it simply don't have the range of life experience to create unbiased tech.

This is due to govt not investing in an equitable education system that promotes social mobility.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@tuban_muzuru I've lived and worked in a deprived city school and I'm the area with the lowest social mobility in the UK. The likelihood of children going to university in both those areas was very low.

This is repeated all over the UK and USA. Poor people are less likely to go to university. To end up in tech jobs.

So, the built in biases will continue until government does something. Which is unlikely because those in government are also unlikely to be from working class backgrounds too...

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@tuban_muzuru your personal experience working in AI is, frankly, irrelevant to the topic.

The topic is not specifically AI. But social mobility, and bias in tech.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@tuban_muzuru because they're the current major tech trend being used in all aspects of our lives. Being used in decision making processes in government, creating media, swaying decision making. Its also a technology that is incredibly poorly understood by both the public and lawmakers and, as such, is poorly regulated as yet.

It has the potential to exacerbate serious problems in our societies if used or regulated poorly.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@tuban_muzuru Just look at the Gemini white person issue in the news. Yes, it's a really obvious flaw that'll be fixed quickly, but what about less blatant biases in LLMs and other systems being used? Look how the UK Post Office Horizon scandal went. The assumption, by convention in uk law, is that a computer is correct.

Another example, facial technology struggling with black faces, leading to more false positives in police trials of such tech, meaning more incorrect detainments.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@tuban_muzuru So, when you add even more AI systems throughout our lives, we're going to see more AI driven mistakes caused by the biases of those who created them.

So, there's a direct link between poor social mobility, lack of diversity, poor government representation, and bias in tech such as AI.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

And just for clarity, I do think there's a racial diversity problem, too. But that's been widely covered by mainstream media over the years. I can't think of any media articles talking about wealth and class diversity in technology though.

localzuk, to random
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

There's a guy in the UK who accidentally threw out a hard disk with bitcoin currently worth a couple hundred million on it a decade ago.

He's tried everything to get it back. It is likely buried at a landfill. And has been for 10 years.

He is still trying to get it back.

Am I the only person who sees the problem here? 10 years in a rotting landfill? That hard disk is dead. Moisture will now be inside the case. The data will be long gone.

Why is he persisting?

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@ordabchao but what's there to be afraid of? They'll find a block of rust.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@ordabchao I'm thinking he's chasing sunk cost fallacy. He's probably spent so much money, his only way to pay it back is to find the disk.

So he keeps spending.

localzuk, to UKpolitics
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

Banning protest around parliament and MPs homes is anti-democratic, fascistic nonsense.

The idea that the very people who specifically should be the target of protests could be allowed to basically insulate themselves against it simply confirms that the UK is not a democracy. The idea that you can limit free speech to "protect democracy" is Orwellian newspeak to say the least.

If you can't take protest? Don't become a politician. Simple as that!

#UKPolitics #UKPol #Parliament

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@TallVenti protest is not intimidation. If I go and stand somewhere with a banner, I'm not intimidating anyone.

It can escalate to intimidation thriving other behaviours, but to simply think protest is intimidation is part of the problem here.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@TallVenti What has that got to do with anything? Feeling scared vs intentionally being intimidating are very different things.

Just like people who cry "that's offensive". Tough.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@TallVenti protest is a human right, and it is not intimidation to simply engage in protest.

localzuk, to UX
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

I really wish web app makers would stop adding funky animations and transitions to things. All it does is take an action that should be instant and slows it down to take longer. Yes it looks pretty, but the actual purpose of the web app is slowed down and made worse because of it!

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@eyrea Using one system at the moment that fades buttons in. And out. Clicking a button animates it, but the click doesn't happen until the animation has finished. Wastes SO much time.

localzuk, to ai
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

How are so many people generating photorealistic images with AI? Every time I have tried any of the image generators, the outcome is a hilarious mess. Such as this nightmare from Dall-E.

The prompt? "A fleet of 5 British aircraft carriers in a large NATO taskforce at sea."

Its vaguely taskforce-y, but its hardly what I asked for...

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@jollysea Bing seems to have done a much better job, though still pretty deformed ships. It knows vaguely what an aircraft carrier looks like, but that's about it. It got the number of carriers right though with this one.

localzuk,
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

@Sundwell It was whatever the dall-e site gives when you log into it as a new user.

localzuk, to random
@localzuk@ohai.social avatar

Came to the realisation that I move more often than most people. I'm 40 this year, and I'm about to move into my 21st home.

Some of my friends still live in the home they were born in.

It made me realise my family has been fairly nomadic all my life.

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