@pluralistic@mamot.fr
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

pluralistic

@pluralistic@mamot.fr

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C)
@doctorow.

Archived at pluralistic.net

I post long threads. If you don't like these in your timeline but want to read them, I suggest unfollowing me here and subscribing to my RSS, or my newsletter, or any of my various long-form feeds. Links at https://pluralistic.net.

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pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

I have been a published writer since I was 17, and never in all those years have I encountered worse editorial suggestions than the automated ones generated by Microsoft Office365.

Makes Clippy look like EB White.

wizzwizz4,
@wizzwizz4@fosstodon.org avatar

It's a real shame, because Microsoft Word's grammar checker once made it worth using Microsoft Word.

It was:
• local
• CPU-bound
• fast
• deterministic
• customisable
• ubiquitous.

LanguageTool (https://community.languagetool.org/ruleEditor2/index) is in the same category, but doesn't have enough rules to be useful, and those it has are… iffy. Nothing else I'm aware of comes close.

Why did Microsoft replace this perhaps world-leading technology? I haven't read the relevant @pluralistic book, so I can only speculate.

Alexlee,
@Alexlee@sciences.social avatar

@pluralistic bring back Clippy!

VoxDei,
@VoxDei@qoto.org avatar

@pluralistic But but but AI! Copilot! It's the Future of Everything! AI AI AI AI Buy our stuff pleeeeeeease!!!

celeduc,
@celeduc@mastodon.social avatar

@pluralistic @natrhein but it also transforms "it's" into "its" and "its" into "it's" which is also super helpful.

natrhein,
@natrhein@c.im avatar

@pluralistic That's some real "I'm in fifth grade and I've only written 470 words of my 500 word essay" energy

erica_sea55,
@erica_sea55@mastodon.social avatar

@pluralistic I’m so over the horrible AI stuff foisted upon me by students, like meaningless generic bureaucratic mission statements, long lists of nouns & adjectives that say absolutely nothing. I liked the early image generators like Disco Diffusion because they were so random, but they’re too perfect now, so boring. I don’t use chatbots in my writing as the output needs even more editing than my usual dot points, and it all reads the same. I once put a poem into ChatGPT, the horror…

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/

gamingonlinux, to random
@gamingonlinux@mastodon.social avatar

Google AI is a hot sticky mess. Now they're telling people to add glue to pizza, as it took a shitpost from Reddit.

Credit: https://www.threads.net/@petergyang/post/C7S6fzINqZj

evan, to random
@evan@cosocial.ca avatar

Nothing quite as ephemeral as the chat log in a videoconference.

bignose,
@bignose@fosstodon.org avatar

@evan

“The good people at the Pew Research Center have just released a careful, quantitative study of linkrot that confirms – and exceeds – my worst suspicions about the decay of the web[…]

“The headline finding from "When Online Content Disappears" is that 38% of the web of 2013 is gone today. Wikipedia references are especially hard-hit, with 23% of news links missing and 21% of government websites gone. […]”

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/21/noway-back-machine/#pew-pew-pew
@pluralistic

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Hey, @mozilla I'm really proud to be a paid Media Monitor subscriber, and I'm happy with the service, too.

But why do your emails pass their links through a tracking redirection service controlled by a third party?

My May statement links through https://blrv1ly5.r.us-west-2.awstrack.me/

?!

dphiffer,
@dphiffer@social.coop avatar

@pluralistic @mozilla I’m not from Mozilla and can’t speak to their product choices, but at @themarkup we’ve had to work hard to find a service (Email Octopus) that lets us turn off tracking. See also: https://themarkup.org/newsletter/hello-world/hello-from-the-markup

The service providers have an incentive to protect their deliverability reputation from bad actors who might turn off tracking to avoid detection. So the tracking is about monitoring the email sender. I would say smaller service providers are better positioned on this one.

GeekSusie, to random
@GeekSusie@expressional.social avatar

Two Sisters, Florence And Susie Friermuth Arrested For Moonshining During The Prohibition, 1921

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/

1/

WillA763,

@pluralistic The last two CEOs of that company belong in prison.

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

A decade ago, a hedge fund had an improbable viral comedy hit: a 294-page slide deck explaining why Olive Garden was going out of business, blaming the failure on too many breadsticks and insufficiently salted pasta-water:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/940944/000092189514002031/ex991dfan14a06297125_091114.pdf

--

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

1/

durrandon,
@durrandon@geekdom.social avatar

@pluralistic

"These places are easy pickings for looters because the people who patronize them have little power in our society – and because those of us with more power are easily tricked into sneering at these places' failures as a kind of comeuppance that's all that's due to tacky joints that serve the working class."

Kind of feeling seen here.

lekowicz, to random
@lekowicz@mastodon.online avatar

I hadn’t heard about the Endless Shrimp death of Red Lobster until a friend told me about it last week. He did frame it as a stupid company making a stupid choice. Coincidentally, @pluralistic published this, and of course now it all makes sense. https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/

bloodravenlib, to restaurants
@bloodravenlib@mas.to avatar

>Pluralistic: Red Lobster was killed by private equity, not Endless Shrimp (23 May 2024) https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/#invertebrates

A good overview by @pluralistic on Red Lobster's #KissOfDeath 💋 💀 once private equity vultures swooped in.

On a side note, another example of "bust out" can also be seen in the film "Goodfellas."

#BadEconomy #restaurants

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

It’s alive. https://udm14.com

Jeffool,
@Jeffool@mastodon.gamedev.place avatar

@ernie Also, (obviously) seems worth tagging @pluralistic in!

jasonkoebler, to random
@jasonkoebler@mastodon.social avatar

Cory Doctorow on Red Lobster is an instant click from me https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/23/spineless/ @pluralistic

celeduc, to random
@celeduc@mastodon.social avatar

US politicians, the courts, the media, and even unions are lining up to knuckle under to another stolen election like 2000. But preparing for a general strike is a way to counteract this seeming near-certainty, to prepare for the worst, and most importantly to change the narrative of helplessness. https://www.hamiltonnolan.com/p/what-will-you-do-if-the-election (via @pluralistic)

nancycomics, to random
@nancycomics@mastodon.social avatar

Nancy By Ernie Bushmiller May 22,1967

jeffcliff, to random
@jeffcliff@shitposter.world avatar

I should dig up my post on phantom memory, which is, ironically, not online anywhere.

@pluralistic
> @raaleh often reminds us, the left is the ideology of object permanence - to be a leftist is to hate and mistrust the CIA even when they're tormenting Trump for a brief instant.
> Or to remember that it was once possible for a working person to support their family with their wages:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/27/six-sells/#youre-holding-it-wrong
> The thing is, object permanence is hard. Life comes at you quickly. It's very hard to remember facts, and the order in which those facts arrived - it's even harder to remember how you felt about those facts in the moment.
...
> @internetarchive which ]
https://x.com/doctorow/status/1792962823406100684

aral, to Israel
@aral@mastodon.ar.al avatar

“We cannot apply international law only when it’s convenient.”

– Senator Bernie Sanders, US Senate.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pEDoCaYSwVw

sashin, to random Japanese
@sashin@veganism.social avatar

This @pluralistic piece on Finfluencers and the housing crisis is great https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/22/koteswar-jay-gajavelli/

The phrase "the grifter class" is hilarious

mathewi, to random
@mathewi@journa.host avatar

Leonhard Euler was an intellectual giant of the 1700s https://mathewingram.com/work/index.php/2024/05/22/leonhard-euler-was-an-intellectual-giant-of-the-1700s/

pluralistic, to random
@pluralistic@mamot.fr avatar

Today's threads (a thread)

Inside: How to screw up a whistleblower law; and more!

Archived at: https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/15/whistleblown/

1/

atomless,
@atomless@mastodon.social avatar

This is great from @pluralistic on whistleblower law - https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/15/whistleblown/

It reminded me of this other excellent piece that explains that sadly we always seem, psychologically at least, to shoot the messenger : https://www.okdoomer.io/thebadguys/

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