@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

skjeggtroll

@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online

Just your friendly, neighbourhood bearded troll. Toils in the software mines for kroner. Plays games. Reads the odd book. Knits. Reminiscences about the good old days when computers were eight bit, men were real men, women were real women and small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri were real small, furry creatures from Alpha Centauri.

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

futurebird, (edited ) to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

People trying to train AIs are now complaining that all of the AI data on the internet are making it hard for them to get quality training sets of natural language and images.

bitter snickering

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@futurebird @millerdl

"So now both humans AND AIs are using "Before 2022" in their searches to get better results. "

Oh, like how Radio Carbon dating dates everything to "years before 1950" because nuclear weapons testing messed up all the isotope ratios?

mcfly, (edited ) to fediverse German
@mcfly@milliways.social avatar

Facebook gave Netflix all of your private messages in exchange for all your watch history.

rocks.

Edit: Source: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/netflix-ad-spend-led-to-facebook-dm-access-end-of-facebook-streaming-biz-lawsuit/

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@mcfly

And somehow their ad targetting and recommendations still suck.

mattwilcox, to random
@mattwilcox@mstdn.social avatar

"Matt, tracking on the web, it's just how it is. If we get rid of it so many companies will die off."

There were companies before tracking tech. There was advertising before tracking tech.

Tracking tech is just how they can pay the least, to get the most. It's not a right. It's not a given. It's not required.

How did it work before? You made good products and the stuff that was most popular rose to the top.

Ban tracking tech. Hamstring predatory and scammy products that survive on targeting.

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@mattwilcox

> "Matt, tracking on the web, it's just how it is. If we get rid of it so many companies will die off."

"If we make murder illegal, what will happen to our vibrant and colourful murdering subculture and our many hard-working and dedicated murderers?"

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

While monitoring a DDoS botnet today, I pointed out to a victim org if they pointed their DNS record at the attackers C2 server, it would cause the attacker pain. They were attacking an unimportant subdomain.

They did, and it caused all the DDoS nodes to DDoS the c2 server (which is still offline).

tired wake up GIF by Archer

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@GossiTheDog

I'm reminded of this old User Friendly strip:

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Stack Overflow's deal with "Open"AI is prompting the site's contributors to remove their posts and close their accounts. Good for them.

The "AI" cartel is telling the people who created and populated the open web that they were suckers.

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@dangillmor

I can't see how this deal is in anyone's interest.

OpenAI need high-context, unpoisoned data to train on, and even if they correctly keep tabs on what responses are AI-generated, the effect will be to reduce the amount of human-generated expert replies.

Stack Overflow's "product" isn't answers but expertise. If OpenAI could replace that, why bother with StackOverflow, and if not, Stack Overflow just put a big question mark behind their main selling point.

Extelec, to random
@Extelec@mstdn.social avatar

If asking for directions to walk to a place was on an Internet technical forum.

"Well I wouldn't start from here"

"Catch a bus, the driver will know"

"Why do you want to go there xxx is better"

"You are using the wrong shoes, try £5000 worth of wellingtons"

"My friend once walked to somewhere else"

"Don't walk trains are better"

"Turn right before you get to the bridge"

"Never heard of xxx "

"Read the f%£%%$g map!"

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@Extelec

If you're standing in Central Park asking passer-bys for directions for how to walk to the JFK Airport, I don't think it's unreasonable for the people you ask to point out that it's going to be a lot easier for you to take the train.

jasongorman, to random
@jasongorman@mastodon.cloud avatar

Contrary to what I read on social media and in the mainstream press, when I think of the average software developer, I don't think of someone "moving fast and breaking things" in a cutting-edge tech start-up. I think of someone working in an established business on legacy systems that end users have come to rely on. Because that's what the vast majority of us actually do. Most software developers are in the distinctly not-cutting-edge business of keeping the proverbial lights on.

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@jasongorman @dayglojago

"I meet a lot of developers who consider themselves "too senior" to work on anything except greenfield code."

That's not a senior developer. That's a junior developer stuck in a loop with no exit condition.

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

It's strange to me when I see people get upset about people doing good deeds, and posting it online.

"They're just doing it for attention!"

Yeah, so what? I'd much rather see people doing nice things for attention, than the people who do mean pranks or wasting food. A good deed is still good, even if it's done for the wrong reasons.

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@RickiTarr

> "They're just doing it for attention!"

"He said, for attention."

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

iPhone survives 5km fall, and still works: https://mendeddrum.org/@swaldman/111720437587863267

iPhone survives 10 months on bottom of a river, and still works: https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/06/23/man-recovers-iphone-lost-at-the-bottom-of-a-river-for-10-months

Charlie's Law of Ruggedized Consumer Electronics: If it can survive an event that would kill the owner, you don't need to ruggedize it any further.

(This might be why phone manufacturers are now pushing towards foldable—hence fragile, easily broken—phone screens.)

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@isaackuo @cstross @UnlikelyLass @rrwo

Heavy-duty fireproof safes are surprisngly efficient. Safes certified for magnetic media and S120 fire severity need to withstand being heated in a furnace at 1090 C for two hours and then dropped from a height of nine meters, without the interior getting above 50 C.

(Why do the standards organisations get all the fun jobs? I too want to drop glowing hot safes from a height and get paid for it!)

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@rrwo @cstross

A poor bastard in a radiation suit having to descend into a still warm crater on a line in order to retrieve backup tapes from a safe at the bottom (and probably having to stop every five minutes before a new middle manager insists on a status report) sounds very Laundry Files, though.

ETA: And the backup will probably be the accounting system. I mean, nuclear armageddon is bad, but not being able to do pay-roll is a disaster.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

“You can’t stop AI crime and abuse now! The genie is out of the bottle!”

It costs literal billions, a small ocean’s worth of water, and electricity that could power nations to keep that genie out of the bottle. They absolutely do not have to make the abuses this easy or cheap

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@baldur

You know, it's pretty common in stories about genies that the genie is put the back in the bottle at the end of the story.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

It's like that embarrassing thing where you go to the supermarket and buy a six-pack of large free-range eggs because you want to make a tortilla and when you get home they start hatching and the baby velociraptors eat all the pancetta you were going to add to it and look at you with googly eyes like, "mooom! hungry!" and now you have a kitchen velociraptor infestation and they love you and refuse to move out

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@cstross @cloudedjudge @scalzi

"Agnes C. Robertson, retired schoolteacher and locally reknowned quilter, never intended to take over the world. That, Agnes felt, was a vocation for younger people without hip problems or hearing aids. She was also, however, a firm and long-time supported of the notion 'waste not, want not', and when life gives you velociraptors... well, you should at least try to steal the crown jewels, shouldn't you?"

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

This is not a software glitch, it's the Y1C problem: old mainframes were so storage-constrained that they only allocated two decimal digits for passenger age, and adding another digit would mean rewriting software that in some cases has been in use and constantly patched since the late 1950s.
https://press.coop/@BBCNews/112345996328670433

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@cstross @stojg @lightninhopkins

Neither is going to help. The problem with legacy apps written in COBOL is that they're legacy apps, not that they're written in COBOL.

It's like the Niesen-Stairway-Run. The real problem is not that the run is in a stairway, the problem is that the stairway in question is made to follow the contour of a mountain-side that climbs 1.6 km across 3.4 km.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

Pick-ups face huge tax hike as they lose commercial vehicle status

Any double-cab pick-up truck bought from 1 July 2024 will be affected by changes to benefit-in-kind rules

😂 Now do SUVs too, pleeeeease 😂

https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/consumer/pick-ups-face-huge-tax-hike-they-lose-commercial-vehicle-status

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@cdamian @cstross @BashStKid

"Shorter deriver, lower slung seat position, and lift kit not factored."

I realise they mean on the SUVs, but my mind still goes "A lift kit on a tank!? "

RickiTarr, to random
@RickiTarr@beige.party avatar

People on Mastodon: Assume EVERYTHING is AI, and have an extensive discussion about its dangers and possibilities under every post.

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@RickiTarr

"People on Mastodon: Assume EVERYTHING is AI, and have an extensive discussion about its dangers and possibilities under every post."

Hmm. Sounds suspicously like something an AI would say.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

I am deeply regretting that for my political satire series I went with a head of government who is merely a faceless Lovecraftian Elder God with a skull-collecting hobby.

He seems kind of understated these days.

Should have picked a cross between the South Dakota Puppy Shooter and Liz Truss instead ...

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@cstross

"Should have picked a cross between the South Dakota Puppy Shooter and Liz Truss instead ..."

You're working at a disadvantage, though: fictional villains have to be at least somewhat competent to be believable.

TarkabarkaHolgy, to folklore Hungarian
@TarkabarkaHolgy@ohai.social avatar

I just found out that there is an entire folktale type where a husband (going on a long journey) asks Satan to guard his wife's modesty. The devil spends the rest of the story chasing and scaring various lovers away, until he gives up the task as hopeless.

Is it just me, or would this be a great premise for a supernatural romance story 🤣🤣

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@TarkabarkaHolgy

The tension of the show being a "will they/won't they" between the wife and the Devil?

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

So, my dad is an organisational psychologist. Now retired but his career has included being the Chief of Staff at an org that employed around 1.5% of working Icelandic population at the time and decades of management consulting work…

Every time I explain to him how software cos and teams are managed he gets this look of disbelief on his face like I’ve just told him that gray aliens have landed in a flying saucer outside the Blue Lagoon and have set up a hot dog stand 😅

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@baldur

Software companies and teams are managed?

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@baldur There is a quote by G. K. Chesterton that "the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried."

I've occasionally pointed out that this mirrors the IT industry's approach to management.

18+ AimeeMaroux, to antiquidons
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.social avatar

In Greek mythology, mermen have human penises. The art makes this very clear. Triton's fishtail doesn't begin until below the genitals.

Image source:
https://www.theoi.com/Gallery/P9.1.html

@antiquidons

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@AimeeMaroux @antiquidons

There is a "first rate seamen" joke in that, somewhere.

18+ AimeeMaroux, to 13thFloor
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.social avatar

The barbarian goddess gave her a piercing look.
"You are a goddess of love, just like me."
Aphrodite raised her eyebrows.
"Love? Really? Don't get me wrong but your demeanour is as abrasive as that of warlike Ares."
"War is also my realm. But not yours."
Aphrodite pursed her lips.
"No. I end wars," she said, "I conquer War."

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@AimeeMaroux "Challenge accepted."?

parismarx, to tech
@parismarx@mastodon.online avatar

Elon Musk never wanted to build the low-cost car, according to Walter Isaacson. He wanted the design team to focus on the robotaxi, but they eventually convinced him to do both. Now he’s overruled them again.

If the board really cares about Tesla, they’d use this to oust Musk.

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/tesla-scraps-low-cost-car-plans-amid-fierce-chinese-ev-competition-2024-04-05/

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@parismarx

Even if Tesla could make them (they can't), robot taxis as a replacement for private care ownership is a pipedream if you don't first do something with the transportation patterns.

As long as the main driver for private transportation by car is commuting to work, a taxi fleet is going to need about the same number of cars as we've do today with private ownership.

It wold just add traffic: a robot taxi can't just wait in your driveway till the next day.

baldur, to random
@baldur@toot.cafe avatar

A recurring story over the past four decades of Icelandic budget airlines

Iceland’s entrepreneurs: “If we sell enough tickets at below cost, we will magically turn a profit!”

Iceland’s “sophisticated” investor class: “That makes sense. Here’s a ton of money!”

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@baldur

"Sure, we're selling at a loss, but we're going to make it up in volume."

18+ AimeeMaroux, to movies
@AimeeMaroux@mastodon.social avatar

I just finished watching the . No shade to anyone who likes it but are people seriously upset this film didn't win an Oscar? Even if the were actually about the quality, innovation, and art of a , what new grounds did this film cover? It's a potpourri of ideas stringend together into an incoherent film. A that can be fun, I'm sure, but this feels like people complaining about Marvel movies not winning an because they liked it.

@film

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@AimeeMaroux @CrypticMirror @film

There's some further nuance lost in the furore.

Gosling's nomination wasn't for best Lead Actor, but for best Supporting Actor. The movie was also given a nomination in the 'Best Supporting Actress' category for America Ferrera's performance as Gloria.

So, while Gosling did get a nomination for his Ken and Robbie didn't get a nomination for her Barbie, that is perhaps not quite the patriarchal snub it's been made out to be.

cstross, to random
@cstross@wandering.shop avatar

OH DEAR ME—

"Ten Years to Save the West" by Liz Truss is on Kobo Plus in the UK right now, i.e. free to read for subscribers (like me).

Can I spare the brain cells? (And do I want to risk the Trusster getting a roughly 30-50p kickback from my existential agony?)

skjeggtroll,
@skjeggtroll@mastodon.online avatar

@cstross

It seems to me that a book written by the head of lettuce would be more interesting and carry more weight.

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