@rysiek@mstdn.social
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

rysiek

@rysiek@mstdn.social

Hacker, activist, free-softie ◈ techie luddite ◈ formerly information security and infrastructure at https://isnic.is/ and https://occrp.org/ ◈ my opinions are my own etc.

(he/him)

profile image: drawing of a head and shoulders of a cat-person, in a space suit.

banner image: long-exposure photo of a large tent, brightly illuminated from inside, looking as if it is made of lava

#foss #libre #privacy #infosec #fedi22

(public toots CC By-SA 4.0 if applicable)

🇪🇺 🇵🇱 · 🇧🇦 🇮🇸 · 🇺🇦

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

rysiek, (edited ) to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Well if it isn't cryptocurrency spam coming from the biggest, open instance on the . 👀

I wonder if this is at all related to challenges with moderating an instance of checks notes 200k active accounts? Or with moderating new accounts on the only instance actively promoted in the official apps? :thinking_rotate:

Thankfully we can always defederate! What's that? It's the biggest instance so there are real concerns about a lot of people losing connections? Whodda thunk it!

rysiek, (edited ) to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

This is your irregular reminder are fucking dicks:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/a3xk3p/adobe-tells-users-they-can-get-sued-for-using-old-versions-of-photoshop

> Adobe Tells Users They Can Get Sued for Using Old Versions of Photoshop

We need tools to get to the point where they can replace Adobe tools. Open alternatives are great, but they are sadly not there yet to replace Adobe tools for professionals.

And won't be unless projects like @inkscape get enough funding to develop to a point of being viable alternatives.

Yes, it is in no small part about the money.

rysiek, to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Hug your #FediAdmin today.

There's a lot of shit flying in the #Fediverse lately and a lot of times perspective seems to get lost. Yes, there are things we need to talk about, and yes there are things we will not agree on. And that's okay.

But leave the pitchforks and torches out of this.

Fedi admins put in the hours and effort and emotion into making fedi happen. Sometimes they make decisions we might not agree with. We should criticize, but we should not pile-on.

rysiek, (edited ) to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

monoculture problem
https://rys.io/en/168.html

> Mastodon-the-software is used by far by the most people on fedi. The biggest instance, mastodon.social, is home to over 200.000 active accounts as of this writing. This is roughly 1/10th of the whole , on a single instance.

> Worse, Mastodon-the-software is often identified as the whole social network, obscuring the fact that Fediverse is a much broader system comprised of a much more diverse software.

🧵/1

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Just got hit with:

"But can you prove ChatGPT is not intelligent in the human sense?"

Oh my that old chestnut. 🙄

I am not making a claim, I am merely rejecting somebody else's claim that ChatGPT is intelligent in the human sense.

The burden of proof is on whoever claims that ChatGPT is intelligent in the human sense. That proof would also need to be accompanied by a clear, unambiguous, testable definition of what "intelligent" means, that ideally includes humans but excludes calculators.

rysiek, (edited ) to DuckDuckGo
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

FuckFuckNo. 🤦‍♀️

I just want a search engine that works. I have zero need for a godawful "AI" hallucinating mansplainer in my results. Just… no.

Time to move off of DDG. What else is out there?

Edit: yes, it seems to be for real:
https://www.reddit.com/r/duckduckgo/comments/1adxgy4/give_duckduckgo_ai_chat_a_spin/

#DuckDuckGo #AI

rysiek, (edited ) to ai
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

I wonder if the whole thing will finally convince artists that modern regime was never meant to protect them.

It was meant to protect the middlemen. The Amazons, the Spotifies, the Sonys, the Disneys. The film studios, the publishing houses.

Now the middlemen figured out they own basically all of art, and that they can just train a computer on that, to replace artists with a piece of software.

And then stop paying artists even the pittance they were being paid so far.

🧵

rysiek, (edited ) to Bulgaria
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

If you are a citizen of any EU Member State, I implore you to consider signing the Tax-the-Rich citizens' initiative:
https://www.tax-the-rich.eu/

The idea is to tax the super rich and then use the money for climate transition. :blobcathappypaws:

This is an official EU citizens' initiative, meaning that if it reaches certain thresholds, it will have to be considered by the EU institutions. That's a really powerful tool, if actually used.

So we should use it. :blobcatcool:

🧵⬇️

rysiek, to mastodon
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

" is failing" so hard that just crossed 4mln monthly active accounts (based on the-federation.info). :blobcatgiggle:

This is already slightly more than Nov and Dec waves' peaks. And it is still going up.

What I find particularly important is that it seems like a lot of this is not new accounts, but people returning to accounts created before and then left unused.

I expect this to be a more resilient kind of growth. Less of a drop after it peaks.

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

There's this ugly hole in the ceiling of the corridor in the apartment building I live in. And it's been bothering me for a while.

🧵/1

rysiek, to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Looks like and keep being mentioned together, which to me suggests we might have averted "mastodonization" of the — i.e. a situation where the whole network gets identified with a single piece of software. 🎉

This is the way. :blobcatcool:

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

RIP Metaverse
An obituary for the latest fad to join the tech graveyard
https://www.businessinsider.com/metaverse-dead-obituary-facebook-mark-zuckerberg-tech-fad-ai-chatgpt-2023-5

> Zuckerberg declared in a March update that Meta's "single largest investment is advancing AI and building it into every one of our products." Meta's chief technology officer, Andrew Bosworth, told CNBC in April that he, along with Mark Zuckerberg and the company's chief product officer, Chris Cox, were now spending most of their time on AI.

:chefkiss:

h/t @intelwire

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

I hear instance admins and moderators "keep people hostage" on this here fedi. At least that's what some people commenting on my BlueSky-related blogpost keep claiming. Somehow always in a "free speech" context. :thaenkin:

Anyone feeling taken hostage by their admins/moderators? :blobcateyes:

rysiek, (edited ) to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Here's a half-formed thought I need to mull a bit on:

Somehow, algorithmic (and especially "AI-driven") decision making tends to only be proposed in contexts where it can only — or mostly — affect those with the least power in the system.

Migrants and asylum seekers.
Prisoners.
Families using any form of state support (child benefits, foodstamps, etc).
Palestinians in Gaza.

It somehow never gets proposed for use-cases where it might affect the wealthy and powerful.

One wonders why. 🤔

🧵/1

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Instead of AirBNBs can we have aparthotels offering small but reasonably nice rooms with private bathrooms, plus a (shared or private) kitchen annex please?

The reason a lot of people go for AirBNBs when traveling is because it's much cheaper to cook for oneself than eat out.

AirBNBs are a horrible solution to this problem though, as their owners compete for apartments with people who need a place to, you know, live.

Hostels exist, but they do not offer the level of privacy and basic comfort.

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Revolution might not be televised, but apparently genocide will be mathwashed.

From the team behind "we kill people based on metadata", a new exciting project: "we kill people based on… we don't even know what, it's a 2bln parameters black box that we have no real way of actually understanding."

> The Pentagon is moving toward letting AI weapons autonomously decide to kill humans
https://www.businessinsider.in/international/news/the-pentagon-is-moving-toward-letting-ai-weapons-autonomously-decide-to-kill-humans/articleshow/105420637.cms

rysiek, to ai
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Dear , there's been some buzz recently about that are not gigantic black boxes, and in general, developed as .

There's this Google internal document, for example, that points out FLOSS community is close to eating Google's and OpenAI's cake:
ttps://www.semianalysis.com/p/google-we-have-no-moat-and-neither

So here is my question to you:

What are the best examples of useful, small, on-device models already out there?

:boost_requested:

rysiek, (edited ) to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Tesla lawyers claim Elon Musk’s past statements about self-driving safety could just be deepfakes
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/27/23700339/tesla-autopilot-lawsuit-2018-elon-musk-claims-deepfakes

Russian oligarchs have been using this "defense" for a while now. Nice to see US-based oligarchs catching up. 🙄

Also, I'm going to say it: this is a form of mass gaslighting.

rysiek, (edited ) to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

If large websites respected our choices regarding ads (DNT is a decade old, people!) and served contextual ads when asked to not track, we would not need to use .

Instead, for over a decade now web publishing industry's been hell bent on screwing readers over, ignoring clearly stated preferences, misrepresenting what they do with the data, and using dark patterns to maliciously mis-implement legal requirements when forced to do so.

Stop this crap and I might disable my AdBlocker.

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Speaking of , some Polish "internet celebrity art critic" type did a truly galaxy-brained "takedown" of that genre and… let's just say that I stopped reading after:

> The first obvious problem with Solarpunk is what are the characters supposed to do at night?

:facepalm:

rysiek, to random
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Piotr Konieczny w @niebezpiecznik słusznie wytyka fejsbukowi kompletnie przeciw-skuteczną moderację:
https://niebezpiecznik.pl/post/musimy-powaznie-porozmawiac-o-facebooku/

Szkoda tylko, że istnieją dla niego tylko Big Techy, i rzewne wspomnienie Usenetu i IRCa. Nie zająknie się ani słowem o fedi jako alternatywie.

To rodzaj syndromu sztokholmskiego. Opiniotwórcze (bądź co bądź) media narzekają na Big Techy, które same wypromowały i same karmią kątętem. Nawet nie próbują wyjść poza ciasny świat grodzonych ogródków.

Smuteg. :blobcatcoffee:

rysiek, to Polska Polish
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Dziś w mój kolejny tekst o sztucznie pompowanej bajerze wokół "sztucznej inteligencji":
https://oko.press/ai-juz-nie-straszy

> Mimo bombastycznych zapowiedzi dotyczących rzekomo nieograniczonych możliwości „sztucznej inteligencji” wygląda na to, że przestajemy kupować bajki gigantów technologicznych dotyczące wielkich modeli językowych. „AI” staje się coraz bardziej wyświechtanym zwrotem marketingowym

rysiek, (edited ) to fediverse
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

Dear people, I am trying to figure out what OS to use on a 4.

I am considering /e/OS and CalyxOS.

Anyone any opinions on those?

I want a usable de-Googled phone OS. I like /e/OS's Nextcloud integration, but CalyxOS seems to be more up-to-date (already on Android 13, where /e/OS is Android 12). CalyxOS also makes it easier to re-lock the bootloader.

Update: went with CalyxOS for now! Thank you all!

rysiek, (edited ) to internet
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

BlueSky is cosplaying
https://rys.io/en/167.html

> Almost exactly six months after got taken over by a petulant edge lord, people seem to be done with grieving the communities this disrupted and connections they lost, and are ready, eager even, to jump head-first into another toxic relationship. This time with BlueSky.

tl;dr:

  • seems designed to get secondarily centralized in the "reach" layer (as they call it)
  • moderation is an afterthought
  • Jack Dorsey

🧵/1

rysiek, to VisionPro
@rysiek@mstdn.social avatar

I guess my current policy on is that anyone bragging (humble, or otherwise) about owning one, wearing one, or generally promoting it in any way is very likely to get an insta-block from me.

Personally, I don't find it funny enough to ridicule it. Even though as @parismarx notes, it really deserves to be ridiculed!
https://disconnect.blog/apples-vision-pro-headset-deserves/

I will, of course, gladly accept other people's ridicule of it. Like this remarkably thoughtful take by @karafuto:
https://mstdn.social/@karafuto@mas.to/110497342663574555

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