Quexotic
@Quexotic@beehaw.org
- Comment on Amazon upsets ebook lovers by ending support for old Kindle devices 1 week ago:
I feel ya. Collective action would seem to be required, but that’s herding cats.
- Comment on Anthropic’s new AI tool has implications for us all – whether we want it or not 1 week ago:
You’re spot on. They’re very much the arsonist fire-fighters in this story.
- Comment on Amazon upsets ebook lovers by ending support for old Kindle devices 1 week ago:
Maybe time for a different system?
- Comment on Amazon upsets ebook lovers by ending support for old Kindle devices 1 week ago:
Is the simplest solution here not just to leave the ecosystem entirely?
I had a Kindle type device a long time ago and I decided to get rid of it in favor of something that is much more flexible and can actually handle whatever kind of book I want to put on it.
Cool Reader.
Works on win, *nix, and Android. Probably also Mac, maybe ios
- Comment on Tech companies are cutting jobs and betting on AI. The payoff is far from guaranteed 2 weeks ago:
Exactly. It’s only ever a stark cost benefit analysis with the ghoul class. Also, payroll is really surprisingly costly.
- Comment on The 49MB Web Page 2 weeks ago:
Look at a few electron apps and you’ll find your answer. A resounding yes.
At this rate, I’ve found myself vibe coding simple apps rather than downloading them or looking for web tools.
Example: my wife needed a bunch of qr codes. Everything online was shitty bloat with tracking. 10min and I’d built and tested the Python, another 5 and I’d already had it wrapped on an eye wrapper for her.
- Comment on ‘The era of invincibility is over’: the week big tech was brought to heel 3 weeks ago:
I’ll believe they were “brought to heel” if I see change.
Doubt.
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 3 weeks ago:
…remind me of the babe.
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 3 weeks ago:
This is the first I’ve seen or heard of this kind of reversal on the internet.
… Of course it was on bee haw!
Thanks for following up.
Stay safe out there.
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 3 weeks ago:
You do!
- Comment on Rep. Finke Was Right: Age-Gating Isn’t About Kids, It’s About Control 4 weeks ago:
I’m definitely guilty of putting it off, but the very second that my operating system asks me how old it I am is the second that I stop using it and switched to something else that does not.
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 4 weeks ago:
The power of voo-do!
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 4 weeks ago:
Thank you.
I probably could have been a little bit more succinct and just said “past is prologue, QED, you are incorrect.”
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 4 weeks ago:
The babe with the power!
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 4 weeks ago:
I might be able to agree with you if they hadn’t already said that it’s basically being misused and I’m talking about the people using it, not some crackpot or tin foil hat person. Also, the case for its necessity and its utility is very flimsy. Looke into snowden. Look into flock cameras. If you can even scratch the surface on those two topics and come back with the same argument… Well, then I just don’t know what to do with you. lol
You can put in whatever safeguard you want, but there will still be people that will misuse it, and they won’t get caught. That’s what’s already been happening with the levels of surveillance that we’ve already had since 2001, and even more so in 2004 with the Patriot Act.
In many ways, it’s already too late and it has been proven that what we have already has not not been handled responsibly.
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 4 weeks ago:
Democracies require privacy, therefore they are in their most basic mission, anti-democratic.
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 4 weeks ago:
You remind me of the babe…
- Comment on Palantir CEO Makes Shocking Confession on Disrupting Democratic Power 4 weeks ago:
Same ol’ divide and conquor, and they’ll fall for it. They’ll also continue to fund AI development until it works as well as the shills say it does. It’s closer that than we think, too close for comfort.
- Comment on Explain it like I'm 5: Why is everyone on speakerphone in public? 5 weeks ago:
Oh, for sure it’s a dick move! As the surveillance spreads and grows, we owe it to ourselves to be aware of the countermeasures.
Also, I’ve only tested this, not tried it in public, but 100% works on condenser mics I’ve tested it on.
- Comment on Explain it like I'm 5: Why is everyone on speakerphone in public? 5 weeks ago:
So, I got an ultrasonic dog trainer. It actually effectively jammed microphones. So, you can look on Amazon for an ultrasonic dog trainer and use that in the presence of these people and just hold the button down and it will jam their microphone. Your mileage may vary. This might not be legal in all places, but basically it sounds like terrible static to the person on the other end. Best of luck.
- Comment on If You’re Going To Defend AI And Whine About Its Critics, You Should Probably Be Honest About Its Actual Harms 5 weeks ago:
For my part, I have tried to be very clear-eyed about this and have been driven to learn and understand how it works. I want to know what its strengths are and what its weaknesses are. And mostly, I want to know how it’s going to be used to further subjugate us. I have already seen how it has been used to deny people insurance coverage and for various and sundry other nefarious uses. Most recently, it has been suspected as being one of the prime causes of the deaths of many little Iranian girls. The future is now.
I feel that if I understand it well enough, then I will be better equipped in the coming struggle against it I see how already people are losing their jobs at the mere possibility that AI might actually replace them and be able to do their jobs for them. And I relish the coming articles that go into detail about how badly it’s been overestimated and how completely it has caused ruin in the companies that have chose it over humans.
I use AI. I don’t trust it, but I know what it’s good at. I also know what it’s terribly bad at Most importantly, I have seen it improving and it is becoming more concerning.Articles like this seem to indicate the possibility that AI will become much more affordable and much more powerful very soon. and yet it seems clear that it is being intentionally kept out of our reach.
I am not so concerned about AI causing an extinction-level event, but more so in its acceleration of our own self-destruction through many other means, not the least of which is climate change.
I am reminded of an old adage.
To err is human. To really louse things up takes a computer.
The thinking behind this being of course that if you make one mistake and you automate it then you have the opportunity of exponentially failing, where otherwise it would just be a simple typo that you could fix with correction fluid.
To the point mentioned earlier though, I don’t think it matters as much whether the technology has advanced to the point where it can replace workers (it hasn’t, but it’s closer than I’d like), but that they believe that it already has and are replacing workers with it anyway.
/rant
- Comment on OpenAI Is Opening the Door to Government Spying 1 month ago:
I think since before 1998. There was a “prism” project. Supposedly they had the ability to use some kind of early STT to catch keywords on phone calls and had black boxes at every ISP that duplicated traffic to their servers.
- Comment on Age Verification Laws Are Multiplying Like a Virus, and Your Linux Computer Might be Next 1 month ago:
The very day I hear that my os is asking people their age is the day I find a different one.
- Comment on Callers to Washington state hotline press 2 for Spanish and get AI-generated accented English instead 1 month ago:
This seems like a kind of obvious and innocent mistake, really. So, what you have is an English voice model and Spanish voice model. You can give an English voice model Spanish and you can give a Spanish voice model English. Now, obviously the person that gave the Spanish voice model English text thought that it would translate for them. They were stupid. I don’t think this was malicious.
- Comment on 1 month ago:
I think the order actually is even more narrow than that in that it only deals with the part of the business that they do that has to deal that has to do with actual sensitive stuff that is, if the anthropic CEO is to be believed.
- Comment on 1 month ago:
I’m on the fence about whether I agree with you because it’s kind of a toss-up as to whether that’s true in my mind. Put on the flip side of that, they were already neck deep in with the DoD anyway, so your argument is convincing, in that respect at least.
- Comment on Keen bosses, strange mistakes and a looming threat: workers on training AI to do their jobs 1 month ago:
While it is correct and totally fair to challenge the math, I believe that’s the kind of math that HR typically does. Given that LLMs are so bad at math maybe they would be the best fit for job. It would be a nice change of pace because I’ve never been able to convince HR to give me more money on my paycheck, but I could definitely convince an LLM to do so.
- Comment on Keen bosses, strange mistakes and a looming threat: workers on training AI to do their jobs 1 month ago:
Seems like it’s time to buy wooden shoes and sand for all those new gears.
- Comment on Burger King will use AI to check if employees say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ 1 month ago:
A little MC is in order:
Please may please I please take please your please order?
<Order given>
Thank you your Thank you total Thank you will Thank you is Thank you $69.69 Thank you please Thank you pull Thank you to Thank you the Thank you second Thank you window.
- Comment on Sincere question: why play long video games? 2 months ago:
I’d argue that there is appetite and that those skills have not been lost forever and while there are those that would have use only play and consume, to assume that this is the only thing happening is a bit of a reductio ad absurdum.
