tesseract
@tesseract@beehaw.org
- Comment on Self-balancing commuter pods ride old railway lines on demand 1 hour ago:
Exactly what we need! More pods! Yay!
- Comment on Google is redesigning its search engine — and it’s AI all the way down 2 days ago:
I wish they undid a lot of their stupid redesigns instead of doubling down on it.
- Comment on The inside story of Elon Musk’s mass firings of Tesla Supercharger staff 2 days ago:
The fact any board of directors considers this man employable at all is mind boggling to me.
All recent events indicate that the board of directors are seriously manipulated by the chief executive and are not good at taking sane decisions. Musk companies, OpenAI and Theranos are good examples.
As I recall, there was a board meeting of Theranos where they summoned Elizabeth Holmes to fire her for misleading them about the state of development of the project. But she managed to get them to reverse that decision and then take action against the person that reported her.
- Comment on Elon Musk’s Neuralink reports trouble with first human brain chip 6 days ago:
Honestly it’s not as bad as I expected.
Based on what you know.
- Comment on Elon Musk’s Neuralink reports trouble with first human brain chip 6 days ago:
I’m shocked that the human trail was authorized at all, considering the fate of the monkeys that were subject to the same. I’m not confident that this man or any future subjects will be truly safe. We won’t know even if something goes wrong.
- Comment on Elon Musk’s Neuralink reports trouble with first human brain chip 6 days ago:
You have seen what he has done to twitter/X. For all his talks about freedom, free speech and survival of mankind, he is fundamentally a conservative billionaire oligarch who has no qualms about exploiting others to death to add to his wealth.
Now just imagine if a brain implant goes the same way. Forget his delusions about backing up the human brain and telepathic nonsense. Even simple implants meant to help paraplegics are going to be dangerous under the control of people like him. Just the way the brain moves our limbs can be used against us.
This is why it’s important to report on matters like this. So that people understand the danger and avoid it, instead of falling for the propaganda that he is some sort of tech messiah.
- Comment on Dell responds to return-to-office resistance with VPN, badge tracking 1 week ago:
Covid demonstrated that the physical presence of the staff in the office is not necessary for many types of jobs. WFH is shown to be economic, time saving and improving the work-life balance of those workers. It’s not like any of these companies are willing to compensate the workers for the hours lost in the commute.
If you still refuse to return to the office, then you’re just being lazy at that point.
That is classic gaslighting BS. What matches this situation better is that the corporate overlords are being greedy AF. They are worried more about the returns on their real estate investments than about employee wellbeing, practicality and sustainability.
- Comment on Dell responds to return-to-office resistance with VPN, badge tracking 1 week ago:
They’re not addicted to work. Just money. And to exploit regular people - both workers and customers - and rob their money. Do you think their pay is proportional to their work? How do you think they get time to socialize and scheme against plebs if they are addicted to work?
In this particular context, they insist on return to office because WFH represents a loss of returns on the investments they made on corporate real estate.
While their addiction to money is a disorder, it’s as bad to the general public as people with antisocial and criminal tendencies. The only difference is that these rich sociopaths have enough capital to buy their way out of being held responsible. They won’t seek help because they enjoy the harm they inflict - just like how criminals don’t consider their sadism as a mental disorder. They needed to be treated the same way as any other criminal - as a threat to society. And measures should be taken to prevent them from inflicting harm on normal people. Something like locking them in a cell and throwing the key away.
- Comment on You can now buy a flame-throwing robot dog for under $10,000 3 weeks ago:
Modern robots are great. But they’re no match for crafty humans yet. It will get blown up from all sides. I’m pretty sure that the IDF has much more sinister and lethal weapons.
One weapon I’m particularly worried about is a swarm of mini drones equipped with AI to detect their targets and kill them with shaped charges. The only humans who deserve to be killed by it are the ones who were evil enough to invent it in the first place.
- Comment on Almost all Chinese keyboards have severe security flaws that can be (mis)used for mass surveillance, report reveals 3 weeks ago:
I think you misspelled ‘backdoors’.
- Comment on Net neutrality is back as FCC votes to regulate internet providers 3 weeks ago:
Ajit Pai didn’t have to audition for anything. His employment was already guaranteed. He just had to do his assigned task. You see the same with NASA’s Kathy Lueders and SpaceX. The US is totally blind when it comes to the concept of conflict of interests.
PS: When I typed ‘Ajit Pai’, my phone auto corrected it to ‘Ajit Paid’. I guess even my phone knows!
- Comment on Google fires 28 workers for protesting $1.2 billion Israel contract 3 weeks ago:
Google would like to apologize for that inadvertent mistake. All efforts are being made to identify how this came to be and to avoid doing the same in the future.
- Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers 5 weeks ago:
OK, I misunderstood it. However, this was something that people were warning about for a long time.
- Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers 5 weeks ago:
I wonder if the codeberg site is vulnerable to such laws. I think they operate from the EU.
- Comment on DuckDuckGo Is Taking Its Privacy Fight to Data Brokers 5 weeks ago:
These days, paying doesn’t guarantee your exclusion from being the product. The only way to guarantee privacy is to design it into the product.
- Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers 5 weeks ago:
That’s why you don’t backup on the same provider. You can always backup to the local system with encryption. And they can’t attack the owner in every jurisdiction.
- Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers 5 weeks ago:
Discord hosted the community, not the code. And that community is now destroyed without even a chance to backup. And Discord can absolutely be blamed because people were warning that this would happen. This is as much a result of Discord’s centralized design as it is of Nintendo’s greed. Now the community has to be reestablished on a new platform from scratch.
- Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers 5 weeks ago:
Backup and migrate. Choose only platforms that support it. The only weak point there is the DNS registrar.
- Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers 5 weeks ago:
Yes it’s Nintendo. But it wouldn’t be this bad without Discord’s design that emphasizes centralization and corporate ownership of user data. Forums can at least be backed up and migrated elsewhere.
- Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers 5 weeks ago:
You’d at least get a chance to migrate if you do daily backups.
- Comment on Discord is nuking Nintendo Switch emulator devs and their entire servers 5 weeks ago:
Ooh! I would like to hear from all those who were fervently vouching for Discord as a support channel for FOSS projects.
Perhaps the same might happen to a web forum or matrix channel. But at least you get an opportunity to backup and migrate.
- Comment on Beeper is now available, no waitlist! 5 weeks ago:
Wow! That’s one annoying video!
- Comment on Stop Killing Games — An initiative to stop publishers & developers killing games 1 month ago:
I think you misunderstood my politics from my initial comment.
It was more a reflection of my outrage at the injustice and inequality that plagues the world, than a judgement of your politics.
- Comment on Stop Killing Games — An initiative to stop publishers & developers killing games 1 month ago:
OK. Let me spell it out. The laws aren’t there to protect the rights of the ordinary citizens. It’s there to keep them under control. The rich and powerful are not only exempt from it, but the laws exist to protect their interests. That’s why cracking and jail breaking are illegal.
I used the example of the UK post office because they didn’t even need the evidence of theft to send hundreds of sub postmasters to jail. But even after it became clear that the post office management lied and extorted, those responsible still roam free.
- Comment on Stop Killing Games — An initiative to stop publishers & developers killing games 1 month ago:
If that’s your notion what laws and judicial systems are for, check out the ongoing Post Office scandal in the UK.
- Comment on 'xz utils' Software Backdoor Uncovered in Years-Long Hacking Plot 1 month ago:
That suggestion is because the attack took years of ground work, psyops, multiple disciplines and several levels of obfuscations. It needs the kind of effort that only a well paid and dedicated team can pull off. But that need not necessarily be a state actor. It could also be some spying/malware company (like NSO), any of the big corporates or a criminal group with lots of money.
But don’t lose hope. All it took to uncover all of that was just one engineer who was annoyed by SSH slowing down from 0.3s to 0.8s. The effort needed to uncover it is only a fraction of what’s needed to hide it. This is also a vindication of the FOSS philosophy. Imagine uncovering this if the source wasn’t available.
- Comment on Here’s the Elon Musk interview that got Don Lemon’s show canceled 1 month ago:
While your argument is correct, it was none of us that raised Musk to a ‘genius’ idol. It was his own marketing campaign, probably done on his behalf by a professional PR team. When the rest of us heard the amount of praises going around, we just assumed that there was some substance to it. That’s until the ‘pedo guy’ incident started the collapse of that facade.
- Comment on Here’s the Elon Musk interview that got Don Lemon’s show canceled 1 month ago:
Anyone involved with a rocket would want to run outside and watch it climb. That isn’t uncommon. But Musk had a vile character even before that. The hopeful nerd was just a facade propped up by PR pros. You can check out the history of Tesla. Despite him being hailed as its founder, it was neither his idea, nor his creation. The real founders were pushed out rather unfairly in his signature power play. That power play is still visible in Musk vs OpenAI.
- Comment on Consumer first; Citizen second 2 months ago:
One of the main factors contributing to this problem is how customers simply give up their rights for convenience. Pro-customer options don’t disappear. They die a slow painful death.
Take the example of DRM in books. All the easy options like from Amazon are DRM encumbered. But the DRM-free options are still available if you are willing to search a bit. They don’t cost much extra either. But people don’t care. And direct sellers providing DRM-free books wither away in neglect. Similar examples are still around for reparable devices, DRM-free multimedia, etc.
Consumers rights are not a given. Like any rights, those are the ones you have to defend. You have to put at least a little bit of effort to protect it. When I suggested this recently, I was accused of ‘victim-blaming’. What escape is there when the victims are not ready to fight back?
- Comment on Air Canada Has to Honor a Refund Policy Its Chatbot Made Up 2 months ago:
They wanted human employees replaced by AI. But wanting responsibility and accountability replaced as well is going a bit too far. Companies should be forced to own up anything that their AI does as if it were an employee. That includes copyright infringement. And if the mistake is one worth firing an employee, then we should demand the management responsible for such mistakes be fired instead.