jarfil
@jarfil@beehaw.org
Programmer and sysadmin (DevOps?), wannabe polymath in tech, science and the mind. Neurodivergent, disabled, burned out, and close to throwing in the towel, but still liking ponies 🦄 and sometimes willing to discuss stuff.
- Comment on While Democracy Burns, Democrats Prioritize… Demolishing Section 230? 2 hours ago:
“When facing the evil, the lawful neutral stands below the chaotic good.”
Peaceful protests are a great idea, up to a point.
- Comment on German thermostat company Tado locks previously free app behind fake paywall, claiming it's "marketing tests" 3 hours ago:
These shenanigans are likely illegal in the EU:
- All products have to offer a minimum of 2 years if warranty, including access to online services on the same terms as sold. If they can’t afford 2 years of servers, then they shouldn’t’ve made the basic service free from the beginning.
- Collecting excessive personal data (not personally identifiable, just personal) without prior approval by the user, like data about whether a user would pay or not, is a GDPR violation.
If people got serious, they’d be looking at some lawsuits and fines.
- Comment on Elon Musk and Wikipedia are feuding 7 hours ago:
Wikipedia and Archive.org need international mirrors. Just saying.
- Comment on Apple Maps May Soon Feature Ads, But Not Everyone's Onboard - gHacks Tech News 1 day ago:
I’ve been using OsmAnd~ from FDroid, and it’s the first time in a long time that I’ve felt something close to feature overload. Between the modes, all the settings per mode, different map layers and sources, all the plugins, and ability to edit maps… that thing feels more like a GIS app than a maps app 😄
OpenStreetMap itself also has a map with wiki-style feature edition history and comments.
- Comment on Humane is shutting down the AI Pin and selling its remnants to HP 3 days ago:
Typical “IoT”… the S, F, and G stand for Security, Freedom, and Guarantee.
- Comment on Trump tariffs result in 10% laptop price hike in U.S. says Acer CEO 3 days ago:
Sure! After inflation has increased more than 10%…
- Comment on ‘Mass theft’: Thousands of artists call for AI art auction to be cancelled 4 days ago:
There are three things to unpack there:
Tools don’t create art, neural networks wielding those tools create art.
Right now, human NNs are the most complex around the block, so our anthropocentric egotism tries to gatekeep art to humans… ignoring all the animal art out there, like for example birds building “beautiful” nests to attract mates (beautiful to each other, not necessarily to humans), all the art going on between fish, cephalopods, dolphins, whale songs, etc. There is also no guarantee that human NNs will remain supreme forever… and what then, will humans stop creating art, or will the ant tell the elephant that its art is not a thing?
Tools DO use existing human work, otherwise city photography could never be art, cultural photography could not be art, definitely a Campbell soup can could never be art… and so on.
Modern AI does way more than “copying”, it abstracts the underlying patterns, then integrates those abstractions with a prompt, to “make up” an output. Sometimes the output of the abstraction of an “A” looks like an “A”, other times it doesn’t. People keep putting AI down for “hallucinating”… but you can’t claim that it “hallucinates” and “copies” in the same sentence.
For an intro on how modern AIs work, I’d suggest checking: Neural Networks, by 3Blue1Brown
AIs have not been “copying” for several decades already, modern AIs are even farther away from that, and it’s just the tip of the iceberg.
- Comment on ‘Mass theft’: Thousands of artists call for AI art auction to be cancelled 5 days ago:
AI is a red herring, in my opinion.
Some artists have spent over a century trying to one-up each other to the bottom, starting with Dadaism and even before that (anyone remember Salieri’s populist operettas?). It’s got to a point, where a black square on a canvas, or a banana taped to a wall, got called “art”.
Other artists, have been trying to transmit emotions and feelings through their work, using whatever tools at their disposal. Be it through words, paints, shapes, interactions, etc. With more or less success, but they’ve been trying.
An AI is another tool, like a camera is a tool, a brush is a tool, a chisel is a tool, a keyboard/typewriter is a tool, and so on. People can use their tools to produce low effort trash… or they can put effort and thought into what they want to transmit.
Good AI art, takes the same or more effort as good non-AI art, to make the AI produce what the artist intends. Retouching parts of the output, either with more AI or some other tools, refining or retraining the whole model, creating complex prompts to make the tool output something closer to the artist’s vision. That vision, is the core of the art.
Low effort AI art, is mindless theft, no dispute there, good for quick memes and little more.
Thoughtful AI art, is a conversation between an artist, and a tool with massive experience in observing other’s art, in order to extract the essence of what they can apply to their own. An AI works best as a brain extension, capable of reading all the books, seeing all the paintings and photos, watching all the movies, listening to all the sounds and songs, way beyond what’s possible in a single human lifespan. Then it’s the artist’s job to sift through that.
Focusing on just the “AI” part, does a disservice to the whole art community. Focus on the person instead… and if they’ve put no effort, then go ahead, feel free to laugh at the “art”, no matter which tools they’ve used… unless they admit to be still learning, in which case some encouragement and tips might be a better way.
- Comment on Reddit plans to lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says 1 week ago:
That was the avatar NFTs: most people didn’t care, some jumped on the FOMO and paid through the nose to “catch them all”.
If they had opened that to 3rd party apps, even as a requirement to use the API, or better yet if they gave a cut to 3rd party apps, instead of blindly charging for the API, they could have got a great net to catch whales, while most people would just ignore it and keep contributing their time (mods) and content (comments).
Instead… well, this.
There used to be a special subreddit for people who brought Reddit Gold, nobody cared, it was essentially a joke, but people bought it in good faith to “support the servers” and “for the lulz” of gifting it around (…and then they killed that too 🤦).
- Comment on Reddit plans to lock some content behind a paywall this year, CEO says 1 week ago:
I’m glad that I ran the script to replace 99% of my content with >!CENSORED!< , they can monetize it all they want 😆
- Comment on Are we going through another scalping apocalypse? 1 week ago:
What are you looking for?
RTX 50 just dropped, they’re in the “beta early adopter” phase, AKA expensive for people with more dough than smarts. They’re the same TSMC 4N process as the RTX 40, and unless you have a PCIe 5.0 motherboard, the RTX 50 makes little sense. No need to go to used market, but I’d personally stick to the 4060/4070 for the time being, or the Radeon RX 7600/7700.
If you need some serious AI oomph… then go to the pro line, there are some nice RTX Ada for less than $10k, or rent some cloud H100s.
- Comment on Reddit Blames Google Algorithm Changes For Not Hitting User Growth. 1 week ago:
Heh, yeah. The 2023 APIcalypse is his last post, where he got over -20k votes, even after the downvote limiters. Before that, his record was under -10k. It’s a far cry from EA’s -667k, but still.
- Comment on Reddit Blames Google Algorithm Changes For Not Hitting User Growth. 1 week ago:
After the famous u/spez AMA debacle…?
No, he’s lying.
- Comment on How OnlyFans modeling led to this high-tech set of handlebars 1 week ago:
Wow… that’s sick. 😲
MagSafe wouldn’t help, it’s just a bunch of magnets, yank and it’s gone. It could keep the phone charged, but that’s about it.
When I used to ride a bicycle, I had a front torch, back light, and a phone in a waterproof “cage-case”, attached to some solid mounts with a “unlock lever, rotate, slide” release mechanism. Quick enough to take them off when parking, not easy enough to randomly grab and run. Still, using an old phone was an extra precaution, also against random accidents (almost got clipped by a bus or van, more times than I’d like to admit 😬).
A trick I learned about mounts, is that they can break from vibration over time, so it’s a good idea to add some rubber under the mount as a shock absorber. As a bonus, it protects the paint. Also, never buy the cheapest one… if you can’t throw it against the floor and keep using it, then it’s not good enough.
- Comment on SimCity Classic in RetroArch - Who needs Windows 11 when you can play on Windows 98? 1 week ago:
Well, this has been a blast from the past. Haven’t set up all the drivers, or an internet connection, but with the turbo button it’s been the fastest Win98 install I’ve ever done 😆
I’m impressed.
- Comment on SimCity Classic in RetroArch - Who needs Windows 11 when you can play on Windows 98? 1 week ago:
I’ve installed RetroArch on Android… but kind of feel this could be pushing it too far. I do still have some official keys for 95, 98SE, ME, XP… *sigh*
- Comment on How OnlyFans modeling led to this high-tech set of handlebars 1 week ago:
The novel funding method could be described as a mixture of business and pleasure
Uhm… that sounds like an old method, some would call it the oldest one in history!
- Comment on How OnlyFans modeling led to this high-tech set of handlebars 1 week ago:
While riding?.. what parts are those? 😲
I’d be more concerned about leaving an integrated device where it can be vandalized, instead of taking it off the bike when it’s parked.
- Comment on CAPTCHAs are 'a tracking cookie farm for profit that made us spend 819 billion hours clicking to generate nearly $1 trillion for Google 1 week ago:
Yeah… only OCR and AI have advanced to the point where a spammer/bot can easily bypass them.
20+ years ago, Microsoft proposed a Penny Black project, which was superseded by reCAPTCHA. Nowadays, we might have to go back to that… maybe by mining crypto as a proof of effort.
- Comment on CAPTCHAs are 'a tracking cookie farm for profit that made us spend 819 billion hours clicking to generate nearly $1 trillion for Google 1 week ago:
At this point, CAPTCHAs feel designed […]
It was never a secret:
The reCAPTCHA program originated with Guatemalan computer scientist Luis von Ahn, and was aided by a MacArthur Fellowship. An early CAPTCHA developer, he realized “he had unwittingly created a system that was frittering away, in ten-second increments, millions of hours of a most precious resource: human brain cycles”
- Comment on UK Orders Apple To Break Encryption Worldwide While World Is Distracted 1 week ago:
Corporate e2e is awesome: I have a key, You have a key, Corporation controls the software managing the keys… 🫣
- Comment on UK Orders Apple To Break Encryption Worldwide While World Is Distracted 1 week ago:
I have nothing to hide, all I ha$#&@$* this user is fully supporting the actions of the government and the Corporate Congress, now and in the future. Long live Elon
This comment expresses strong support for both the government (likely the US government, given the “Corporate Congress” reference) and Elon Musk. Let’s break down the elements:
- “I have nothing to hide…”: This is a common phrase used to suggest that the speaker is transparent and open, and therefore doesn’t fear scrutiny or disagreement. It’s often used ironically, and that’s likely the case here. The following statement contradicts this claim.
- “…all I ha$#&@$ this user…”*: The censored portion likely contains a derogatory or offensive term aimed at someone who disagrees with the speaker. This immediately undermines the “nothing to hide” claim and reveals a confrontational and potentially aggressive stance.
- “…is fully supporting the actions of the government and the Corporate Congress, now and in the future.”: This clearly states the speaker’s alignment with the current government and the influence of corporations on it. “Corporate Congress” is a term often used critically to suggest that corporations hold excessive power over the legislative process. However, in this context, the speaker seems to approve of this influence.
- “Long live Elon”: This expresses fervent support for Elon Musk, the businessman and entrepreneur. It suggests the speaker admires Musk and his endeavors. It also implies a certain worldview that aligns with Musk’s public persona, which often involves technological innovation and a perceived challenge to established institutions.
In summary: The comment is a provocative declaration of support for the current government, the influence of corporations, and Elon Musk. The initial claim of having “nothing to hide” is immediately contradicted by the use of censorship and aggression. The overall tone is confrontational and suggests a strong, perhaps even uncritical, adherence to a particular political and ideological viewpoint. The comment is likely intended to elicit a reaction, either positive from those who share the same views, or negative (and therefore, presumably, angering) those who disagree.
- Comment on Google's slow Chrome Extension reforms anger developers • The Register 2 weeks ago:
Haven’t tried Chromium on Android, how’s the extension support?
- Comment on AIs and Robots Should Sound Robotic - Schneier on Security 2 weeks ago:
Should, but won’t.
The genie is out of the bag, there’s not putting it back… and it was a flimsy bag to begin with.
Reminds me of “The Bicentennial Man”, when people decided to turn against humanoid robots. It won’t happen, some people are already spending a fortune on humanoid silicone dolls, humanoid robot slaves is a much more likely future, with all it entails.
- Comment on China is quietly pushing ahead with massive 50,000Mbps broadband rollout to leapfrog rest of the world on internet speeds 2 weeks ago:
The current maximum speed per single-mode single-core fiber (aka, the typical FTTH ones), is on the order of 400,000,000Mbps, or 400,000Mbps per channel. Not much leapfrogging there.
- Comment on Researchers created an open rival to OpenAI's o1 'reasoning' model for under $50 | TechCrunch 2 weeks ago:
The other way around. They started with Alibaba’s Qwen, then fine tuned it to match the thinking process behind 1000 hand picked queries on Google’s Gemini 2.0.
That $50 proce tag is kind of silly, but it’s like picking an old car and copying the mpg, seats, and paint job from a new car. It’s still an old car underneath, only it looks and behaves like a new one in some aspects.
I think it’s interesting that old models could be “upgraded” for such a low price. It points to something many have been suspecting for some time: LLMs are actually “too large”, they don’t need all that size to show some of the more interesting behaviors.
- Comment on Bill proposed to outlaw downloading Chinese AI models. 2 weeks ago:
There are several parts to the “spying” risk:
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Sending private data to a third part server for the model ton process it… well, you just sent it, game over. Use local models, or machines (hopefully) under your control, or ones you trust (AWS? Azure? GCP?.. maybe).
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All LMM models are a black box, the only way to make an educated guess about their risk, is to compare the training data and procedure, to the evaluation data of the final model. There is still a risk of hallucinations and deceival, but it can be quantified to some degree.
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DeepSeek uses a “Mixture of Experts” approach to reduce computational load… which is great, as long as you trust the “Experts” they use. Since the LLM that was released for free, is still a black box, and there is no way to verify which “Experts” were used to train it, there is also no way to know whether some of those “Experts” might or might not be trained to behave in a malicious way under some specific circumstances. It can as easily be a Troyan Horse with little chance of getting detected until it’s too late.
it’s being trained on the output of other LLMs, which makes it much more cheap but, to me it seems, also even less trustworthy
The feedback degradation of an LLM happens when it gets fed its own output as part of the training data. We don’t exactly know what training data was used for DeepSeek, but as long as it was generated by some different LLM, there would be little risk of a feedback reinforcement loop.
Generally speaking, I would run the DeepSeek LLM in an isolated environment, but not trust it to be integrated in any sort of non-sandboxed agent. The downloadable smartphone app, is “safe” as long as you restrict the hell out of it, don’t let it access anything on its own, and don’t feed it anything remotely sensitive.
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- Comment on Bill proposed to outlaw downloading Chinese AI models. 2 weeks ago:
While unfettered access is bad in general, DeepSeek takes it a step farther: the Mixture of Experts approach in order to reduce computational load, is great when you know exactly what “Experts” it’s using, not so great when there is no way to check whether some of those “Experts” might be focused on extracting intelligence under specific circumstances.
- Comment on Bill proposed to outlaw downloading Chinese AI models. 2 weeks ago:
That’s not how LLMs work, and you know it. A model of weights is not a lossless compression algorithm.
piratewires.com/…/compression-prompts-gpt-hidden-…
if you’re giving an LLM free reign to all of your session tokens and security passwords, that’s on you.
There are more trade secrets than session tokens and security passwords. People want AI agents to summarize their local knowledge base and documents, then expand it with updated web searches. No passwords needed when the LLM can order the data to be exfiltrated directly.
- Comment on ‘Forbidden Words’: Github Reveals How Software Engineers Are Purging Federal Databases 2 weeks ago:
Dropped branches get all their commit trees purged, unless the commits are also part of another branch.