deathbird
@deathbird@mander.xyz
- Comment on Roomba maker iRobot swept into bankruptcy 1 day ago:
It’s kind of crazy that the company whose name is synonymous with the product category is going into bankruptcy. It would be like if Skype, which is synonymous with video calls, was out competed by every other video call platform.
- Comment on Doom Studio id Software Unionizes To Secure AI Protections, Benefits: ‘We See The Direction The Industry Is Headed’ 5 days ago:
Holy shit that’s fantastic.
- Comment on Australia begins enforcing world-first teen social media ban 5 days ago:
Because when you talk about protection or safety for children or animals or [insert vulnerable group here] you can short-circuit a lot of people’s reason/skepticism.
- Comment on Trains cancelled over fake bridge collapse image 1 week ago:
AI creating jobs by requiring more human intervention for validation of previously reliable forms of information?
Okay cool, I’m here for it.
- Comment on I Went All-In on AI. The MIT Study Is Right. 1 week ago:
I think this kinda points to why AI is pretty decent for short videos, photos, and texts. It produces outputs that one applies meaning to, and humans are meaning making animals. A computer can’t overlook or rationalize a coding error the same way.
- Comment on Manufacturer issues remote kill command to disable smart vacuum after engineer blocks it from collecting data — user revives it with custom hardware and Python scripts to run offline 1 week ago:
I mean, if I felt I could control the little computer in a smart fridge without expending excessive effort to do so, I might be interested in getting one myself. Absent other concerns, a tablet integrated into my fridge could be handy to monitor the appliance, make quick or even automated grocery list updates, etc. Not earth shattering, but still marginally useful.
- Comment on Introducing Proton Sheets 1 week ago:
Wait, you can access it via IMAP?
- Comment on Manufacturer issues remote kill command to disable smart vacuum after engineer blocks it from collecting data — user revives it with custom hardware and Python scripts to run offline 1 week ago:
And just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical.
- Comment on Manufacturer issues remote kill command to disable smart vacuum after engineer blocks it from collecting data — user revives it with custom hardware and Python scripts to run offline 1 week ago:
My concern is that they’ll include the equipment for spying on you, and just enable it later.
I bought a Hue because it said “no online account required!” Later they changed their mind.
I want the promise plus open standards and a base of libre software. I want them to tie themselves to the mast.
- Comment on SIM binding in India: What it means for WhatsApp, Telegram users and why the government wants it 2 weeks ago:
Surveillance, yes. By forcing you to maintain control of a physical token they can more easily associate you with the account.
- Comment on The Supreme Court Is About to Hear a Case That Could Rewrite Internet Access 2 weeks ago:
Sony so mad at Cox for not cutting off someone’s Internet for downloading they’ll take it to the SCOTUS, but they won’t even use the frankly abusive laws they already have access to to just sue the end user? What is even going on?
- Comment on Elon Musk Had Grok Rewrite Wikipedia. It Calls Hitler “The Führer.” 2 weeks ago:
You probably right. He was the lib-left’s Best Boy a few years back, was gonna solve climate change and do cool science shit and whatever, but then I forget what exactly happened but he kinda swung the other direction.
Motivation probably doesn’t matter too much. It just highlights the systemic problem of allowing one person to have that much money-power.
- Comment on OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates 2 weeks ago:
Being backed by real things isn’t always great for a currency. A lot of the value in the economy is from the transformative effects of labor, not just rare metals.
207 billion is insane, but if this money was being moved around by the mass of people or their legitimate representatives rather than shareholders and VC investors gambling on the next big thing, that would stand a chance of laying to rest this kind of reckless waste.
- Comment on OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates 2 weeks ago:
Bitcoin particularly is a pyramid scheme, but peer-to-peer payments via block chains are useful anyway.
I got theories on what would make a better token than BTC, but key to any utility would be little or no deflationary pressure.
- Comment on OpenAI needs to raise at least $207bn by 2030 so it can continue to lose money, HSBC estimates 3 weeks ago:
I’m guessing by fiat you mean government issued currency that is not backed by precious metals but by faith and credit of the issuing government.
They call it fiat because a government just declares how much of it there is.
Blockchain tokens are also fiat in this sense, it’s just that the protocol makes the declaration instead of a government.
The other notable difference is that I can buy things with USD or other government currencies. I can’t with blockchain tokens. I mean technically I can but they have to be converted first and the popular ones are mostly depictionary so you’re deeply disincentivized from using them as currency.
The value of USD comes from people taking it in exchange for goods and services, and the US government taking it as payment for taxes. The value of a Bitcoin comes from people giving you USD for it under the assumption that they can sell it for more USD later. Like a stock, but without the incidental fractional ownership of a corporation with actual capital.
It’s a cool concept though, and peer-to-peer digital payment is a good thing, but it cannot function as a store of value without a connection to the material world.
- Comment on Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They're Doing 3 weeks ago:
It’s not the logs or the data which they would be monitoring with an encrypted no-logs VPN. What they would be monitoring, presumably, would be the fact that you are using a VPN at all. That’s also what they would be trying to block. They might try to block it by interfering with access to certain ports or blocking certain IP addresses, but there would be limits. Even China can’t stop all VPN traffic to get around its firewalls.
- Comment on Burger King now selling "Mystery" menus 3 weeks ago:
Ngl I kinda think it could be neat.
There’s a food app called Too Good To Go that lets you pick up mystery bags of leftover food from restaurants for cheap, and if you’re not too picky it’s actually kinda fun paying $5 for a random meal.
- Comment on Microsoft says Copilot will 'finish your code before you finish your coffee' adding fuel to the Windows 11 AI controversy that's still raging 3 weeks ago:
When do you reckon they could last do that?
- Comment on Sam Altman and husband reportedly working to genetically engineer babies from having hereditary disease 4 weeks ago:
Rich asshole says he’ll invent something good but very expensive and so only available to the elite. People ITT: “Good things are bad!”
Yeah so, good for Altman, best idea he’s had probably. Spend the money before the bubble pops my dude.
- Comment on Sam Altman and husband reportedly working to genetically engineer babies from having hereditary disease 4 weeks ago:
Oh come on.
This guy couldn’t even get a train to run on time.
- Comment on iRobot’s revenue has tanked and it’s almost out of cash | "Roomba customers are understandably concerned about the impact these current financial troubles might have on their home cleaning robots." 4 weeks ago:
Why proprietary cloud-based IoT isn’t sustainable.
- Comment on Surprise EU rollback of 'GDPR' digital-rights rules prompts alarm 5 weeks ago:
My grandpappy started this here AI company with a handful of GPUs he whittled himself, and I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let big gobmint regulations cost us the family business!
- Comment on FBI Tries to Unmask Owner of Infamous Archive.is Site 5 weeks ago:
I suspect they’re going after .is because they are more resistant to taking things down. But that’s speculation on my part. And even if I’m right, what is it that they actually are trying to remove?
- Comment on Breakthrough gel can regenerate tooth enamel within weeks 5 weeks ago:
I definitely saw lots of ads on AliExpress for gels that would regrow your teeth before their algorithm realized I wasn’t there for that.
- Comment on FBI Tries to Unmask Owner of Infamous Archive.is Site 5 weeks ago:
No for real, why? Why are they persuing this?
- Comment on Death of beloved neighborhood cat sparks outrage against robotaxis in San Francisco 5 weeks ago:
It is a bit frustrating how these different technologies are bunched under the same inaccurate moniker.
- Comment on Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant with no-DEI strings 1 month ago:
If the article is to be believed there’s also a provision there saying that they cannot engage in any programs that advance or promote DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion). That part’s new, and it’s honestly not well defined. What is DEI? Racial quotas and discrimination? Cultural acknowledgements? Anti-discrimination? All these things have been called DEI. Some of these things have been called the other. Without clarity, the likeliest definition is “whatever annoys the administration”.
- Comment on Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant with no-DEI strings 1 month ago:
This exemplifies why the provision is so bad. DEI is a term of art, not a specific thing. Everyone is proud of PyPI for standing up for whatever they think DEI means, but they don’t define or explain it so it doesn’t actually mean anything. Or rather it can mean anything at all. That’s the danger to the organization.
- Comment on Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant with no-DEI strings 1 month ago:
The way it’s written it’s impossible to know if you’re complying or not. They might have just said “don’t be woke” or “don’t piss us off”.
- Comment on Python Foundation rejects $1.5M grant with no-DEI strings 1 month ago:
An administration that uses LLMs and Ctrl + F and vibes for policy decisions that don’t sound good even before you realize they don’t make sense, and ignores courts and due process… it’s a hazard to touch.