andallthat

@andallthat@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Russian TV companies demand 2 undecillion rubles from Google⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  on the other hand, when Putin’s done killing off most of their own present and future workforce in a senseless war and completely tanking his own economy, that might be the equivalent of like $3

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Would you trust AI to scan your genitals for STIs?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not sure we, as a society, we’re ready to trust ML models to do things that might affect lives. This is true for self-driving cars and I expect it to be even more true for medicine. In particular, we can’t accept ML failures, even when they get to a point where they are statistically less likely than human errors.

  I don’t know if this is currently true or not, so please don’t shoot me for this specific example, but IF we were to have reliable stats that everything else being equal, self-driving cars cause less accidents than humans, a machine error will always be weird and alien and harder for us to justify than a human one. “He was drinking too much because his partner left him”, “she was suffering from a health condition and had an episode while driving”… we have the illusion that we understand humans and (to an extent) that this understanding helps us predict who we can trust not to drive us to our death or not to misdiagnose some STI and have our genitals wither. But machines? Even if they were 20% more reliable than humans, how would we know which ones we can trust?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What’s the most overhyped tech trend right now?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Most things to do with Green Energy. Don’t get me wrong, I think solar panels or wind turbines are great. I just think that most of the reported figures are technically correct but chosen to give a misleadingly positive impression of the gains.

  Relevant smbc: www.smbc-comics.com/comic/capacity

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Snowflake is such a weird insult as it seems to imply it's best to just be like everyone else⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It is about fragility, like others said, but It is also about uniqueness, in the sense of “oh, so you think you’re soo special!”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨77% Of Employees Report AI Has Increased Workloads And Hampered Productivity, Study Finds⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  AKA “shit, looks like now we need to re-hire some of those engineers”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨77% Of Employees Report AI Has Increased Workloads And Hampered Productivity, Study Finds⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  TBH those same colleagues were probably just copy/pasting code from the first google result or stackoverflow answer, so arguably AI did make them more productive at what they do

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨An Algorithm Told Police She Was Safe. Then Her Husband Killed Her.⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  About 20 new cases of gender violence arrive every day, each requiring investigation. Providing police protection for every victim would be impossible given staff sizes and budgets.

  I think machine-learning is not the key part, the quote above is. All these 20 people a day come to the police for protection, a very small minority of them might be just paranoid, but I’m sure that most of them had some bad shit done to them by their partner already and (in an ideal world) would all deserve some protection. The algorithm’s “success” in defined in the article as reducing probability of repeat attacks, especially the ones eventually leading to death.

  The police are trying to focus on the ones who are deemed to be the most at risk. A well-trained algorithm can help reduce the risk vs the judgement of the possibly overworked or inexperienced human handling the complaint? I’ll take that. But people are going to die anyway. Just, hopefully, a bit less of them and I don’t think it’s fair to say that it’s the machine’s fault when they do.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The app that promised to ‘use AI to weed out daters with STIs’ has been shut down⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I have to admit It was a solid idea, though. Dick picks should be one of the best training sets you can find on the internet and you can assume that the most prolific senders are the ones with the lowest chance of having an STI (or any real-life sexual activity).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What if Tyrannosaurus Rexes moved and walked like chicken do?⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I do see your point, it would probably look funny from a safe distance… Chicken (especially roosters) can be vicious. Up close, a dinosaur-sized chicken would be freaking terrifying!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why people are boycotting Asus all of a sudden? Asus outrage explained⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  we are doing this, now?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Disney+ Drops 1.3 Million Subscribers Amid Price Hike, Streaming Loss Shrinks by $300 Million⁩ ⁨⁨9⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “see this chart here? We lose money for every subscriber! We’ll never make any money until we get rid of all of theml”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨HP sued (again) for blocking third-party ink from printers, accused of monopoly⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  printing all that paper in order to sue them probably ended up costing more than their fine

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon lays off 500 Twitch employees, hundreds more at MGM and Prime Video⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  he doesn’t even make TEN billions a year? Ha, what a loser!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How many of you actually use the headphone jack on your phone?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I do. Right now I’m listening to music on my phone through wired headphones. I have too many smart things already connected via bluetooth to my phone: 2 different wireless speakers, an electronic drumset, smart TV, car, fitness tracker (I’m sure I’m forgetting something) and I came to like the idea of physically plugging something in order for sound to be played through it, especially if both phone and external device are physically close to me during the whole interaction, like with a headset.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google lays off employees working on its voice assistant⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Have seen that too. The canned press release from all of them is something like “as part of our continued effort to make the org more efficient we have aggregated tram X with team Y and as a result a handful of roles were no longer needed. Our company remains focused and confident in our growth”. Has AI taken over the PR department too?

  From what I can see, this is not even about individual performance. It looks like a continuous game of musical chair where an entire team here and there is suddenly decimated or completely removed with non-existent internal communication.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple AirTags stalking led to ruin and murders, lawsuit says — Dozens join lawsuit alleging Apple AirTags are stalkers’ “weapon of choice.”⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  But it is exactly because they’re cheap, widely available and work well. Before AirTags, I’m not sure where you could acquire the technology you mention, but probably through some specialized channel requiring at least some tech knowledge. Also purchasing from that channel would presumably look at least a tiny bit suspect, because you were purchasing spying equipment, not something that is marketed as a way not to lose your luggage

  And I get it, I have never tried AirTags but they do sound great for not losing your luggage. It’s just that the illicit way to use them is so evident that it’s like those “face massage” vibrators

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A new smartphone again? Rethink unhealthy culture of frequent upgrades⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  it’s not just phones, though. None of my refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers have ever lasted more than 10 years; I think the average is about 5 years before they stop working, get all rusty or a very expensive piece breaks so they are not worth repairing. Meanwhile all of my granma’s old kitchen appliances are still working perfectly after 60+ years of service.

  Sure, it might be just that over-optimizing how cheap they are to make also makes them less durable, but I don’t see a lot of motivation from companies to go out of their way to build durable things either. And it’s not that I think Corporate = Bad; as you say it’s a cost/benefit thing, it’s just that the “benefit” companies try to maximize is their shareholders’, not our planet’s. It’s on Politics to create a legal framework where some of the cost to our planet is shared with companies (so they have incentives to make things durable/repairable again) and on us consumer to choose wisely what to buy, when and from whom.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Calif. passes strongest right-to-repair bill yet, requiring 7 years of parts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for the additional information. I wasn’t in line to buy an iPhone 15 just yet; when I said “if it turns out it’s more repairable” I mean if it stands the test of time I might consider an iPhone 17 or 18…

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Calif. passes strongest right-to-repair bill yet, requiring 7 years of parts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I was as surprised as you to see Apple mentioned as supporting the bill, in the article. Thanks for pointing me to Fairphone, seems amazing!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Calif. passes strongest right-to-repair bill yet, requiring 7 years of parts⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  So far I’ve mostly seen iPhone 15 panned for lack of innovative features, but if it turns out that it’s actually easier to repair (as Apple is saying) it would be a killer feature for me

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Whatsapp has begun working on support for third party chats (Telegram/Signal)⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I might be wrong, but I don’t think Whatsapp would try to implement its own version of Telegram’s, Signal’s and every other protocol to “talk” to all of these other apps. I bet they will provide an API to interoperate with Whatsapp that these other clients may (or may not) choose to implement, in order to send their messages to Whatsapp users.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨someone was alive and died the most painful way possible⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree with you, and that’s what I choose to think when I feel like the “best” version of me.

  But there are moments (or a part of me) that has a way more violent disposition and feels differently about people who do terrible thing.

  I’m a very calm person and not at all violent so please don’t report me to the police on the base of these posts… That violent part of me is small and weak, but I just think it’s important to acknowledge it because it’s also the part that makes me recognize that a rapist or a murderer is a person like me and that it might be me, with the wrong set of circumstances, life choices and frame of mind.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨someone was alive and died the most painful way possible⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  He mentions rapists and murderers. I choose to think that they don’t deserve to be given a gruesome death (or a death sentence at all for that matter) but I’d be lying if I said I have never felt that way when reading about some f-ed up stuff on the news. Maybe I’m also higher on the Hitler scale than I thought I was.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨someone was alive and died the most painful way possible⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Shit, I’m sorry, it was insensitive of me to make that joke (well, half-joke)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨someone was alive and died the most painful way possible⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Well, they probably didn’t do it very scientifically but if someone could think of it and the tools existed, someone in history is likely to have tried a lot of painful methods for killing people.

  Impaled people, for instance, could allegedly take days to die. Being slowly eaten by ants or rats sounds pretty painful too

  There’s one called “life” that is pretty cruel too. It might anywhere from seconds to more than a hundred years to die and some.people get to experience a lot of pain throughout the experience.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft accused of malware-like tactics, again, in attempt to push users onto Bing | Microsoft claims the behavior was unintended⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  No, you see, we didn’t intend to ask users. It was just supposed to switch to Bing

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Imagine what Aliens would think of us if all the communication they ever received from us was Cam girls masturbating.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Zorr’ak notes, page 2:

  Earthlings’ nutrition consists mainly of elongated pieces of synthetic rubber. These can’t be fully digested, so consuming the nutrients they contain is achieved by inserting them repeatedly in one or more of the mouths that Earthlings have in different parts of their anatomy.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Is this even legal?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not even remotely a legal expert and I don’t know what type of popup that is but I think the anti-competitive piece is “could Google use the same technique to push the user to switch from Edge to Chrome or not?”.

  If this was an ad from a web page OP had opened or from the game and if clicking “Yes” only directed the user to a site with instructions on how to switch default search engine on Chrome, then yes, obnoxious but probably fair. Google could strike a deal with the game developers to push Chrome or buy an ad. Someone writing a new browser will probably have considerably less money than Google but could reasonably do something similar to try and gain market share.

  If that popup comes from Windows itself and especially if clicking “Yes” directly changes Chrome’s settings, then this is Microsoft using their ubiquitous (on desktops) OS to convince more users to switch to their own browser from a competitor’s. Google, or even less a new competitor. would probably not have the same type of OS-level access to switch the settings of a different browser.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft now has implemented "compare with Bing chat" button when you visit Google Bard in Edge⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  we have windows 11 on our work machines. The OS and Office 365 apps are forcing more and more links to open in Edge instead of the default browser. Microsoft has been fined in the past over their push for Internet Explorer (at least in the EU), but what they are doing now has already become much worse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Twitter is now X as the little blue bird disappears⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  This seems different, though. Google and Facebook still exist, with their respective logos as part of a parent company that mostly nobody, except for investors, should really care about. Maybe this is what will end up happening here as well, as Elon is sadly famous for saying outrageous things and then backtrack on them, change his mind or just never mention them again, but the way it’s been communicated Twitter and the bird logo are just going away completely.