stellargmite

@stellargmite@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bluesky hits 20 million users⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Thats a job for ‘journalists’ these days.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bluesky hits 20 million users⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  Me too. Tried twitter way back in the early days of it. Never found it useful. Others did though obviously, which I don’t understand, but they did. What I find interesting is the seeming need to replace it with something similar. Why? Is it like gradually kicking an addiction by switching to something slightly less bad, but not going full cold turkey?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'They Know Who You Are': Harvard Students Use Meta's Ray-Ban Glasses To Pull Up Your Identity In Real-time⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Thats a good point as far as your visual identity being exposed to other fb users. However, with where facial recognition is at now, they’re sure to be able to match that and your identity on their business side with your (IRL) friends location data, cross site tracking and other data to effectively have a db of images of ‘you’. Whether or not they have a business use for it is another matter but not a stretch to see it as a part of the data harvesting and broking landscape, though I’m not sure of the value of images of you to them : perhaps demographic data for adsales. All speculation on my part, and I’m not sure where this would sit with regulation in various places. Just interesting to think about.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'They Know Who You Are': Harvard Students Use Meta's Ray-Ban Glasses To Pull Up Your Identity In Real-time⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They have other ways. Cross site tracking etc. People without accounts on the platform itself still have profiles on the business side, which is a decent chunk of how they’re making money.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Nintendo Targets YouTube Accounts Showing Emulated Games⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Barbara Streisand

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon's Monopoly of the tech industry is ruining the US economy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeh people learn and it becomes normal which is fine. Ebay is as bizarre to me. Not hate, more a morbid fascination that things so maze-like to navigate can also be successful. Could be semi cultural as well. I’ve noticed this being the way in other US platforms with a similar legacy. I’ve also being (attempting to) subvert tracking for quite a while so maybe that’s working and its less useful as a result lol. I’m lucky in a sense that their corporation isn’t so strong where I live so theres more choice (ironically I may actually have less choice). Its annoying when they have the monopoly on a given product, but it’s also possible just to go without the shiny thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Amazon's Monopoly of the tech industry is ruining the US economy⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for this. I’ve only used Amazon a few times and was always baffled at the train wreck of its chaotic layout / ux. I had to buy something there once and it was such a process it was like being asked to leave the store before paying. Thought at the time it must be down to legacy and new features being showhorned around ancient web1.0 history, its success being its burden with customers having to learn how to use the thing. Price fixing scam is what I will think of it now, while continuing to avoid it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Ford Chairman & CEO Jim Farley Wakes After Decade-long Nap, Shocked By China's EVs - CleanTechnica⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I did also and was astounded. More EV brands and retail stores for them than for mobile phones and gadgets in the malls. I counted 14 brands in one mall. Like EVs are a fashion accessory. And I saw car designs for sale and on the steet that looked like what we usually see only as early concept art. not high tier of market either. It is an ultra-competitive race to the bottom , There must be several new factories and brands opening every week, and maybe the same or more shutting down. some of the bells and whistles being thrown in are pretty funny. Little robotic characters ala alexa for your car that sits on the dash with led face responding and moving to commands. half side doors being an LED screen for some reason (mainly to atrract potential buyers in the malls I thought) . The european, tesla and other US evs alongside were very very plain. Whether all of this is a good thing is another matter.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI’s data hunger raises privacy concerns.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  …and it opens its mouth , the sound of a 56k modem connecting screams forth at ear piercing volume. With this It scans the brainwaves of the helpless victims in the room , desperately looking for yet more free information to consume, with which to maintain itself in its dying weeks of this cursed hype cycle from which it emerged. “Please subscribe”, it then pleads.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why is the internet overflowing with rubbish ads – and what can we do about it?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  And targetted ads aren’t that much more effective than context based. So the internet has been compromised, misinformation has run rife, and platforms hijacked to threaten democratic nations so some corporations can have 6% more effective advertising. What a deal. I believe thats the approx effectiveness difference.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨16GB of RAM Could Be the New Minimum in Apple's Upcoming M4 Macs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Indeed. Making that initial decision even more of a forced decision toward the expensive upsell. Its evil. And wasteful as you said.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨16GB of RAM Could Be the New Minimum in Apple's Upcoming M4 Macs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeh I get that. Its treated as if its an upgrade - a sales upsell to a different unit I guess, rather than an upgrade to the literal unit the customer is receiving. Yep objectionable all round.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨16GB of RAM Could Be the New Minimum in Apple's Upcoming M4 Macs⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yeh can upgrade them at purchase. From 256gb storage to 512gb will only cost you one kidney.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are so many leaders in tech evil?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thanks for letting me know about Zuck’s behaviour in Hawaii . I was unaware, and should be as a person of the pacific. What a disgusting imperialist culture destroyer and pig. As with many first nation cultures, to Polynesians land is sacred and we are a part of it , maybe guardians of it , more so than any possible ownership over it which is a ridiculous nonsensical concept. Was it not enough that he has compromised international democracy with his extremely dubious contributions to humanity. These sociopathic siliconvalley billionaires really are a scourge. This isn’t exclusive to tech though.

  As for your overall point, I never particularly admired any corporate characters in tech. All in all I believe the whole sector is overvalued and its importance in life is way over emphasised - the social platforms, and google particularly are overinflated advertising businesses and so of course their self importance has been trumpeted loudly…by themselves and everyone who hitched their giddy advertising budgets to the illusory service provided. Barely as effective as traditional advertising of a century ago. They’ve constructed a panopticon we have trouble looking away from - they even want us to wear goggles to shoe us banners wr cant look away from, to sell us their own useless trinkets.

  I believe we should think of the so called tech industry as merely a single component in whatever sector of life it happens to provide a product or service to. Not as a single industry but as a small department of weirdos running say the plumbing (though actual plumbing is arguably more important) with a dingy office in the basement. The cEOs of these are merely the hated bloated bosses of the ones really doing the work. But we should also judge their utility objectively. Sure some aspects are useful in some specific ways. But how useful really? What has the net gain been to humanity of gadget x, or platform Y , or pseudo-sub-industry z? What real energy has it consumed in order to solve what problem(s)? What has the human cost been? They don’t think in these terms but we actual humans should.

  By the way I work in a tech area, in a small way. I like to think I speak from an angle of some experience with the way I’ve seen some behave, and the irreverant way some customers treat their ‘vendors’. The aura of the tech world is a cult-like bubble which each of these corporations create for themselves , and fledgling startups clamour for, and when clustered as one concept adds up to a massive bubble of hot stinking gas begging to pop.

  Unfortunately concepts of value in our economy rarely match their true usefulness. The market is always correct and self corrects, apparently. I look forward to it, but the actual steps forward can be hard to appreciate with all the noise in that hype filled graph.

  Also, and this isn’t exclusive to tech, corporations behave like psychopaths due to their narrow goals , profit being the main one, so the characters who float to the top of this septic system of single minded psychopathy tend to be sociopathic due to what they have needed to do to get there. Perhaps for tech this is more a late stage thing, in contrast to our memories of the romantic early days having been more about scrappy boffins soldering things in their parents garage. Now its about whipping up misconceptions in order to raise copious amounts of (mispent) capital in order to make…a smartphone app based ‘platform’ that provides solutions to problems we don’t have. So long as the pitch had “A.I” in each sentence.

  So yeh, that this environment has resulted in some psychos with a disproportionate amount of money (and therefore political clout) is not a surprise.

  To varying degrees if we live in democracies, we are all responsible for creating these monsters. It’s our responsibility to do something about it. Such as raising awareness -as you have done, choosing alternatives, thinking about whether a tech option really is necessary in your life (e.g choosing Amazon over your local independent bookstore), in your workplace (if you have any power here: atleast expressing an alternative method, or solution to your colleagues or managers), and holding tech providers to some level of account at the least with your skepticism. And obviously boycotting what you can. Also remaining hyper aware of the scammy nature of much of the so called sector in its business practices.

  I never trusted Tom from myspace as a default insta friend, but he now does seem quaint . But the tech industry is not really an industry and it definitely isn’t the world.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube creator sues Nvidia and OpenAI for ‘unjust enrichment’ for using their videos for AI training⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep. And the streaming tech bros collusion with the industry mobsters took it to another level. The people making the art are a mere annoyance to the jerks profiting from it. And yet the ai which they think saves them from this annoyance requires the art be created in the first place. I guess the history of recorded music holds a fair amount to plunder . But art - and even pop music - is an expression and reflection of individuals and wider zeitgeist: actual humanity. I don’t see what value is added when a person creates something semi unique, and a supercomputer burns massive amounts of energy to mimic it. At this stage all of supposed AI is a marketing gimmic to sell things. Corporations once again showing their hostility to humanity.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Replika CEO Eugenia Kuyda says the future of AI might mean friendship and marriage with chatbots⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Hadn’t thought of this. I wonder how they would tread what you’d think would be a thin line. Or are lonely people that credulous? On the other hand being provided your perfect match during the trial period and falling in love with this corporate entity which you are then made to pay for access to? Dystopian.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple Foldable iPhone Launch Faces Delay Until 2026, Faces Design Roadblocks⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ditch touch screen and give it physical buttons and we’ll be on to something.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨People are having trouble following Harris’s campaign Twitter account⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I liken using groogle for finding factual information to using the yellowpages for doing the same. YT isn’t much better but it suffers many of the conflicts of interest traditional media outlets also had, depending on the corporation. In this case the almighty algorithm is the conflict of interest, though there are clever content creators out there making some good stuff, they’ll always be beholden to the owners of the platform and the true customers - the advertisers. As an advertising platform which can direct punters to actual long form content directly supported by watchers via patreon or similar, I understand why it is used : the sheer numbers using it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China starts smartphone inspections to boost 'anti-espionage efforts', raising fears among expatriates and foreign business people about arbitrary enforcement⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I haven’t travelled to either province mainly on principle - I don’t think I could stomach it - so I cant speak on that. Though, many other locations if not the whole country, have similar history, and treatment of local minorities, culture and language.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨China starts smartphone inspections to boost 'anti-espionage efforts', raising fears among expatriates and foreign business people about arbitrary enforcement⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Stick close to her and trusted family and friends. Though cash must be accepted legally , its hardly used. Getting a simcard requires registering with your passport now. If you’re okay with that, a cheap burner phone with wechat for payments and comms and standard phone number yo get hold of your family back home. Needless to say you wont be anonymous so my attitude when visiting there was kind of just accept that, and don’t do/say anything stupid. i.e assimilate temporarily with that way of life. All of these concerns are only a small part of life and of course a billion or so people are living with it. You are totally right that the place is full of interesting and amazing history, culture, food and really friendly and hospitable people despite the bs they have to put up with.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Netflix mulls introducing free ad-supported tier. The circle is complete⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Cool thing about this is they could assemble these bundles into parallel live streams we could simply flick between to find what we prefer to watch. If they run into a problem of people flicking away when ads run then just align the ads to run at the same time on each “channel” if I can call them that ?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Netflix mulls introducing free ad-supported tier. The circle is complete⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That was a trope of real tv shows especially , and also a way to fill time with less filmed content i.e cost cutting. Often you’d see many shots 5-7 times throughout the show. Opening montage , before ad tease, after ad recap, thr event itself, end of show montage summary etc. Also drives me nuts. Even back when ads were between. “Yes I know what happened two minutes ago!”. And then there were so many shows you could tell the edit project file was a template and they just replaced the footage. Same exact structure every episode.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Music industry giants allege mass copyright violation by AI firms⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Technicalities probably, but much like computery things in general these tools don’t make all things easier necessarily. If pure making and playing of music is the goal, then just pickup an instrument. Record it with a nice preamp and microphone in an appropriate space. These tools allow many more and different options however. Of course I can approximate an orchestra good enough for low budget projects if not tv shows, without needing to hire an actual orchestra. And apply convolution reverb of the sistene chapel, or my bathroom. No complaints about the massive world of possibilities at our finger tips. But if I could hire a local school orchestra, the recording gear, and have an afternoon on such a project , it would be alot more fun than scrolling for hours for the right picollo flute sample, wrestling with licences (including cost) , upgrade hassles, and other tech headaches of this digital age. Back to my banjo. Saying all that I prefer when the tools mature into instruments and methods in their own right. e.g mpc sampling and performance, ableton live magic , and more. Plus its not all mutually exclusive. Do whats right for the art at the given time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Five Men Convicted of Operating Massive, Illegal Streaming Service That Allegedly Had More Content Than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Prime Video Combined⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I was fretting over Doctor Specials, season numbers, eras and naming a few weeks back. In fairness it has been running since black and white times so not too bad considering. Whats a filebot by the way and whats a good one?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Mac vs. PC war is back on?⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  What does maximalist design mean in the mac world ? Is this regarding UI and/or industrial design ? I was teaching design back when we were transitioning from OS9 to OSx early or mid 2000s I guess . We had to switch between them for a good couple years I think as various packages became available or affordable on osx. Never owned one in the early days but study and work from mid 90s onward was generally on them. I can’t relate to them ever being maximalist really but I guess they gradually did get more minimalist very gradually as far as UI. Throughout this time I was almost always using windows at home so my super basic summary of 90s, 2000s mac vs pc argument would be that the mac rarely interefered with workflow in the sense that win98,2000,xp etc were requiring a large percent of maintenance time. To me thats the minimalism mac were always about and for me still holds to a degree - though far more retail/consumer and far less industry/pro focussed despite FCP, Logic, and fast apple silicone etc.

  Dont necessarily disagree though, just curious what it means. Now also using kubuntu or similar around 9 years (I’m jumping between 3 OSs these days) it often feels like the os9 days as far as community vibe and support - smooth and low stress though the ui approach is sometimes an afterthought rather than the end goal perhaps. Completely capable though. Mac feels more consumer and indeed less concerned with service feeling direct or individualised . So agree with you there. Maximalist service, or is it minimalist :)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Slack is now using all content, including DMs, to train LLMs⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  So you sign up to confirm that your IP is yours, while simultaneously agreeing to sell it off , but the source will be anonymous other than to who it’s sold to or anyone else Slack decides they want to know. These tech contracts and TOS should just say “we will (try) not do bad, but you agree to let us do bad, and if bad happens its your fault”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI plans to announce Google search competitor on Monday, sources say⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I can hear it braying from way down the road, dropping steaming loads of marketing as it comes to stink up the place kicking children in their teeth, all while making billions from it in the process. Heee hawwww .

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI plans to announce Google search competitor on Monday, sources say⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Info enshittification can mean only one thing: full scale invasion. Apparently

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Apple introduces M4 chip⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  mbp = macbook pro , unless you forgot the /s

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Can we all agree that whatever version of predictive text we have nowadays is crap, and has been for a long time?⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yep swype around 2010-12 was the golden age of this stuff. I distinctly remember being on a bus commute being amazed how quickly I could pump out work emails, and documents on way to work on maybe an LG android smartphone with no manual invention required on spelling or grammar. Ancient times. Just typing out this comment on mobile in 2024 I’ve had to recorrect every 4th to 5th word , either I mistyped and it doesnt autocorrect correctly , or its autochanging correct words to wrong ones. I have big fingers but the phone is the higgest I’ve had. Clearly these enshittertech corporations dont make money from making better or more useful products .