hersh

@hersh@literature.cafe

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Despite tech-savvy reputation, Gen Z falls behind in keyboard typing skills⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Absolutely this. Phones are the primary device for Gen Z. Phone use doesn’t develop tech skills because there’s barely anything you can do with the phones. This is particularly true with iOS, but still applies to Android.

  Even as an IT administrator, there’s hardly anything I can do when troubleshooting phone problems. Oh, push notifications aren’t going through? Well, there are no useful logs or anything for me to look at, so…cool. It makes me crazy how little visibility I have into anything on iPhones or iPads. And nobody manages “Android” in general; at best they manage like two specific models of one specific brand (usually Samsung or Google). It’s impossible to manage arbitrary Android phones because there’s so little standardization and so little control over the software in the general case.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A YouTuber let the Cybertruck close on his finger to test the new sensor update. It didn't go well.⁩ ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “Smart” may as well be synonymous with “unpredictable”. I don’t need my computer to be smart. I need it to be predictable, consistent, and undemanding.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why I Lost Faith in Kagi⁩ ⁨⁨7⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been using Kagi for a while, so I’ll post a few quick thoughts I had after reading the article, linked blog, and mastodon thread.

  The one thing in the blog post I strongly disagree with is her statement that the summarizer is “the same old AI bullshit”. I think they just assumed that without actually testing it. The summarizer is fantastic, and is a great example of the right way to use LLMs. Its output comes entirely from the URL or file you specify. It does not hallucinate. You can ask it follow-up questions about the document, and again, its replies are limited in scope to what’s actually in that document. If you ask it something out of scope it’ll tell you that it can’t find that information in the document. This is great because it’s using the LLM for what LLMs are actually good for — complex language parsing — and not for what they’re bad for, like reasoning or information storage/retrieval. It’s actually quite difficult to misuse the summarizer. It’s straightforward and effective. This is Kagi’s killer feature, IMO.

  I can’t speak as highly of its search-integrated AI features like FastGPT. They mostly take information from the contents of the first few search results, but they also seem to “fill in the blanks” more than I’d like. Sometimes it gives me information that is simply not in the sources that it cites. It’s not as bad as using ChatGPT (which hallucinates all day every day, and if it ever tries to cite source is hallucinates those, too) but it needs improvement.

  That said, Kagi doesn’t shove the AI down your throat like you might think reading the blog post. These are separate features that need to be explicitly activated. Plain searches don’t return results from the LLMs. If you want that, you need to explicitly go to the assistant or trigger the “quick answer” feature on the search results page.

  Anyway, back to the summarizer, here is an example of it in action. I gave it the URL of the Mastodon post. I think this is an excellent result. I also asked it an unrelated followup question so you can see that it limits itself to the information in the URL. It will not make shit up!

  The summarizer lets me download conversations in markdown form, so I’ll just paste it right in here so you can see.

  hackers.town/@lori/112255132348…

  Exploring https://hackers.town/@lori/112255132348604770

  Assistant:
  Key points:

  • The author wrote a blog post criticizing the search engine Kagi, which then prompted the CEO of Kagi, Vlad, to email the author directly to argue against the criticism. [1]
  • The author woke up to an email from Vlad, the CEO of Kagi, who was upset about the blog post the author had written. [1]
  • The author decided to publicly share the email exchange with Vlad, as they felt it was important for people to see his unhinged behavior. [1]
  • The author refused to engage in a private debate with Vlad, as they did not want to be taken “to Crime Scene Number Two” without any accountability. [1]
  • The author believes Vlad is unable to accept criticism or disagreement, and that it “eats him alive” when someone doesn’t agree with him or his company. [1]
  • The author states that no other search engine CEO has emailed them directly to “mansplain their company” in this manner. [1]
  • The author sees Vlad’s behavior as “petty and sad” and believes he has no understanding of boundaries. [1]
  • Other users in the thread share similar experiences of Vlad’s inability to accept criticism and his tendency to simply restate his own opinions rather than address counterpoints. [1]
  • The author and others characterize Vlad’s behavior as that of a narcissist who cannot tolerate disagreement. [1]
  • The author and others are amazed by Vlad’s decision to set up a separate company in another country just to print and give away t-shirts, rather than focus on improving Kagi’s core search functionality.

  [1] lori (@lori@hackers.town)

  Query:
  What’s the capital of North Dakota?

  Assistant:
  The knowledge provided does not contain any information about the capital of North Dakota. The context is focused on an email exchange between the author and the CEO of Kagi search engine regarding criticism of the company.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨George Carlin’s Daughter Blasts Dudesy AI-Generated Comedy Special Impersonating Her Dad: “No Machine Will Ever Replace His Genius”⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Bell Riots are coming this year. The Second American Civil War starts in 2026, which leads directly into WWIII.

  From there, everything is pretty much terrible until warp drive is invented.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It is essential to stop using Chrome. Under the pretense of saving users from third-party spyware, Google is creating an ecosystem in which Chrome itself is the spyware.⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Oh, gotcha. I misunderstood and thought you were describing a Chrome-vs-Firefox difference specifically. Yeah, I can relate. I’m de-googling my life but I’m not sure I’ll ever be 100% de-googled. I’m taking it bit by bit. I sign up for new things with different email addresses now and occasionally I’ll change existing services if it’s possible. But there’s no way I’m going to go through my bajillion web site accounts and move them all.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It is essential to stop using Chrome. Under the pretense of saving users from third-party spyware, Google is creating an ecosystem in which Chrome itself is the spyware.⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t understand the problem. Google services work in Firefox pretty much the same way, yeah? Does Chrome integrate an authenticator app? If som you might want change your 2FA settings at myaccount.google.com/security . If you have an Android phone you can get push notifications on it, or you can also use third-party authenticator apps.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It is essential to stop using Chrome. Under the pretense of saving users from third-party spyware, Google is creating an ecosystem in which Chrome itself is the spyware.⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  It would be great if the frontend and backend were separated with a unified API and you could simply choose a frontend/interface (Vivaldi) with whatever backend/engine (Gecko). That’s not how it (currently) works though.

  Arc has floated this idea. Currently Arc is Chromium-based, but they say they’ve designed it to allow for swapping engines in the future.

  IIRC, Edge had a similar feature for a while, allowing you to run legacy Internet Explorer tabs if a site required it. Not sure if that still exists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨It is essential to stop using Chrome. Under the pretense of saving users from third-party spyware, Google is creating an ecosystem in which Chrome itself is the spyware.⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Firefox syncs across devices as well, if you sign up for a Firefox account and enable sync. This works for bookmarks, logins, history, and you can even access remote tabs if you want. It’s also easy to send a single page from one device to another.

  On desktop, Firefox has an import feature that will pull your bookmarks and logins m other browsers (like Chrome) into your Firefox profile.

  Even if you’re neck-deep in Google services, Chrome doesn’t do anything special.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Research: The Growing Inequality of Who Gets to Work from Home⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Not sure what you’re seeing on your end, but I get a fairly lengthy article with graphs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dropbox removed ability to opt your files out of AI training⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I just checked to see if I missed a big update.

  There’s still no Linux client, and it cannot sync files on Android (it only supports photo backups).

  I can’t work around that limitation on Android with FolderSync, either, the way I can with Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, or any WebDAV- or S3-compatible server. Since it uses E2EE, any uploads need to go directly through the app, so integrations are difficult.

  It doesn’t seem to have a search feature, either, at least not on Android. I can’t imagine there’s any content-aware search on the web UI, since that can’t be done server-side.

  There’s been some interesting research in homomorphic encryption over the past couple years, which might someday lead to encrypted server-side search. But I think there are still major hurdles to actually implementing it securely and efficiently.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dropbox removed ability to opt your files out of AI training⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  There are drawbacks to end-to-end encryption (E2EE). I’m not aware of any E2EE cloud storage systems that have the features Dropbox provides. I would LOVE to know of any that…

  1. Support at least the big 5 platforms (Android/iOS/Mac/Windows/Linux).

  2. Have a functional web interface.

  3. Support sharing and collaboration.

  4. Have a search feature

  5. Sync to the local filesystem on a folder-by-folder or even file-by-file basis

  6. Integrate with other tools (e.g. android file picker)

  It’s not easy to do all that with E2EE, like a functional web interface, search, and integration.

  ProtonMail’s search, for example, is limited to subject and metadata, and that’s specifically because they DON’T use E2EE for that.

  I’m willing to compromise some of this for the sake of E2EE, but I’m not at all surprised that feature-first services are more popular than privacy-first services.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Technical Writing: Deprecating Content⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I wish Apple followed these rules. So many deprecations in their man pages and developer documentation have no details at all. No idea what the supposed replacement is. No idea of the underlying reasons. No idea when it will cease to function.

  This is why I still see “launchctl load” everywhere. It’s been deprecated for years, but the replacements are overcomplicated and not clearly communicated in official docs. When Apple finally pulls the plug, so much shit out there is going to break.

  When they deprecated python2, they withheld implementation details and any timeline. Then they finally axed it in a freaking minor point release, without even replacing it with python3. AAAAAAH

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta and Microsoft say they will buy AMD’s new AI chip as an alternative to Nvidia’s⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This opens the door for more, as well. It means breaking the reliance on CUDA. Meta originally developed PyTorch and it’s still a large contributor. This means more resources will go into open backends instead of CUDA.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Meta’s new AI image generator was trained on 1.1 billion Instagram and Facebook photos⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  No no, you misunderstood. Everyone gave their explicit consent by clicking “agree” to the 80-page terms of service!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Turmoil at OpenAI shows we must address whether AI developers can regulate themselves⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  But then it will follow hallucinated regulations.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Bunnies - a community for bunny/rabbit enthusiasts and owners⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  !bunnies@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google says bumpy Pixel 8 screens are nothing to worry about — Display ‘bumps’ are components pushing into the OLED panel⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “no functional impact”? We clearly have very different ideas about the function of a display.

  It’s always something with Google, isn’t it?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Protesters denounce blockage of EU legislation defining rape as sex without consent⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This probably depends on jurisdiction. I also suspect “violence” in a legal sense is different from the everyday sense. I’m not a lawyer.

  From the US FBI’s web site:

  The FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program defines robbery as the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of force or violence and/or by putting the victim in fear.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨ChatGPT, how do I use OCR in Word?⁩ ⁨⁨11⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I prefer to convord ttp manually rather than use the trext tims.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨YouTube is cracking down on consumers’ favorite loophole - Adblockers⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  Holy crap. I had no idea YouTube was that bad. I guess my ad blockers work better than I thought.

  It’s going to be a never-ending cat-and-mouse game from here, I guess. And then eventually Google will make Chrome required with their trusted platform bs.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨FreeBSD, GhostBSD, OpenBSD, Dragonfly BSD, Firefox Hardening - FOSS - git clone⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve recently been looking into downloading offline copies of important data, since I don’t expect that today’s freely available information will continue to be freely available and accessible in perpetuity.

  One problem I quickly ran into was that e.g. wikipedia downloads are not in an easily browsable format.

  I found a project called Kiwix that packages datasets from a variety of free sources, like Wikipedia and Project Gutenberg, along with a reader application that can read these “zim” archives. The different data sources are available via torrents or direct downloads. wiki.kiwix.org/wiki/Content

  I’m particularly interested in freely downloadable archives of scientific papers. A lot seems to be paywalled, or at least free-account-walled, even though the papers themselves are theoretically open-access. I would love to know of any sources out there to download an entire database locally.