logicbomb

@logicbomb@lemmy.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK arrests 83-year-old priest for backing Palestine Action and opposing Gaza genocide⁩ ⁨⁨10⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  for holding a sign stating her support of Palestine Action.

  Saying “for backing Palestine Action” makes it sound like she was giving them money or something. But all she did was express an opinion.

  Even though the Trump administration and the Republicans in our congress are actively trying to take away our freedom of speech, it’s still nice that we are explicitly guaranteed that right by our Constitution. But there is no law that matters if the government itself doesn’t follow the Constitution.

  At any rate, I feel for our UK counterparts that they don’t have even an empty guarantee of free speech.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In 6 hours it will be illegal to say "I support Palestine Action" in the UK, with a sentence of up to 14 years in prison.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  We’re also losing our freedom of speech in America, so we Americans can sympathize a bit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'I've been turned into an AI train announcer - and no one told me'⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago⁩:

  There are different things we’re calling AI. One is engaging in endeavors that are traditionally seen as creative, like text or image generation.

  The AI we are talking about for this story is a text to speech engine that creates a believable voice. The voice parameters may be created by a human or AI or whatever. But that is not the type of AI that we are talking about in this story.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨'I've been turned into an AI train announcer - and no one told me'⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  This is stealing her voice. It’s just plain wrong.

  What I really don’t understand is, even if you think AI voice is okay, why not just make an original voice? Why you got to steal somebody’s voice? Or if you don’t want to do that, why not just get consent for the specific thing you’re doing? Don’t take advantage of the fact that she previously recorded her voice as an aid for the blind and steal her voice because of some small text in a contract. That’s dishonest and pathetic.

  You’re the railway. Do you know how many people love and obsess over trains and railways? There are probably tons of people who would pay to hear an AI version of their voice coming from the train speakers. How did it come to this? How incompetent can you be?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Palantir may be engaging in a coordinated disinformation campaign by astroturfing these news-related subreddits: r/world, r/newsletter, r/investinq, and r/tech_news⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I mean, that’s right on the mark. The reason they called themselves National Socialists isn’t because they were socialists, but because they knew that their true beliefs were so abhorrent that they needed to lie about being socialists.

  Elon Musk has been recently shown to have done the same thing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why Denmark is dumping Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and Linux⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I’d think it would be obvious that a country wouldn’t want to depend on a foreign country’s proprietary product when an open source alternative exists. Even if it’s not spying, what if the US forced Microsoft to put some kill switch on their products? Even if it doesn’t affect your most secure systems because of air gap, it could still cripple enough to cause huge problems.

  There’s simply no reason to take the risk.

  If I was running a government, I would strongly desire proof that all of my government software is doing only what I want it to. That means not only do I have access to the source code, but I also need it to be simple enough that my government teams can actually audit all of it.

  Obviously, that’s not going to be feasible in every situation. There might be proprietary software that is protected from competition via IP laws, and some software is so necessarily complex that it would be really hard to audit completely, but overall, I find it shocking that any foreign government would run a Microsoft product when a feature comparable open source alternative exists.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Deez peets⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  They have even more cubic feet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Chemistry is weird⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Salt is scarier than the elements sodium or chlorine because, according to Wikipedia, “Salt is essential for life in general.” Without salt, there wouldn’t be humans creating things like chlorine gas. Life is scary.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Scientists discover that feeding AI models 10% 4chan trash actually makes them better behaved⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  This is the same market that tried to add blockchain to everything when that first became well-known.

  Some of the biggest forces in the market are extraordinary stupid people trying to ride every buzzword that comes along.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft Hooked the Government on Its Products With Freebies. Could Elon Musk’s Starlink Be Doing the Same?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  “There’s nothing more expensive than a free gift.” - Michel de Montaigne

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk pressured Reddit’s CEO on content moderation⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  When asked about Musk and Huffman’s correspondence, Reddit spokesperson Gina Antonini sent the following statement: “We take any report of Reddit policy violations seriously, whether on Reddit directly or through other public or private means. We will evaluate content reported to us and take action if violating.”

  There was a famous reddit user called Unidan who I think was a scientist that studied animals. His account was eventually banned for Terms of Service violations due to his having an account that posted comments, and several other accounts that were just used for voting. He used the other accounts to give his comments an initial voting boost, which was a policy violation, and was therefore permanently banned.

  Anyways, I occasionally noticed a strange voting pattern on Reddit. I’d have one comment that had not gotten any votes or replies for hours after I wrote it, and then all of a sudden, somebody would reply to argue, and their reply would more-or-less instantly have several upvotes, and simultaneously, my comment would have a similar number of downvotes.

  This person was obviously using multiple accounts, violating the Terms of Service just like Unidan, so I went to report them, only to find out that there was literally no way for me to report them. The report button didn’t have any fitting option, nor was it guaranteed to go to a reddit admin who could actually look at who voted for what. Mods can’t see comment votes. There was a separate webpage you could go to to contact the admins, but again, there was no category for it, and no way to make a report that didn’t fit those categories.

  From that experience, it didn’t feel like they would “take any report of Reddit policy violations seriously.” How could they take the report seriously when they wouldn’t even take the report in the first place? Now I see I was supposed to directly contact Reddit CEO Steve Huffman through private messaging.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Blobfish⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The name information is incorrect.

  Psychrolutes is the genus, not the species.

  Psychrolutes is a genus of marine ray-finned fishes belonging to the family Psychrolutidae, the fatheads and toadfishes. […] There are currently 11 recognized species in this genus

  The binomial name of the blobfish is Psychrolutes marcidus. But realistically, “binomial name” is not always the same as “proper name”. There are a lot of animals whose common names include misconceptions, or even insults. Just look at the information about Psychrolutidae (that’s the Family) above. “Fatheads” sounds insulting, and “Toadfishes” aren’t toads.

  I wouldn’t have even bothered looking this up, except that the artist wrote the “proper name” so poorly that I first read it as “Psychrd Lutes”. And the second reading, I misread as “Psychiro Lutes”, due to the weird “R” that looks like none of their other Rs. I read it correctly the third time, but I have to wonder at the wisdom of not writing it clearly when you’re trying to emphasize how it is spelled.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Weeb⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  The ellipsis locations are another giveaway. I noticed them before I read the rest of the text.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Are 'micro-apartments' converted from offices the answer to the housing crisis?⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This idea in particular seems inconvenient to me, but there may be people who would prefer something like this.

  I had a very small apartment when I lived in Japan, and honestly, I really liked it for the most part. It was a bit bigger than what I think they’re saying in this article, though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨hard to argue with⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If she really believes those breasts, ovaries, and wombs are so important, why was she telling women to think about things? You don’t think with breasts, ovaries, or wombs.

  And what will she do when she hits menopause? How will that affect her beliefs?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Treegasmic⁩ ⁨⁨8⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Boy it really makes those pictures of bees covered in pollen seem slightly less cute.