General_Effort
@General_Effort@lemmy.world
- Comment on a16z-Backed Startup Sells Thousands of ‘Synthetic Influencers’ to Manipulate Social Media as a Service 5 days ago:
Maybe it’s time to have a little think about that word, “influencer”, and how that is a job with which people make money.
- Comment on Is there any way the average American can insulate themselves from the AI bubble bursting? 1 week ago:
It’s also funny how Lemmy is buying up this narrative.
The entire US economy is currently being propped up by growth in the AI/tech sector.
What’s happening is that Dementia Don is curb-stomping the US economy. AI investments, mainly in data centers, are the only thing that still seems promising. When you are on a trek and someone leads you through Death Valley, while pouring out all the water, you shouldn’t blame the last horse that still keeps going.
Putting the blame in the right place would certainly help, with a view toward the mid-terms.
Financially: Diversify. Make sure that you are not completely dependent on what happens in the US. But mind that Europe comes with its own imponderable risks (ie Putin). Same with China. Maybe some old leader dies and the new crew runs everything into the ground; they go to war with Taiwan, that sort of thing.
- Comment on Automattic CEO calls Tumblr his 'biggest failure' so far 1 week ago:
“so far”
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
Outage is ending.
Oct 20 2:27 AM PDT We are seeing significant signs of recovery. Most requests should now be succeeding. We continue to work through a backlog of queued requests. We will continue to provide additional information.
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
Could be that your region relies on different servers, could be that only the sign-in is down.
- Comment on On January 1st of 2026, Texas will be required to give ID to download apps from the app stores. It doesn't matter if it's NSFW or not. 1 week ago:
I don’t see what makes you so certain. The EU unambiguously wants computing devices to be more locked down. It wants responsible developers to be tracked.
If your argument holds, then that only means that there is a loophole allowing devs to distribute apps anonymously. That’s where the car analogy fails. There are exceptions for small enterprises and “open source stewards”. These exist so that small players and start-ups won’t be overwhelmed by bureaucracy. They are not supposed to protect dev privacy or user freedom.
I can only repeat that I find your argument valid. I just don’t believe it would stand up in court. If Google was pushing back on this, I would still back them up on such arguments. But they understandably don’t.
Unless there is a major change in attitudes in Europe, we are going to see much more mandated control and surveillance, anyway.
- Comment on On January 1st of 2026, Texas will be required to give ID to download apps from the app stores. It doesn't matter if it's NSFW or not. 1 week ago:
If it’s bundled with the OS, it probably does.
Components “placed on the market separately” are explicitly included a being part of the product.
Let me try to gather this together:
The manufacturer, the authorised representative, the importer, the distributor, or other natural or legal person shall, on request, provide the market surveillance authorities with the name and address of any economic operator who has supplied them with a software product, including software or hardware components being placed on the market separately;
Economic operators shall, on request, provide the market surveillance authorities with the following information: (a) the name and address of any economic operator who has supplied them with a product with digital elements;
‘economic operator’ means the manufacturer, the authorised representative, the importer, the distributor, or other natural or legal person who is subject to obligations in relation to the manufacture of products with digital elements or to the making available of products with digital elements on the market in accordance with this Regulation;
‘product with digital elements’ means a software or hardware product and its remote data processing solutions, including software or hardware components being placed on the market separately;
- Comment on On January 1st of 2026, Texas will be required to give ID to download apps from the app stores. It doesn't matter if it's NSFW or not. 1 week ago:
The verification demand is for Google certified Android.
‘electronic information system’ means a system, including electrical or electronic equipment, capable of processing, storing or transmitting digital data;
The OS or a phone both fit that definition.
‘component’ means software or hardware intended for integration into an electronic information system;
An app fits the definition of a component.
Maybe you would have to argue that an app is not actually a component. But if it’s a stand-alone thing, then why does it rely on an OS?
I think you can make a good argument that a phone without an OS is not a system. It’s not capable of much. Maybe custom roms will remain an option.
Anyway, Google is not abusing that loophole. So, no problem. F-Droid encourages users to complain to EU lawmakers about Google being a meanie. Maybe the EU will close it anyway as part of future tech regulation.
- Comment on On January 1st of 2026, Texas will be required to give ID to download apps from the app stores. It doesn't matter if it's NSFW or not. 1 week ago:
Here’s a definition:
‘product with digital elements’ means a software or hardware product and its remote data processing solutions, including software or hardware components being placed on the market separately;
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that such apps are components “placed on the market separately”. In fact, I think it’s exactly within the meaning. In any case, even if not, such loopholes are usually plugged by some of the vague, general obligations.
I don’t think ADB installation is a loophole. Once you poke around in the insides of a device, you’re generally on your own. I expect that devices are going to become more locked down before these regulations enter into force but only as far as absolutely necessary. Google doesn’t want to lock out the next generation of devs. Unless or until there is some fuss about people doing something bad and this is declared a loophole.
- Comment on On January 1st of 2026, Texas will be required to give ID to download apps from the app stores. It doesn't matter if it's NSFW or not. 1 week ago:
You’re arguing that a dev shouldn’t be seen as supplying to Google just because their apps run on a Google system. I agree, that could be a valid argument, but I am not too sure if it would work in court.
Google is certainly following the spirit of the law. Maybe there is a tiny loophole here but imagine Google leaves that open. A few people install some shady app store full of malware and scams. Would a court find that Google had fulfilled all its legal obligations to protect its users?
- Comment on On January 1st of 2026, Texas will be required to give ID to download apps from the app stores. It doesn't matter if it's NSFW or not. 2 weeks ago:
That says when Google distributes an app via the Play Store, Google must be able to name the developer.
You’re thinking of the DSA (Article 30), in force since last year. The CRA is on top (or beside) of that, starting in 2027. Some are also pointing the finger at the RED (Article 3 3.). That’s the one that made Apple do USB chargers.
I expect phones are going to become a lot more locked down, especially in the EU.
It does not say that when I distribute an app via my website, Google has any obligations whatsoever.
Yes. Google is only demanding verification for certified phones.
- Comment on On January 1st of 2026, Texas will be required to give ID to download apps from the app stores. It doesn't matter if it's NSFW or not. 2 weeks ago:
collect certain information from developers
Yes. Like a copy of their identity papers.
Consult Article 23 (“Identification of economic operators”) of the CRA. The entry into force fits Google’s timeline.
- Comment on On January 1st of 2026, Texas will be required to give ID to download apps from the app stores. It doesn't matter if it's NSFW or not. 2 weeks ago:
I think Google is mainly aiming to comply with EU law. But Brussels effect…
It should give Europeans pause that their tech regulation is red state style. Explains why their tech industry is on a red state level.
- Comment on Anti-Piracy Firm Threatens ICANN with Lawsuit Over .to Domain Piracy * TorrentFreak 2 weeks ago:
Check out some thread on AI and copyright. That oughta tell you how copyright people “think”, for lack of a better word. Not impossible to succeed with that kind of thing in Europe.
- UBC enzyme technology clears first human test toward universal donor organs for transplantation - UBC Newsnews.ubc.ca ↗Submitted 2 weeks ago to technology@lemmy.world | 8 comments
- Comment on Australian Government gets a taste of what everyday people have to deal with in terms of data breaches as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's mobile phone number released online 2 weeks ago:
I doubt there’s anywhere where the phone book wasn’t digitized. In Germany, the requirement to publish your address + number was eventually dropped, though; maybe because the phone system was privatized.
- Comment on 4chan fined $26K for refusing to assess risks under UK Online Safety Act 2 weeks ago:
Salman Rushdie: First time?
- Comment on 4chan fined $26K for refusing to assess risks under UK Online Safety Act 2 weeks ago:
UK cabinet is mainly GenXers. I didn’t count exactly, but Boomers still seem to outnumber Millennials. Definitely on the way out, though.
I wouldn’t mind the politicians from 30 years ago, who stayed away from this bullshit.
- Anti-Piracy Firm Threatens ICANN with Lawsuit Over .to Domain Piracy * TorrentFreaktorrentfreak.com ↗Submitted 2 weeks ago to technology@lemmy.world | 15 comments
- Comment on 4chan fined $26K for refusing to assess risks under UK Online Safety Act 2 weeks ago:
If some laws in country A have a problem with this, then they should unplug their internet wires at the border, or at least learn how to use them and/or govern their citizens.
What used to be called The Great Firewall of China. It used to be unthinkable for western countries.
You can’t blame this on old people. This is only happening now that the Boomers are on the way out. People who sent international letters or made international phone calls were aware that they were communicating with a different country with different laws. I think we are seeing this now, because now we have people who experience the internet as something happening on their own phone, at their location.
- Comment on Australian Government gets a taste of what everyday people have to deal with in terms of data breaches as Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's mobile phone number released online 2 weeks ago:
It’s kinda funny how times change.
In Germany, it even used to be that your phone number, along with your name and address, was published in the phone book, by law. If you wanted to be delisted, you had to provide a valid reason, such as being stalked. Just because was not good enough. At every street corner was a phone booth with the phone book of your town with your name and address. At post offices, you could find phone books from other towns. (The phone system was run by the postal service, which was a government agency.)
Phone books were a bit of a plot point in Terminator. The terminator gets the list of Connors from the phone book and kills them in that order.
- Comment on i enjoy high fructose corn syrup too 2 weeks ago:
Grocery store.
Assume that all the foodstuffs that people normally eat have the same potassium content as these nettles. Then you’d need to consume 1.25kg of your normal food per day to get enough potassium. Someone who consumes less than 1.25kg of those normal food stuffs would not get enough potassium. If normal food stuffs have a significantly lower potassium content, then you’d expect widespread potassium deficiency.
Maybe, but it doesn’t seem to be a serious public health issue. So common food can’t have significantly lower potassium content than those nettles. What with averages being averages, some foods will have more than others.
- Comment on Everyday AI looks more like the '08 housing bubble 2 weeks ago:
Feels more like the brick layer is equivalent to someone paid to create training data. You absolutely would want to ask the architects and engineers researching no ways in housing and construction. Not that they know what avenues of research will work out, but they do know the avenues of research.
No one expected the splash that LLMs or image diffusion models would make. Years later, the conversations on Lemmy are still dominated by people who still haven’t looked up how they work.
GPTs completely nuked the whole field of natural language processing (NLP). People had dedicated years of their lives to solving tiny aspects of that. That got solved practically over night. Sentiment analysis? Just ask the chatbot. Some of the seemingly smart people who make seemingly informed criticisms of LLMs are NLP guys, who just can’t let go of their old ideas.
- Submitted 2 weeks ago to technology@lemmy.world | 10 comments
- Comment on Everyday AI looks more like the '08 housing bubble 2 weeks ago:
Bubble is an econ term. Whether there is an AI bubble has a rather tenuous connection to the future of AI. Not much of a connection between the housing bubble and the future of housing either.
- Comment on Everyday AI looks more like the '08 housing bubble 2 weeks ago:
If Lemmy is supposed to be the place where the most tech savvy people in the interest congregate
Says who? Mostly feels more like sales than R&D here. Which kinda fits with these pitches.
- Comment on i enjoy high fructose corn syrup too 2 weeks ago:
I don’t think most people even consume 1.25kg of food in total per day. It seems implausible that one would have to supplement with a substantial quantity of 0 calorie greens just to get enough of a common and essential mineral. Which makes me think that the K content is average at best and rather less than common food stuffs.
- Comment on i enjoy high fructose corn syrup too 2 weeks ago:
What’s the definition of “good source” employed here?
- Comment on Threadiverse... on ATProto?! 2 weeks ago:
I agree with everything. The thing is, I’ve been thinking about the psychology behind this lately.
When Fedi-Fans complain about Bluesky, it is usually based on the misunderstanding that it also is instance based. It really doesn’t seem to occur to many that things might be done differently. But I think it may go a little deeper.
A common complaint is that it’s too expensive to run a full relay. People want to self-host it all. They want to feel that they are in control and don’t need anyone. It’s not particularly rational but people do lots of silly things chasing that feeling. The rational start would be to move somewhere remote and grow your own food. Instead, people buy a pick-up truck or degoogle their phone.
That architecture also appeals to a more tribal mindset. An instance is “our” place. We just pull up the drawbridge when bad people come and we are safe here in “our” castle.
I think to some people that is more appealing than the more open design of atproto.
On Bluesky, there is all this waffle about some people trying to get someone banned. They might find such tribal architecture more appealing.
- Comment on I will be taking no followup questions. Thank you for your time 2 weeks ago:
Mostly Harmless. I didn’t like that one. It was somehow bleak and left me worrying that DNA was in a bad place when he wrote it. I’m going to be a heretic and say that I did like how Colfer continued the series.
In a Discworld novel, an off-hand remark mentions Ponder Stibbons wanting to build a Van-De-Graff-generator by tying cats to a wheel. I wish I could remember which book it was.