MangoCats
@MangoCats@feddit.it
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 3 hours ago:
The one “driving aid” that I find actually useful is the following distance maintenance cruise control. I set that to the maximum distance it can reliably handle and it removes that “dimension” of driving problem from needing my constant attention - giving me back that attention to focus on other things (also driving / safety related.) “Dumb” cruise control works similarly when there’s no traffic around at all, but having the following distance control makes it useful in traffic. Both kinds of cruise control have certain situations that you need to be aware of and ready to take control back at a moment’s notice - preferably anticipating the situation and disengaging cruise control before it has a problem - but those exceptions are pretty rare / easily handled in practice.
Things like lane keeping seem to be more trouble than they’re worth, to me in the situations I drive in.
Not “AI” but a driving tech that does help a lot is parking cameras. Having those additional perspectives from the camera(s) at different points on the vehicle is a big benefit during close-space maneuvers. Not too surprising that “AI” with access to those tools does better than normal drivers without.
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 3 hours ago:
the US the 50 states basically act like they are different countries instead of different states.
There’s a lot of back and forth on that - through the last 50+ years the US federal government has done a lot to unify and centralize control. Visible things like the highway and air traffic systems, civil rights, federal funding of education and other programs which means the states either comply with federal “guidance” or they lose that (significant) money while still paying the same taxes…
making more informed decisions and realise that often the mom and pop store option is cheaper in the long run.
Informed, long run decisions don’t seem to be a common practice in the US, especially in rural areas.
we had a store (the Jumbo) which used to not have discounts, but saw less people buying from them that they changed it so now they are offering discounts again.
In order for that to happen the Jumbo needs competition. In rural US areas that doesn’t usually exist. There are examples of rural Florida WalMarts charging over double for products in their rural stores as compared to their stores in the cities 50 miles away - where they have competition. So, rural people have a choice: drive 100 miles for 50% off their purchases, or save the travel expense and get it at the local store. Transparently showing their strategy: the bigger ticket items that would be worth the trip into the city to save the margin are much closer in pricing.
retro gaming community
GameStop died here not long ago. I never saw the appeal in the first place: high prices to buy, insultingly low prices to sell, and they didn’t really support older consoles/platforms - focusing always on the newer ones.
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 3 hours ago:
But, will you do it 24-7-365?
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 3 hours ago:
people are people and not tools
But this comparison is weighing people as tools vs alternative tools.
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 3 hours ago:
The human brain is consuming much less energy
Yes, but when you fully load the human brain’s energy costs with 20 years of schooling, 20 years of “retirement” and old-age care, vacation, sleep, personal time, housing, transportation, etc. etc. - it adds up.
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 17 hours ago:
Our minds work on a fundamentally different principle then Turing machines.
Is that an advantage, or a disadvantage? I’m sure the answer depends on the setting.
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 17 hours ago:
Nah, I went to public high school - I got to see “the average” citizen who is now voting. While it is distressing that my ex-classmates now seem to control the White House, Congress and Supreme Court, what they’re doing with it is not surprising at all - they’ve been talking this shit since the 1980s.
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 17 hours ago:
But, are these 1.7 trillion neuron networks available to drive YOUR car? Or are they time-shared among thousands or millions of users?
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 17 hours ago:
Human drivers are only safe when they’re not distracted, emotionally disturbed, intoxicated, and physically challenged (vision, muscle control, etc.) 1% of the population has epilepsy, and a large number of them are in denial or simply don’t realize that they have periodic seizures - until they wake up after their crash.
So, yeah, AI isn’t perfect either - and it’s not as good as an “ideal” human driver, but at what point will AI be better than a typical/average human driver? Not today, I’d say, but soon…
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 17 hours ago:
If an IQ of 100 is average, I’d rate AI at 80 and down for most tasks (and of course it’s more complex than that, but as a starting point…)
So, if you’re dealing with a filing clerk with a functional IQ of 75 in their role - AI might be a better experience for you.
Some of the crap that has been published on the internet in the past 20 years comes to an IQ level below 70 IMO - not saying I want more AI because it’s better, just that - relatively speaking - AI is better than some of the pay-for-clickbait garbage that came before it.
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 17 hours ago:
A gun isn’t dangerous, if you handle it correctly.
Same for an automobile, or aircraft.
If we build powerful AIs and put them “in charge” of important things, without proper handling they can - and already have - started crashing into crowds of people, significantly injuring them - even killing some.
- Comment on We need to stop pretending AI is intelligent 17 hours ago:
AI is not actual intelligence. However, it can produce results better than a significant number of professionally employed people…
I am reminded of when word processors came out and “administrative assistant” dwindled as a role in mid-level professional organizations, most people - even increasingly medical doctors these days - do their own typing. The whole “typing pool” concept has pretty well dried up.
- Comment on BBC is Getting a Paywall. 2 days ago:
Glad they’re still there - hope they’re not working without pay anytime soon.
- Comment on Blocking real-world ads: is the future here? 2 days ago:
So, through my lifetime that “Work 8 hours” somehow evolved into:
Leave for work at 7am. Show up for work by 8am. Get an hour for lunch, unpaid. Leave work at 5pm. Get home approximately 6pm, if you don’t stop to buy groceries or something.
I suppose commuting and lunch are supposed to be part of those “8 hours of play”?
- Comment on BBC is Getting a Paywall. 2 days ago:
I believe all such programs were defunded a few months ago…
- Comment on BBC is Getting a Paywall. 2 days ago:
To such an extent that I wonder if there is back-channel influence flowing out of the US pushing for this…
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 2 days ago:
people have been living in Europe for ages. We are one of the countries with the lowest corrupt, we do pay a lot of corrupt nations/people though, but that is a different story.
Netherlands specifically did a pretty significant reboot after WWII, and again in 1983? even if the base Constitution was established in 1814 / 1848. The US has been screwing around with a women’s rights amendment to our Constitution for over 100 years and we still can’t get that done - which I attribute to all kinds of entrenched interests blocking change for the better for most people because the special interests might be a little inconvenienced.
It is hard for people in the US to make a choice other than support these companies, mom and pop stores are an alternative. In Europe, I am seeing a trend that we are more focusing on EU based alternatives or even better national based alternatives. (or open source, even better imo)
My grandparents’ generation (born in the 1910s, formative young adult years during the Great Depression) pushed a strong “never spend a cent you don’t have to” ethos on my parents, and my parents pushed that hard on me. That ethos is pervasive throughout rural America, and when a Wal Mart Supercenter opens they undercut Mom and Pop stores by just enough margin to push that “can’t pass up a better deal” ethos in the local population. Mom and Pop stores usually go unprofitable and close within a year or two of a WalMart opening anywhere within 100km. The customers could afford to still patronize Mom and Pop and ignore WalMart, but that “save a penny whenever you can” ethos wins out. Of course once Mom and Pop are out of business, WalMart goes on to raise prices higher than Mom and Pop used to charge - big data analysis tells 'em just how much they can charge for each of their tens to hundreds of thousands of items to achieve their customer acquisition / retention goals. Meanwhile, Mom and Pop still had stick-on paper price tags on their merchandise when they went out of business.
- Comment on In a First, America Dropped 30,000-Pound Bunker-Busters—But Iran’s Concrete May Be Unbreakable, Scientists Say 3 days ago:
In common usage they’re equivalent to small and big. In practical terms, all nukes are strategic - use of a nuke has profound global diplomatic repercussions.
- Comment on In a First, America Dropped 30,000-Pound Bunker-Busters—But Iran’s Concrete May Be Unbreakable, Scientists Say 3 days ago:
Fuel requirements could get to astounding levels, even with ambient air and water temperatures below 0C any “hot stuff” onboard (engines, lights, radios, people) would have to be offset with some kind of refrigeration system, which requires: more fuel to be burned. I’m sure you can “stay ahead of things” in some environments, but it won’t be cheap on the fuel side of things.
- Comment on In a First, America Dropped 30,000-Pound Bunker-Busters—But Iran’s Concrete May Be Unbreakable, Scientists Say 3 days ago:
It has been around in some form since there has been manmade concrete.
Personally, I bought a box of chopped fibers for inclusion in a concrete project some 30 years ago - sold labeled for that specific use.
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 3 days ago:
What I’m talking about is abuse of those complaint systems which is only rectifiable via lawsuit. The abuse lies in the low cost (50€?) of filing a complaint, the corruptability / apathy-indifference of the complaint handling agency, and the relatively high cost of seeking justice vs un-just complaints. In theory, complaint processing at the agencies should filter out frivolous, harassing and otherwise improper complaints - but that’s very frequently not how things run, not all the time.
just corruption shining through, something like that (samples) should only be done in set intervals f.e. Man, the US really sucks.
Yep. I’m thinking more and more what “made us great” in the past was the relative youth of our institutions. The longer these things run the further from ideal they tend to become. I would be very much in favor of institutional reform to attempt to continually improve these situations, but of course “institutional reform” is often a cover for fast-track corruption enabling.
A lot of the money from massive companies doesn’t end up inside the US government’s treasury.
Dystopian future stories about global corporate rule making governments irrelevant have been around for a long long time - the US is continuing to develop in that direction, but we do have at least a little further to go before we completely get there (even with recent accelerations in some areas.)
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 3 days ago:
It’s still a very new area, will continue to be debated and evolve over time. What we think is “ideal” today will not be what people think is “ideal” in 20 years.
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 3 days ago:
Yeah, that’s how it should work. We have personal experience of a bogus complaint being filed by a big player with a regulatory agency, the agency coming around and interviewing / intimidating us, and subsequently sending us paperwork finding that the complaint was “substantiated” - something we consulted with a couple of lawyers about and they said “this would never, ever stand up in any kind of hearing or trial or other official process, but… to get it reversed will effectively cost you a couple of thousand dollars out of pocket and a lot of time and hassle - better to ignore it.” Of course the real issue is that the big player was guilty of everything in the complaint and more, this is just them “getting in front of the problem” before we complained about them - which we actually had no intention of doing…
The restaurant example comes from a friend who was running a restaurant when he decided to run for political office. His incumbent opponent was directing health inspections of his restaurant at about 10x the normal frequency of inspections… Again, you can fight it, but even if you have the resources to win, what do you get for your troubles?
Meanwhile, the bad actors in the above scenarios repeat their bad actions over and over for marginal advantages. Maybe someday they’ll be taken down for it, but usually not.
- Comment on In a First, America Dropped 30,000-Pound Bunker-Busters—But Iran’s Concrete May Be Unbreakable, Scientists Say 4 days ago:
Don’t give any voice whatsoever to the concept that nukes might possibly be acceptably used, anywhere, anytime, for any reason.
- Comment on In a First, America Dropped 30,000-Pound Bunker-Busters—But Iran’s Concrete May Be Unbreakable, Scientists Say 4 days ago:
My guess: that bunker buster attack was twice as successful as the missile attack on the the airfield in Qatar.
2 x 0 = 0.
Now accepting bets on when we will find out that Trump had a secret call with Ali Khamenei where they negotiated the whole thing ahead of time, thus explaining the movement of the Uranium out of the facility, the movement of our servicemen out of the airbase, etc. etc.
- Comment on You're not alone: This email from Google's Gemini team is concerning 4 days ago:
Society really took a wrong turn didn’t it?
Society has been circling the drain since the invention of agriculture…
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 4 days ago:
Yeah, 50€ will stop the drunk at the pub from filing a complaint on his mobile for a lark, but in the greater scheme it’s no barrier at all for people intent on serious harassment.
the accountant can lose his title from it.
That’s almost always on the table with complaint investigations against licensed professionals of all kinds.
The bigger trick is: who are the regulators that execute the decision making process, how onerous is it to fight it, etc. A lot of what goes down around here on the “bad side” of all that is that certain actors familiar with the system will develop relationships with the regulatory body and launch complaints sufficient to significantly harass license holders (or any regulated person) just enough to really bother them, but not quite enough to trigger a fight with lawyers in the courts and appeals processes. In a competitive arena like running a restaurant, the harassment can be expensive and time consuming enough to tip the balance between profitable, and shutting down.
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 5 days ago:
Making picture in public of others is alreasy not allowed under GDPR,
So much for all the security cameras.
bullshit excuses people like you are using
People like you need to get your heads out of your own asses an look around at the real world, as it is today, and contemplate for a moment where it is inevitably going. Bitching about how improper video recording is on internet forums is likely to achieve exactly nothing against the commercial interests who will continue to make and sell the technology.
You are already no allowed to have a camera watching the public streeth
Unless you are the police running a traffic enforcement camera, no?
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 5 days ago:
I don’t think it’s a good idea to share all the personal details of a cop.
I think there’s a balance to be struck. Should the cop’s home address be shared? No. Should their face, badge number and service record be public? Absolutely. I also agree that all public servant’s salaries (including employees of publicly traded companies) should be public.
The more exceptions a law has the complexer it gets and the more some people can abuse it.
Agreed, but something as complex as “the police” isn’t going to have one solution fitting all circumstances. Whatever the solution is, it should be simple enough to explain, clearly and accurately, to an average 12 year old.
what a public database of the people doing their job allows for.
Any database, public or private, can be endlessly abused. This is the crux of the GDPR.
People should be held accountable for their actions and everybody should be held accountable in the same manner.
Yes, but that has always been less than perfect in practice. Transparency is always the answer. Increased transparency with increased accountability for inequity is the right direction to be moving, not all at once, but gradual continuous progress in the good direction is what we should be seeking. Unfortunately, people lately are standing up and cheering for what they call a “good direction” that is composed of more lies, corruption and ultimately more secrecy about what’s really happening.
Just because a photo is made in public doesn’t mean it is a public photo, or at least it shouldn’t mean that. Again, to protect civilians.
That’s going to be the tricky part about a future where 200MP 60fps video cameras cost less than $100, and digital storage costs less than $100 per TB.
I feel that outlawing or otherwise restricting the use of cameras in general will go poorly. It has been hobby-level practical to drive around with license plate reading software, building your own database of who you pass where and when, and getting faces to go with that tracking data isn’t hard either - setup a “neighborhood watch” of a dozen or more commuters and you’ll have extensive tracking data on thousands of your neighbors, for maybe a couple thousand dollars in gear. Meta camera glasses may be socially offensive, but similar things are inevitable in the future - at least in the future where we continue to have smartphones and affordable internet connectivity.
Even if it’s outlawed, that data will be collected. What laws can do is restrict public facing uses of it. Young people today need to grow up knowing that, laws or no laws, they will be recorded their whole lives.
- Comment on ‘FuckLAPD.com’ Lets Anyone Use Facial Recognition to Instantly Identify Cops 5 days ago:
Curious: how often in your field are people harassed out of work by politically motivated complaints?
Around here, restaurant owners are very vulnerable to that kind of harassment - they can literally be put out of business just by people complaining to the health department, with no real basis to the complaints. Its one thing that keeps restaurant owners out of politics.