Womble

@Womble@piefed.world

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨OpenAI launches an AI-powered browser: ChatGPT Atlas⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago⁩:

  The killer feature for other AI-powered browsers has been the built-in chatbot that sits in a side panel and automatically has context for whatever’s on your screen. It may sound minor, but many users spend all day copying and pasting text or dragging files and links into ChatGPT, just to provide context. The sidecar feature removes that friction and makes for a smoother user experience.

  Really sounds like exactly what you'd want be focusing on if you were the leading AI company and are on the verge of AGI just like you promised...

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Microsoft wants you to talk to your PC and let AI control it⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Assuming you are just a regular person using Windows, you are not their customer, at best you're a handy side revenue stream and data source. Their actual customers are giant enterprises who are actively trying to fire people and smaller business locked into their ecosystem by needed to interact with other businesses (who are also locked into their ecosystem).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Japanese Government Calls on Sora 2 Maker OpenAI to Refrain From Copyright Infringement, Says Characters From Manga and Anime Are 'Irreplaceable Treasures' That Japan Boasts to the World⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I'm not even sure that IP being owned by non-natural persons is the problem, for example I could see a coop collectively owning copyrights/patents relevant to their work. The problem is the frankly ridiculous amount of time granted for copyrights and obvious methods being patented.

  Change both of those and you keep the benefit of innovative individuals/small groups having legal protection from large corporations muscling in and stealing their work and get rid of most of the damage done by the current system.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Great Software Quality Collapse: How We Normalized Catastrophe⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You do accept that bad software has been written, yes? and that some of that software is performing important functions? So how is saying "It needs to be written better in the first place" of any use at all when discussing legacy software?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Elon Musk’s Starlink satellites are falling to Earth at an alarming rate⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  No, but given there are aproximately 6000 impacts a year from rocks of various sizes making it all the way to the ground a handful of extra impacts isnt going to make any significant difference. Maybe your chance of being hit by space debris in your lifetime rises from one in a billion to 1.1 in a billion.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Here's what would happen if the UK abolished landlords overnight⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You're missing the key word there which is "overnight". Sudden dramatic changes rarely work out well for anyone other than people speculating (or having inside knowledge) on where the cards will fall.

  Phasing out landlords over, say, 3 years would be a great idea, banning them tomorrow would not be.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The most important person in Britain you’ve never heard of⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the point there is that the government of the day cant just overrule him by saying so. If it comes down to it, in an supply emergency his word goes until the government either change the law or get one of these "Order in Council" directives signed off by the king.

  It doesnt mean that much as it seems very unlikely that the monarch would refuse the PM something like that, but crises are where the unthinkable happens.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Michelle Mone demands Keir Starmer ends 'vendetta' against her in letter to PM⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Look she's been made a peer of the realm, it is unacceptable to attempt to punish her for committing crimes. What's more its discriminatory as the state would never try to prosecute old money peers!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Epstein Scandal Finally Takes Down a Politician⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Well for a start felonies arent a thing in the UK, and havent been for 60 years, but also if it is genuinely due to error and HMRC dont think its been done deliberately as tax evasion then yes you can just self report and pay the tax owed plus late fees.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Unbearable Inefficiency of Fossil Fuels⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  You recharge your storage device (a metal tank) by pouring in more liquid over 30 seconds. That ease of use combined with how energy dense oil derivatives are is such a massive benefit for them.

  The problem with fossil fuels is that they are slowly choking our planet, except for that they are phenomenal energy sources on who's backs the modern world was built. That is why it is so hard for us to transition away from them.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Organs Cannot Simply Be Classified as Male or Female⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Its not binary but it is strongly clustered into two groups with a small number of outliers from those groups.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How huge London far-right march lifted the lid on a toxic transatlantic soup⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Corbyn in the UK is the main counterexample I can think of, but even then that was for less than five years in opposition to the entire political and media establishment conspiring to bring him down, including the right of his own party (and in fairness, he repeatedly shot himself in the foot and handed them easy wins).

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Britain trained Israeli soldiers fighting in Gaza⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Racsism is likely part of it, but the real value is in having a solid ally that can be used as a base to project power across the largest oil producing region in the world.

  How long Israel remains seen as a solid ally given their recent unhinged and mask off behaviour remains to be seen. To me it does feel like there is a sea change in opinion on them, both from everyday people and from politicos.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨5 Signs the AI Bubble is About to Burst⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The post I was replying to was saying

  people will stop using it for all the things they're currently using it for

  They will when AI companies can no longer afford to eat their own costs and start charging users a non-subsidized price.

  i.e. people will stop using AI when user have to pay the "real" price (what this is is left unspecified and an exercise to the reader to figure out). My point was that even if the AI price from those provided to infinity AI usage wouldnt drop to zero like they imply.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨5 Signs the AI Bubble is About to Burst⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  There are free open models you can go and download right now, that are better than SOTA 12-18 months ago, and that cost you less to run on a gaming PC than playing COD does. Even if openai, anthropic et al disappeared without a trace tomorrow AI wouldnt go away.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨5 Signs the AI Bubble is About to Burst⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Quantum entangled communications that are impossible to evesdrop on exist now, cloud computing is the money machine that allows Amazon to keep expanding, virtualisation is used by effectively every company using computers at scale. (blockchain, I'll admit, was pretty much all hype and vapourware other than laundering drug money and allowing speculation)

  Just because there is marketing hype around a term doesnt mean there isnt anything of value there.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Epstein Scandal Finally Takes Down a Politician⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Even calling it tax evasion is a stretch, she had a complicated situation involving a trust set up for the house she had with her ex to insure her severely disabled son would be taken care of, then she claimed her new flat was her primary residence leading to a lower rate of stamp duty. She got some advice that said it was ok but was then told she should seek specialist legal advice to check that which she didnt and now has to pay back 40k.

  Its not good, and she was right to step down, especially as housing minister, but its hardly a grievous sin.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨RFK Jr. Blames violent video games for Mass Shootings.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Generally yes, Suicide tends to be a spur of the moment decision to go through with it and having immediate access to a very easy very lethal method increases the rate significantly. There have been numerous studies that show that putting up barriers at bridges etc that are commonly jumped from dreastically reduces the suicide rate from them without raising it elsewhere e.g. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19440880/

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Pay-per-output? AI firms blindsided by beefed up robots.txt instructions.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Given the judege in that case flat out rejected the claim that there was any infringement for works they had legally aquired, yes.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK government trial of Microsoft's M365 Copilot finds no clear productivity boost⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I'm not defending it or attacking it, mearly saying that

  They probably did multiple queries per day at the beginning, found out it isn't worth it and stopped using it ...

  Isnt supported by the information given.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK government trial of Microsoft's M365 Copilot finds no clear productivity boost⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Probably, my point was that you cant say if its increasing, decreasing or staying constant just from the number of times it's been used. It could be that for most people its completely useless but for a small group its very usefull and they are using it more and more. Or as suggested it could be that everyone tried it a bit at first found it useless and stopped using it. Or that its kinda useful in very specific cases so it gets constantly used a tiny bit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What If There’s No AGI?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The "chart" that you posted, it showed barely any increase in the 1800s and massive increases in the last decades.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What If There’s No AGI?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Its not a chart, to be that it would have to show some sort of relation between things. What it is is a list of things that were invented but on an exponential curve to try and back up loony singularity naratives.

  Trying to claim there was vastly less innovation in the entire 19th century than there was in the past decade is just nonsense.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨UK government trial of Microsoft's M365 Copilot finds no clear productivity boost⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Thats complete speculation on your part though. It could equally be people hardly used it at first then started to use it more as they found ways it was helpful. Unless you see the data there's no reason to say one or the other.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Given that I havent expressed a preference and have never voted either Democrat or Republican in a single election (owing to not being American) I believe you may be inventing things about me.

  And what I said stands, you functionally dont express a preference and what you do is equivalent to staying in bed and not turning out to vote.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mastodon says it doesn't 'have the means' to comply with age verification laws⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  So functionally, you abstain from voting and dont express a preference about how you are goverened.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Kick faces possible $49 M fine after French streamer Jean Pormanove dies on air⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  The title kinda buries the lede there. I thought it was ridiculous to fine a platform just because a streamer happened to die on camera, but no, they were streaming months long abuse and torture of this guy at the hands of his co-streamers.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Mississippi Age Verification Law⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  You can tell when posts are from mastodon as they are full of twitterisms like hashtags and @User to reply to comments

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to reform income tax: end the high marginal rate scandal⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, if you want a social security net and dont live in the world's economic hegemon

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨How to reform income tax: end the high marginal rate scandal⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  FWIW the article does make sense, though the conclusion I'd draw wouldnt be the same as theirs but:

  Jane is earning £60k and claiming child benefit for three children. That’s worth £3,094.

  She’s now in the 42% tax band.6 Jane still pays basic rate tax for her income between £12,570 and £50,270, but now pays 42% tax for everything over that. So her total tax bill is (50270 – 12570) * 28% + (60000-50270) * 42% = £14,643 and Jane takes home £45,357.

  Jane is thinking of working a few more hours to earn another £1,000. She’s in the higher tax band – so in a sane world she’d expect another £420 of tax, and a marginal rate of 42%.

  But that is not the result. Once Jane’s income hits £60,200, the “High Income Child Benefit Charge” (introduced by George Osborne) starts to apply to claw back her child benefit – 1% for every £200 of earnings.

  The marginal rate – the tax Jane is paying on that new £1,000. This is 56.5% – and we will have the same result for all incomes between £60k and £80k.

  The solution I'd draw from that would be to raise the higher rate from 42 to 45-50% and scrap the means testing of child benefits. Makes the tax take more progressive and reduces administrative burden by not having to assess people's income for if they are eligible for child support or not.