MagicShel

@MagicShel@programming.dev

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Musk’s plan to axe X's block button is a real win for stalkers and abusers.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I never buy gas at BP or Exxon. Ever. Smart phone though? That’s required for my job.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Who would do such a thing??

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Musk’s plan to axe X's block button is a real win for stalkers and abusers.⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t think I would agree that just because something is public that it’s a public forum. I feel like the public has to own it as well. I looked it up and maybe it’s because I predate social media by rather a lot, but I think of it in the classical sense:

  Public forums are typically categorized into three types:

  1. Traditional Public Forums: Long-established spaces like parks or sidewalks, where people have historically exercised their rights to free speech and assembly.
  2. Designated Public Forums: Areas that the government intentionally opens up for public expression, such as town halls or school meeting rooms.
  3. Limited Public Forums: Spaces opened for specific types of discussions or activities but with certain restrictions on the subject matter or participants.

  The important factor being public orders of the forum. I will concede that it has colloquially come to include public social media, but I think it’s important to distinguish that it’s not really the same thing at all as has been discussed through most of our history.

  Food for thought. I just think calling them public forums attaches too much importance to a profit seeking endeavor.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We lost Keanu⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  We need a switcheroo community so there is something to dive into.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨We lost Keanu⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Ah! The old Lemmaroo!

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are people seemingly against AI chatbots aiding in writing code?⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I think the process of explaining what your want to an AI can often be helpful. Especially given the number of times I’ve explained things to junior developer’s and they’ve said they understood completely, but then when I see what they wrote they clearly didn’t.

  Explaining to an AI is a pretty good test of how well the stories are written.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨10 years⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  In the 70’s we lived in fear of the next ice age. Then the 80’s it was nuclear winter. Then we invented global warming to fix those problems.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Electric Boat Costs 40–50€ to Cross Baltic Sea, vs 750€ Refueling Gas Boat⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Something something sharks?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨The Irony of 'You Wouldn't Download a Car' Making a Comeback in AI Debates⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You made a lot of points here. Many I agree with, some I don’t, but I specifically want to address this because it seems to be such a common misconception.

  It does and it doesn’t discard the original. It isn’t impossible to recreate the original (since all the data it gobbled up gets stored somewhere in some shape or form and can be truthfully recreated, at least judging by a few comments bellow and news reports). So AI can and does recreate (duplicate or distribute, perhaps) copyrighted works.

  AI stores original works like a dictionary does. All the words are there, but the order and meaning is completely gone. An original work of possible to recreate by randomly selecting words from the dictionary, but it’s unlikely.

  The thing that makes AI useful is that it understands the patterns words are typically used in. It orders words in the right way far more often than random chance. It knows “It was the best of” has a lot of likely options for the next word, but if it selects “times” as the next word, it’s far more likely to continue with, “it was the worst of times.” Because that sequence of words is so ubiquitous due to references to the classic story. But over the course of following these word patterns, it will quickly glom onto a different pattern and create a wholly new work from the original “prompt.”

  There are only two cases in which an original work should be duplicated: either the training data is far too small and the model is overtrained on that particular work, or the work is the most derivative text imaginable lacking any flair or originality.

  Adding more training data makes it less likely to recreate any original works.

  I am aware of examples where it was claimed an LLM reproduced entirely code functions including original comments. That is either a case of overtraining, or far too many people were already copying that code verbatim into their own, thus making that work very over represented in the training data (same thing, but it was infringing developers who poisoned the data, not researchers using bad training data).

  Bottom line: when created with enough data, no original works are stored in any way that allows faithful reproduction other than by chance so random that it’s similar to rolling dice over a dictionary.

  None of this means AI can do no wrong, I just don’t find the copyright claim compelling.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USA | “Genocide Will Continue”: Fury Grows as Harris Vows to Keep Biden’s Gaza Policy⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I agree with a decent chunk of that, not all, and even what I disagree with, it’s more like lukewarm agreement because I think it would cause as many problems as it fixes. I was just trying to respond to your frustration. Not aggravate you further.

  Kamala isn’t everything anyone would want, but the things you want to see are more likely during or asa following to a Harris administration. I know none of this mollifies you. There are urgent matters that are hurting us to do slowly and in half measures. But Harris moves us closer than Trump and for most of us that’s all we can do.

  Of course I have a Midwest, swing state perspective. And’s I have the perspective of watching things change over 50 years. I know many of the policies you and I want would lose Kamala the race. I don’t want her to lose either because the far left stays home or because she’s forced to adopt policies that lose the states that the election hinges on.

  If you ask me, gerrymandering is the root cause of much of the polarization and extremism in this country and I think it is urgent to end it or at least let democrats draw the lines. And we need to look at the judiciary. That all takes a lot of time, unfortunately.

  I could go on and on with how much I agree with you and why. But we have two choices, and one moves this country in a better direction whether a little or a lot, and the other makes us all a hell of a lot worse off. I can’t endorse any statement that says they are basically the same.

  But, friend, keep fighting. You are right about a great many things. I just implore you to do it strategically and not let “great” be the enemy of “better.”

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USA | “Genocide Will Continue”: Fury Grows as Harris Vows to Keep Biden’s Gaza Policy⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I haven’t downvoted you myself. My habit is if I’m responding to someone I don’t downvote because that must mean I think it’s a worthwhile conversation. I know not everyone does that. I didn’t reply right away because I have a family and shit to do in the morning.

  That said, this is a bit of moving the goalposts, right? You said nothing that would benefit lower and middle class. I can’t say what you would easily support. I don’t really have a response to this for that reason.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨USA | “Genocide Will Continue”: Fury Grows as Harris Vows to Keep Biden’s Gaza Policy⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  AT LEAST SHES NOT TRRRRRUMP!!!

  Good enough for now. When we’ve accomplished your list (which I agree with), maybe we can all vote in a more nuanced way than which of the two will be better.

  anti-anything that would materially improve the conditions of the low and middle classes in the US

  This bit is just hyperbole, though. I get your frustration, but it’s objectively untrue and even if it was, doing nothing would still be better than actively sabotaging us.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[Ahoy] Nobody Knows How Many Amigas Commodore Sold⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I can definitely account for 1.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Artificial Intelligence and Humans⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Also, this copy reads like it was written by AI. If this is indicative of the stuff on the website, I very much would not like to read more. If it was written by a human, they should definitely lay off the LSD before writing.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨LLMs develop their own understanding of reality as their language abilities improve⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I mostly get what you’re saying, though I don’t have the requisite understanding to follow formal proofs, but if there is one thing I do know for certain, it’s that “understanding” is anthropomorphizing and shorthand for something that is very much not understanding in a human context at all.

  I get that it can be hard to find the right words to explain a some of these emergent phenomena, but I think it’s misleading to use words that make AI appear to have a thought process akin to anything we could understand as such—at least in settings where folks might not understand the shorthand as such.

  And maybe everyone here is aware of that, but it makes me uneasy, hence this comment to hopefully make that point.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A symbol for the fediverse ⁂⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I recommend the asterism to instead be adopted as the symbol for astigmatism.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Threads spotted exploring ads, but says 'no immediate timeline' toward monetization⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Well that sounds enshitty.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨No one’s ready for this: Our basic assumptions about photos capturing reality are about to go up in smoke.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  We need to bring back people who can identify shops from some of the pixels and having seen quite a few shops in their time.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Why are so many leaders in tech evil?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  You’re not going to out-compete the sociopaths if you’re a saint. That’s a reality.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Dolphins is whales.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Ruins the whole thing, really.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google is no longer asking — feed the AI or you’re not in search results⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thankfully there are other options because you just nailed the two places I refuse to ever get gas from when there is any other option. If there was a good third option I’d take it here, but while Google commands so much market share and a new competitor would probably siphon users from Bing (and it’s not enough users) I don’t think a real alternative will come. I’m intrigued by kagi, though.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google is no longer asking — feed the AI or you’re not in search results⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  If that was what you took from my post, give it another read. I’m not pro MS. I’m pro not feeding Google. And Bing is fine.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google is no longer asking — feed the AI or you’re not in search results⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Supposedly there’s a paid one that is good. I haven’t tried. The thing is Google is completely enshittified. They don’t have to care about you or the sites you search. So my theory is Bing is better because they are hungrier and anything that takes away market share from Google is good—but I’m fully aware that Microsoft was just as shitty as Google and will be again if they get back on top.

  Everything else I know of is either just an alternate front end for one of them or an aggregator of both. So you’re right, there’s precious little alternative to Google. But it’s almost bad enough I’m ready for the return of web rings of good sites vouching for each other.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Google is no longer asking — feed the AI or you’re not in search results⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Google results are actually already pretty terrible. They just have tremendous inertia.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Your TV set has become a digital billboard. And it’s only getting worse.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  That makes perfect sense and explains why you can’t fix it just by bypassing blocking temporarily and reinstalling the app.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Your TV set has become a digital billboard. And it’s only getting worse.⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  This is the way to go. I tried pihole using Samsung smart features, but if you block so the telemetry eventually your apps stop working and you can’t get them working again without doing a factory reset with blocking down. It’s prohibitively a pain in the ass, taking hours every time YouTube stops working.

  Never had any issues with Roku on pihole.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy votes ARE public, should they be anonymous?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m really skeptical about that. Either that they would do it or that such “justified” downvoting would be a clear cut or fair decision. Most people don’t vote the right way. How many people downvote content they agree with or find funny but doesn’t add to the discussion? How many people upvote content they disagree with that does add to the discussion?

  And am I really going to take up a mod’s time because someone got mad at me and downvoted—the most accessible and innocuous was to express displeasure with someone? How many more complaints about downvote bullying are mods going to have to field?

  I don’t know. You could be right, but I’d want to see it successful in a small scale, if possible, before deploying it everywhere. Maybe the folks suggesting it skills be up to the server admin are right. That would be another differentiator and people could go to communities on servers that have their preferred visibility policy. That would serve as an A/B test and let people vote with their feet.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What games popularized certain mechanics?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  Thank you. Sorry. Never played that game and didn’t know that was specific to FPS. I know some arcade shooter games had that mechanic, but not in the context of free-roaming FPS. I think you’re right about Tomb Raider.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨What games popularized certain mechanics?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I think you need to be more specific than just “third person”. Third person view was in Pong, Pac-Man, Asteroids, Centipede, etc. It’s the default for most games.

  First person was probably introduced with Battle Zone.

  Which, I don’t mean to sound pedantic, I just literally don’t really know what you mean here.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Lemmy votes ARE public, should they be anonymous?⁩ ⁨⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩:

  I’ve been thinking about this for several hours since I first became aware of the debate.

  I don’t care that much in theory if anyone sees my votes. They aren’t anything I’m particularly private about. I care about conversation way more than up/down votes.

  However, some people get a little upset about being downvoted. I think it will result in retaliatory downvotes. You already see that when two folks are arguing. I don’t normally waste my time downvoting a post I’m writing a rebuttal to, but when they are downvoting me I tend to do it back. I think if everyone had easy access, they would hunt down their down voters posts and retaliate regardless of the quality of the comments.

  Lastly, I wonder if this will give rise to a client that lets you use one account to post/comment and a different one to vote. And if it does, will that be better all around? Then no one will be able to associate votes with a user. But it seems unnecessarily wasteful to create a whole account that does nothing but vote. It seems like it would deny mods (and everyone) a useful tool for identifying bad actors.

  Technically, anyone could get access to the voters identity if they try hard enough but 99% of the users won’t put in that much effort. And technically someone could already use different accounts for different activities, but without reason to create a client to support that it’s too much of a pain to be worth the effort.

  So I really think I’m on team status quo here.