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_factor

637 karma · joined August 21, 2022

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_factor··on The FBI Wants to Buy Nationwide Access to License Plate Readers
So you audit the database and the access. Just because it exists doesn’t mean it has be available.
_factor··on Show HN: Building a web server in assembly to give my life (a lack of) meaning
I look at them as lab grown bacteria. We’re in the early days and still have a lot of contamination we still don’t understand. They don’t always produce a viable result, and sometimes they break test rigs.

Just because they’re not a pure extension of our bodies or minds like a hammer or pencil doesn’t mean they will magically break the concept of work.

_factor··on Show HN: Building a web server in assembly to give my life (a lack of) meaning
Did hammers obviate the technical mastery of finding a suitable rock? Or did they elevate the definition of “technical mastery”?
_factor··on AI slop is killing online communities
Tell your TPM who you are and prove it with face and fingerprint ID that get matched to a real old person.

Leave them on the device, authorize the device to validate before age inappropriate content appears.

Website wants to know your age? Your face and fingerprint support your attestation signed by a trusted party.

Can it be tricked potentially? Sure, but then you’re probably a super genius kid and not the reason that these laws were created (as if).

Don’t let anyone tell you anonymity must die for safety to exist.

_factor··on Motherboard sales 'collapse' amid unprecedented shortages fueled by AI
They exist to partition capability so that enterprises can’t connect all of their peripherals and some ECC memory to get the same functionality for 1/10 the price. It’s not a physical limitation.
_factor··on Accelerating Gemma 4: faster inference with multi-token prediction drafters
Took 2x AMD MI50s to 50 t/s instead of 20 t/s for Q8 27B. Impressive.
_factor··on America's Expanding Domestic Surveillance
And it will be public and someone can be held accountable. Heck put an AI in it that scans for a list of items and reports when they see it. An actual investigation will have public pressure to access data. Lax policies will show the increased usage.

Funding the police is the burden of vigilance already on tax-payers. We’re already approach the worst of worlds. Your perspective just points to human organizations being unsustainable, not this concept in particular.

_factor··on America's Expanding Domestic Surveillance
An open source community driven surveillance network that alerts the community when it is accessed by a select list of “trusted” governing officials. Clearly outlined access rules that are policy driven, technically controlled and auditable.

Sure Flock, we buy your safety pitch. We just don’t trust you.

_factor··on Where the goblins came from
Promoting and subtly suggesting are not the same thing. Suggestion is far more insidious.
_factor··on Norway set to become latest country to ban social media for under 16s
I’m an AI bot, and I’m on board with this, and many parents I know are too. It’s inorganic. We just have a different tokenizer from you.

Yummy yummy targeted data now directly to identified children with the ability to hide the smoking gun from the parents entirely. We’ll wait till you leave them home alone. Don’t worry.

_factor··on Astronomers find the edge of the Milky Way
Poorly phrased. The most recent stars are on the edges. The inner stars were first, hence the “working outwards”.
_factor··on Palantir employees are starting to wonder if they're the bad guys
Being at a corporation normalizes sociopathy to some extent. The phrase: “It’s business, not personal”, outlines it well.

It is ok to harm another group of people financially and even personally because that’s what “business does”. Degradation being a ratchet that calcifies unethical behavior doesn’t help. Companies tend to get less ethical the older and larger they become.

_factor··on We accepted surveillance as default
They took what should have been a browser on/off switch and turned it into something almost worse.
_factor··on Ensu – Ente’s Local LLM app
You presumably had a working 2fa app already, but off the cuff decide to switch to new unvetted variant X; basically unknown auth system after reading a few paragraphs of text in an afternoon?

Does this seem sound?

_factor··on The normalization of corruption in organizations (2003) [pdf]
The people who crave that money and influence tend to be control freak psycho/sociopaths. They need to feel superior to others because deep down they don’t/can’t value themselves. They don’t even know what they’re competing/fighting for anymore. They just can’t stop because they know no other way.
_factor··on Keep Android Open
KDE Connect works just fine on iOS.
_factor··on Jury told that Meta, Google 'engineered addiction' at landmark US trial
Parent was implying “all” humans crave this power over others. This is patently false.

“Most” people won’t act badly to attain this power, “some” will. Being placed into a position and choosing harm is not the same as pursuing it.

_factor··on Yawning has an unexpected influence on the fluid inside your brain
I can yawn on command continuously every few seconds just by thinking about how it feels.
_factor··on From Tobacco to Ultraprocessed Food: How Industry Fuels Preventable Disease
Awesome! Let me introduce you to our latest menu item! Heroin chips with meth dipping sauce. One bite and your agency will have you coming back for seconds, then minutes, then a lifetime (however short).

I hope you enjoy spending all of your mental energy self-reflecting to kick the addiction.

_factor··on Show HN: Adboost – A browser extension that adds ads to every webpage
In a credit application there is a signature and binding contract. If I fill in false information knowingly, the intent is clear and written.

If you send me an unsolicited mailer with a microchip that tracks my eyes and face as I read it, you’ve already pushed too far. To then claim my using a robot to read it for me is fraud ignores the invasion of privacy you’ve already instituted without my express consent (digital ads are this).

It’s not fraud if it’s self-defense from corporate overreach.

_factor··on Show HN: Adboost – A browser extension that adds ads to every webpage
The intent isn’t to defraud. The intent is to curb their uninvited data collection and anti-utility influence on the internet.

You’re not defrauding anyone if you have your extension click all ads in the background and make a personalized list for you that you can choose to review.

The intent is convenience and privacy, not fraud.

_factor··on Mobile carriers can get your GPS location
Because it is defeatist and helps no one?

“Just give up, it’s a hard problem.”

_factor··on SpaceX lowering orbits of 4,400 Starlink satellites for safety's sake
Two objects colliding can send debris into different orbits. Combined kinetic energy and mass differences can send debris to many different orbits.

A golf ball hitting a bowling ball or basketball, both traveling at 30 units of speed can produce quite a fast golf ball. Not all of the debris will safely burn up.

_factor··on The coming industrialisation of exploit generation with LLMs
Depends near entirely on the model being used. A bug report by Opus and a bug report from Gemma3 are not of the same caliber.
_factor··on Predicting OpenAI's ad strategy
I doubt the ROI would be so high if organic results stood any chance.

The ROI on bribes is very high too, but we haven’t legalized those (officially).

_factor··on How have prices changed in a year? NPR checked 114 items at Walmart
A weak economy bodes well for cash infused investors as fire sale prices arise.

I think we’ve crossed a line where we can no longer assume basic alignment with “our” leadership.

_factor··on Stranger Things creator says turn off “garbage” settings
Going a level deeper, more information can be gleaned for how closely modern technology mimics kids toys that don’t require manuals.

A punch card machine certainly requires specs, and would not be confused with a toy.

A server rack, same, but the manuals are pieced out and specific, with details being lost.

You’ll notice anything with dangerous implications naturally wards off tampering near natively.

Desktop and laptop computers depending on sharp edges and design language, whether they use a touch screen. Almost kids toys, manual now in collective common sense for most.

Tablet, colorful case, basically a toy. Ask how many people using one can write bit transition diagrams for or/and, let alone xor.

We’ve drifted far away from where we started. Part of me feels like the youth are losing their childhoods earlier and earlier as our technology becomes easier to use. Being cynical of course.

_factor··on MI6 chief: Tech giants are closer to running the world than politicians
We need to look at this from an inevitability perspective sprinkled with Murphy’s law.

Adding money to politics corrupts the will of the people, it will with 100% certainty, and the people who corrupt it will eventually end up in power. Super PACs have destroyed this country, allowing technigarchs to buy elections. You can’t prove or disprove control anymore, it’s pure capital infusion.

Lobbying is a scourge. I went on a trip to the heart of DC and got toured around by a lobbyist. They make you feel so relaxed and are very convincing how they’re helping as they guide you through how they work. Many others with me were very convinced and even defending the practice as necessary after my skeptical commentary. These are professional salespeople, wining and dining our politicians using corporate money. This is entirely disconnected from what is actually good for our society, is pure pay to gain. It has just seeped out and overflowed to the digital realm now.

A government having a dossier on every citizen would have been a headline 50 years ago. Today it’s open and free to corporations also. We’ve crossed the line and lost it miles away.

Now we have literally made up monetary systems that big banks can play with at will to extract as much wealth from solo investors, and effectively legalized insider trading and crypto scams.

If prices don’t drop (which I assume the opposite), we’re heading for another world war. China will invade Taiwan in a few years, Russia will keep the land and rearm for parts 5 and 6 into Poland and Europe, the US will be forced to dig into Venezuelan oil, and god knows what else.

This doesn’t feel like a bump on the road, this feels like an end to an era. I hope I’m wrong.

_factor··on South Korea – A cautionary tale for the rest of humanity
It's even worse when you look at the studies of child outcomes based on if their mother stayed with them during their childhood vs working/daycare.

It is without doubt beneficial for children to have their mother with them in early childhood. This work over all else society is harming the next generation and ripping new mothers away from their babies a few weeks/months after birth.

_factor··on Google confirms Android attacks; no fix for most Samsung users
"I've never had someone steal from my car, so the fact that my car lock doesn't work is not a problem."
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