5,410 karma · joined March 11, 2010
Quite the opposite, in fact. But there’s a difference between the information being present somewhere, and a reasonable way to get that information in front of people in an actionable form.
We’re drowning in “information,” at present. But the mass media narratives that are most readily available distort things quite a bit for a lot of reasons. (Ratings, owner bias/interference, format.)
I'm not really sure what the point of encouraging new development is if the end result is "big company scoops it up and makes it shitty, but people get to enjoy it for a few brief moments before that happens."
To paraphrase a popular quote from IBM: “Executives and MBAs can never be held accountable: therefore executives and MBAs must not be allowed to make decisions.”
Slightly less flippant: The only way to stop this is to stop letting companies like MSFT gobble up smaller companies. That doesn’t seem likely in the near future, though. Once the Borg assimilate something, it’s just a matter of time before it’s digested and drained of value.
Drugs for anxiety treatment do wear off, but not the same way that weed or alcohol does: something like Celexa takes a few weeks to build up in the system, and don’t lose effect 12-24 hours later if you miss a dose. I’m not sure how long you’d have to stop before it loses efficacy entirely.
I’m not Nancy Reagan, though: I would not advise people to self-medicate with booze or pot if they’re suffering from depression or anxiety, but I’m not going to preach at anybody who is doing so and thinks it’s working for them. I will say that I’ve seen that end badly, though. I can think of three people I’m close to who’ve tried it and have had problems with addiction: all of them are now sober and (I believe) on regular antidepressants.
That sounds like a poor strategy. Expend all of your resources in one grand gesture rather than trying to push your enemy's internal factions to curtail or end the fighting?
Unlike the current US administration, Iran is playing a long game - one in which it has been isolated in many ways. Indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets is not going to win it many friends; putting pressure on the tech companies that have been buddying up to the administration and may have some sway, on the other hand, is a cheap strategy that could pay off. Iran understands that the only language that seems to matter with Trump's backers is profit; threaten that and you may have some success.
The fact that Iran has already done some damage to AWS data centers makes it seem likely they could do so again if they tried. I don't know for certain, I'm not a military intelligence expert, but the strategy of "throw the kitchen sink at it" seems like a sure loser.
I'm curious what you're basing this on, since Iran has been supplying Russia with drones, etc. for much of the war in Ukraine and so far has launched attacks into Jordan, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Oman, and Cyprus since the US began its attacks.
Iran may not be able to strike at sites in the US, but it could certainly target data centers in the Middle East with some hope of success. I'm not at all confident the current administration has accurately assessed Iran's capabilities or has the ability to protect the assets of US-based companies (or US citizens) in that region.
That said: “benefits US companies” != good public policy for the US as a whole. It’s explicitly trying to interfere in how other countries govern themselves for the benefit of shareholders, not because it’s necessarily good policy.
It’s also something we wouldn’t necessarily appreciate if done to us by our allies. If we have any actual allies left given all of Trump’s tariffs and threats against other countries.
This tool might unearth something interesting, but I find it sus that it’s recommended the same artist (Adrianne Lenker) when I asked about Aimee Mann and Steven Jessie Bernstein.
Destroying the bot would be analogous to burning a library or desecrating a work of art. Barring a bot from participating in development of a project is not wronging it, not in any way immoral. It’s not automatically wrong to bar a person from participating, either - no one has an inherent right to contribute to a project.
The absolutist position that “all ads are always bad” is a non-starter for me. Especially as long as we exist in a capitalist system. Small business, indie creators, etc. must advertise in some fashion to survive. It’s only the behemoths that could afford to stop doing it (ironically). I’ve never really understood why, e.g. Pepsi and Coke spend so much on advertising: most people already have a preference and I am skeptical that the millions they spend actually moves the needle either way. (“Is Pepsi okay?” “It absolutely is not.”)
If an order is legal, yes. Not if an order is illegal. If a superior officer orders a private to shoot unarmed civilians or commit some other war crime, the private is supposed to refuse the order. They are not protected by a "just following orders" defense.
"And doesn't their pay and their family's healthcare depend on them remaining employed?"
Sure. But that does not excuse committing war crimes or otherwise knowingly following illegal orders.
Most of the time, the presumption is that illegal orders will be issued infrequently and by rogue elements in the armed forces -- so disobeying may have unpleasant immediate consequences (say, get thrown in the brig) but long-term they should prevail.
Right now? Well... that's the problem. But if significant numbers of the armed forces refused illegal orders, there's little that the administration can do. Which is why they've been cleaning house to kick out anybody at the top who might push back.
SteamOS is based on Arch, but customized and aimed at specific hardware configurations. It’d be interesting to know what hardware you’re using and if any of your components are not well supported.
FWIW, I’ve used Steam on Linux (mostly PopOS until this year, then Bazzite) for years and years without many problems. ISTR having to do something to make Quake III work a few years ago, but it ran fine after and I’ve recently reinstalled it and didn’t have to fuss with anything.
Granted, I don’t run a huge variety of games, but I’ve finished several or played for many hours without crashes, etc.
Really sad end to a great career and as far as I could tell, a decent human being.
Not if they want sources again in the future. Assuming they have credible sources, it will prove them correct in due course. The vast majority of people aren’t grading news outlets on a minute-by-minute basis like this: if they read in People first it was his son, and two weeks from now it’s his son, they’re going to credit People with being correct and where they learned it first.
And if People burned the sources who told them this, industry people would remember that, too.
Please, share more details.
It’s convenient only as long you stick to their closed ecosystem. Requiring a device to identify as an Apple device to expose all features is an anti-feature. The devices should expose all features regardless, and leave it to the device/platform vendor to implement the config software.
s/a/an awful/
Some days I feel like everything peaked around mid-2000.
My dislike of GenAI stuff is based on practical, ethical, and economic concerns.
Practical: GenAI output is bland and untrustworthy. It also discourages thought and learning, IMO. Lest folks line up to tell me how wonderful it is for their learning, that may be true, but my observation is that is not how the majority uses it. Once upon a time I thought the Internet/Web would be a revolution in learning for people. Fool me once...
Ethical: So many problems here, from the training data sets, to people unleashing scraper bots that have been effectively DDoS'ing sites for going on a year (at least) now. If these are the kind of people who make up the industry building these tools, I want nothing to do with the tools.
Economic: Related to ethics, but somewhat separate. GenAI and other LLM/AI tools could benefit people. I acknowledge, for example, there's real promise in using various related tech to do better medical diagnostics. That would be wonderful. But, the primary motivation of the companies pushing AI right now is to 1) get people hooked on the tools and jack up prices, 2) sell tech that can be used to lower wages or reduce employment, and 3) create another hype technology so they can stuff their pockets, and the coming crash be damned.
Again, what is driving AI/LLM is not well intentioned. Ignore that at your own peril. Probably everybody else's peril, too.
Adams no doubt knew people who were aghast at PCs or mobile phones because they were not around when they were younger. I get it. But, well, I wonder how Adams would feel about GenAI tools that spit out "write blah in the style of Douglas Adams" after being trained on all of his work.
I don't think GenAI or LLMs are going away entirely - but I'm not convinced that they are inevitable and must be adopted, either. Then again, I'm mostly a hold-out when it comes to things like self checkout, too. I'd rather wait a bit longer in line to help ensure a human has a job than rush through self-checkout if it means some poor soul is going to be out of work.