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definitemaybe

@ definitemaybe @lemmy.ca

Posts
1
Comments
95
Joined
1 yr. ago

  • iRobot’s revenue has tanked and it’s almost out of cash | "Roomba customers are understandably concerned about the impact these current financial troubles might have on their home cleaning robots."

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  • But, clearly, a Google Home or Amazon Alexa needs cloud connectivity to function. And short of Stop Killing Games regulations forcing companies to release software to keep purchases functional after server shutdowns, there's going to be no alternative when they shut down the servers.

    But where do we draw the line?

    A smart fridge should obviously keep working without cloud connectivity, since cloud features aren't relevant to its core functionality.

    A spyware house-scanning vacuum robot, on the other hand, that stores video of your entire house on web servers "to map your home" may not have the processing power to model the home based on its surveillance video recordings. So, is it reasonable, then, that these break when servers go offline?

    Without any regulations, the answer is just "consumers can go fuck themselves", which clearly isn't a good answer.

  • Why Trump's 50 Year Mortgage Scheme Is an Even Worse Idea Than You Imagined

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  • You're joking, but the reverse of that is essentially how early retirement works. Funding a 30-year retirement costs almost the same as an infinite retirement, due to the effects of compound interest. So, if you can increase your income while keeping your spending low, you can afford to retire very early and live off investment income forever.

  • Surprise EU rollback of 'GDPR' digital-rights rules prompts alarm

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  • Yeah; the response should be that a "reject all" button must be displayed next to the accept all button with equal prominence, and define prominence to mean the same size, with similar contrast to the accept all button and clearly labelled.

  • Even establishment Democrats say Chuck Schumer must go

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  • Exactly. The American 2-party system is between right and alt-right.

  • Microsoft seemingly just revealed that OpenAI lost $11.5B last quarter

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  • Re: your last paragraph:

    I think the future is likely going to be more task-specific, targeted models. I don't have the research handy, but small, targeted LLMs can outperform massive LLMs at a tiny fraction of the compute costs to both train and run the model, and can be run on much more modest hardware to boot.

    Like, an LLM that is targeted only at:

    • teaching writing and reading skills
    • teaching English writing to English Language Learners
    • writing business emails and documents
    • writing/editing only resumes and cover letters
    • summarizing text
    • summarizing fiction texts
    • writing & analyzing poetry
    • analyzing poetry only (not even writing poetry)
    • a counselor
    • an ADHD counselor
    • a depression counselor

    The more specific the model, the smaller the LLM can be that can do the targeted task (s) "well".

  • Microsoft seemingly just revealed that OpenAI lost $11.5B last quarter

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  • There are, of course, open source licenses that don't allow for commercial use without a license.

    Also, there are lots of industries that need guarantees about the software, and even CC0 open source software doesn't come with those guarantees; those come from a commercial use and support contract.

  • Study Boldly Claims 4K And 8K TVs Aren't Much Better Than HD To Your Eyes, But Is It True?

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  • Can't believe I had to scroll down this far to find this:

    Here’s the gut-punch for the typical living room, however. If you’re sitting the average 2.5 meters away from a 44-inch set, a simple Quad HD (QHD) display already packs more detail than your eye can possibly distinguish. The scientists made it crystal clear: once your setup hits that threshold, any further increase in pixel count, like moving from 4K to an 8K model of the same size and distance, hits the law of diminishing returns because your eye simply can't detect the added detail.

    On a computer monitor, it's easily apparent because you're not sitting 2+ m away, and in a living room, 44" is tiny, by recent standards.

  • Cisgender Boy Forced to Play on Girls' Sports Team Because of Birth Certificate Error

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  • lol, high school.

  • ACLU Sues After Protester Detained and Handcuffed for Playing Darth Vader Theme at National Guard in Viral TikTok Clips

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  • Are national guard trained in protestor rights? They aren't police, aren't trained as police, and have no business policing unless it's a state of emergency.

    Unless I'm totally off base. I don't know anything about the American national guard. I'm not even American.

  • Cisgender Boy Forced to Play on Girls' Sports Team Because of Birth Certificate Error

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  • Maybe, for "rec league" or whatever, but school teams are usually meant to be competitive, and non-gendered sports would mean girls wouldn't have equitable access to athletics.

    But even for non-competitive teams, girls are unlikely to be able to access shared sports to the same level as boys. At a party high school I worked at, there was a major challenge with girls being willing to access open gym time, feeling uncomfortable advocating for access to basketball nets for practice—even girls who were on the competitive team felt they couldn't use open gym time.

    TL;DR: Sexism runs deep. We need policies that recognize that and build equity, not just offer "equality" that perpetuates, or even magnifies, the problem.

  • What's an uplifting fact that might counter the doom of our current reality?

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  • I've been on the flip side of this. You're so panicked about getting your wallet back, and wondering if it was carelessness or thieves, that you don't even think of giving a reward if you get it back.

    I think the worry about thieves also primes us to not want to give money, too, but that's just speculation.

    I've also been the one delivering a lost wallet full of cash and got no reward, lol.

  • What's an uplifting fact that might counter the doom of our current reality?

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  • Not parent poster, and you're totally correct... But paper-format books don't work at all for me, or many others with accessibility needs. I read almost exclusively with TTS while driving/doing chores/walking or to fall asleep. It's... very hard to TTS a paper book.

    So, an old (<= 5th gen) Kindle works great. They're incompatible with the newest Kindle DRM, so they still allow old methods to transfer books. For KU books, it also has built-in TTS, so you can leave the book "reading" for you after you've transferred the file to your "real" device. That way authors get paid for your page reads, but you can still read/store/transfer/preserve the book.

    But Amazon still tracks your reading data, and you're still supporting Amazon's/Kindle's self publishing monopoly... But it's literally the only place where books from my genre of choice are available, so not really any good options until their unethical monopoly is regulated away from them.

  • MAGA Columnist Makes Jaw-Dropping Demand for ‘Blood in Streets’

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  • lol. Now that's a unique take.

  • Trump Says ‘Smart People Don’t Like Me’

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  • Literal newspeak, straight from 1984.