floofloof

@ floofloof @lemmy.ca

Posts

468
Comments

2189
Joined

3 yr. ago

floofloof @lemmy.ca 2w ago

Has Donald Trump ever kept a promise?

2w ago

LG to Ban Residential Proxies from Smart TV Apps – Krebs on Security

LG TVs sound like a nightmare. They spy on what you're watching, listen to what you're saying and doing, open a doorway into your home network for malware, and put you on the hook for whatever some pedo decides to download through your IP address via one of these proxy-infested apps. Plus their monitors have been silently installing highly privileged adware that is also probably spyware on people's PCs, and popping up big unwanted ads for McAfee etc. that users can't turn off.

2w ago

Apple Plans to Defeat RAM Prices by Letting You Lease a Mac

…Minus the payments already provided, right?

It's very vague. If you could use this as a rent-to-own it's perhaps not so bad, but if it's just rent-to-still-not-be-able-to-own it sucks.

2w ago

Apple Plans to Defeat RAM Prices by Letting You Lease a Mac

floofloof @lemmy.ca 2w ago

I hope you're being sarcastic.

2w ago

Former Microsoft AI Leaders Are Spending $1M To Replace CEOs With AI

I had the same experience. I was doing a little home project to improve my Rust programming skills and my understanding of a couple of algorithms. I asked the AI to wire up the command line arguments so I could move on to the more interesting bits. It got carried away, rewrote my code, fixed the bugs and finished the whole project. I just sat there feeling disappointed. It was like someone telling you how a movie turns out just as you're settling in with your popcorn.

2w ago

Former Microsoft AI Leaders Are Spending $1M To Replace CEOs With AI

Well, employee morale is going to be great at whichever company they hand to an AI to run. But who cares about employees?

Their shared bet is that companies will automate individual jobs piece by piece until humans oversee the work rather than perform it.

For CEOs maybe this sounds great, but for anyone with a skilled job who knows the satisfaction of practising and improving your skills every day, it sounds hellish. All humans will become middle managers for the foreseeable future, possibly the least rewarding job there is.

It reminds me of when that CEO of an AI music company claimed musicians don't enjoy making music. It gives you a little glimpse of how joyless these techbros' lives really are, and they want to bring that to the rest of us.

2w ago

[Opinion] China's 2026 pivot to open-source AI is a calculated geopolitical strategy to bypass US semiconductor controls, embed censorship, and dominate the global AI ecosystem

floofloof @lemmy.ca 2w ago

The USA could compete by doing the same thing. If it chooses not to, China gets ahead in this race.

2w ago

Topcoat: The full full-stack framework for Rust

floofloof @lemmy.ca 2w ago

That's a fair point. Where I am is about 28% fossil fuels I believe, so it's a slightly different calculation.

2w ago

AI-altered images on birdwatching forums putting research at risk

Outright hoaxes remain rare and are often easy to spot, said Lees – nobody is falling for a toucan sighting in Siberia – but he says birders often use AI to edit and improve an image, and the algorithm can then introduce parts from different bird species to create the new image.

My phone offers an "AI enhance" option after you take a photo. Mostly it tweaks the framing and colours, but it can also do some surprising things and produce a quite different image from the original. I played with it a bit when I first got the phone, and I saw it change people's eye colour, turn their head to face a different way, and add extra strings to musical instruments. So I don't use it, but it sounds like the problem is mostly people using AI image enhancers like that carelessly.

2w ago

ICE makes arrests at NYC immigration court despite court ban

The first couple of paragraphs of the article explain why these are not legal arrests. ICE are legally forbidden from doing this, so their actions should legally be treated the same as if anyone else just grabbed people and imprisoned them.

2w ago

Topcoat: The full full-stack framework for Rust

floofloof @lemmy.ca 2w ago

No, and I do understand that training is the most energy-intensive part of the process. I don't know how exactly it divides up: how much of the work of massive data centres is training and how much is running people's queries on finished models.

3w ago

ICE makes arrests at NYC immigration court despite court ban

floofloof @lemmy.ca 3w ago

Why call them arrests? These are kidnappings.

3w ago

Democratic Socialists of America’s new platform calls for abolishing ICE and the U.S. Senate

floofloof @lemmy.ca 3w ago

This is a right-wing propaganda outlet trying to do a hit piece by mentioning these policies. It's pleasing to see it backfire on Lemmy as people just say "sounds great!"

3w ago

Social media influencers Andrew and Tristan Tate arrested in Miami, US Marshals Service tells AP

floofloof @lemmy.ca 3w ago

White misogynistic rapists and sex traffickers? ICE is more likely to offer them a job.

3w ago

Topcoat: The full full-stack framework for Rust

I'm using it locally, with models my existing computer can handle. I think, but I'm not sure, that it's better for the environment than buying into some massive model hosted in a data centre. And I don't want to lose my skills so I still try to do as much as I can without calling on it.

3w ago

Proton Age Verification online map

They missed Canada? Canada has a bill C-34 in the works which bans social media for under-16s and just happens to require everyone to submit their ID to non-Canadian corporations.

3w ago

Topcoat: The full full-stack framework for Rust

These days we have to expect many projects will have them. It's really a question of how responsibly and carefully AI is used. Some people just throw in their requirements, have the AI spit out code, do a cursory check to see if it seems to work, and that's it. Other people take responsibility for the architecture and the code quality, using AI in a focused way and reviewing the results carefully. I'd look at the quality of the architecture and code before judging. I confess I have not done that yet with this one; I just thought it sounded potentially interesting.

There are quite a few ways to write web applications with Rust these days, and while this sounds like it has potential, I'd still pick frameworks that are a little more mature for my own projects.

3w ago

LG TVs and monitors said to surveil users and install bloatware without asking

floofloof @lemmy.ca 3w ago

I suspect the thoroughness of the vetting is inversely proportional to the size of the kickback to Microsoft.

3w ago

LG TVs and monitors said to surveil users and install bloatware without asking