So has anyone suggested the monumental bad idea of running an AI on the ethereum smart blockchain?

Like, chatgpt but every response costs you 230$

How bad are the thousands of new stochastically-generated websites?
Last night I wanted to roast some hazelnuts, and I could not remember the temperature I used last time. So I searched on DuckDuckGo. Every website that I could find was machine-generated with different temps listed. One site had three separate methods listed that were essentially differently worded versions of the same thing. With different temperatures.

So I pulled my copy of Rodale’s Basic Natural Foods Cookbook off the shelf and looked it up there.

I think it may be time to download an archive copy of the 2022 Wikipedia before we lose all of our reference material. It was nice having all the world’s knowledge at my fingertips for a couple of decades, but that time seems to be past.

"I can't figure out why this LaTeX document won't compile."

"That's roff, buddy."

He wants pets 🥺

#furry #fursuit #cute

Great news coming from Germany: today, the Bundestag adopted the gender self-determination law, which will allow trans people to change their gender on their official papers with a simple declaration at the civil registry. Gone are the medical requirements. 🏳️‍⚧️

The law isn't perfect (a 3-month delay is to be observed before the change takes effect; minors will have to go through a dispute in court if their parents oppose the change), but it's still a huge step forward.

https://www.dw.com/en/gender-identity-law-passes-in-german-parliament/a-68800054

i’m anti-woke (very eepy pls be quiet i need to sleep)

the original nft

My real worry with Google's voyage into enshittification (thanks to Cory Doctorow @pluralistic the term) is YouTube.

Through YT, for the past 15 years, the world has basically entrusted Google to be the custodian of pretty much our entire global video archive.

There's countless hours of archived footage — news reports, political speeches, historical events, documentaries, indie films, academic lectures, conference presentations, rare recordings, concert footage, obscure music — where the best or only copy is now held by Google through YouTube.

So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?

#tech #technology #Google #enshittification #youtube #video @technology #capitalism #film #television #cinema #art #arts #SocialMedia #business #economics

Seattle Times has a new report on how Boeing's current challenges can be traced to prioritizing shareholders over everything for 25 years, slashing costs and outsourcing key work, weakening unions, and pressuring suppliers, leading to loss of its core competency.

This is a great example of how the stock market rewards short term thinking leading to companies sabotaging themselves. Intel is in the same boat.
https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeings-long-fall-and-how-it-might-recover/

went to go download a program called "solidworks" so i could convert a file, and realized they have an "online demo".

and then i realized the "online demo" is a fucking windows VM. given away to free members. hosted by amazon.

so i made it run minecraft.

Here's a half-formed thought I need to mull a bit more on:

Somehow, algorithmic (and especially "AI-driven") decision making tends to only be proposed in contexts where it can only — or mostly — affect those with the least power in the system.

Migrants and asylum seekers.
Prisoners.
Families using any form of state support (child benefits, foodstamps, etc).
Palestinians in Gaza.

It somehow never gets proposed for use-cases where it might affect the wealthy and powerful.

One wonders why. 🤔

Forget the xz/liblzma backdoor in Linux distros, there's a confirmed backdoor in D-Link Network Attached Storage (NAS) products. Username is messagebus with an empty password. Tracked as CVE-2024-3273 (7.3 high, disclosed 26 March 2024), D-Link refuses to patch it because "All D-Link Network Attached storage has been End of Life and of Service Life for many years [and] the resources associated with these products have ceased their development and are no longer supported" 🔗 https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/over-92-000-exposed-d-link-nas-devices-have-a-backdoor-account/

#CVE_2024_3273 #backdoor #xz

There are improvements to be made in the FOSS software toolchain, but remember: they had to spend a ton of resources over years to do the xz exploit.

If it were closed source, it'd have cost almost nothing for a state actor to require a backdoor. Just call the vendor up and tell them they'll be including it or else.

We should always assume closed source security is backdoored, because it almost certainly is.

In one of the ML threads discussing supply-chain attacks in the wake of the #xz backdoor, I see someone (a GNU maintainer) is using seamonkey 1.1.17 released in 2009. They are not the only one. No further comment required.

#xz

A CASIO MX-10 except completely different. Using a katakana in-order layout and what might be function key abuse.
Edit: On the old CASIO MSX machines it appears the arrow pad is physically wired to the joystick port, and there are other arrow keys in an awkward position which are actual keyboard arrow keys. I omitted the onboard joy here as I'd prefer to use an external one anyways.