JW, electronic engineer, software developer, maker, geek, Linux enthusiast, guitar player, star gazer, husband, father, ...
I watched a video of a man playing Ave Maria on rubber chickens & thought to myself "the ONLY reason this is interesting is because a real person took the time to do that."
It was kind of fun to watch, but if it had been an AI generated clip, there would have been nothing interesting about it. The interesting thing was that someone made it.
"Stardust is the name of a small startup with enormous ambitions. The company, which is based in Israel and registered in Delaware, proposes to do nothing less than dim the sun"
So dimming the Sun seems like an easier and more realistic goal than ending capitalism? Or even just regulating the energy sector?
My parents have an alexa kettle that can only be turned on by speaking to alexa or using an app.
So I can have tea as long as they have a wifi connection.
Welcome to the 21st century.
My friend seems genuinely baffled that I am an AI researcher who refuses to use AI! Not only that, but I argue against it from theory, not experience. Why don't I just give it a try for a while, and see what it's really about before I judge it?
I guess I see where he's coming from. Part of the problem is the word "AI." LLMs are not my research focus, so it's less of a contradiction than it sounds. But I admit, being a non-user makes my arguments against LLMs less credible.
I just don't understand why I owe it to anybody to give AI a shot. I know how LLMs work in gory detail, and I don't trust them. I've seen the mediocre work they produce. I've read studies about the seductive illusion of competence and caring they create, and how people fall for that. I know it's all built on an incredibly exploitative business model.
I feel entirely justified in not giving them a chance. I guess I'm just as baffled by how badly he wants me to try it, and how sure he seems to be that it would change my mind.
@Em0nM4stodon omg, so much this ☝️
"""
We value your privacy so much that it only takes four clicks on drab-looking buttons and tiny checkboxes to opt out of our invasive data slurping...*or* you can click the single big green "I consent to being slurped by you and your 9k partners" and we can just move on with our day like pals. So whaddya say, pal?
"""
If all the people who work at airports told you, "don't fly that airline," I hope you would listen.
When all the musicians who have the freedom to be honest tell you, "don't use Spotify," you might consider other options for listening to music.
Mais uma excelente razão para não ter WhatsApp /
Another excellent reason for not using WhatsApp:
"WhatsApp's mass adoption stems in part from how easy it is to find a new contact on the messaging platform: Add someone's phone number, and WhatsApp instantly shows whether they're on the service, and often their profile picture and name, too.
Repeat that same trick a few billion times with every possible phone number, it turns out, and the same feature can also serve as a convenient way to obtain the cell number of virtually every WhatsApp user on earth—along with, in many cases, profile photos and text that identifies each of those users. The result is a sprawling exposure of personal information for a significant fraction of the world population.
One group of Austrian researchers have now shown that they were able to use that simple method of checking every possible number in WhatsApp's contact discovery to extract 3.5 billion users’ phone numbers from the messaging service. For about 57 percent of those users, they also found that they could access their profile photos, and for another 29 percent, the text on their profiles. Despite a previous warning about WhatsApp's exposure of this data from a different researcher in 2017, they say, the service's parent company, Meta, still failed to limit the speed or number of contact discovery requests the researchers could make by interacting with WhatsApp's browser-based app, allowing them to check roughly a hundred million numbers an hour.
The result would be “the largest data leak in history, had it not been collated as part of a responsibly conducted research study,” as the researchers describe it in a paper documenting their findings."
https://www.wired.com/story/a-simple-whatsapp-security-flaw-exposed-billions-phone-numbers/
@BorrisInABox Every time I go camping, my appreciation for the toilets in my life gets a significant boost!
Once again I beg the critical internet infrastructure companies to learn about FMEA (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Failure_mode_and_effects_analysis) and apply it in their systems engineering process like any other industry deemed saftey critical.
Imagine a plane loose all its function because some storage filled up...
ManT1S support for #MicroPython was merged upstream, slated for release in version 1.27! 🥳🎉
@genXcrone As a conscientious objector (Germany still had the draft back then) I spent 20 months of my youth driving disabled people. Part of the one-week preparation course we were given was to spend a day in a wheelchair and just go shopping, to restaurants, and museums. I never forgot that, and still think that every non-disabled person should have to do that before they are allowed to build or plan any building or store.
@RolloTreadway I just wish it would pop sooner rather than later, because the longer it goes on the worse the fallout will be. If it had popped last year the effects on innocent people would have been way smaller than if it pops next year.
Your washing machine could be sending 3.7 GB of data a day — LG washing machine owner disconnected his device from Wi-Fi after noticing excessive outgoing daily data traffic
https://www.tomshardware.com/networking/your-washing-machine-could-be-sending-37-gb-of-data-a-day
The owner was puzzled why a clothes washer would need so much data.
Politicians:
Terrified about citizens that might be sending private messages they cannot read on Signal -> Sudden panic about "protecting the children" 🙃
Also politicians:
Grok AI Chatbot collects data and asks for nudes from a 12-year old -> AI is innovation! We should invest billions in taxpayers money in it! 💰💰💰
:blobcat_thisisfine:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/investigates/tesla-grok-mom-9.6956930
"If you're not on board with AI you're going to get left behind"
Boost if you'd like to be left behind and would consider paying extra for a life without this bullshit.
Healthcare In America:
Doctor - I see that your gscsttigom isn't working as well as I'd like. I'd like to start you on pjehhdntpf instead.
Patient - Okay, do you know how much that's going to cost?
Doctor - Sorry I've got no idea.
Patient - What do you mean? Like give me a ballpark. Is this a $20/month? $100/month? $500/month? Refinance my house for a month's supply?
Doctor - Well, it's probably not "refinance your house" level.
Patient - Umm ... Okay ... That leaves a lot of room in there still.
Doctor - You'll just have to talk to your insurance.
Patient - ... Okay
Later
Patient - Hey insurance, my doc wants me to start taking pjehhdntpf, can you tell me how much it is going to cost?
Insurance - Sorry, I have no idea.
Patient - What do you mean no idea?
Insurance - well, we won't pay anything until your doctor gets a pre-authorization. And then how much we cover is based on the diagnosis codes, your deductible, the specifics of your plan, whether you get it from an in-network pharmacy or not ...
Patient - fine, so give me a best case
Insurance - free if it's approved and in network and you've hit your out of pocket maximum of $100,000
Patient - ... Really not helping here. So assume it gets approved and I've hit my deductable
Insurance - which pharmacy?
Patient - idk ... Umm the CVS down the street
Insurance - Okay that's going to be $5000/month
Patient - ... Wait, WHAT?
Insurance - turns out it's on our exclusions list so we don't cover it unless you get it waved onto the formulary upon appeal
Patient - but.... I have insurance. Why aren't you helping me pay for my medicine?
Insurance - we don't allow that medicine on your employers' plan. You should use gscsttigom instead.
Patient - I'm on that one right now. It doesn't work.
Insurance - well you'll have to appeal it, but you can't do that until after you get a formal denial.
Patient - and how long does that take?
Insurance - well, if your doctor does the preauth paperwork, they'll make a decision about it within 14 business days, unless they need to come back to your doctor for more information. Then they'll mail you the decision within another 7 business days from (insert the location farthest possible away from you in the continental US). Depending on the decision you can appeal the decision, which the appeals process can take a maximum of 180 days, after which you can appeal it again which takes a maximum of 365 days.
Patient - and if I need to start taking the medicine now?
Insurance - well you're free to do that out of pocket and file for reimbursement later.
Patient - at $5000/month?
Insurance - no it'd have to be at the out of pocket price. For that CVS, it looks like it'd be $15000/month
Patient furiously googling "how to move to a civilized country"
Googles "pjehhdntpf price in Mexico" - $12.50 for a 90 day supply.
RA8P1 Titan board features 1 GHz Cortex-M85 MCU for AIoT applications, RT-Thread development
So far, if you wanted to evaluate Renesas RA8P1 Cortex-M85 MCU clocked at 1 GHz, you had to spend close to $200 to get the EK-RA8P1 evaluation kit, but the RT-Thread RA8P1 Titan board allows you to do that for about $50. Mostly designed for RT-Thread real-time OS develop…
https://www.cnx-software.com/2025/11/12/ra8p1-titan-board-features-1-ghz-cortex-m85-mcu-for-aiot-applications-rt-thread-development/
Professional at work shooting #footage for the ManT1S @crowdsupply #campaign #video!
https://duranddurandmedia.com
https://www.crowdsupply.com/silicognition/mant1s
Ready to use ChatGPT Atlas? Please don't‼️
➡️ It can literally be hacked by reading websites
➡️ It reads everything you're logged into: your email, your CRM, your bank account
➡️ "Delete" doesn't mean deleted
➡️ "Incognito" mode isn't private
➡️ GDPR/compliance nightmare
More: https://tuta.com/blog/dont-install-atlas-ai-browser-heres-why
