hells yeah it's time for some action - Drew DeVault is organizing a sit-in protest of Jack Dorsey's keynote at FOSDEM 2025.
this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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So, the Wikipedia article about "prompt engineering" is pretty terrible. First source: OpenAI. Second: a blog. Third: OpenAI. Fourth: OpenAI's blog. ArXiv, arXiv, arXiv... 43 times. Hop on over to the Talk page, and we find this gem:
It is sometimes necessary to make assumptions to write an article (see WP:MNA).
Spoiler alert: that link doesn't justify anything. It basically advises against going off on tangents: There's no need to rehash the fact that evolution is a fact on every damn biology page. It does not say that Wikipedia should have an article on some creationist fantasy, like baraminology or flood geology, based entirely on creationist screeds that all cite each other.
I have spent the last half-hour in the angry dome
Read a rumor that zuck's marriage is falling apart, which scans.
A second divorced man is about to hit the tower.
i wonder where his roman empire fascination fits the pattern? also, who's next, maybe thiel?
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Some news on the people who own/run protonmail. They are pro Trump
mv protonmail protrumpmail
fucking hell. well i guess moving all my shit elsewhere has become my midweek project instead of my procrastinate-project.
EDIT: [rereads and comprehends the tuta addendum] well. cool. i think i'm going to reschedule that "move everything" to after my "scream and cry into a pillow". anyone have any other recs?
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proton’s ceo is, at this moment, trying to post through it on multiple official company accounts
thank fuck I switched to tuta
[I hold up a hand to my earpiece and make a horrified face]
a second milkshake has hit the duck (cw: fetishized racism, you know the one)
I’m waiting to hear back from tuta about what the fuck but this might be the reason why I hop providers again
image description (but see cw)
so somebody at tuta had the idea to write this post on their official account on Twitter:
Don't get cucked by Big Tech's invasive policies. Keep your private data safe and secure with state of the art end-to-end encryption with Tutanota.
and then the image attached to the post is a cuckold porn meme I started to describe here but won’t??? because describing the image put me in a really terrible mood??? it’s SFW but trust me you don’t want it. the Black men in the picture have had their faces covered by logos for Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Apple, and Facebook in that order. the white woman in the picture does not have her face covered. impact font bottom text: “YOUR PERSONAL DATA”
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some of the first research science on promptfondlers and model-affine dipshits is starting to see the light of day and, in what will surprise probably 0% of our regulars, it confirms some things
(I have grumped about their desire for outsourced thinking in the past myself)
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Paul I am begging you to actually write out a fucking timeline. Apparently woke started in the 80s in universities when the (white) civil rights protestors of the 70s got tenure in the 60s, as an inevitable and predictable extension of political correctness in the 90s. From the title you're obviously going to indulge the conservative fantasy that "wokeness" is a coherent thing rather than a political tool to dismiss calls for action to actually address blatant injustice. But if you're going to bullshit me, at least do it competently and have an internally consistent narrative that allows for the natural passage of time.
If you can't get through two short paragraphs without equating Stalinism and "social justice", you may be a cockwomble.
I'm not reading that shit but for the masochists out there who like to read HN licking VC boots, here ya go
I've been a big fan of HN comments lately
Man wrote nearly 5k words of pure unfiltered cap:
I'm not sure how someone can read all this without capping themselves. We could sneer this all fucking day.
As many writers (perhaps most eloquently George Orwell) have observed, women seem more attracted than men to the idea of being moral enforcers.
Ah, thanks Paul for validating my disdain for Orwell at least.
George was writing his stories in the 40s, so at least has "product of his time" as an excuse.
Paul's just a flat out piece of shit to be writing this nearly 100 years later.
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This is extremely tangential to the areas of sneer interest, but seeing as this is the only technology related community I am in, I’m putting it here.
This song has been making the rounds on the charts/social media and I refuse to believe that it isn’t about the package management tool apt
yoooooooooooooo
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Possibly I’m the last to hear about this one, but seeing as proton mail has come up here a few times before: the founder and ceo Andy Yen is apparently a Trump fan.
Great pick by @realDonaldTrump. 10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned. People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin.
(from the beginning of december, on the nomination of trump staffer Gail Slater to antitrust post at the doj)
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a couple weeks back, I was (bc reasons) looking around to see how to turn off goog's annoying gemini bullshit in an account, and you can!
except then even after doing that, accounts in that org still got prompts (in the form of in-app banners, and sparklebuttons in shit like gmail) to Try The Model
it looks like people aren't biting enough, because now you get it whether you like it or not, for the low low price of pushing up your base account fee! and I checked in one org - "Gemini App" is disabled org-wide, but the fucking prompt is immediately in the UI (and you get a modal popover opening gmail)
fuck these people so much
Oh well. Nothing screams healthy business like force-feeding your product to every customer who can't hammer the conveniently hidden opt-out button fast enough. I'm sure Gemini is doing great.
oh, no no
nooooo no no no
there isn't an opt-out button
there is only:
- "Continue",
- "Learn More"
Hello, I'd like to punch you in the groin. Will you accept ~or would you like to learn more~?
Sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Did you say you accept?
Ah, you don't want to be punched in the groin. That's OK, I understand. We value your painless existence very much.
Now, obviously we cannot let you opt out of the Strictly Necessary punches in the groin. Surely you understand that if it's necessary to punch you in the groin, your permission or lackthereof is irrelevant. Rest assured, this applies only when we really have to punch you in the groin.
What, do you want me to list all the possible circumstances in which one might be obligated to punch you in the groin? Don't be unreasonable, now. I'm sure you know it when you see it.
That aside, I presume we can punch you in the groin for functional purposes? The kind that may not be strictly necessary, but serve a purpose in the functioning of our service.
Oh, we can't? It's OK, you have the right to make that choice. We don't judge. Anyway, we take it that you're probably at least cool with us punching you in the groin for the purposes of analyzing your behavior to improve our groin punching. Let me know if you decide you don't want us to do that anymore.
Oh, I thought you were cooler than that. Alright, if you hate the working class and want to make it harder for the poor, overworked developers to improve your experience, we'll do it your way. I guess we'll have to make do with just the groin punches that are strictly necessary or for marketing purposes.
Ah, aren't you observant. Have you ever noticed that all the adverts you get are really terrible? That's because advertisers need to be able to punch you in the groin to find out what you like and to make their ads more appealing to you. Just food for thought. But if you really insist…
Fine, fine. Marketing groin punches are out. As for your question, no we don't identify as an advertising company per se. But we are partnered with other companies that are in fact advertising companies. Would you like to adjust your preferences for our groin punching partners?
Well maybe to you it looks like the opt-out process we just went through should also cover this part but can we really know if we don't look?
Who's a good puppy? You're a good puppy, yes you are! ❤️
Will you deny us permission to punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc. or will you not?
OK, so we can only punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc. for the purposes of Legitimate Interest?
It means the kinds of purposes where there is a legitimate interest to punch you in the groin.
Why would you ask if you didn't want me to answer? Fine, that's a no for Legitimate Interest based groin punching on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAA Inc.
Will you deny us permission to punch you in the groin on behalf of AAAAAAAAAAB Inc. or will you not?
Oh, we have a total of six hundred and sixteen thousand six hundred and sixty-six partners in our crotch impactizing network.
Indeed, we are proud to have such a wide network of trusted allies.
Ugh, fine. I guess I can check the end of the list to see if there's a way to make a selection for all of them at once. Honestly, this form is starting to make me a bit dizzy as well.
Wow, who knew flipping through all those pages would take so long. There's a line in here that says "disagree to all", but there's no checkbox or anything. It's just there. Clicking it doesn't seem to change anything. You can probably assume it worked.
Please calm down, we're almost done. Would you like to accept and save?
Well it sounds like I mean "accept and save the options you just set", not the ones we offered initially, doesn't it?
Your groin punching settings have been applied. I don't think there were any mistakes, but if you need to change the settings, you can find the form hidden somewhere in this house, assuming we remembered to put it there.
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Im gonna build a special circle in hell for these people, together with the 'yes' or 'ask me again later' people. On this circle all the software your stack depends on will break your build and releases a new release every friday at 5. Whohahhahah
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there it is, sammy has gone and said people are just prompting the model wrong (I recall we’ve had that bit said here earlier)
but in true sammy grift: you just need to be asking the right questions to trump intelligence. “why do you want to suck, as a human?” sammy asks, not understanding a moment of humanity
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Computer understanders, click this link for some psychic damage! :D (aside: I tried to upload this as an image but it didn't work)
Coiners are terminally brain poisoned by financialization of everything. HTTP represented by three payment processors (and I don't even know if paying with Google or Apple pay involves HTTP but whatever).
Yet the money protocol is Bitcoin, apparently.
here you go
12 of the most valuable protocols on earth!
Counting like a chatbot.
Ah, so Google Search runs on UDP, interesting, that must be why it's so unreliable now.
HTTP: famous for doing Google pay, Apple Pay, PayPal, and nothing else. no other use has been found for http
(also, FTP! as indicated by these apps that famously don’t use or support it!)
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huh, pict-rs has been acting up a lot lately. I’m gonna give the whole node a quick reboot later and see if that fixes things
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Welp, time to start the thread with fresh Awful for everyone to regret:
r/phenotypes
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new developments in things understanding by promptfondlers https://feddit.uk/post/22751391
Underlying original post: a Twitter bluecheck says,
Sometimes in the process of writing a good enough prompt for ChatGPT, I end up solving my own problem, without even needing to submit it.
Matt Novak on Bluesky screenshots this and comments,
AI folks have now discovered "thinking"
Scooter pulls out Richard Lynn’s national IQ figures. https://archive.is/BJ6bd
isn't it racist / dumb to say they have 60 IQ?
no according to Kirkegaard
Bruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu (pause to catch breath) uh.
A well at least the mask is totally off now.
E: and a thing that has been bothering me, it is quite fucked up for somebody with Scotts education to go along with this argument about disabled people that easily.
content warning for this paragraph
(Not that this is the first time he forgets he has an official education, and cant just ignore that (yes im still mad about the time he said "well she had mental health issues and was a liar" or something about the woman who tragically ended her life after accusing parts of the community of sexual abuse, and didnt mention that a reputation like that would increase the risk of abuse)).
oh my god i didn't catch that this was astro slate star and thought i was reading some overtly racist piece of shit instead of a covert racist piece of shit. i haven't kept up with him lately but this this seems very fucked up even by scott's standards.
Only got a paragraph in because of the cheerful citation of aporia (the big Nazi website)
I love how he goes on and on about how it actually totally makes sense for the average IQ in Malawi to be 60 because most people don't graduate school, ignoring that Lynn's methodology wasn't up to any basic standard
And by love I mean I fucking hate it
jesus fucking christ
bonus steve sailer in the comments
That isn't a bonus. He is always in the comments.
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MDN has fucking ads now????
(also, image uploads are back, weird how pict-rs sometimes just shits the bed)
image description
a fucking “ads by Mozilla” banner at the top of mdn web docs advertising mongodb’s LLM of all fucking things
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