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Makeitstop

@Makeitstop@lemmy.world

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Makeitstop ,

What's really clobbered Firefox has been the rise of smartphones, where Firefox has very limited uptake.

That's fucking crazy, because Firefox has been far better than the default options for as long as I've had a smartphone. I only recently dumped chrome on desktop for Firefox, but I took one look at Chrome when I got an android and immediately dumped that shit.

Makeitstop ,

Part of the issue is the balance between the stakes of the current election vs the value of the potential change for future elections. It's possible for someone to be willing to stay home or choose a different candidate as a protest vote during one election, and then view those same strategies as monstrously irresponsible in a different election.

And to add another layer of complexity, keep in mind that both parties are fluid and can change radically over time as factions within them rise and fall.

For example, in some alternate timeline where Clinton got the nomination in 2008, a protest vote against Clinton would have risked a McCain presidency, which would have likely been the most moderate Republican president in modern history. This would have been short term loss for Democrats but likely would have been a long term win for progressives. The Democrats would likely have shifted to the left as they sought more candidates that appeal to their base, and the Republicans would have had their more moderate wing exerting greater influence and filling their leadership positions.

The situation we have today involves very high stakes, in that Trump and pals are threatening serious damage to the basic principles of democracy and rule of law, in addition to all of their horrifying policies. And the message that the Republican party will get from the next election is especially critical. Trump won in 2016, but they performed poorly in 2018, 2020, and 2022. Their shift to the right and the purging of anyone not 100% loyal to Trump has lead to a significant brain drain and a shrinking of the party.

A Trump victory would help the worst people keep a stranglehold on the party, while another defeat would send the message that their current path is a dead end. There's a sizable portion of the Republican party that isn't particularly happy with the MAGA crowd, but who are willing to go along with them if it means winning, and others who are just trying to keep their heads down because dissent is punished harshly. The power struggle that would occur after another Trump loss would very likely push the party to move back towards something resembling sanity and competence.

Hell, just being rid of the 800 pound orangutan in the room would make it easier for both sides to work together on the things that shouldn't be partisan. We didn't have a problem getting Ukraine aid passed until Trump started exerting pressure, which only got worse when he vetoed a speaker candidate that supported Ukraine aid in favor of the current one who is more than willing to open his ass cheeks for Trump's puppeteering hand.

Makeitstop ,

Not everyone ignores the problem. Some will actively make it worse just to stick it to the people warning about the problem.

Makeitstop ,

Don't worry, it might still bubble up to the surface in the hallucinations of an AI.

Makeitstop ,

It's easier to build a specialized robot for one task than to create a general purpose robot to handle that task. However, as the technology matures, I think it becomes much more practical to create a general purpose robot that's capable of performing millions of tasks than to create millions of different specialized robots. Not only is that far less to design, source parts for, build and maintain, but it also makes it much easier to repurpose them as needs change. The same basic design can potentially be used for factory work, household chores, new construction, search and rescue operations, food service, vehicle maintenance, mining, caring for kids/elderly/pets, building and maintaining other robots, etc. We're not there yet, but that's where this kind of technology could potentially take us.

The advantage of a mostly humanoid robot is that it's versatile and can use existing solutions built for people. Yes, you could replace the legs with wheels or treads, and you'd probably be just fine for most functions with a Johnny 5 type design, but there will still be exceptions. Being able to climb up or down a ladder for example means that you don't have to engineer a solution to deal with getting onto a roof or down into a tunnel system. We've already spent thousands of years solving those problems for humans.

Makeitstop ,

My dad used to tell me "It's a lot harder to carpet the world than it is to wear shoes."

Ambitious redesigns of existing infrastructure are neat, but they are rarely more efficient or practical. Especially when you are overengineering to solve an issue that's already been dealt with. A self cleaning room requires a lot of additional hardware, all of which has to be designed, built and installed, and has to be powered and run by software that needs to be programmed. It also needs to be maintained, and depending on how it's cleaning things, it may also be dangerous, or at least capable of damaging property (ever have a motion activated light turnoff while in a bathroom stall? now imagine it triggers steam jets). Not to mention the potential hazards of water damage on a room if anything goes wrong.

Or, you can buy a mop for 0.1% of the price.

Humanoid robots can escape this problem because versatility adds value. The upfront cost may be tens of thousands of dollars, but for that price you're getting something that solves many, many problems. They can potentially go from task to task, filling a multitude of roles, and ideally with minimal down time.

It also helps that we can use existing processes to train them. They can observe human workers performing a task, attempt to replicate that task, and use feedback to improve. And that's critical because the hardware is the easier part, it's software that's the real challenge.

Makeitstop ,

Ukraine is a major global food supplier. The war has directly impacted food prices. And if Russia succeeds, it will only encourage more conflict of this kind. And that's ignoring the possibility that this will escalate into an even larger conflict because Putin decides that NATO's resolve is weak enough that article 5 is no longer a plausible threat.

Also, that stupid argument applies just as much to funding schools, cancer research, fighting climate change and basically all other functions of government that serve the public good. We should do more to address economic issues, but that doesn't mean we should stop doing everything else.

Makeitstop ,

If companies terms of service said "we can do whatever we want whenever we want, and we don't have to promise any service, and you have no rights" nobody would sign those terms.

Nobody who took the time to read the terms of service, and who felt that there was a real risk of those terrible terms being invoked, and who felt they had a viable alternative. But for the other 99.9% of people, they will just hit agree and move on.

Makeitstop ,

There's also a lot of context being ignored. Nude selfies are usually taken with a smartphone by someone who has numerous connected accounts and apps that can potentially have access to those pictures. And that's assuming they stay on your phone and not in the cloud by default. And that no one else is physically interacting with your phone.

In the dystopian hellscape of modern technology, everything is connected, your data is not your own, and privacy is obsolete. Fighting that trend and keeping your data secure is a constant battle that the typical user gave up on long ago.

Imagine if people were taking pictures of their passwords, credit card numbers, social security cards (or equivalent sensitive data for those in other countries) and various forms of identification. What would you need to do to feel those pictures were safe from unwanted attention? And would it really be surprising if someone pointed out that this is an unnecessary risk?

Makeitstop ,

That would only be an equivalent if you had the alternative of storing all your belongings in your own personal extradimensional space which is inaccessible to the thief, but instead chose to leave all your valuables sitting on your coffee table. It should be safe there, but it's going to be a lot safer if it doesn't occupy the same realm as the thief or the shitty lock.

Makeitstop ,

The difference is that your house and TV are physical. You can try to secure them but, there's nowhere else to put them.

Unless you are snapping polaroids or using actual film, nude selfies are not physical things, just data. Data that exists purely offline is going to be as secure as any physical object, but data on a connected device or in a server somewhere is only as secure as the weakest link in the chain. Given the evaporation of privacy and the ever increasing trend of connecting accounts and storing everything in the cloud, and the overabundance of permissions that apps demand, it takes consistent effort to keep your data secure.

How would you treat a picture of your credit card info? Or all your logins and passwords? Would you be comfortable just leaving it in your phone's picture gallery? Would you knowingly store it in an icloud or onedrive account? Who would you be comfortable sending it to? How would you send it? Do you trust that other person's data security practices?

If you're going to have a credit card, you should be aware of the potential risks so that you can protect yourself. It's not all or nothing, there will always be some risk but the key is to be aware so you can make informed decisions and manage that risk. The same goes for any data which you want to remain private, including nudes.

Makeitstop ,

Owning vs not owning is binary, all or nothing, a strict dichotomy.

Data security and risk management is a vast spectrum of possibilities. We all make decisions about those risks, whether we acknowledge it or not. The risk is real, but not completely beyond our control. The more aware we are of the actual risks, and of the ways in which those risks can be mitigated, the more prepared we can be to make informed decisions. It's not just whether or not you do something, but also how you do it.

Ignoring risks doesn't negate them. Privacy violations shouldn't happen, but that doesn't mean they won't. The violator is the one who is wrong, the victim doesn't deserve it, but that doesn't undo what happened to them to make them the victim. Maybe we can make a better world someday where these things don't happen, but until we do, this the reality we have to live with, and all we can do is exercise our best judgement.

Makeitstop ,

Not long before covid took off, the first case of ebola in the US was confirmed and people flipped the fuck out. I'm fairly certain that if ebola were actually spreading even a little, those same assholes who treated masks like some kind of human rights violation would have been more than ready to quarantine it, lock everything down, and burn the entire affected area to the ground.

Makeitstop ,

Competition usually isn't bad. Unfortunately, Apple has a tendency to not only be terribly anti-consumer, but also tends to be a trendsetter. They do shitty things, and other companies learn from their example. Thus, the competition becomes a race to the bottom.

Makeitstop ,

Lying about testing a product in order to get people to buy it so you can get your affiliate revenue sounds like fraud to me. Seems like the kind of thing that should lead to lawsuits and potentially criminal charges. Not that anyone would actually try to do something about this or most other problems facing consumers.

Makeitstop ,

I Always thought Perkins was Jerkins
image

Amazon Prime Video won't offer Dolby Vision and Atmos on its ad-supported plan | The company is now facing a lawsuit over its decision to charge $3 more for ad-free viewing. (www.engadget.com)

Amazon Prime Video won't offer Dolby Vision and Atmos on its ad-supported plan | The company is now facing a lawsuit over its decision to charge $3 more for ad-free viewing.::Amazon isn't only interrupting its Prime Video subscribers' viewing experience with ads -- it's also removing their access to Dolby Vision and Atmos unless...

Makeitstop ,

Prime was a reasonable value for me a decade ago. The streaming side was never the main draw but it was a nice added bonus, especially when Netflix started to lose a lot of the content I actually wanted to watch.

Unfortunately, Amazon's been flooded with worthless trash, and they made the conscious decision to make searching and filtering as useless as possible. It's actually impressive that they've so degraded their service that it's usually more convenient for me to go shopping locally than to try to navigate the unending mine field on Amazon.

So of course they try to ruin the last thing keeping me subscribed. I'm done, they can fuck off. I've got a jellyfin server, I don't need these assholes.

Unfortunately, I'm sure they'll make an obscene amount of money with this move, because apparently the world is full of people who will pay good money to bend over and take it.

Makeitstop ,

If I buy a product, and the manufacturer remotely disables that product in order to coerce me into buying their goods and services, the people responsible should be charged with fraud, destruction of property, criminal conspiracy, racketeering, and anything else that can stick. It should be treated no less severely than if they hired thugs to smash it with a crowbar.

Makeitstop , (edited )

AI today, or actual AI someday? And do they need to do the job well, or just at all?

I also wonder how many of these people are open to the idea of UBI when brought up in the context of AI replacing the majority of human labor.

Makeitstop , (edited )

I think it's going to be interesting to watch machine labor continue to evolve.

Currently we have factories full of dedicated machines which specialize in a limited number of tasks. This makes sense because mass production involves doing a limited variety of jobs in a controlled environment, as part of a process that only rarely changes. A more general purpose robot adds little value.

Where things get interesting is when you leave the factory. New construction shares similarities to factory production. You have a mostly controlled environment, a predictable process, and most variables within a given job can be planned for in advance. But you can't throw a house or office building on an assembly line and move it past stationary robot arms. Which means that machines need to be light and mobile enough to move around a building throughout the process. And without the assembly line, extreme specialization is less practical. Better to have one machine that handles each stage of construction, as opposed to many machines which are only capable of a single task.

I could see some future prototype robot acting as an assistant, and slowly taking over more and more tasks. As it becomes more refined, its performance becomes more reliable, and we move more and more towards autonomous operation with human oversight.

The greater challenge is leaving the controlled environment of a construction site and into the real world. Going into some hundred year old building and assessing the existing condition, formulating a plan of action, and the executing that plan (adapting to unexpected complications along the way) is so much more complex and demanding. It's entirely possible for AI to get to the point where it can do that, but it's going to be a much longer journey.

Still, I could picture a more advanced version of that construction robot following a plumber or electrician and providing assistance while learning as it observes. As these trade bots expand their pool of knowledge and experience, they could gain the ability to recognize similarities to previous issues, and may learn to analyze and propose solutions which can be approved by a human on site. With each successful task, the machines get a little closer to functioning autonomously.

With a complex enough AI, we really could reach a point where the only jobs performed by humans are the ones where we value the human involvement. AI politicians probably aren't on the agenda, and there will always be a demand for human sex work. So if nothing else, know that there will always be a job out there for those who specialize in fucking the people.

Makeitstop ,

Yes, you can make a building from pieces that were produced on an assembly line. But the vast majority of construction doesn't happen that way. And even those require labor to assemble.

My point was that the stationary robot arm you see putting cars together make sense in a factory setting, but that it wouldn't be so practical on a job site compared to something less specialized and more versatile.

Makeitstop ,

I remember the time that a friend of mine was lying on a bed, looking me in the eye and saying "fuck me" and I somehow missed the hint.

Is It Worth The Time? XKCD 1205 updated for open source and shared tools. (lemmy.world)

People often ask why I contribute to open source projects or otherwise work on building automated tooling. They see me spending hours to automate a task or fix a bug that take seconds to do or avoid manually, in a way that the original XKCD comic says won't pay off. The disconnect seems to be that the comic and those people only...

Makeitstop ,

Not since I was a teenager.

Cable firms to FTC: We shouldn’t have to let users cancel service with a click — Customers may “misunderstand the consequences of canceling,” say lobbyists (arstechnica.com)

Cable firms to FTC: We shouldn’t have to let users cancel service with a click — Customers may “misunderstand the consequences of canceling,” say lobbyists::Customers may "misunderstand the consequences of canceling," cable lobby says.

Makeitstop , (edited )

Sending a notification that a renewal is coming up? Impossible, will cost a fortune.

Sending mountains of junk mail offering bundles and limited time offers? Clearly much cheaper and easier.

Also, think of the labor costs, retraining the call center staff to not spend hours trying to talk people out of canceling and instead just having them hit a button. Why, that's got to force a price hike.

Makeitstop ,

Creating massive penalties equal to the whole cost of a house for anyone that sells after less than 6-8 years would have devastating unintended consequences. It might make flipping impractical, but it would also hurt a lot of people who find themselves in a position where they need to sell, and would increase the risks associated with buying a house for lower income buyers.

It would help if you targeted the profit from the sale instead of the whole price. Flipping is about buying low, minimizing the cost of improvements, and then selling for a massively inflated amount. Without that profit it's not worth it. For a normal person, being able to make money on the deal is nice, but at least recouping your costs can keep you economically stable and allow you to move on with your life.

I also think that you would want to combine this with some plan for helping low income buyers with the restoration of neglected properties that would normally be snatched up by flippers.

I also think the arbitrary age restriction on owning a rental property needs an exemption for inherited properties if nothing else. A 20ish year old who inherits a home or rental property when their parent(s) die is not abusing a loophole, and immediately hitting them with additional legal problems and forcing them to sell a house that has a tenant already in there is just unnecessary chaos for everyone involved.

I'm also curious how large apartment complexes fit into this plan. Are they also banned? Do you just need an owner to occupy a (potentially much nicer) apartment in the building? If you can still operate a huge apartment complex, I would expect the market to shift heavily towards those. If you can't well, that raises it's own issues around urban housing and population density.

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