Powderhorn

Powderhorn , 11 days ago to Technology in Going Dark: The war on encryption is on the rise. Through a shady collaboration between the US and the EU.

I've been with Mullvad for over a year at this point. This sort of analysis (as well as being able to mail cash) makes me feel confident that I made the right choice to ignore every entreaty (before SponsorBlock) about NordVPN.

NordVPN: We have the budget to pay influencers, and it's likely coming out of the U.S. Treasury.

Powderhorn , 12 days ago to Technology in New Windows AI feature records everything you’ve done on your PC

That closing quote is ominous:

"Recall is currently in preview status," Microsoft says on its website. "During this phase, we will collect customer feedback, develop more controls for enterprise customers to manage and govern Recall data, and improve the overall experience for users."

I read "so, yeah, we built in all the telemetry connections we swear we'll never use ... just for testing, ya know?"

Powderhorn , 12 days ago to Technology in New Windows AI feature records everything you’ve done on your PC

I have to believe at this point that a serious generation gap exists if there is an audience for this sort of constant monitoring. Because that's what it is.

Where it goes and whether Microsoft can be trusted are of course very valid concerns, but Jesus tap-dancing Christ, this is surveillance before the data go anywhere. Add that to your AI assistant that works best with the camera on, et voila!

No doubt Google is going to say "hold my beer," and there's no pure Linux offramp on the overwhelming majority of Android hardware, so even if you've told Microsoft to fuck off ...

Powderhorn , 15 days ago to Technology in Online Content Is Disappearing

Poorly thought-out Facebook posts are forever; coverage of city council malfeasance from two years ago, not so much.

Powderhorn OP , 18 days ago to Technology in Apple, SpaceX, Microsoft return-to-office mandates drove senior talent away

Sure as fuck happened to journalism. Except they had the balls to offer buyouts instead of just saying "your service counts for nothing unless I see the back of your head every time I meander around with a coffee mug."

The truly absurd bit of it to me is absent Covid, already working remote for years would not have been a problem. I went remote in 2016, and there's no fucking way I'd be like "oh, the recent grads you hire to chew and spit out are an issue for remote? Sure, why don't I restart the pointless thing of driving for an hour and a half a day with concomitant fuel costs, having to choose my food for the entire day at 7 a.m. or paying four times as much, and generally being more surly in my personal life so that you, dear boss, can prove you have something to do?"

Powderhorn OP , 19 days ago to Technology in Major ChatGPT-4o update allows audio-video talks with an “emotional” AI chatbot

How impressive this is will hinge on whether there were any shenanigans behind the demos. I find it difficult to take breathless announcements at face value given recent issues.

Powderhorn , 25 days ago to Technology in I used an original iPod in 2024, and it was pretty fun

Darmok and Jalad ...

Powderhorn , 1 month ago to Technology in Microsoft’s VASA-1 can deepfake a person with one photo and one audio track

It's also then just one step removed from refusing to accept any friends or romantic partners who don't do exactly what you want at all times because life is supposed to be tailored to you.

Powderhorn , 1 month ago to Technology in Microsoft’s VASA-1 can deepfake a person with one photo and one audio track

This is an education problem as much as -- if not moreso than -- a tech problem. Before the GOP gutted critical thinking wherever they held a majority and two generations were able to grow up under those circumstances, a video of any current president rounding up Christians would have been roundly rejected as either satirical or disinformation by the vast majority of the population, owing to the absurdity of the idea.

Once we got to the point of a not-insignificant minority of the population believing that the true power in the United States lies in the basement of a pizza shop with no basement ...

Powderhorn OP , 1 month ago to Technology in Cable lobby vows “years of litigation” to avoid bans on blocking and throttling

Apologies! That was not my intended takeaway, rather that old ways of finding work no longer, well ... work. So being able to throttle such traffic is akin to having a power bill that only guarantees lighting.

Powderhorn , 2 months ago to Technology in Mozilla just ditched its privacy partner because its CEO is tied to data brokers

What happened to due diligence? This is the right move given the situation, but the situation shouldn't have had the opportunity to come up.

Powderhorn , 2 months ago to Socialism in An Interview With a Journalist Who Has Been on Strike For More Than 500 Days

This interview brings up a number of points about the gulf between how a newsroom works and how bean-counters would like a newsroom to work. Unfortunately, it also shows that the latter has been working well enough for 17 months to keep getting the paper out.

I don't envy younger journalists for whom this is the introduction to the industry, but the time to get out of corporate journalism is now. Yes, it's a career that is an identity, and it's fucking crushing to have it in the rear view, but today's job market favours those just out of college across industries, so clinging on without adequate pay only makes getting out of the field worse when you've crossed the Rubicon and have extensive experience doing things no other industry wants.

Obviously, this is ultimately a story about the lack of labour protections from the government. Crucially, though, individual strikes are not moving the needle on that front. Some publishers have negotiated new contracts, but the ones that haven't -- and this is an excellent example -- are not going to change what they're doing: delay after delay until someone tells them they can't.

That day coming is an "if," not a "when."

Most journalists want to do the right thing and see the work as crucial to societal function. However, losing years that one can never get back, either from an income standpoint or just health and energy is the wrong call.

Powderhorn OP , 2 months ago to Technology in Once Again, Ron Wyden Had To Stop Bad “Protect The Children” Internet Bills From Moving Forward

That's a very fair point. Much as I'd like to think I haven't aged in the past 20 years (when we were covering him as one of our senators), I've made the same error in assessing his age.

Powderhorn OP , 2 months ago to Technology in Generative AI Tools Now Advanced Enough to Mislead Voters, Researchers Show

Using 40 years as the yardstick, we're pretty much at the logical end of Reagan's policies of union-busting, deregulation and upward redistribution of wealth through "tax cuts for the middle class." Main difference is people now view an 8% mortgage as usury.

Powderhorn OP , 2 months ago to Technology in On DMA eve, Google whines, Apple sounds alarms, and TikTok wants out

Yep, make it 10x salary, they can pay everyone in the company half as much, and the C-suite gets the difference in options or straight-out vesting.