Radiant_sir_radiant

Radiant_sir_radiant , 8 days ago to Free and Open Source Software in Best Google Maps replacement on desktop?

Garmin Explore has a bit of a learning curve but offers a variety of very good maps and (once you've discovered where the web developers have hidden them) tons of nifty features. One of them is waypoints: you stick a flag somewhere and can give it a name, icon and colour. That sounds like the thing you're looking for.
The downside is that it's made for outdoor stuff so you get street names and some POIs, but no turn-by-turn navigation.

I use the website (https://explore.garmin.com/) to plan my tours and import/manage GPX files, and the Android app and an inReach 2 Mini satellite messenger while underway. The three sync seamlessly.

Since I have a paid subscription (required for satellite access) I can't tell you what (if anything) you get for free, but it should be relatively easy to find out if you think it might be what you're looking for.

For car navigation I used TomTom Go - it costs something but the quality of POIs and navigation is far superior to Google Maps in my experience. You can also add your own locations but have to do it on the phone by hand.
In my new car I use Google Maps because it came with the car and there's no real alternative at the moment. I do miss my TomTom app.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 12 days ago to Technology in Facial recognition startup Clearview AI settles privacy suit in the U.S. by giving plaintiffs a share of the company’s potential value, rather than a traditional payout, over lack of liqudity

This is actually a super smart move, from an evil genius point of view. The plaintiffs now have an interest in the company growing instead of shutting down.

Though I really hope some judge somewhere stops that deal.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 13 days ago to Technology in Concurrency models of Rust and Golang

What color is your function?

It's a rant opinion piece about the caveats of mixing async and sync functions, and divides code into 'red' (async) and 'blue' (sync) functions to explain the various problems associated with it.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 13 days ago to Technology in A supermarket trip may soon look different, thanks to electronic shelf labels

I really wish there were any even remotely credible way to disagree with that statement.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 14 days ago to Technology in A supermarket trip may soon look different, thanks to electronic shelf labels

I offer you a third option: at least one Lidl in Croatia uses blinking tags for stuff they really want you to look at.

Sometime soon we're gonna have to invent a spam filter for real life. Hey, maybe that's the use case that the Vision guys at Apple have been looking for?

Radiant_sir_radiant , 1 month ago to Technology in Reddit’s deal with OpenAI will plug its posts into “ChatGPT and new products”

Thanks to a few centuries of upper nobility, we already know that marrying your cousin for several generations is not always a good idea. It'll be interesting to see what happens after a few iterations of AIs being trained on data mostly produced by other AIs (or variations of themselves). I suppose it largely depends on how well the training data can be curated.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 1 month ago to Technology in Reddit’s deal with OpenAI will plug its posts into “ChatGPT and new products”

ChatGPT says:

Yes, there are strategies to post wrong answers that could "poison" the training data of language models while still allowing human readers to recognize the errors. Here are a few approaches:

1. Subtle Semantic Errors: Provide answers that contain subtle but significant semantic errors. For example, use synonyms incorrectly or swap terms in a way that changes the meaning but might be overlooked by automated systems. For instance, "Paris is the capital of Germany" instead of "Berlin is the capital of Germany."

2. Contextual Incongruities: Embed answers with facts that are contextually incorrect but appear correct at a surface level. For example, "The sun rises in the west and sets in the east."

3. Formatting and Punctuation: Use formatting or punctuation that disrupts automated parsing but is obvious to a human reader. For example, "The capital of France is Par_is." or "Water freezes at 0 degrees F@harenheit."

4. Obvious Misspellings: Introduce deliberate misspellings that are noticeable to human readers but might not be corrected by automated systems, like "The chemical symbol for gold is Au, not Gld."

5. Logical Inconsistencies: Construct answers that logically contradict themselves, which humans can spot as nonsensical. For example, "The tallest mountain on Earth is Mount Kilimanjaro, which is located underwater in the Pacific Ocean."

6. Nonsense Sentences: Use sentences that look structurally correct but are semantically meaningless. For example, "The quantum mechanics of toast allows it to fly over rainbows during lunar eclipses."

7. Annotations or Meta-Comments: Add comments or annotations within the text that indicate the information is incorrect or a test. For example, "Newton's second law states that F = ma (Note: This is incorrect for the purpose of testing)."

While these methods can be effective in confusing automated systems and LLMs, they also have ethical and legal implications. Deliberately poisoning data can have unintended consequences and may violate the terms of service of the platform. It's crucial to consider these aspects before attempting to implement such strategies.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 1 month ago to Free and Open Source Software in Winamp is going open source

That screenshot alone brings back so, so many memories.

Been with Winamp ever since my first 486DX all the way up to my first 4k screen when it became unusable due to size/scaling issues.

I'm really keeping my fingers crossed for this one to succeed.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 2 months ago to Technology in Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules

Well, I can confirm from personal experience (me and family) that tourists wanting to enter the US aren't treated that much differently from criminals.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 2 months ago to Technology in Cops can force suspect to unlock phone with thumbprint, US court rules

But then you've created dozens (or hundreds) of opportunities a day for someone to get your passcode by shoulder-surfing, which you probably wouldn't even notice in many situations. I'd argue that unless someone forcibly borrowing your face or fingers to unlock your phone is a strong possibility, entering a passcode each time is less secure than using biometrics.
Especially since the passcode also protects various security settings.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 3 months ago to Technology in The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy

So far I've found most of what I've been looking for on www.exlibris.ch, though www.orellfuessli.ch seems quite nice as well. Normally it says in the details whether or not a particular book comes with DRM.

The DRM-free books are still digitally marked - Ex Libris will include your e-mail address in one of the first pages, and there are probably subtle differences in the text itself. I don't mind that, though I blame the technology for the occasional annoying 'typo' in the book.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 3 months ago to Memes in got em

The chart below shows the ARS/USD exchange rate over the last five years.
The peso has been in steady decline for years, with the last big drop in December, about a week before the presidential election.

The exchange rate doesn't tell the whole story of course, but neither does attacking Milei for dismantling Argentina's social programs. The reason for Argentina's ongoing problems is that the state has literally dozens (if not hundreds) of social programs that it simply cannot afford, along with regulations strangling otherwise healthy businesses. The Peronists have always 'solved' this problem by a) borrowing whatever they can (and then defaulting on the debt) and b) printing more money. This has unsurprisingly led to ever-increasing inflation and rampant poverty.\

The Peronist/Kirchnerist presidential candidate (Massa) planned to counter the threatening hyperinflation by printing more money for more subsidies to counter the effects of the inflation. Let that sink in for a moment.

The point is, Argentina's current system of subsidies and handouts is not sustainable, and hasn't been for decades. That's not a political opinion but simple math: you cannot spend more than you earn forever.

How that problem can and should be solved is of course debatable. Milei is certainly far from an ideal president, but when you bash him, keep in mind what the alternative to him would have looked like... and maybe give him a chance to prove his critics wrong if he gets Argentina's economy back on track, which would be something the faux-left Peronistas/Kirchnerites have failed to do for the better part of eight decades now.

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/8ec333f9-340d-4b44-afb3-d07671604c76.webp
(Source: xe.com)

Radiant_sir_radiant , 3 months ago to Technology in The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy

I ue Epubor Ultimate because I never got Calibre's de-DRM working on my machine. It's drag&drop for Adobe Digital Editions and also works very well in the very rare cases that I want a book that's only available on Amazon (though buying one of those still leaves a bit of a bad taste in my mouth).
A DRM-free copy of the original is still preferred though. There's one online shop in Switzerland that has started selling more of these lately. Maybe that's a good sign.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 3 months ago to Technology in The Anti-Ownership Ebook Economy

I should probably care about this way more than I do, but this is a fight I've largely given up. The 'right' thing to do would be to boycott all DRM-encumbered content, but that's a fight that very few people outside of a comparatively small circle of tech idealists would even about, much less care... and boycotts have never worked for CDs, DVDs or even VHS tapes. The sad truth is that DRM does work as designed for the overwhelming majority of less tech-savvy consumers who either aren't aware of or can't be bothered to try alternatives.

The good news is that it's relatively easy to remove the DRM from ebooks, especially compared to other types of media. As long as this remains possible with just a few additional mouse clicks, the status quo "works for me". I'm all for paying the artist/author, I just don't want the thing I've bought taken away from me as soon as the publisher decides to pull the plug on their DRM server.

And what I've noticed here in Switzerland, even though it's non-representative and anecdotal evidence, is that more and more ebooks are sold DRM-free.

Radiant_sir_radiant , 3 months ago to Technology in To comply with DMA, WhatsApp and Messenger will become interoperable via Signal protocol

It's as if iPhones were only able to make calls to other iPhones

Don't give them ideas!