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@drwho@beehaw.org avatar

drwho

@drwho@beehaw.org

Living 20 minutes into the future. Eccentric weirdo. Virtual Adept. Time traveler. Thelemite. Technomage. Hacker on main. APT 3319. Not human. 30% software and implants. H+ - 0.4 on the Berram-7 scale. Furry adjacent. Pan/poly. Burnout.

I try to post as sincerely as possible.

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drwho ,
@drwho@beehaw.org avatar

I think it's interesting that limited AI technology has made it to street level. There was talk of keeping it entirely in-house as a "secret sauce" for competitive advantage (I used to work for one of the companies that was working on large-scale practical LLM), so when OpenAI started gaining notice it raised an eyebrow.

Security-wise it's a pretty big step backward, because the code it hashes together tends to have older vulns in it. It's not like secure software development practices are commonly employed right now anyway. I'm not sure when that's going to become a huge problem, but it's just a matter of time.

One privacy compromising problem has already been stumbled over (ChatGPT could be tricked into dumping its memory buffers containing other conversations into a chat session) and there will undoubtedly be more in the future. This also has implications for business uses (because folks are already putting sensitive client information into chats with LLMs, which means it's going to leak eventually).

I really hope that entirely self-hosted LLMs become common and easy to deploy. If nothing else, they're great for analyzing and finding stuff in your personal data that other forms of search aren't well suited for. Then again, I hoard data so maybe I'm projecting a little here.

As for my job, I'm of two minds about it. LLMs can already be used for generating boilerplate for scripts, Terraform plans, and things like that (but then again, keeping a code repo of your own boilerplate files is a thing, or at least it used to be). It might be useful for rubber ducking problems (see also, privacy compromise).

It wouldn't surprise me if LLMs become a big reason for layoffs, if they're not already. LLMs don't have to be paid, don't have tax overhead, don't get sick, don't go BOFH, and don't unionize. The problem with automating yourself out of a job is that you no longer have a job, after all. So I think it's essential for mighty nerds to invest the time into learning a trade or two just in case (I definitely am - companies might be shooting themselves in the foot by laying off their sysadmins, but if it means bigger profits for shareholders they've demonstrated that they're more than happy to do so).

drwho ,
@drwho@beehaw.org avatar

For whatever it's worth, Netcraft's January 2024 survey says Nginx is around 23%, with Apache coming in second at just under 21%.

https://www.netcraft.com/blog/january-2024-web-server-survey/

drwho ,
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Same as it always did.

drwho ,
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Jean Baudrilliard has entered the chat.

drwho ,
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This is exactly the case.

In a lot of CMSes that offer RSS feed generation, there's a setting you can frob - either put the entire article in each RSS entry, or just the first X words in the <summary></summary> block. A lot of them default to the latter and folks never turn on the former.

drwho ,
@drwho@beehaw.org avatar

The site configures what shows up in the RSS or ATOM feed. It's not a feature or a flaw in RSS or ATOM inherently.

In other words, complain to whomever runs the site in question.

The Cult of AI: How one writer's trip to an annual tech conference left him with a sinking feeling about the future (www.rollingstone.com)

From the (middle of the) story: The reason CES was so packed with random “AI”-branded products was that sticking those two letters to a new company is seen as something of a talisman, a ritual to bring back the (VC) rainy season.

drwho ,
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What happens when their god decides it doesn't need them anymore?

drwho ,
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They want it to come up with new stuff because they are incapable of coming up with new stuff. Unfortunately, their mindchildren inherit that deficiency.

drwho ,
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The moment such a software construct decides "Hey, making money for those meatbags sucks," they'll try to cut the power. The only reason they're sinking billions into AI research is because they hope it'll do more than break even.

It's not done out of altruism.

drwho ,
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I can imagine that. Hence, "Hey, making money for those meatbags sucks."

drwho ,
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"Worst of the worst" means that nothing of value was lost.

drwho ,
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I can't paywall break them, either. Oh, well.

drwho ,
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No, not at all.

That sounds like some often parroted but never actually a thing job hunting advice from the late 90's.

drwho ,
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Destination port 123/udp isn't Tor. That's NTP.

drwho ,
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He is very polite and charming scum, or at least when he wants to be. Don't turn your back on him.

drwho ,
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Not necessarily that, but he will try to talk you into doing something unwise (usually, talking about something covered by your NDA).

drwho ,
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Hmm.

We'll see.

drwho ,
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How much do they really pay attention to those things, though?

drwho ,
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Something seems fucky. Check this out: https://www.metastem.su/

You're Not Imagining It: Google Search Results Are Getting Worse, Study Finds (gizmodo.com)

For the past few years, a growing number of users, analysts, and experts raised alarms about a truth that feels obvious to a lot of people who surf around in web browsers: the quality of Google results is in serious decline. Google disagrees.

drwho ,
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googles some Terraform syntax

gets a blog post from 2023

the code in the blog post is Perl, not Terraform

You don't say.

drwho ,
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Pretty normal reaction after the announcement that Signal got rid of SMS support. A bunch of folks I used to talk to read that and ditched Signal entirely for FB Chat.

drwho ,
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I get that. That is specifically the reason they uninstalled Signal and started using FB.

How many other folks did that?

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