Welcome to Incremental Social! Learn more about this project here!
Check out lemmyverse to find more communities to join from here!

yggstyle

@yggstyle@lemmy.world

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

yggstyle ,

I love angry comedians... but you weren't kidding: That was a brutal watch. He makes some decent points but he presents it like Jim Cramer crossed with a 10 year old making fart jokes.

yggstyle ,

I found it was pretty easy to get rid of the nag. I installed a different OS. For my development stuff that needs windows and I can't run with wine (very few tools) - I have a VM running a windows version with 0 Internet access. Fuck that company sideways.

yggstyle ,

It's simple. They want the free labor provided by the community with the ability to keep all of the profits they can potentially reap from said labor.

yggstyle ,

JFC Microsoft has no chill. Snip is practically the last thing in windows that works right.

yggstyle ,

Do no evil.

Beatings will continue until morale improves.

yggstyle ,

They sure as hell don't 🤣

yggstyle ,

Former crypto company... Power drain... I feel like there's an answer here...

yggstyle ,

Call down Satan.

*edit: Calm. but you know what? Call the man in red. He prolly should be taking notes.

yggstyle ,

It's a play to try to fix the algo. Large creators have gaming the system down to a science and it's making the experience as bad as yaho... google search.

yggstyle ,

Because the verge wasn't stupid enough to buy into that insanity. The Verge.

Tech reporting is difficult in the gadget sphere - but in reporting chances are you know someone who has it. Network a bit. Borrow it and do a full review after you publish a piece that maybe discusses the product beforehand so you don't miss the initial clicks. Or better still - maybe publish a piece on why you didn't think it prudent to finance 4k for a product that the manufacturer doesn't know what to do with.

yggstyle ,

Honestly I don't know. Based on reviews I know that at least part of the product is 'sized' for your face. I know they say scanned but realistically it's a base measurement of your eyes and maybe a few values to pick one of the premade face gaskets. I wouldn't put it past apple to hit you 20% restock less the 'custom' parts. So 6-700 bucks to write a review?

yggstyle ,

Step one... create consent deepfake....

I don't like that I thought it... But It pains me to say it will be used as a defense at some point.

yggstyle ,

Plausible deniability is a helluva thing.

yggstyle ,

Can't wait till we find out that the arbitration agreement they forced on people was penned up shortly after they discovered the breach.

yggstyle ,

insert shocked.gif here.

Fuck these companies. They all need to rot.

yggstyle ,

To be fair- that value didn't change much from pre ai.

yggstyle ,

Exactly. There's a market for that tech. Laptop ain't it.

yggstyle ,

The greatest malware ever installed was the idea that we shouldn't fear our governments and should trust them implicitly.

yggstyle ,

Closest thing we have is end to end encryption mixed with services like tor to obfuscate our positions. Privacy is no longer opt out and is increasingly harder to achieve.

yggstyle ,

Yes and no.

Currently you could say that ai is just efficiently guessing what we would want to see from pixel to pixel.

An artist may tune their style to be more similar to the art that they sold before in hopes of repeat buyers.

An AI looks at countless images and seeks out patterns which it refines. It mimics things and duplicates patterns.

An artists spends countless hours absorbed in the art of others to learn styles. Frequently they may mimic other works and iterate off of existing ideas.

Fan art, tracing, compositing - these are all things understood in the art community. If someone makes fan art of someone else's character does that invalidate their work as art?

AI invokes a reaction because it's getting "close." AI is receiving a lot of the same criticism that digital artists got for not using traditional mediums back in that technology's infancy.

Art is in the eye of the beholder. What defines art? Everything is relative. At present? AI is a tool. A bit unpolished and raw but so was CGI in the movie industry. Look how quickly that evolved.

yggstyle ,

I understand where you are coming from but to be fair the wind isn't using art as a reference. This is why I suggested it was a complex issue... and provided the examples that I did. There are quite a few similarities between ai models producing art and artists. Surely there are differences - but objectively speaking they do have quite a few similarities.

Art is specific to the beholder. Does what is before you evoke an emotional response? Was it produced for that purpose? If you provided paint and paper to an ape - would it be considered art? What about a child who has no concept of art?

From a non image perspective: music is art. Is a mashup music? What about other sample heavy music? Some people might argue that x genre isn't really music.

Back to prompt driven ai generated art: what if someone spent 70 hours tuning and modifying a prompt until the art fit their vision? 200 hours? What if they lacked the ability to draw or paint?

I genuinely don't believe this is a black and white issue. I do understand the implications of what ai tools have to the workforce - but that is a separate topic.

yggstyle ,

Without question. Early tablets and digital art couldn't hold a candle to traditional mediums. Even if the same artist created content for both. The tools are certainly rough.... but considering how young the technology is, and how far it has already come, I think we may soon arrive at a point where people may have issues distinguishing between the two.

Either way it's a fun topic to discuss. It's deeply interesting to see the variety of responses to it.

yggstyle ,

If the wind blows, cut up pieces of art magazines around and then land in a pile. That isn't art. It's just cut-up pieces of someone else's art.

I can't really agree with this example. I think you're suggesting the AI is completely independent of human expression and is completely random in its application of its training data (the cut up pieces I suppose?)

Generative AI is driven by a human prompt (description) and refined by further prompts which pushes the result in the direction of the prompters vision.

If a person cuts up a magazine and pieces the parts together with intention and meaning. That can be art.

This is in essence what is occuring above. I view this process as someone being provided a chisel and a block of stone:

The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.

-Michelangelo

As I suggested above AI is a tool that makes accessing art and expression available to anyone. The Ai is the chisel. They cut the stone with words.. It isn't just random clipart being thrown around either: The 'stone' is the culmination of all of the art the model has 'seen.' It has taken that data and found the patterns that different styles contain. You might describe this as the distillation of human expression into something new.

The source is art - human expression
The prompt gives it form - human expression
Further prompts drive the form to fit the users vision - human expression

There is intent and meaning.

Is it art in the traditional sense? Perhaps not in the same vein as ink and canvas but ... I believe, while it is certainly rough and unrefined, it can still be considered a tool to create art.

yggstyle ,

Let's see if we can keep this civil, shall we?

First and foremost the model isn't compositing bits and pieces of other pictures - it's predicting what the next pixel should look like based on its training data. It is generating the image. In laymans terms: it's drawing based on what it has 'learned' by looking at other art. It's pretty interesting honestly.

I do have a background in art, though it is not my profession. Regardless of that- there are no requirements to create nor appreciate art.

A few good excerpts from wikipedia:

There is no generally agreed definition of what constitutes art, and its interpretation has varied greatly throughout history and across cultures.

Art can connote a sense of trained ability or mastery of a medium. Art can also refer to the developed and efficient use of a language to convey meaning with immediacy or depth. Art can be defined as an act of expressing feelings, thoughts, and observations.

Everyone is entitled to their opinions. Ours seem to differ- and that's fine. My views are simple: if someone can express themselves through a medium- it is a form of art.

yggstyle ,

I know I expressed this already but the wind analogy doesn't work here. It isn't random nor undirected.

As far as copying goes - considering your staunch stance on what is and isn't art I think it's fair to say you have some involvement with it.

Regardless of the medium we all start the same way. Imitation. In traditional art we are trained by observing what the masses find pleasing. When we observe most artists work we can identify these roots. Very few artists art is not based in the works of those before them.

This article does a fine job of expressing the above.

AI assisted (generative) art is a tool that provides a user access to a compendium of learned styles. It lowers the barrier of entry to express yourself through art.

I posit that this is such a divisive topic because there is so little difference between how we learn and how these models do. It garners a lot of the same negativity that a prodigy might. "Why is it so easy for them when I worked so hard. They don't appreciate it as much as me."

In the end art belongs to nobody and everybody. Art is amorphous; formless. Art and artistic expression can exist anywhere- even here. I personally am not so high minded to gatekeep such a broad field.

yggstyle ,

Enough value to respond though. Interesting.

Be that as it may: considering your involvement you should have known the differences between random copy and paste and pixel prediction. I'm afraid I doubt your claims. Your views on art were pretty polarized - I'm pleased to have provided contrast to them.

Broadcom-owned VMware kills the free version of ESXi virtualization software (arstechnica.com)

Since Broadcom's $61 billion acquisition of VMware closed in November 2023, Broadcom has been charging ahead with major changes to the company's personnel and products. In December, Broadcom began laying off thousands of employees and stopped selling perpetually licensed versions of VMware products, pushing its customers toward...

yggstyle ,

There are a variety of options available with near feature parity. Killing the free version effectively cut out lab users which may as well say: we sure would like people to start training on a new platform. People use what they are comfortable with.... and tend to carry a hatchet for companies that burn them.

This was a short sighted play which ultimately will result in the platform dying slowly as the workforce changes. They cut off new blood: less people will be proficient with their platform and more will be pushing for a switch to the competition. In addition to the loss of the free version they massively ramped prices. They won't last. Right now the companies that are too big to pivot are already starting to weigh the costs of transitioning vs the squeeze. The C-suite are idiots.

yggstyle ,

It's been echod several times in this thread already but:

Wireless and security are oil and water. They do not mix. This goes byond wifi. If your security system has wireless sensors (door, window, motion) - you aren't secure. Please do not buy smart locks.

Wireless cameras are not security - they are a convenience. A convenience for checking on the kids in the back or seeing if that package got delivered.

If it's not wired and powered it is at best a scarecrow and at worse an indicator that you have money and you feel secure.

yggstyle ,

I don't disagree with that. If someone wants in they're coming in. 100% agreed. The trick is making your self less of an easy target and cutting down on easy ins.

My statement was pretty generic as there is a lot of nuance to locks and security. My concern lies mostly with the fact that you rarely have a suitable blending of the two technologies. Either a lock company buying a kit or an electronics company buying bulk locks. Or a company that does neither and is looking for another thing to peddle on Amazon.

Some of these locks have very poorly positioned relays. You can unlock them with a magnet. Others can be actuated using a simple emf generator. Ones with passcodes can be read with consumer grade ir sensors or determined by wear and fingerprints.

Reducing attack vectors is always preferred. But it is absolutely up to the end user where their balance between convenience and security lies.

A good deadbolt and key while average is still superior as it is only 3ish attack vectors: pick or impression, destruction of door/lock, and the trusty rock:

Most doors have poorly placed windows with standard glass in or next to them.

yggstyle ,

Low tech solution sure - you need to walk up to the camera and would need the location of any cameras that would potentially catch you as you scooter around tagging the cameras. Advantage is you are 100 sure the cam can't see you.

Deauth attacks work very well and don't require you to nuke all of the wireless space.

There's a variety of different attacks. Admittedly destroying the camera is more or less a sure thing hah.

yggstyle ,

Sure there may be a hard copy but that will only have value after the crime is committed. Deauth / jamming will prevent the more meaningful things like proximity alerts and notifications from informing the user (or security system) which could lead to intervention.

I've always viewed camera storage as a fallback in the event something fails. Don't get me wrong I think redundancy is great and it's a fine feature. It has value - just less so in this particular case.

yggstyle ,

That would definitely be a good approach if you were stuck with the wireless option. Im sure some software may address those disconnections in just the way you describe.

My responses have been looking at the technology broadly - in the way I might if someone asked me for my opinion prior to investing in gear. People frequently overestimate the effort required to achieve a bypass of a security device. So my goal was to provide some core knowledge.

I do like the suggestion though- it may help somone improve their own existing setup 👍

yggstyle ,

There is an advantage to advertising their existence: the sign itself may act as a deterrent and may motivate a thief to pick a softer target.

This of course is assuming you don't need a sign for each camera with an arrow pointing to it... at that point perhaps just a big dog would be a better choice hah.

yggstyle ,

For the price you can by a pretty competent n100 based mini PC which beats the hell out of the pi for a lot of tasks. Makers can get a cheaper solution via esp32 or clones... so what real market is there for it?

Pi isn't dead but the IPO would be a hail mary for funding while they figure out how not to go bankrupt.

[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the moderator]

    •
    yggstyle ,

    the joke

    your head

    yggstyle ,

    Long short, long volatility until it flatlines. Basically free money. Their product is users and their data. If they upset the ecosystem users leave and decrease valuations... leads to layoffs and cost saving measures. Rinse and repeat until sufficiently dead.

    yggstyle ,

    Without a doubt. They can't reasonably increase revenue so they need to pad* the books with layoffs. Those will result in the platform rotting out (further) from the inside. That's the long short position. Long volatility while the price bounces around like a coked up jack russel terrier.

  • All
  • Subscribed
  • Moderated
  • Favorites
  • •
  • incremental_games
  • meta
  • All magazines
    •