papasquat's recent activity
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Comment on Thinking of getting Proton and using it as my day-to-day email, but I have concerns in ~tech
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentWell, most scams may not rely on apps, but some do. There are a massive amount of malicious apks containing infostealers, crypto miners, adware, and all other kinds of nasty stuff you don't want...Well, most scams may not rely on apps, but some do. There are a massive amount of malicious apks containing infostealers, crypto miners, adware, and all other kinds of nasty stuff you don't want on your phone.
They rely on people being socially engineered into disabling security controls because they don't know better.
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Comment on According to a poll, Finns now trust the US as little as Russia and China and overall social trust is on the decline in ~society
papasquat LinkI'm honestly surprised that the US still ranks higher than China. I know that globally, China dominates manufacturing and uses a lot of state supported unfair trade practices to maintain their...- Exemplary
I'm honestly surprised that the US still ranks higher than China. I know that globally, China dominates manufacturing and uses a lot of state supported unfair trade practices to maintain their edge in that arena, but still, compared to the US, they seem like model partners.
As an American, the surprising thing about our relationship with Europe right now isn't that they're incredibly wary of the US, it's that there's any support for the US whatsoever remaining.
In the past year, our country has launched unprompted attacks against a half dozen sovereign nations, many of them not even related to the same conflict, has threatened to attack dozens more, many of them fellow NATO members, has abruptly ended almost all humanitarian aid across the world, has repeatedly destabilized global trade and screwed over every single major US trading partner, and recently is solely responsible for the worst oil crisis in years. If we did all of this because it benefited US interests, you could at least plan for future moves and have a reasonable idea of what the US would do next and account for it, but most of these actions directly shoot the US in the foot, so it's just pure chaos instead.
If I was in the average Europeans shoes, I'd want nothing more to do with the US. Even after this president, I'd remain deeply suspicious of any society or government framework that allows someone like him to take the reigns and sow that much chaos without any recourse for the majority of the populace that doesn't support him, and even worse, of a society where he still enjoys so much popular support.
We'd be the biggest threat in the world by far, and the one truly terrifying force that I'd identify as causing the most harm and suffering worldwide. Not only do we have an obscene military budget and dominate the global economy, the last year has shown that we're willing to flex that budget solely to cause chaos and destruction in service to a single man's ego and cult of personality.
After all of that, what European would still identify China as a country that inspires less confidence?
For any issues that China has, they're not bombing schools, threatening to annex their allies, and sentencing hundreds of thousands of people to preventable death from AIDS.
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Comment on Kill chain - on the automated bureaucratic machinery that killed 175 children in ~society
papasquat Link ParentZooming out, efforts to improve targeting and reduce collateral damage are worthwhile, but I think we miss the forest for the trees sometimes when we decide to kill people in other countries. This...Zooming out, efforts to improve targeting and reduce collateral damage are worthwhile, but I think we miss the forest for the trees sometimes when we decide to kill people in other countries.
This is a war. In every war since the beginning of time, innocent, uninvolved people are violently killed, often at a much higher rate than combatants. No matter how many times you say "surgical strikes" or "precision targeting", it will not change this fact.
Thus, every time a leader of the country makes the decision to bomb, invade, drone strike, or fire at another country, they, and the people who support them need to ask themselves "is whatever we're trying to do worth us killing hundreds or thousands or more innocent people that are just living their lives as I am".
Convincing yourself that this time, only the "bad guys" will die is just gross willful self delusion to soothe one's own cognitive dissonance.
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Comment on Zachtronics returns from retirement to release an add-on for Opus Magnum in ~games
papasquat LinkOpus Magnum is such an interesting, fun game. I sunk some hours into it, but like all Zachtronics games, I eventually got deep enough into it that every time I played it, it made me feel like a...Opus Magnum is such an interesting, fun game. I sunk some hours into it, but like all Zachtronics games, I eventually got deep enough into it that every time I played it, it made me feel like a complete dumbass so I dropped it.
That's not any knock on zachtronics games, I have the same problem with all games that have a slow level of gradually increasing complexity to a point where it gets nuts. Factorio is one of my favorite games of all times but loading one of my old save files fills me with an innate sense of dread.
I wonder if there's a word for that yet?
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI'm not sure how it's a legal problem. All of this activity is already illegal. I guess you could frame it as an enforcement problem, but that seems extremely difficult to solve. Most of the...I'm not sure how it's a legal problem.
All of this activity is already illegal. I guess you could frame it as an enforcement problem, but that seems extremely difficult to solve. Most of the countries that launch these attacks are not willing to work with US or EU law enforcement.
They're place like North Korea, Russia, and Iran, where there's not even a slight chance that their government would cooperate with an investigation or extradite their citizens for cyber crime, if you can even determine who they are. It takes an absolutely massive investigative apperatus to even get that far, and once you do, there's not much you can do to deter or punish the people doing it.
If you're talking about pressuring companies whose platforms are being used for scams... isn't that what this is?
I think Google is doing this at least in part because of anticipated legal pressure. They're one of the companies you've identified as enabling these scams, and this is a solution they're putting in place to help solve it.
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentMaybe that's part of it, but let's not pretend that there isn't also a very real security concern here. Modern phone OSes are very secure compared to even modern desktop OSes, and especially...In this case, they simply don't want you to be able to install newpipe on your friend's devices.
Maybe that's part of it, but let's not pretend that there isn't also a very real security concern here.
Modern phone OSes are very secure compared to even modern desktop OSes, and especially desktop OSes from 20+ years ago when downloading software from random websites and trusting they were what they said it was was the every day norm for most people.
The issue is that everyone in the developed world has a computer in their pocket they use every day now, and trust for extremely sensitive tasks like banking, medical care, mental healthcare, cryptocurrency and so on. The financial motivation to compromise those computers has gone through the roof, and the average technical skillset of those computers users has gone into the toilet.
As a result, way more phones get compromised than computers ever did a couple of decades ago. There are way, way way more of them for starters, and the financial motivation exists today in a way that it didn't 20 years ago.
Because of that, the only meaningful way to enhance security on smartphones is by protecting users from themselves.
So probably a little from column a a little from column b.
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThat's the EU, and is only very recent. Android has always allowed side loading though. iOS only started allowing it a couple years ago, and only when they were mandated to in the EU. Apple still...That's the EU, and is only very recent. Android has always allowed side loading though. iOS only started allowing it a couple years ago, and only when they were mandated to in the EU.
Apple still doesn't allow you to side load anywhere else.
Other markets seem very unlikely to require them to enable it, so Google doesn't really have a regulatory concern there.
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Comment on Robert Mueller, who investigated allegations of Russian election meddling, dies at 81 in ~society
papasquat Link ParentThat excuse would make sense if he hadn't been saying vile things publicly for 50+ years.That excuse would make sense if he hadn't been saying vile things publicly for 50+ years.
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Comment on BYD claims five-minute electric vehicle charging with new battery tech in ~transport
papasquat Link ParentIt's not a great solution, because the bigger the battery is, the exponentially more expensive it is to build machinery to swap it. Modern EVs have battery packs that are extremely integrated into...It's not a great solution, because the bigger the battery is, the exponentially more expensive it is to build machinery to swap it.
Modern EVs have battery packs that are extremely integrated into the chassis, which makes sense, because they make up a significant amount of mass of the vehicle. Making the batteries hot swappable means the vehicle has to be completely redesigned around that capability, which will always impact things like price, range, performance, durability and so on.
Vehicles would be much more constrained because they'd have to be built around a single hot swap form factor. Heavy and light duty trucks would have to use the same batteries as passenger sedans, performance sports cars, SUVs and so on, which would result in a lot of bad tradeoffs.On the hot swap station side, you need to install high performance motors or actuators to lift and store extremely heavy batteries quickly.
Anything with that many heavy duty, high performance moving parts is always going to be massively expensive compared to a simple high voltage charger.
Finally, one of the huge advantages of electricity as a power source, and the main reason it was adopted as the way to deliver energy to people around the developed world is because it's so easy to transport.
It's the one form of energy we have widely deployed that doesn't require any physical movement, which makes it extremely cheap and efficient to deliver. You just attach some conductors and pump electrons into whatever you want to power.
Battery swapping kind of negates a lot of that advantage. You suddenly have physical objects that are responsible for delivering power, meaning you need to track them and manage stock of them, depreciate them and so on.
If some new battery tech comes out that can't fit the hot swap form factor for some reason, you're just fucked. You have to come up with a new form factor and retrofit every single hot swap station to accept it.
I don't think it's a very good solution for vehicles larger than a small scooter or motorcycle where the battery can be carried by a single person because of all of those things.
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentWell, those are two completely different threat landscapes. If most of your family rarely needed to use that room, and it was also extremely common for random people to show up and successfully...Well, those are two completely different threat landscapes. If most of your family rarely needed to use that room, and it was also extremely common for random people to show up and successfully trick them into giving them the key to the room every day, and someone gaining access to that room who shouldn't have be there would result in your life savings being stolen, it might make sense to put some speed bumps in place for the rare case that someone needs to get in there.
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentIt does provide improved security. Phone OSes on a technical basis are already extremely secure. The amount of phones compromised by zero days and unpatched vulnerabilities on fully updated phones...It does provide improved security.
Phone OSes on a technical basis are already extremely secure. The amount of phones compromised by zero days and unpatched vulnerabilities on fully updated phones is so miniscule that they're barely worth considering.
The number one way by a gargantuan margin that phones get compromised are by socially engineering users to disable built in security protections. That's because by and large, smartphone users are not technically savvy. The only way to meaningfully improve security on smart phones then, is to protect users from their own technical ignorance.
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThey very much don't. What I don't understand though, is why they still let you do it. I'm not complaining. It would really piss me off and drive me to seek a more open alternative. It does seem...They very much don't. What I don't understand though, is why they still let you do it.
I'm not complaining. It would really piss me off and drive me to seek a more open alternative.
It does seem directly antithetical to Google's bottom line though. It enables alternative app stores, apps like smart tube that directly cut off some of Google's most lucrative revenue streams (YouTube ads), enables piracy apps that I'm sure their partners are not too happy about, and all kinds of other useful tools that negatively impact Google's revenue.
The question for me isn't "why are they trying to make this harder". It's "why do they allow it at all?".
It may be Google's engineer driven culture, it may be Google trying to preserve good will, it may be because of legacy use cases for Android that would blow a lot of stuff up, but none of this reasons satisfactorily explain it for me.
That kinda makes me worried for the future of side loading.
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Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentThat's because there was someone else who had a vastly more impact in the art; the actual artist. No different than someone contacted to design a single window in an office of the empire state...The patron has a hand, sure, but if that patron claimed to be an artist or to have created the art
That's because there was someone else who had a vastly more impact in the art; the actual artist.
No different than someone contacted to design a single window in an office of the empire state building pointing to the building and going "I designed that that!".
This isn't really uncommon or new either. Large art installations have dozens or even hundreds of people that assist the artist in doing the grunt work of laying the tile, painting pieces, moving heavy equipment, installing stuff. The artist still gets recognized as the artist though.
The only difference here is that an LLM is tool, not a person, and thus is no more an artist as a paintbrush, or a camera, or a piano, or Adobe Photoshop is. The human using it is the person who made all the artistic decisions, so they're the artist, even if that role is extremely minimal.
And as @Drynyn noted, LLMs don't have experiences. They can't, because experience requires consciousness. It can, at best, parrot written accounts of experiences that people have had, but it has none of its own.
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Comment on BYD claims five-minute electric vehicle charging with new battery tech in ~transport
papasquat Link ParentHonestly if you have a big gas tank and you're at a gas pump with shitty clogged filters (which is basically all of them around me), it may be the same or even slightly faster. I've definitely...Honestly if you have a big gas tank and you're at a gas pump with shitty clogged filters (which is basically all of them around me), it may be the same or even slightly faster. I've definitely spent over 5 minutes refilling the 16 gallon gas tank in my car before.
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Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI don't think there are many artists that would argue that their patron doesn't have a hand in creating their art. The creation of Adam wouldn't be what it is without the Sistine chapel and the...I don't think there are many artists that would argue that their patron doesn't have a hand in creating their art. The creation of Adam wouldn't be what it is without the Sistine chapel and the Catholic Church.
We consider Michaelangelo to be the artist because he's the one who made the vast amount of decisions about the art. He decided the subject, the composition, the pigments, where each brush stroke should go, and so forth. Each of those decisions was informed by his life experience and emotions at the time.
An LLM doesn't have emotions or experiences. The only human in the loop that does is the one prompting it. Thus, they're the "artist". (Albeit to a very small degree)
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Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentHas software gotten cheaper though? Every major software producer that sells software to end users has done away with perpetual licenses and instead opted to charge expensive monthly...Has software gotten cheaper though?
Every major software producer that sells software to end users has done away with perpetual licenses and instead opted to charge expensive monthly subscriptions. Microsoft Office 2007 was $400 when it was released. You could pay $400 and use it forever.
The equivalent today, Microsoft 365, costs about $200 PER YEAR now. That means that after four years, it's more expensive than Office 2007 was, even accounting for inflation.
Microsoft has been heavily pushing the idea of AI making everyone's workforces more efficient, and pushing very hard on its developers to use the technology to make them more efficient. In theory, that should result in cheaper software, but it really hasn't.
I suspect the premise is faulty in at least one place.
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Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentI mean... Blockchains have proven themselves useful too. Every day I get to fight off the ransomware attempts that blockchains have provided the financial motivation for. I mean, it's not useful...I mean... Blockchains have proven themselves useful too. Every day I get to fight off the ransomware attempts that blockchains have provided the financial motivation for.
I mean, it's not useful to me, in fact, quite the opposite. It's extremely useful to criminals at least though!
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Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentWell, I think the main issue is that "ai generated" doesn't really mean anything. That term is also a sliding spectrum with no real definition. You have things that everyone would agree with as...Well, I think the main issue is that "ai generated" doesn't really mean anything. That term is also a sliding spectrum with no real definition. You have things that everyone would agree with as being "AI generated", like the agentic workflow previously mentioned, but further along the spectrum you have things like just posting whatever the first image that comes back from your prompt, carefully selecting a prompted image, taking a prompted image and then editing it in Photoshop. The extreme end of that spectrum has things like the magic eraser tool, fuzzy selection, automated smoothing in 3d modeling software, and so on.
If someone says "AI art isn't art", it's just not at all clear what they really mean.
If they're talking about images generated with no human in the loop, I'd wholeheartedly agree with them.
Anything less than that though... yeah I'd agree with you. You can't come up with a consistent definition of art that makes sense that includes human art but excludes "ai assisted" art.
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Comment on I hope you don't use generative AI - an essay about my experience offering an open-source tool in ~tech
papasquat Link ParentYes, and I think a lot of people's blind hatred of AI has totally obscured the actual reasons why they've developed that hatred in the first place. Most of the people in the OP seem to be artists...Yes, and I think a lot of people's blind hatred of AI has totally obscured the actual reasons why they've developed that hatred in the first place.
Most of the people in the OP seem to be artists who have the opinion that AI is bad because it's replacing real human art. I agree that that is bad.
The issue is that the OP did not intend to make art, and is not making his tools available as pieces of art. He offering them because they're useful. They serve a purely a utilitarian function.
It would be one thing if he posted the source code saying "I set out to make this code elegant and beautiful and to make a statement about x". Some people do, but most people do not produce code with that intention. They produce it to solve a problem; ie, they're not setting out to make art. They're setting out to make a tool.
A tool has an entirely different value proposition than art. Art is intended to evoke an emotion, to communicate something, or to share a piece of the author. Tools are intended to do a job as efficiently and as well as possible.
So then, tools shouldn't be judged on the basis of art, just as art shouldn't be judged on the basis of tools.
If you're making a tool, I have no issue with using as much AI as possible as long as you're being responsible about reviewing that code, since AI still has a lot of practical problems regarding context and security.
If you're making art, I will respect it less and be less interested in it the more of the technical aspects and decision making you've outsourced to AI. For instance, I have no desire to go to a museum filled with diffusion model generated art, no matter how carefully it's prompted and selected.
I mean, hell, I respect the heck out of digital art, I know it's very time consuming and requires a great deal of skill to create. I still have no desire to even see that in an art museum.
I, and I think most people if they really think about it, judge those two things by completely different standards.
I agree with you, which is why I didn't go with protonmail.
Email is not a secure form of communication. It cannot be made into a secure form of communication without jumping through a lot of hoops and fundmentally breaking large portions of how email works, and it shouldn't be used as a secure form of communication.
As soon as your message leaves protons servers, it's cleartext smtp, just like any other email message. Anyone that intercepts it can read your whole email, including metadata.
Sure, you can do pgp, but realistically, who are you talking to with pgp?
If you need secure communications, use something other than email.
If you want an email provider that just doesn't harvest your inbox, in my opinion, there are other providers that are better alternatives than proton.