PendingKetchup's recent activity
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
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Comment on Android to debut "advanced flow" for sideloading unverified applications in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentI don't think the ability of genuine developers to run software of their choosing was ever in doubt. A legitimate owner with physical access and control, among other things, of which device they...I don't think the ability of genuine developers to run software of their choosing was ever in doubt. A legitimate owner with physical access and control, among other things, of which device they actually buy, is always going to win.
The thing that's being traded off against "scammers need to scam you more slowly" is "only software that participates in the marketplace is available to the public".
If you can just give away software, different software is produced. Consider the average quality of the software in F-Droid, in terms of whose interests it acts in, versus that of the software in the Play Store.
If you must pay for the right to give away software, even a token amount, you are now operating in a regime where you want your money back. If an AppID is has to be registered to a particular legal entity, it makes an app as an entity, independent of its source code, into capital.
The existence of a genuine software gift economy that envisions all people as potential producers of software is a threat to the Play Store's offering to businesses, which is control over the devices of a captive audience of consumers, which can be sold back to them one microtransaction at a time.
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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
PendingKetchup Link ParentI feel like new programming languages and features are also the only possible answer to this sort of LLM code generation. Maybe some extremely-high-level ones for rapid application development....I feel like new programming languages and features are also the only possible answer to this sort of LLM code generation. Maybe some extremely-high-level ones for rapid application development.
People clearly want to be able to say "I want a windows to pop up with two buttons and a text box and a picture of a cat" and have that happen, without needing to worry about the details. But articulating that in English can't possibly be the right way to do it, because as soon as you start to add a few details, it quickly extends to paragraphs of dialog about what the buttons should say and do and what breed the cat needs to be, in a weirdly precise dialect that's hard to write.
Language models might be able to make programming as simple as writing a detailed spec, but a well-designed programming language should be able to make it simpler. Think of the difference between Ruby and Ruby on Rails, and then put the whole thing on another set of rails. The models prove that kind of development is physically possible, but does it have to involve several gigawatts and a slot machine?
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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
PendingKetchup Link ParentI think there's a future for generative models in computer programming, but I don't understand why people think in this teleological way. The technology used to do work is a political decision,...like it or not, this is the future of development. It's already happening at scale, and it's not going to stop.
I think there's a future for generative models in computer programming, but I don't understand why people think in this teleological way. The technology used to do work is a political decision, and many times in the past technologies that were "the" future turned out not to be, because people stopped liking them.
Once upon a time, The Future of Development was SOAP web services. Or managed code. Or whatever the hell a "Java Bean" is. Or Web 2.0 "mashups". Just yesterday it was "blockchain".
These technologies are also "here to stay" in that they have not ceased to exist, but one can lead a full and exciting life as a developer in the modern age without ever actually having to work with a SOAP web service.
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Comment on What do you think about putting your driver's license in your digital wallet? in ~tech
PendingKetchup LinkI looked into this a while ago, and I don't see a major security or privacy problem with it over a physical card (since if someone can compromise the phone to get your name and address out they...I looked into this a while ago, and I don't see a major security or privacy problem with it over a physical card (since if someone can compromise the phone to get your name and address out they can compromise the phone to get a bunch of way more valuable stuff that's not already public record).
But I do see a major availability problem: phones lack the ontological inertia of a physical card, and you don't want to be relying on something to prove you're allowed to be driving that's one dead battery away from not being able to do that.
And there's a security problem with the system as a whole, which is that nobody knows how to check a virtual ID. Maybe the cops do, but if you want to prove your identity to a random business or a person you are trading with on Craigslist or something, they won't have the software or expertise to actually check the certificates/signatures involved. So you'd just be showing them an app on your own phone and claiming that's your ID. Which means when a scammer shows up and shows an app on their phone that claims they are you, nobody can tell the difference. So it's bad evidence, just like knowing someone's social security number, and one shouldn't go around expecting others to take it as good evidence.
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Comment on The future of AI in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentI think the answer here is a program of guerilla education. If you don't think you can take over your state education department and you don't think you can mount a successful electoral campaign...I think the answer here is a program of guerilla education. If you don't think you can take over your state education department and you don't think you can mount a successful electoral campaign to take over your local school board, or if the people who need education aren't in school anyway, then you've got to teach whoever will listen, one class at a time.
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Comment on Update on developer access and platform security | Spotify for Developers in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentFor learning what, exactly? Learning to use a API/service that exists exclusively for you to learn to use it? Why would anyone want to learn to use this if it is specifically designed not to be...For learning what, exactly? Learning to use a API/service that exists exclusively for you to learn to use it? Why would anyone want to learn to use this if it is specifically designed not to be able to be used?
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Comment on The assistant axis: situating and stabilizing the character of large language models in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentWhat if you post links to a malware author's blog, where they detail why they think their malware is the greatest malware of all time? Anthropic puts out a lot of marketing whitepapers where what...What if you post links to a malware author's blog, where they detail why they think their malware is the greatest malware of all time?
Anthropic puts out a lot of marketing whitepapers where what one would really like is peer-reviewed research. But I've read a couple of them and they seemed better than nothing. If it would pe appropriate to submit the official product page for the new Google Pixel, which is equally uncritical, authored by a known malicious actor, and exists to convince you that the numerous features of said Pixel are the solution to all of life's woes, it would be appropriate to link to one of Anthropic's writeups.
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Comment on Need help unlocking phone from carrier (AT&T) in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentAre these third-party services just bribing people at the carrier or something? Do they have backdoor in the carriers' systems?Are these third-party services just bribing people at the carrier or something? Do they have backdoor in the carriers' systems?
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Comment on Financial collapse? in ~finance
PendingKetchup Link ParentAs I understand it, bankruptcy is how you prevent people taking all your stuff to try and cover your debts. Instead of getting sued by creditors and having various savings or pieces of personal...As I understand it, bankruptcy is how you prevent people taking all your stuff to try and cover your debts. Instead of getting sued by creditors and having various savings or pieces of personal property seized in separate cases to cover different debts, you file for bankruptcy protection, which ensures that some amount of important things are not seized to cover debts, and that the creditors all lose out to the same degree, instead of the last one to sue you losing the most.
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Comment on An AI that turns any book into a text adventure game in ~books
PendingKetchup Link ParentI don't think character copyright works like that though. My understanding is that I can't publish a work about, say, Darth Vader From Star Wars, no matter whether I prepare that work using a...I don't think character copyright works like that though. My understanding is that I can't publish a work about, say, Darth Vader From Star Wars, no matter whether I prepare that work using a legitimately purchased copy of Star Wars, a pirated copy of Star Wars, or whatever I inferred about the character of Darth Vader from talking to ten Star Wars fans.
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Comment on Why do LLMs freak out over the seahorse emoji? in ~tech
PendingKetchup Link ParentI thought the explanation was pretty good, when it was really there an not just tell G me to ask a model and hope it explained itself correctly. L What these things really are more than anything...I thought the explanation was pretty good, when it was really there an not just tell G me to ask a model and hope it explained itself correctly. L
What these things really are more than anything else is ways to slide around in word vibe space, so it makes sense that one would output emoji by vibrating with the energy of emoji-ness and of whatever thing was supposed to be being put in emoji form, and then trying to express that.
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Comment on Timeout when connecting to a local webserver through the internet, but only on WiFi in ~comp
PendingKetchup LinkI would look at the AP, since it is another box between you and the destination on the wifi path, and probably has a web UI and some ability to firewall. What does it think its own IP is? Is it...I would look at the AP, since it is another box between you and the destination on the wifi path, and probably has a web UI and some ability to firewall. What does it think its own IP is? Is it somehow doing triple NAT?
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
PendingKetchup Link ParentI think I think of power gradients as kind of like the gradients of multuvariable calculus. If you have like rich white woman CEO over here, and a poor homeless noncitizen Hispanic man over there,...I think I think of power gradients as kind of like the gradients of multuvariable calculus. If you have like rich white woman CEO over here, and a poor homeless noncitizen Hispanic man over there, the first might have a higher "absolute" level of power than the second, but if you look at the derivative just along the gender dimension, that component points the other way. That local gradient might then be relevant if you are trying to think about gender-related aspects of their interactions, like who would be more likely to be taken to task for not giving enough attention to their children. I'm not really sure what current thinking is on who should be believed more if each simultaneously accuses the other of sexual assault, because you've put the "believe women" maxim up against the rest of the body of critical theory. I know you aren't meant to do a sort of "oppression Olympics" or start assigning point values to identity characteristics, but I don't really know what you are supposed to do instead.
Sexual exploitation indeed doesn't only happen down the gender gradient. Any power imbalance, for any reason, creates an opportunity for sexual exploitation. If people are going around thinking that is only a man thing, they are wrong. But that also means that you should take power dynamics other than gender into account when thinking about sexual assault.
Even if you don't feel more powerful as a man than women who are your peers, the theory says that the local gradient wherever you are is still "more woman -> less power", so if you were everything you are but also a woman, you would be predicted to have additional problems. I suppose it's possible you've found a place where that isn't actually true, but the theory also says that power disparities are much harder to see from the high side than the low side: the work of thinking about and dealing with them generally gets put on the people with less power. So you might want to check with the women peers to get their perspectives.
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Comment on Bitnami’s August 28th bombshell: The end of free container images as we know them in ~tech
PendingKetchup LinkIn the middle of the article it lapses into "increasingly breathless Markdown headings and lists" style. We have "Dependency Hell Multiplied" and "Legacy Repository Limbo" and a bunch of sections...In the middle of the article it lapses into "increasingly breathless Markdown headings and lists" style. We have "Dependency Hell Multiplied" and "Legacy Repository Limbo" and a bunch of sections with three bullet points, where each bullet has its own boldface key point, and the negativity and fear is relentless.
Does everybody on Medium write like this, when they write these blog posts that are really about how their product solves $problem_of_week? Is that where the robots get it? Or was this section on "what are the potential problems this could cause my readers" maybe synthesized to spec to make writing the post faster? Or are actual people starting to write like this now, having seen too much of it?
It's not that I begrudge a corporate blogger a text generator, but I've seen this shape of text too much while being bullshitted by an instruct-tuned model that I have asked for something which it is really incapable of delivering. It is is maybe trying to make up for in formatting and stridency what it is failing to dredge out of its few billion weights in actual useful information, and hide the fact that it is just restating the obvious from whoever is being paid a piece rate to rank the responses. So when I see it in the wild it sets off my BS detector, and I feel inspired to try and reboot whoever is talking to me.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
PendingKetchup Link ParentI think this is just a failure to reconstruct a normative set of rules for social interactions, given current theories of consent. There's a model in which no one may physically touch anyone at...I think this is just a failure to reconstruct a normative set of rules for social interactions, given current theories of consent.
There's a model in which no one may physically touch anyone at any time without verbally asking for and receiving permission from someone who is under no particular pressure to say yes. This might be correct! Maybe extending a hand to shake in a business context should be forbidden, and we actually need to start with something like "May I shake your hand? You are completely fine to say no, I won't be upset."
In practice in most spaces we are still using a lot of implicit negotiation, or non-negotiation, and people are still sort of poking each other and seeing if anyone complains, tapping each other's shoulders, leaning in to do that cheek kissing thing they do in Europe, and so on. It might be possible to make that workable under a developed theory of consent, if it essentially rises to a language that everyone involved knows, but it also might just all be wrong and need to change.
It's easier to see the problem when it is flowing down the power gradient instead of up, and e.g. the person who makes twice as much money at work and does not have the state taking a malicious interest in their guts is the one who did not in fact have permission to punch the other one in the arm for a bad pun. And if we persist in having any acceptable social interactions that are meant to be initiated and then accepted or refused, then maybe some things really are only wrong when going down the power gradient, because the person at the bottom is under pressure to permit them that the person at the top is not.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
PendingKetchup Link ParentIt's going to be even lower because they won't all be unrelated. A small fraction of one group is terrorizing a large portion of everyone else.It's going to be even lower because they won't all be unrelated. A small fraction of one group is terrorizing a large portion of everyone else.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
PendingKetchup Link ParentOne missing piece here is the power landscape. While stereotyping and criminalizing groups of people is never OK, it hits different when it is "punching down", so to speak. You can point to a...But I could see how at a much larger scale how that could be hurting boys and young men. We're stereotyping and even criminalizing them from the start. It's not OK when we do that to black youths. It's not OK when we do that to Muslims. I don't think it's OK here.
...Right? Hmm.
One missing piece here is the power landscape. While stereotyping and criminalizing groups of people is never OK, it hits different when it is "punching down", so to speak. You can point to a statistic as potentially explanatory for a cultural attitude without laying down another brick in the wall of the oppression of men, because in the society we currently inhabit, for all that they do have their own specific problems, "men" are not marginalized.
But also, in this system of thought, I don't think collective guilt is meant to be real, because it's not a rules-based, deontological system that works on concepts like "guilt". It's a consequentialist, "harm"-based system. So while a member of a dominant group is obligated to be aware of, say, how walking near a member of an oppressed group might make the other person feel, it is not because of anything wrong with or collectively bad about the members of the dominant group, and it is entirely about the moral imperative to protect the members of the marginalized group from further negative impacts.
Black people in the US are held to be owed reparations, as I understand it, not because of the collective guilt of their enslavers, but because of what was taken from them.
Since it's all based on outcomes, there is no correct set of rules to follow. It's not even, really, a matter of being obligated to think about how you might affect someone negatively and take "reasonable" steps to avoid it. It's a matter of being obligated to succeed in not negatively impacting them, by either walking too close or too far away. You thus obviously can't win all the time, and nothing you personally do can ever be enough. This accurately reflects how no individual member of a dominant group is going to personally dismantle the enclosing system of oppression.
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Comment on The Buff Scammer, isolation, and the male loneliness epidemic in ~life.men
PendingKetchup Link ParentI think there might be a stereotype-generating effect of large groups going on here. If you take dozens of different people, and get one fragment of a desired gender role from each, and AND them...When I think about implicit expectations versus explicit asks, I think the most poignant modern phenomenon is the concept of "the ick". In theory, the definition is some random, inconsequential behavior that inexplicably causes a woman to lose attraction to an otherwise attractive man.
In practice, it's just overwhelmingly an enforcement of strict gender roles. A man gets too excited about something he's passionate about? Ick. A man cries because he got emotional about something personal to him? Ick. A man skips, or eats an ice cream cone, or carries a hand bag or takes baths? Ick.
They're not all enforcing traditional masculine gender roles, but it's hard to read any compiled list of icks as a whole and read them as a prescription for a very specific type of traditional masculinity, one which explicitly does not include sharing any emotions except for anger and lust.
I think there might be a stereotype-generating effect of large groups going on here. If you take dozens of different people, and get one fragment of a desired gender role from each, and AND them together, you're going to get an extremely tiny and plausibly empty region of gender space. If each had kept just one piece of a received "man" gender as something they personally actually like, you can end up reconstructing the whole thing even when no one individually wants that.
Nobody can be, or should try to be, desirable to everyone.
I think you get this as a cultural phenomenon because you are throwing strangers together and expecting them to date. If you have a good read on someone to start with, you're not likely to be surprised and prompted to re-evaluate them by their consumption of ice cream or by them having a good cry. And if whoever it is is someone actually in your community, who won't solipsistically cease to exist if you stop dating them, then deciding you don't actually want to date them anymore has much less of the character of discarding something disgusting than the word "ick" would imply.
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Comment on US FBI readies new war on trans people in ~lgbt
PendingKetchup (edited )LinkDoes everybody have their tee shirts ready for the war? If the FBI wants to gin up a terror network based on the concept of being transgender, they will have to do a lot of ginning up. There are...Does everybody have their tee shirts ready for the war?
If the FBI wants to gin up a terror network based on the concept of being transgender, they will have to do a lot of ginning up. There are only so many Zizes. There are a lot of people with a lot of experience holding space for their friends, which does not a conspiracy to commit politically-motivated violence make.
I'm going to double post because, the right way to stop people from being scammed into installing apps is not to make it take 24 hours. The right way to stop people from being scammed into installing apps is to make the idea of installing an app you don't genuinely want to avoid some negative consequence completely, societally absurd. Like, take-off-all-your-clothes-and-cluck-like-a-chicken, nobody-could-ever-have-a-reason-to-do-that absurd.
It is only in our society where people are routinely pressured or compelled into nonconsensual relationships with software (for a bank, a parking spot, YouTube, a news site, the government, a concert ticket) that it is even possible for someone to call you up and scam, threaten, or harrangue you into installing an app.