Very_Bad_Janet's recent activity

  1. Comment on How has inflation changed your quality of life? in ~finance

    Very_Bad_Janet
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    This can explain when alcohol sales are down in the US. Not Just at bars but in general it's expensive. ETA: I was at a street fair this weekend, the kind with zeppole and taco stands. There was...

    This can explain when alcohol sales are down in the US. Not Just at bars but in general it's expensive. ETA: I was at a street fair this weekend, the kind with zeppole and taco stands. There was more than one card table and booth with bottles of whiskey, and only whiskey, being sold. They didn't seem to have any buyers.

    2 votes
  2. Comment on Who’s buying SpaceX and Anthropic? in ~finance

    Very_Bad_Janet
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    I only buy index funds and index ETFs. I have gotten almost completely out of US stocks and have bought world ex US index funds. Too many shenanigans.

    I only buy index funds and index ETFs. I have gotten almost completely out of US stocks and have bought world ex US index funds. Too many shenanigans.

    8 votes
  3. Comment on What are your personal crackpot conspiracy theories about the world right now? in ~talk

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    I don't know about most or many. But I know one retired Evangelical pastor who headed several small churches and was a part of many more larger churches. He was a serial cheater who had so many...

    I don't know about most or many. But I know one retired Evangelical pastor who headed several small churches and was a part of many more larger churches. He was a serial cheater who had so many affairs on his first wife that he was run out of town and forced out of church leadership numerous times.

    When his wife learned about the affairs he would literally claim that the devil made him do it. He literally seemed to believe that the devil was causing all of the cheating, possessing him, not that he was in charge of his own actions.

    This man seems to be a genuinely devout Christian and seems to really believe in his religion. He believes he is going to heaven because he has asked God for forgiveness. He is obsessed with other people's behavior and church going. He is convinced most everyone in his family are going to an actual hell.

    In other words, he's not an atheist. I guess he's a hypocrite (who can live with a lot of cognitive dissonance?). Maybe most are?

    2 votes
  4. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    Why boo an AI-proponent billionaire guest speaker at a college graduation? To add your human voice to the chorus od dissent. Same reason a frustrated professional writer might write a rant against...

    Why boo an AI-proponent billionaire guest speaker at a college graduation? To add your human voice to the chorus od dissent. Same reason a frustrated professional writer might write a rant against written slop on their Substack. It might even go viral and open the eyes of those unaware that what they've been mindlessly consuming is AI slop.

    2 votes
  5. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    "[D]ropshipping but for art and music and writing" is a devastating but succinct and accurate description. I will be stealing it.

    "[D]ropshipping but for art and music and writing" is a devastating but succinct and accurate description. I will be stealing it.

    4 votes
  6. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    Holy guacamole. That's terrifying. Have you tried this experiment with other AI assistants? I've had Claude and Perplexity hallucinate on me but not that bad (frequently, yes, but not to that degree).

    Holy guacamole. That's terrifying. Have you tried this experiment with other AI assistants? I've had Claude and Perplexity hallucinate on me but not that bad (frequently, yes, but not to that degree).

    5 votes
  7. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    When I use AI chatbots I remind myself that I am not talking to a friendly human assistant but am inputting tokens into a synthetic text machine. I am dry, consise and businesslike. I don't use...

    When I use AI chatbots I remind myself that I am not talking to a friendly human assistant but am inputting tokens into a synthetic text machine. I am dry, consise and businesslike. I don't use the word "please" (why would need to be polite to a machine?). I still get some wacky hallucinations. Minor but wacky. ETA: I am afraid of AI psychosis so I am especially motivated to treat it like a.machine with a human voice.

    2 votes
  8. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    (edited )
    Link Parent
    Doesn't the level of the AI chatbot you are using matter? (Meaning, are you using the free version, the pro version, the super duper pro version, etc.) Wouldn't that affect the models and number...

    Doesn't the level of the AI chatbot you are using matter? (Meaning, are you using the free version, the pro version, the super duper pro version, etc.) Wouldn't that affect the models and number of models used? I say this because I've only used the free version that not that many tokens and within 5 prompts on any free platform I've gotten some hallucinations. From the chatbot plopping in a made up word (one token from one language + one token from English smushed together), to the chatbot creating an html print button in the output (a button I didn't ask for and that didn't work). Lots of weird nonsensical things, like the chatbot is a bit tipsy and was feeling silly. I would imagine that you are using sophisticated for- pay versions. The author of the piece, being a journalist, might be going the free route. ETA: Fixed a typo.

    2 votes
  9. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    I am rooting for model collapse. (It's tempted me to rejoin Reddit and copy-paste in AI generated replies, knowing that reportedly 60% of training material for most LLMs is scraped from Reddit.)...

    I am rooting for model collapse. (It's tempted me to rejoin Reddit and copy-paste in AI generated replies, knowing that reportedly 60% of training material for most LLMs is scraped from Reddit.) But now that it's an identified risk, I'm afraid they've already figured out a way to avoid it.

    4 votes
  10. Comment on If you let AI do your writing, I will come to your house and kill you in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    I have only used the free version of AI chatbots so ymmv but I find that the output from the first prompt is the most likely correct one or the closest to what I was asking. The more subsequent...

    I have only used the free version of AI chatbots so ymmv but I find that the output from the first prompt is the most likely correct one or the closest to what I was asking. The more subsequent prompts to try to refine the response, the worse it gets. Maybe it's an issue with caching (saving the previous prompts and replies up to a certain amount). Every prompt is a roll of the dice and the more rolls the greater the probability that the AI is guessing the output tokens incorrectly, in my experience. The last one I used, Perplexity, started mixing languages in the replies (my prompts were in English and had nothing to do with other languages).

  11. Comment on Anyone else have horrible user experiences with Piped? in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
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    And someone else on Lemmy have this advice: "After I got blocked from watching further videos, I disabled uBlock on Firefox, clicked any video and then enabled uBlock again. For some reason...

    And someone else on Lemmy have this advice: "After I got blocked from watching further videos, I disabled uBlock on Firefox, clicked any video and then enabled uBlock again. For some reason neither the blocking nor the pop-ups came back after reloading or since." This probably updated the filter list.

    1 vote
  12. Comment on Anyone else have horrible user experiences with Piped? in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    I also just read that people have been able to use FF with their adblocker still working by either watching YT in a private window or opening up the video in a new tab.

    I also just read that people have been able to use FF with their adblocker still working by either watching YT in a private window or opening up the video in a new tab.

  13. Comment on Anyone else have horrible user experiences with Piped? in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
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    The advice I read on Lemmy/kbin was to: Click the uBlock Origin icon on Firefox's menu bar You'll see a three-gear icon at the bottom right. Click this to open the dashboard. Click the "Purge all...

    The advice I read on Lemmy/kbin was to:

    1. Click the uBlock Origin icon on Firefox's menu bar

    2. You'll see a three-gear icon at the bottom right. Click this to open the dashboard.

    3. Click the "Purge all caches" button at the top.

    4. Click the "Update now" button at the top.

    I know that people also use Invidious (similar to Piped). I use Newpipe mostly (it's an app I downloaded from F-droid).

    2 votes
  14. Comment on What is your preferred VPN? in ~comp

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    I'm using Mozilla VPN on my Android phone and Chromebook. Would you consider Hulu detecting my VPN as Mozilla being buggy? I would maybe switch if Mozilla could prorate what I already spent, but I...

    I'm using Mozilla VPN on my Android phone and Chromebook. Would you consider Hulu detecting my VPN as Mozilla being buggy? I would maybe switch if Mozilla could prorate what I already spent, but I haven't been bothered by anything yet.

  15. Comment on What is your preferred VPN? in ~comp

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    That I don't know. Also don't know if they have port forwarding (I haven't torrented).

    That I don't know. Also don't know if they have port forwarding (I haven't torrented).

    1 vote
  16. Comment on What is your preferred VPN? in ~comp

    Very_Bad_Janet
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    I have been using Mozilla VPN for a few months without complaints. I'm using them really to support the company (I use Firefox a lot) while adding a little security. Hulu detected the VPN btw, but...

    I have been using Mozilla VPN for a few months without complaints. I'm using them really to support the company (I use Firefox a lot) while adding a little security. Hulu detected the VPN btw, but I have used it without issue when I stream British video from BBC iPlayer and UKTV apps (so far that is). I was $56-ish for the year with a discount code.

    1 vote
  17. Comment on The dating app Coffee Meets Bagel has been down for three days now in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    Kronos timekeeping and payroll applications, down for hacking related reasons? I think they were down for users for a solid month.

    Kronos timekeeping and payroll applications, down for hacking related reasons? I think they were down for users for a solid month.

  18. Comment on Recommend a book on feminism for tween boys in ~books

    Very_Bad_Janet
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    Thanks everyone for your suggestions

    Thanks everyone for your suggestions

  19. Comment on Recommend a book on feminism for tween boys in ~books

  20. Comment on uBlock Origin Lite now available on Firefox in ~tech

    Very_Bad_Janet
    Link Parent
    I've heard that as well about Ghostery. uBlockOrigin and Privacy Badger were recommended to me instead.

    I've heard that as well about Ghostery. uBlockOrigin and Privacy Badger were recommended to me instead.

    2 votes