DynamoSunshirt's recent activity
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Comment on ‘A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms’ just made ‘Breaking Bad’ lose its IMDB score record in ~tv
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Comment on The AI disruption has arrived, and it sure is fun (gifted link) in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentMost people IRL use Facebook despite their pretty awful user experience and addictive/inflammatory algorithms. Most people IRL in 2001 didn't care that Windows XP and Internet Explorer were...Most people IRL use Facebook despite their pretty awful user experience and addictive/inflammatory algorithms. Most people IRL in 2001 didn't care that Windows XP and Internet Explorer were insecure, vulnerability-riddled incompetent messes that made web browsing far more dangerous than it needed to be.
Most people IRL don't care about their phone's OS (or the monopolistic abuses associated with that OSes dominance) or if their bank supports non-SMS 2FA. Most people IRL don't care if their eggs come from tortured chickens, or if their carrots come from a field contaminated with PFAS because the farmer used cheap fertilizer derived from urban human waste. Most people IRL don't care about ICE's human rights violations, or Israel's latest human rights violation.
In the 1800s, only bankrupted farmers deeply cared about railroad monopolies. Today, only a small subset of micromobility enthusiasts advocate for better public transit, bike lanes, and safer walkability.
Just because the lowest common denominator person doesn't give a shit doesn't mean that the thing doesn't matter.
And by the way: right now the American government basically ONLY legislates based on giant corporation interests, thanks to Citizen's United. God forbid they listen to some redditors who might be informed about the subject! Maybe not listening to experts has some connection with the fact that American legislators can barely comprehend computers, the internet, smartphones, and software, let alone LLMs?
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Comment on Babylon 5 is now free to watch on YouTube in ~tv
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentGod I wish more shows actually planned out even a rough plot multiple seasons in advance. I recently watched through Stranger Things since it finally concluded with Season 5, and it's so sad to...God I wish more shows actually planned out even a rough plot multiple seasons in advance. I recently watched through Stranger Things since it finally concluded with Season 5, and it's so sad to see how many opportunities they had to set up stories and plotlines way back in Season 1, and how much meandering and vague retconning they did to get to a conclusion. Reminds me of the third Star Wars trilogy, where they somehow managed to make the first two movies of the trilogy without mapping out a conclusion! So much respect for JMS actually planning things in advance.
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Comment on The "AI god" narrative is actually a corporate power grab in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentDo the rest of us really have to thoroughly disprove wild claims like this? These claims all read a bit like timecube fever dreams; it would take enormous amounts of time and effort to disprove...Do the rest of us really have to thoroughly disprove wild claims like this?
US Ambassador to NATO says AI "can find new physics laws that we didn't know existed, it can extend human intelligence beyond what we can even fathom"
the world you knew is pretty much over... we crossed a one way bridge as a species & most people on earth haven’t realized that fact yet... there are now non trivial odds the economy gets drastically disrupted
Humanity has advanced more in the past 3 weeks than the previous 100 years combined:
• OpenClaw: greatest AI application ever
• Opus 4.6: smartest AI model ever
• Codex 5.3 Spark: greatest coding model ever
• MiniMax 2.5: greatest super intelligence on your deskYou are no longer the smartest type of thing on Earth; We will be well-cared-for pets.
These claims all read a bit like timecube fever dreams; it would take enormous amounts of time and effort to disprove each of them, so it is effectively impossible to do so. Simply calling out these statements for the FUD that they are seems adequate to me.
I can tell you only read 2/3 of the article, since you missed the core idea: how AI is being used to further centralize power and information into the hands of a small number of people. In fact this article doesn't talk about Ponzi schemes at all, and in some way suggests that AI is indeed useful for quite a few tasks. Do we really need to link mistruths and propaganda today to historical propaganda just to prove that it is, indeed, propaganda?
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Comment on The "AI god" narrative is actually a corporate power grab in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentThanks. Unfortunately it has proven difficult to disprove optimistic marketing and propaganda with any amount of facts and anecdotes. With the AI booster crowd, I always hear "skill issue" or...Thanks. Unfortunately it has proven difficult to disprove optimistic marketing and propaganda with any amount of facts and anecdotes. With the AI booster crowd, I always hear "skill issue" or "well of course THAT model will get it wrong, you need to use GPZ 5.X Opus Dei available for $200/month". With the less technical, they nod, pretend to understand, and then go right back to trusting the Google AI Summary that shows up at the top of their search results. I keep hoping they'll grow distrustful if they get burned too many times with half-truths and inaccuracies, but it hasn't happened yet.
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Comment on The "AI god" narrative is actually a corporate power grab in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentYou didn't read the article, so it's not surprising that you missed the central thesis: On the subject of the rest of your post, I'll quote the article here: We're not saying LLMs are useless....You didn't read the article, so it's not surprising that you missed the central thesis:
AI is leading to significant changes in search, email, social networking, app stores, advertising, and so forth, Google will have the data and context to create a chokepoint that is even more dominant than the one it has today.
That is, unless we act. One obvious solution is to make sure that all agents have a clear fiduciary obligation to the person who deploys them. To force that, we would have to ban all advertising and all payments to finance agents except fees from the ultimate client. This policy would kill many of the bad incentives that Google has to manipulate pricing and the flow of commerce across the economy
On the subject of the rest of your post, I'll quote the article here:
There’s also a full-on bullying effort towards anyone who doesn’t buy these extraordinary claims.
We're not saying LLMs are useless. They clearly can produce code and lots of text. But when bigwigs are spouting incredible claims about godlike AI destroying all white collar work, those claims require incredible evidence. I have not seem this evidence, except perhaps in the realm of plumbing/boilerplate code generation.
Matt, and myself, object to Anthropic's posturing about not using their AI research for war because it's obvious propaganda meant to trick people into presupposing that their technology IS incredibly dangerous and therefore valuable. I don't object to the words being said, I loathe the way that Anthropic and Amodei are twisting those words to suit themselves and trump up their valuation. Journalists take these CEOs and powerful people at their word, worsening the issue.
I'm having a harder and harder time talking to my family about this technology because the media narrative has completely jumped the tracks; most of my family think that ChatGPT is an oracle whose output can simply be trusted as truth. Who should they believe: the news, or me?
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The "AI god" narrative is actually a corporate power grab
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Comment on Air to bread in ~science
DynamoSunshirt LinkWarning: final paragraph plot-twists this historical tale into a lesson about AI. But the tale is interesting nonetheless!Warning: final paragraph plot-twists this historical tale into a lesson about AI. But the tale is interesting nonetheless!
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Air to bread
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Comment on An AI agent published a hit piece on me in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentWhat if the author did it themselves?What if the author did it themselves?
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Comment on Update on developer access and platform security | Spotify for Developers in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt LinkSpotify's lack of third-party clients is really what killed the service for me. Their client is just so user-hostile, shoving offers and podcasts and audiobooks and recommended payola songs in my...Spotify's lack of third-party clients is really what killed the service for me. Their client is just so user-hostile, shoving offers and podcasts and audiobooks and recommended payola songs in my face, I couldn't stand to keep using it. Apple Music sets a better precedent for third-party clients.
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Comment on Something big is happening in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentI wish we'd put one quarter the amount of money and time we've invested in LLMs and LLM data centers and GPUs into fusion. With that kind of investment, we might actually figure out how to provide...I wish we'd put one quarter the amount of money and time we've invested in LLMs and LLM data centers and GPUs into fusion. With that kind of investment, we might actually figure out how to provide humanity with unlimited clean energy! Imagine eliminating everyone's power bill, eliminating your gas bill if you got an electric car, nearly eliminating carbon emissions from cars and fossil fuel electric generation...
but no, instead we live in the darkest timeline where we're all supposed to celebrate billionaires pumping unlimited funds into... a scheme to fire the rest of us from our jobs.
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Comment on Something big is happening in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentI write professionally. As someone with decent editorial experience, I have yet to see LLM text output that doesn't chronically equivocate, lie, pad space with bullshit, or make serious structural...I write professionally. As someone with decent editorial experience, I have yet to see LLM text output that doesn't chronically equivocate, lie, pad space with bullshit, or make serious structural errors. A company I used to work for replaced my whole department with LLM output (driven by one psychotic C-level whose comp is probably even higher than all of ours combined). And the output is pure garbage that will bite them eventually when users realize it's mostly nonsense.
It really depresses me to see just how many people keep getting bamboozled by the hype train of agents replacing entire engineering departments. Sure, LLMs can accomplish cool things. But the insatiable desire to replace humans is kind of a bad look.
What scares me is that most of us can get laid off tomorrow by the suckers who buy into the hype. In today's job market, it might take months or years to find a new job. It'll take months or years for the LLM output of tech debt and slop to catch up with our former employers... but "I told you so" is cold comfort on the breadline.
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Comment on Something big is happening in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentMost tech, from operating systems, to search engines, to phone keyboards, to browsers, to text editors, to games, and much much more has all gotten worse over the last 5-10 years due to...Most tech, from operating systems, to search engines, to phone keyboards, to browsers, to text editors, to games, and much much more has all gotten worse over the last 5-10 years due to enshittification. I'll never be able to convince the AI boosters that this can happen to LLMs, too. But especially given the wildly unprofitable companies operating in this space (and the enshittication-prone giants like Google and Apple who make up the rest of the competition), I wouldn't bet on LLMs taking a different path. Software does NOT strictly get better over time!
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Comment on E-ink tablet recommendations for note taking in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentI've replaced the nibs once or twice per device in years of ownership. Unless you write with a very heavy hand, I'd expect to get at least a year per nib. Based on your use case description, I...I've replaced the nibs once or twice per device in years of ownership. Unless you write with a very heavy hand, I'd expect to get at least a year per nib.
Based on your use case description, I wouldn't worry about a frontlight at all, then! But I would strongly suggest 10" screens for desk use.
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Comment on E-ink tablet recommendations for note taking in ~tech
DynamoSunshirt LinkLots of good experiences here already, but I figured I'd share anyway in case you have any questions I can answer: I've been using an Onyx Boox Nova 3 for about 5 years now for reading and...Lots of good experiences here already, but I figured I'd share anyway in case you have any questions I can answer: I've been using an Onyx Boox Nova 3 for about 5 years now for reading and journaling/notetaking. I absolutely love it, except for the fact that Boox only ever made one shitty case for it and third-party cases are basically nonexistent. I've been using a hacked-up iPad Mini case for most of that time, which works fine, but it's getting tattered at this point and I honestly don't know what I'll do next.
IMO the 7.8" screen is perfect for reading since it's very close to the size of a hardcover novel page. It's a bit small for notetaking, but if you have small handwriting, it's very pleasant for journaling and light notes. Just not spacious enough for most drawing.
Be aware that Boox is pretty awful at software. Lots of small bugs and broken English. I use a custom launcher (Lawnchair) with KOReader and Firefox, so the only Boox software I regularly touch is their Notes app, which is fine. Their ereader app, Neoreader, isn't bad, and it supports annotations on-page with the pen, but I don't find myself needing anything more than highlights.
As others have noted, support is a complete gamble. I don't think Boox would stand behind their product at all even if it burned my house down, because there's little legal enforcement for Chinese companies operating in the USA. If warrantees or repairs seem like something you want from a multi-hundred-dollar tablet, be warned!
I've recently started using a Boox Note Air 2 at my desk for notetaking in meetings on its larger 10" display since my partner upgraded to a kobo. The experience is much the same: quite nice (but not well supported) hardware, passable software. The screen on the Note Air 2 is honestly the most paperlike writing experience I've had on a tablet (much better than an iPad or my Nova 3) thanks to the somewhat rough texture of the screen protector. It hasn't worn much in 3-4 years of use from my partner as a knitting pattern display and ereader, so durability doesn't seem to be a problem.
I looked a lot at competitors like the Remarkable back when I bought my Nova 3, but I opted for Boox at the time for the following reasons:
- screen size: 7.8" is so much better than the old 6" screen on my decade-old Kindle, I love a long line of text and you really need at least this size to use a pen comfortably
- screen light: my partner always got annoyed when I used an external light to read in bed, but the built-in light is so dim it doesn't bother them; unfortunately it's also so dim and warm it's much easier to fall asleep reading than it used to be!
- Android: between Libby and downloading Linux ISOs and sharing files between devices and even sometimes browsing forums like tildes, it's damn nice to have access to the entire ecosystem of Android apps, even if you have to jump through a few customizability hoops to get everything working quite right
- passive WACOM pen doesn't need charging, because I want no more chargers in my life
If you're highly particular and looking to put in the effort to customize everything the way you want it, a Boox is worth it, if you're willing to accept the mediocre software and hardware support issues. Personally I think a frontlight is an indispensable feature and I wouldn't buy an ereader without it, but I understand that it compromises the writing experience a bit. Hopefully this helps!
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Comment on 50mm bike tire recommendations in ~hobbies
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentThanks for the summon! Honestly, once wattage comes up in the conversation it's optimized beyond my knowledge... but I do happen to currently absolutely love the 53mm Vittoria Mezcals on my...Thanks for the summon! Honestly, once wattage comes up in the conversation it's optimized beyond my knowledge... but I do happen to currently absolutely love the 53mm Vittoria Mezcals on my touring/commuter bike. They've held up for years and thousands of miles, almost all of which was at least partially loaded (I have a habit of bringing bocce balls to parks in a pannier, and I often grocery shop and bring our compost to a nearby farm as I pick up our CSA to give you an idea).
Schwalbe has a great rep in the touring community, thanks to the Marathon Plus and somewhat the Marathon Mondials lately. But I know some folks think their quality has slipped as of late. The Schwalbe Big Bens that my bike's previous owner installed treated me well for several years as well, but those are pretty big. But don't be fooled; rolling resistance and tire size are not strongly correlated. I always suggest going bigger because the air basically works as suspension!
Be skeptical if anyone claims to have comprehensive knowledge of lots of different tires. At some level, that's impossible, because it takes YEARS of even heavy use to wear through any decent bike tire. Of course, if someone gets a lot of flats from a certain tire that's a useful data point. But most people can really only experience the longevity of any given tire a handful of times per decade!
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Comment on Need a replacement for my old macbook pro, should I just get another one? in ~comp
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentDepends on the user, I think folks who mostly live in the browser would be OK for 5 on 16. But it's definitely getting tighter. 24 would be my minimal 10 year recommendation, 32 if you can swing...Depends on the user, I think folks who mostly live in the browser would be OK for 5 on 16. But it's definitely getting tighter. 24 would be my minimal 10 year recommendation, 32 if you can swing it. Just a bit painful with Apple's pricing and with all of the AI-related price hikes lately :(
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Comment on Spotify will soon sell hardcover and paperback books through its app, in partnership with Bookshop.org in ~books
DynamoSunshirt Link ParentAs someone with a limited data plan, I cannot stand the video creep in the mobile app. For goodness sake at least provide a "low power" or "metered data" mode if I don't want that stuff using my...As someone with a limited data plan, I cannot stand the video creep in the mobile app. For goodness sake at least provide a "low power" or "metered data" mode if I don't want that stuff using my energy and data.
Or y'know just make a damn music app. Fortunately I absolutely love FinAmp.
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Comment on Need a replacement for my old macbook pro, should I just get another one? in ~comp
DynamoSunshirt LinkApple's Mac hardware has been best in class ever since they switched to their own Apple Silicon chips. My advice? If you liked your 2020 Macbook experience, pick up a Macbook Air. M4 is in a good...Apple's Mac hardware has been best in class ever since they switched to their own Apple Silicon chips. My advice? If you liked your 2020 Macbook experience, pick up a Macbook Air. M4 is in a good price sweet spot right now. 16GB of RAM, 512GB of storage, and you're set for the next 5-10 years, IMO. They're probably dropping a new, cheaper Macbook in the next week or two, though... so if 599 sounds good to you, it'll probably be worth waiting to see if that looks appealing. Should be pretty similar hardware to the current Airs, but with an iPhone (A-series) chip instead. The CPUs are all so good now it hardly matters even if you do light gaming.
iPhones are also pretty great hardware. I'd look into a 16e, a 16, a 17, or even a 15 Pro if I were you. Whichever's cheapest will do. Or you can wait for the 17e to drop next week, which should make 16e prices even lower.
In both cases, if you don't know you want some specific fancy feature or hardware, you don't need it. It's all good enough. You could get by just fine with a Pixel or Samsung phone too, these days. But if you're familiar with the iPhone it's easiest to stick with that.
One small caveat: American businesses have been enshittifying their hardware and software at an exponential rate over the last few years. Apple's software quality has really taken a nosedive with the 26 OSes released last year, and they're even experimenting with freemium features in their Office suite competitor. So be aware that some Apple software stuff will be increasingly buggy and annoying over the coming years. BUT pretty much all American software is going in the same direction (or has even more baked-in surveillance state nonsense) so you can hardly avoid it. If you really hate that idea, a Framework laptop running Linux and a Fairphone might treat you well. But they have enough rough edged that I won't recommend that as the best path.
Oh, and if anyone tells you to consider Windows? Run. They're clueless or malevolent.
IMO it's underwhelming if you did read the book. But that's how I feel about most adaptations, with veeeery few exceptions.