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Cake day: June 30th, 2023

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  • orgrinrt@lemmy.worldtoTechnology@lemmy.worldGulf of Make a Report to Apple
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    6 hours ago

    To be fair, the entire history of humanity is full of exactly that. These are mostly just aimed at and recognized by the US. Same as Russia currently renaming occupied villages. Nobody else recognizes those, it’s just not that special or important at this point, with all of the other shit going on.

    Ultimately, the names of places change. All the time. And will continue to change. It’s just what we do as humans. Somebody uses force and swings their dick around and locally others have to either accept it, silently or whining, or punch the fucker. Elsewhere people fight similar fights and care very little about the other dickswingers far away.


  • That 20% is just way too optimistic for anything more serious so as it would normally prompt hiring of software engineers.

    If the project currently requires human developers as paid employees, it will continue to require that. So in introducing today’s ai, you either pay for the employees and the language model expenses, or you pay reduced employee expenses and the language model expenses, and then figure out a way to fund a complete, unavoidable refactor/rewrite down the line and how to adapt the business model back to sustaining employing the original amount of engineers on top of that lump sum.

    If the project never was going to employ anyone, then yeah, using a language model can be more productive. It’s never going to require the amount of stability and cohesiveness a serious application doing serious things would require.

    Otherwise, it’s just going to add work and require effort in an amount of multiples that scales with the complexity and seriousness of the application.

    And while it does this, it consumes ridiculous amounts of more energy and resources than a human person would. Especially those that are not sustainable, that humans do not generally require in such immense amounts.

    It’s going to be a net negative for a good while. If we ever survive the burning of our resources with these current models, maybe we get to something actually serious and usable, but I doubt those two can ever work together.


  • It also has potential to decrease the quality.

    I think the main pivot point is whether it replaces human engineers or complements them.

    I’ve seen people with no software engineering experience or education, or even no programming experience at all in any form, create working apps with AI.

    I’ve also seen such code in multiple instances and have to wonder how any of it makes sense at all to anyone. There are no best practices seen, just a confusing set of barely working disconnected snippets of code that very rudimentarily work together to do what the creator wanted in a very approximate, inefficient and unpredictable way, while also lacking any benefits of such disconnect such as encapsulation or any real domain-separated design.

    Extending and maintaining that app? Absolutely not possible without either a massive refactoring resembling a complete rewrite, or, you know, just a honest rewrite.

    The problem is, someone who doesn’t know what they are doing, doesn’t know what to ask the language model to do. And the model is happy to just provide what is asked of it.

    Even when provided proper, informed prompts, the disability to use the entire codebase as the context causes a lot of manual intervention and requires bespoke design in the code base to work with that.

    It absolutely takes many more times more work to make it all work for ML in a proper, actually maintainable and workable way, and even then requires constant intervention, to the point that you end up doing the work you’d do manually, but in at least triple the amount of effort.

    It can enhance some aspects, of which one worth a special mention is actually the commenting and automatic, basic documentation skeletons to work up from, but it certainly will not, for some while, replace anyone. Not unless the app really only has to work, maybe, sometimes, and stay as-is without any augmentations, be they maintenance or extending or whatever.

    But yeah, it sort of makes sense. It’s a language model. Not a logical model or one that is capable of understanding given context, and being able to get even close to enough context, and maintain or even properly understand the architecture it works with.

    It can mimic code, as it is a language model after all. It can get the syntax right, sure, and sometimes, in small applications, it works well enough. It can be useful to those who would not employ engineers in the first place, and it can be amazing for those cases, really, good for them! But anything that requires understanding of anything? Yeah, that’s going to do nothing other than confuse and trip everyone in the long run, requiring multiples of work to do in comparison to just doing it with actual people who can actually understand shit and retain tens of years worth of accumulated extremely complex and large context and experience applying it in practice.

    But, again, for documentation, I think it is a perfect fit. It needs not any deeper context, and it can put into general language what it sees as code, and sometimes it even gets it right and requires minimal input from people.

    So, it can increase quality in some sense, but we have to be really conscious of what that sense is, and how limited its usefulness ultimately is.

    Maybe in due time, we’ll get there. But we are not even close to anything groundbreaking yet in this realm.

    I don’t think we’ll ever get there, because we are very likely going to overextend our usage of natural resources and burn out the planet before we get there. Unless a miracle happens, such as stable fusion energy or something as yet inconceivable.





  • I’d think it this way: Get the training anyway, hold off buying if that’s morally (and understandably so) difficult.

    If shit hits the fan before you get one and/or it’s otherwise too late, there’ll be chances of obtaining one in the middle of the shitstorm one way or another. Maybe someone friendly has one, but never got around to proper training? Good thing you did. You can help out and try your best to utilise it as morally but also as professionally and efficiently as you can.

    Slightly more long term, you can assist training others, if using one on live targets still feels objectionable (and rightly so!) to you.

    Learning the craft and proper handling will not go to waste, if it starts looking even worse than it does now.

    It can be good, too, to help others use the things more safely and otherwise properly. May save lives. And you need not take any, not in defense or otherwise, if that’s important to you.



  • I’m not sure I understand what you mean? Seems very natural to me, especially if you already talk as a habit. Do you mean how do you preface the question or smooth into it or something?

    What do you normally talk about? I mean, I don’t think you need to make this more complicated than it is. If you do talk already, I think it follows you’d naturally want to know more of each other? So you’d ask. How more natural can it really get?

    Edit: you know what, this is my suggestion: stop overthinking it. You don’t need to make science of it and consciously think about engagement and all that, just go with the flow. You want to know something, you’ll have to eventually just ask. That’s as natural as it gets. Just keep talking and it’ll all come if the interest is mutual

    Edit2: actually sorry about going on tangents and making this long, but I have to say I never thought asking questions wasn’t natural, but I have adhd and had that unmedicated and unmanaged for most of my youth. So I always just talked and talked and had fun knowing more and more, and part of that is asking questions, or that’s how I think about it. People seem very glad they get to talk about things, a lot of people don’t really get the opportunity enough I guess. I had fun and a lot of people around me and never was alone or without company if I wanted some, be it just normal casual friend stuff or romantic or sexual or whatever. I think a big part of that was the naive and unfiltered interest and questions I just had about everything and the lack of awareness about if that might be weird. ADHD just made me go and go and do and do and I never thought any of it was unnatural, and nobody ever mentioned something in that vein either. I bet some people found that annoying or rude or whatever, but those people wouldn’t have stayed in my life either way, so I guess, even thinking about it medicated and the adhd managed, in hindsight, it wouldn’t have mattered one bit.

    This is all just to say that there isn’t just one good way of approaching things especially socially. I had a bunch of luck thanks to the adhd impulsivity and lack of any deeper self-awareness about social stuff, so it came naturally to me, but that same mindset can be achieved and kind of “clicked” consciously too. But that’s not the point. The point is, just go and do things, if it works it works, if not, it never would’ve worked either way, and something else will come up and work. Things have a way of working out without conscious input.




  • Me neither, just commenting on the general disparity between other western countries and the US in most of issues that concern some sort of a moral choice. I have to assume at some point they were equally leaning towards (at least a decoy of a semblance of) common good, as it (as fragile and grayscale as it is) has generally been in the developed west outside of US. Not saying it’s perfect anywhere, but I think we do have to concede that things are, and have been, way more weird and concerning in the US in the past 30 years. Maybe more, but that’s what I have experience with and insight into.

    But I believe people can have empathy outside of own experiences. All it takes is some tendency towards curiosity and enough imagination to actually be able to make sense of something as abstract as assuming someone else’s point of view. And empathy besides, which is a little bit of a harder concept and probably requires some inherent traits acquired at birth(?), compassion certainly should be possible for anyone. You can rationally realize others’ troubles without understanding it completely. That just requires caring past one’s own self.

    It would of course benefit them if they had the experience. I’ve often, when speaking of such hard and heavy topics, gone on a similar tangent. Perspective, at the end of the day, is the thing everyone ought to have. Experiencing the things yourself is one way, but I think just reading about others struggles and thoughts is a great way to gain that as well. If someone lacks any and all traits required to care about others, then I suppose the perspective evades them until they experience it themselves (this is so common in right-wing politics (doesn’t even have to be far right, even very liberal right falls for this constantly!) even in extremely progressive countries such as mine), but I have to believe there are other ways.

    This often comes up with depression and anxiety and outside of the more serious things, just general bad mindsets. A lot of people are having a hard time adjusting to the world as it is today, and that’s so understandable. But when people wonder why Im seemingly able to find light, joy and happiness, hope even, while being generally aware of all this, I don’t really know what else to say, other than tell them I spent several years on the edge of suicide, fighting against these things that were driving me down the ledge. Without going to the specifics, I just always try to give them the understanding that the perspective gained from that, surviving it, finding the way forward, it just helps navigating the struggles to find a little bit of light in everything. But was I somehow less empathetic to the people going through clinical depression before I did myself? No. I was fully aware how horrifying and desperate it can get, I just didn’t really know how it felt, but I was able to imagine a lot of it. And a lot of people, I’ve found, are the same. Most of them, even, though that’s just anecdotal. Maybe people like that tend to herd towards others like that, dunno.

    But as sad as it is, it’s so common to see the less empathetic or compassionate people drive hard for certain policies, until the policy kicks them in their own knees via their family or friends or whatever, and suddenly they drive against it. It didn’t matter that someone was suffering from it. It had to be someone they knew, before that suffering mattered. As with e.g the depression, a public figure can be a strong opponent of mental health and just promoting the most awkward stuff like not being stressed by eating an apple and going for a jog or whatever. While those too have merits in general, thats just not even close to answering a lot of the cases where that simply isn’t enough, or even possible, or even good at all. Calling everyone soft and losers with no spine. Then when their own child gets diagnosed after a long while of publicly calling even them, their own blood, losers in need of strong leaders and happy thoughts, suddenly it’s a real thing and mental health is an actual concept that isn’t just hippies feeling down or whatever.

    Anyway, don’t know where I’m going with this. I agree with you, but I guess I had some words wanting to get out of my head along similar lines.




  • I’d probably dedicate some days each week to friends or family, to have more active contact before it’s late, but be shamelessly selfish the other days and spend them trying to finish some of my hobby projects and finally finishing The Witcher 3 if possible.

    That’s going to be rough to those currently on my daily agenda, like partner and kid, but I’ve given so much to them, and so little to others I care about, that the balance has to be leaning towards the latter.

    Not sure if I actually could do that though. But that’s what I’d hope I’d be able to push for.


  • Ah, that old pattern. Damn. I recognize it and see it way too much around. Luckily not much in my inner circles, but spaces I can’t avoid like work for example. It’s starting to eat up on me.

    This is one of those weirdly specific pet peeves I have. For the life of me I can not get into the headspace where that is the outcome of the whole chain of logic and intuition that goes into having that stance, and, more importantly, holding to it despite ample chances, throughout tens of years, to change your mind or act differently. At 50, I see you’re still lashing out in this pattern? But why, man, why?

    Surely it ought to feel good to see others doing the right thing, so it wouldn’t feel as bad for yourself to do the wrong thing. Assuming you can’t just stop doing it (Many habits are extremely hard to kick, so that’s entirely human and understandable, not faulting anyone for that). But this way, the total amount of good is better when it’s only you doing the wrong thing, so you can just be the margin of error, sort of? Have less of a negative impact overall. Be implicitly slightly better yourself, by this grace of others. Or at least you should end up feeling that way, or something along those lines, right? Or at the very least, feel just nothing, be entirely oblivious to the whole thing. That’d be human and understandable too. It’s a habit. You don’t necessarily think about those. You just do them.

    But to lash out for that? Be conscious enough to realize this all, but instead of any other kind of understandable human way, you, of all things, lash out to those doing the different thing. I just can’t figure it out. Why? I suppose it could be a subconscious coping mechanism to shield one’s self from the fact that they are not doing the right thing, but it feels off that it would come out aggressive or you know combative some way. At others, at least. I get that you might feel bad, and “guilty”, sort of, but surely nobody’s mind goes from “I feel guilty” to “it’s your fault I’m feeling guilty”? Ugh.

    I find my lack of perspective often very anxiousness-inducing. I can emphatise with such a wide range of lives and beings and situations, but there are so many I simply can’t, often similar to this specific thing. Makes me nervous about me potentially being selfish or stubborn because I can’t see it. This is one of those things. Makes me sweat, almost. Always reminds me of the “are we the baddies?” meme. Am I partially some sort of a sociopath since I just can’t grasp that mindset? What if I don’t even really emphatise with anyone, I just think I do, but what if it feels different for those that really do it? What if I am a psychopath, goddamnit, this really gets me spiraling 🥲


  • It took me over ten years to realize this too, although I was young and stupid so it kind of follows. I started carrying a bag with a seal with me and if there wasn’t a public ash tray in view, I’d just drop them in there and I was so ashamed when I first started that, since it was so easy and all the things I thought would be problems, like the smell, just… literally never was. And how quickly the bag would fill up, ugh. All that used to go to the ground. Note however that I was conscious of littering and always if I knew there was an ash tray, say, no more than some 100m detour from my current path, I’d just take the extra steps to put it there. But they are surprisingly rare, especially towards the end of my smoking habit, when smoking started to really die out and be a lot less common. A lot of places, like bars for example, didn’t necessarily put ash trays by the door or terrace, which was how it used to be.

    I’m lucky I got out of the habit. But I can sort of emphatise those who do it without thinking about it, especially if they are young.

    Younger generations are also lucky, at least here, since smoking is so ludicrously expensive nowadays with the taxes and all, and add to that good education, I very rarely see young people smoking anymore. Seems to be mostly people in their 30s or 40s — my age group — and of us, mostly the “hillbilly” types.

    I do use nicotine pouches though, to this day. Low nicotine ones, but anyway. Those are very natural for not trashing, like the Nordic snus, since the pucks/containers come with its own small compartment for the used pouches, that’s easy to clean up at home. And those pucks are very recyclable too (granted that the region has the sort of plastic sorting that differentiates washable/directly reusable containers like we do for glass) which at least from what I have seen, gets done properly a lot of the time.

    In general, I think the newer generations are much more aware of all this and do a great job of being conscious of the environment, not only at the global scale, but also just the local environment and surroundings too.

    Let’s just hope we didn’t fuck up bad enough so that they might have a chance at adulthood and actually transferring all that to more effective and serious politics and activism. We might just get saved ourselves, too, if they just learn to be decisive enough to push us fuckups out of the picture. God I hope enough of them have the dreams, passion and idealism to actually have that drive and fire.

    This became a random tangent, sorry if you got this far!


  • My current and most of my more recent relationships started from tinder, which has been more or less the “default” at least here in my age group (back then, some 20-30). A few were from Jodel or such in between, but I’ve had most luck with the swipey app. Both poly and mono, depending on the phase I was going through at the time.

    I think at least most of my friends have met their partners (most being long term by now, with children and such, like mine too currently) that way. But I live in a relatively small country, so maybe that affects the spread in the apps. When you are just a few million people in total speaking the language, there’s not much sense I suppose to spread thin between several apps.


  • I generally hate thinking like this, but ultimately, as with everything, there comes a point where it’s actually beneficial and probably the only healing move left, to admit that the problem might be in one’s self, not others (or the tools used, as in this case).

    But that does not mean that the metaphorical finger is inherently fragile or unavoidably always broken. Just realizing this, as much as our psyche fights against it both to avoid admitting fault or conceding that there’s a lot of work to do, can start the processes to get the finger working and healthy.

    I also don’t like how often this line of thought is turned around and used as a weapon, when it can actually be very hopeful and healing after the initial struggles trying to accept it (and failing to do so, defensively fighting against it with all your cells for a good while).


  • This sounds entirely strange to me. Im very likely out of the loop, or from a different culture, but I can’t understand how this could ever work, doesn’t seem like something people would consistently pay for, when it’s usually as easy as just existing normally to automatically and organically meet people and have relationships.

    I get that it’s likely not as easy as that for everyone, and ymmv, but even then, there are free options. And options that have thousands and thousands of active users at any given time to match with. Of all the concepts fediverse could plausibly solve, I can’t see this doing that. But I’d love to hear how that’d work! Sounds curious.

    I guess I can’t see the analogue, even, in the centralized world. Are there services like this that actually exist long term? Is this a cultural thing? I have never heard of matchmakers outside of rich people stereotypes, and those are few and far between.

    I don’t mean to say it won’t work. This is my initial gut reaction and confusion. I suspect it’s a cultural thing, has to be, since you do speak of it as though it was something often done. I’d be curious to hear more about this kind of thing just for curiosity.