Posts by paco@infosec.exchange
(DIR) Post #AxtyoVIphRg76iudYe by paco@infosec.exchange
10 likes, 12 repeats
One of the ways that LLM-authored code improves productivity is by merely SAYING it does things. It's way faster than the whole time-consuming process of actually doing things. This is real code someone sent to me for review.
(DIR) Post #B42SXEFWBiNGO2jWPw by paco@infosec.exchange
0 likes, 1 repeats
OMG. Can you imagine publishing Machine Code for Beginners today??Usborne 1980s Computer Books
(DIR) Post #B4tpFYfM8U0yorEnq4 by paco@infosec.exchange
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Holy shit this is detailed. Can you believe the hubris to silently collect all this information on users?#privacyhttps://browsergate.eu/how-it-works/
(DIR) Post #B4zDZJEaac0tRNT68G by paco@infosec.exchange
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I run an online forum and I'm about to relaunch it on Discourse. One of my users tried out the new Discourse interface and thought it was OK, but not great.He sends me a message saying it could be better, and what do I think of this? It's just a fantasy layout he made with AI. He has no idea how any of this works, he's just making pictures. The layout he's sent can't be done. And even getting close would take weeks of programming and making a custom theme in EmberJS.I tried to make the analogy of going to a car dealership with a picture of a car that you made in AI. All the dealer can do is offer you the car on the lot that comes closest to your picture.
(DIR) Post #B4zDZJgwtAhMrKjkKu by paco@infosec.exchange
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I made a new logo for the site, by hand, in Inkscape. I put it out there for the community to look at. This guy uploads a few options that look really professional. Frankly, better than mine. I think "wow, I didn't know we had a graphic designer in our community." I should have known better.He just used AI. And so when I go back to him and ask things like "hey, can you send the source file for that?" and "do you have it in SVG?" he doesn't even know what I mean. The PNG he posted (that the users liked) was the sum total of all he had. No high res version, no vector version. No ability to move things around. or anything. Just this one, final result PNG.One thing that bothers me is that I will come across as a jerk if I push back, saying that I'm not going to do all the work required to bring his low-effort design to reality. His, for example, was on a white background. I need transparent to go with a dark theme or a light theme. I need SVG or some kind of high res source so I can make multiple versions for different purposes (icon, web logo, horizontal positions, vertical positions, etc.)People suddenly feel qualified to do things in domains where they know nothing at all. And this guy thinks he's done something. If I tell him he hasn't he will point to the logo right there on the screen as evidence that he has.
(DIR) Post #B54AS85CK8c2kulBGi by paco@infosec.exchange
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@Gizmodo Ugh. This anthropomorphised writing:After getting ChatGPT to confirm that it claims to have a timer (it calls keeping time “just a basic part of what I can do”), he plays the clip of Altman saying that the model cannot, in fact, time anything.That’s just plain stupid. It “confirmed” NOTHING! The person managed to prompt it with inputs that caused it to output that statement. #ChatGPT does not interrogate itself and respond based on its technical capabilities. It can’t “admit” things. It can’t “confirm” things. This is not a legitimate way to describe the process of input and output.
(DIR) Post #B5OtyhaKFGOdEFQMdM by paco@infosec.exchange
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@tewha And DNS is the first thing that has to start up, if anything else in the future is going to work. @octothorpe
(DIR) Post #B5T4Jd4E0teRTLrnUm by paco@infosec.exchange
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Similar to how it sucks when a restaurant doesn't have a web site, they just have a facebook page, I get so mad when some #maker device like #esp32 relay, only has a youtube video.They have a 24-second video, with pointless music and no words. All to fundamentally share this one image.So I end up screen-capping that image and saving it in my folder of reference materials. Super frustrating.#homeassistant #homeautomation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPTRpzDYKaY
(DIR) Post #B5b2oTRvB1DxycD5HM by paco@infosec.exchange
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I just saw the most amazingly corporate expression of "we did what the bosses wanted us to do, even though the research didn't support that." The actual phrase was:The research employed a methodology that prioritized stakeholder voice over researcher interpretation.I wonder if a data scientist slipped that in to make it clear to other folks how this happened. You don't have to write stuff like this if the boss wants to do what the research says is a good idea. You only have to write this if the research says one thing and the boss says another.
(DIR) Post #B5d4tRmXONS8TfGvya by paco@infosec.exchange
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"It's called vibe plumbing. I'm not even a plumber. Soon, all swimming pools will be done this way! Get onboard or get left behind."(a real life version of the 'vibe construction' comic from https://mandatoryrollercoaster.com/). Photo taken from plumbers fails)
(DIR) Post #B5fbJ2KSEYoNunInGS by paco@infosec.exchange
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I’m helping my elderly mother (93) adapt to a new computer. It’s an iMac. She’s had Mac’s for the last 25 years.Mostly this is fine. But man, Apple has completely lost their way with accessibility. Some things, obviously are world-leading. I don’t want to ignore that.But the fucking mouse gestures. In Apple Mail you cannot turn off left-right swipe gestures. My mother, with her arthritic hands, cannot reliably do just vertical. It tends to be diagonal. Swiping on a mouse is great. But we need LESS gesture.In Apple mail the little set of buttons that allows you to see the existence of attachments and download them only appears if you move the mouse. If you leave the mouse alone a few seconds, it disappears. So trying to tell her where to look for something? It disappears before I can get her to focus on it.
(DIR) Post #B5uM4urKcowukit6yO by paco@infosec.exchange
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Wow. Richard Dawkins off the deep end. ‘So my own position is: “If these machines are not conscious, what more could it possibly take to convince you that they are?”’First he goes on and on about the Turing test like it is some kind of law handed down. Like, the fact that sequences of output tokens so closely resemble speech they might pass Turing’s test. He views a moving of the goalpost (Turing’s test apparently isn’t enough to distinguish consciousness) as unreasonable. Like Turing got it right and it’s wrong to say otherwise.And then he has these risible conversations: ‘I then asked her whether, when she read my novel, she read the first word before the last word. No, she read the whole book simultaneously.’ Let’s not ignore the ‘she’. The thing has a name. ‘Claude.’ It implies a gender. But Richard Dawkins genders it and genders it female. I don’t think that’s a random thing.We know how computers work. It absolutely does read the book byte-by-byte, in a sequential series of input tokens. It does not matter that the thing output some words that said otherwise. It is wrong. Why doesn’t it matter that the output is plainly incorrect? Where does the disconnection between the reality and the words come into the picture?This is just drivel. https://archive.is/6RdK9
(DIR) Post #B5uM4whpl6XYTqSYRk by paco@infosec.exchange
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There's a whole, parallel thread on this #RichardDawkins nonsense here.https://woof.tech/@radish/116501663872078871RT: https://woof.tech/ap/users/115871788776439459/statuses/116501663872078871
(DIR) Post #B61aT8QGbgZpEYOHOC by paco@infosec.exchange
0 likes, 1 repeats
One of the great things about getting the print version of TheOnion is the ads. Full page mock ads that are just… ouch.
(DIR) Post #B64RwSeU9ookG5pWU4 by paco@infosec.exchange
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I needed 2 SAS 4TB drives for my NAS. Found a lot of 10 on eBay for $250. Even if only half work, it’s a good deal. Now to find a use for the other 8…#selfhosted #homelab #nas
(DIR) Post #B6eKc04wyeTprP3wCO by paco@infosec.exchange
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I bought a car. I’m trying to get Toyota to stop sending telemetry. I call support. They tell me I can just sign in with the app and make changes.I point out that installing and using the app binds me to terms and conditions, one of which is binding arbitration. So I will not be installing the app.No, no. The customer service agent confidently contradicts me. You don’t sign a contract by installing the app. It’s just like making a Facebook or google account. 🤦🏻
(DIR) Post #B6eKc0Qvew3qxZLUSO by paco@infosec.exchange
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Lots of commentary on this and many people say “just take it out.” Yes. That’s sorta possible. This video shows what it looks like when you get access to the DCM. You have to disembowel the dashboard. https://m.youtube.com/shorts/Y_heoO_SGOw?ra=m
(DIR) Post #B6egOmgtdkQhZ6umTw by paco@infosec.exchange
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@internetarchive To be fair, it’s not titled “One Hundred GOOD Picnic Suggestions.” Cucumber is almost an afterthought in the cucumber sandwiches, mentioned just once in the last sentence.And I like how “salad” is defined as “anything mixed with mayonnaise.” I think some plaque built up on my arteries just by thumbing through this book.
(DIR) Post #B7lpO7XLjmBxTGExG4 by paco@infosec.exchange
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@mullvadnet I’m sure you all are catching lots of flack for this. It’s pretty straightforward:A customer’s money is income for the company. Some of the company’s income becomes the CEO’s salary. Some of the CEO’s money goes to a hateful political party.How can someone say with a straight face that being a mullvad customer might have nothing to do with supporting that political party?