Geek Stuff category archive
Influencer Idiocy 0
Emily Balcetis, writing at Psychology Today Blogs, has some issues with how “influencers” promote products. She believes that
Stricter rules are needed to limit harmful social media marketing.
Follow the link for her reasoning and, remember, “social” media isn’t.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
The dialog (at the four minute mark): Don’t even think about going to the law about our private business.
The closed caption: Don’t even think about going to the Lord about our private business.
The stupid: It burns.
No Place To Hide 0
There’s a reason internet companies make their terms of service virtually unreadable.
It enables stuff like this.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
The serial: Dick Tracy’s G-Men, episode three, which I saw on Tubi.
The dialog: I left orders with the Coast Guard.
The closed caption: I left daughters with the Coast Guard.
The intelligence: Artificial.
The stupid: It burns.
The afterthought: I have daughters. As one who used to be a boater, I have a lot of respect for the Coast Guard, but I’m not sure I’d leave my daugh–oh, never mind.
Running Nekkid through the Inner Webs 0
The EFF explains some ways of protecting yourself from being tracked via your cell phone.
In these days of the surveillance economy, this is a worthwhile read.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
The movie: The Criminal Within (aka Murder at Glen Athol).
The dialog: Why would she do it? She loved Muriel.
The closed caption: Why would she do it she love me oreo.
The stupid: It burns.
Aside:
I love me oreo too, but I prefer Chips Ahoy.
Geeking Out 0
Debian v. 12 (Bookworm) with the Plasma Desktop on a Think Penguin laptop. Xclock is in the upper right; GKrellM, the lower right. The wallpaper is from my collection.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
El Reg reports that Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux kernel, ain’t buying it. A snippet:
“I think the whole tech industry around AI is in a very bad position and it’s 90 percent marketing and ten percent reality and in five years things will change and at that point we’ll see what of the AI is getting used for real workloads,” he added.
Follow the link for context.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
In the old movie I’m watching as I type this, the I-assume-it’s AI doing the subtitles rendered “Miss Serova” as “Mr. Obama.”
If you want to see for yourself, it’s at about the 30 minute mark.
Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0
Responsible for its actions? You must be joking.
Here’s a bit from the report by El Reg (emphasis added):
LinkedIn thus takes after its parent, which recently revised its Service Agreement to make clear that its Assistive AI should not be relied upon.
LinkedIn, however, has taken its denial of responsibility a step further: it will hold users responsible for sharing any policy-violating misinformation created by its own AI tools.
H/T Le Show for its coverage of AI (and many other items that don’t get the attention that they deserve).
Down at the Farm 0
I woke up this morning to the dreaded “Error making database connection” error. (Oddly, the front end of the site seemed to be working okay, but the back end was inaccessible, so maybe my two or three regular readers did not encounter any difficulties.)
Quick like a bunny, I logged into my most excellent hosting provider, opened phpMyAdmin, and did a check, repair, and optimize on the database–procedures that I perform regularly as database maintenance ever since I suffered a database crash in 2008. Ironically, I usually do them on a Sunday.
The site seems to have worked okay all day, so I’m crossing my fingers and holding my breath.
The Crypto Con 0
It seems like everyone wants in on the scam.
The Disinformation Superhighway 0
El Reg points out that, for every effect, there is a cause (emphasis added). Here’s the lede:
A scientific paper published in the journal Nature this week confirms that was the case, with justification. The groups more likely to be subjected to moderation were also more likely to share misinformation from low-quality news sites.
One more time, “social” media isn’t.
The Crypto Con 0
The FBI followed the money. From El Reg (emphasis in the original):
The FBI investigation tracked payments to at least three deputies and their associates from Zort funds, and also probed how Iza was making his money. This led to the criminal charges.
Follow the link to see where it led them.
Facebook Frolics 0
How dare you attempt to get out the vote in a non-partisan manner frolics.
One more time, “social” media isn’t.
Indeed, it seems increasingly anti-social, if not actually sociopathic.