From Pine View Farm

Geek Stuff category archive

The Crypto Con 0

Paul Krugman is less than sanguine about crypto con artists’ growing interest in and influence on politics. A snippet:

. . . crypto is playing a big role in the 2024 election. Axios writes that according to an August report from Public Citizen, “The crypto industry accounts for almost half the money contributed by corporations to political action committees so far in 2024.”

(snip)

So crypto’s political spending clearly seems motivated by financial self-interest, while the right-wing lurch of other tech bros may — as a Facebook founder, Chris Hughes, put it the other day in The New York Times — reflect a sense of common cause with Trump, who like them believes that he shouldn’t have to play by the rules.

Follow the link for the full article.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

Eric Pohlmann, in the voice of Goron:

Why do you conduct your card experiment here, at the roulette wheel?

Closed caption, almost certainly computer generated:

Why do you conduct your card experiment here, at the old left wing?

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Geeking Out 0

Mageia v. 9 with the Fluxbox window manager. The wallpaper is from my collection.

Screenshot

Click for a larger image.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

I commend to your attention Harry Shearer’s interview with Gary Marcus on this week’s episode of Le Show about AI and Silicon Valley’s reckless over-hyping of its capabilities.

The interview starts at about the 28 minute mark and lasts a little less than half an hour.

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Facebook Frolics 0

AI frolics.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Sabrina B. Little makes a strong case that students’ use of ChatGPT and similar “tools” to complete assignments is ipso facto counterproductive. Here’s a tiny excerpt from her article (emphasis added):

Often when my students use ChatGPT and related technologies, they do so to avoid the arduous task of thinking. This is a problem because much of the transformative work of their educations occurs through the process of wrestling with ideas and discerning their significance. To outsource this work means a student comes away unchanged, or uneducated.

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Facebook Frolics 0

Farron dissects the doubletalk.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Ian MacRae suggests that observing how AI Chatbots and LLM’s deal with humor can tell us a lot about just how “intelligent” they are. He notes that “(a)Apparently, large language models have a Rickrolling problem,” and goes on to make four main points (emphasis added):

  • LLMs struggle to fully grasp the deeply embedded trends and language patterns of internet culture.
  • Rickrolling, a classic internet prank, reveals the limitations of machine intelligence in understanding.
  • Machine intelligence mimics human communication but lacks true understanding, especially in humor.
  • We don’t yet fully understand the impact of training machine intelligence on vast datasets of online language.

Follow the link for his exploration of these issues.

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Facebook Frolics 0

Con artists cripple canine charity while Facebook fiddles.

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

An accessory before the fact? Most definitely!

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This New Gilded Age 0

At Above the Law, Olga V. Mack talks with Richard Finkelman of the Berkley Research Group about the recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta finding Google guilty of monopolistic practices.

Given the extent to which we rely search engines and Big Tech in our daily lives, I think it a worthwhile read.

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Meta: Down at the Farm 0

I woke this morning to a broken blog. The error message told me that one of the database tables needed repair.

Quick like a bunny, before even having a cup of coffee, I logged into my hosting provider, started phpMyAdmin, and ran a check, repair, and optimize on on the primary database. (As a matter of routine, I do a check, repair, and optimize, as well as a database backup, at least once a week, ever since I had major database crash back when this blog was still a toddler.) The process took less than two minutes.

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The Crypto Con 0

Now, it’s coming after your pension fund (assuming, of course, that you even have a pension fund in this New Gilded Age).

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Artificial? Yes. Intelligent? Not So Much. 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Marc Wittmann argues that, as far as AI is concerned, the “Singularity” remains a fever dream He makes three main points, the most important being that hardware cannot evolve. Follow the link, where he explores each one.

      Some scientists and philosophers have the opinion that artificial intelligence could one day become conscious.
      A computer remains the same physical structure from one moment to the next.
      A living organism, in contrast, is never the same entity from one moment to the next.

Afterthought:

Mechanical processing speed is indeed impressive, but it’s not the same thing as intelligence.

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So You Think Your Boot Is Secure? 0

Per security maven Bruce Schneier, it may well not be.

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House of PCI Cards 0

Security maven Bruce Schneir takes a look at last week/s CrowdStrike computer failure and concludes that the potential for such an event is a feature, not a bug, fostered by the fee hand of the market.

Here’s a bit from his article (emphasis added):

Imagine a house where the drywall, flooring, fireplace, and light fixtures are all made by companies that need continuous access and whose failures would cause the house to collapse. You’d never set foot in such a structure, yet that’s how software systems are built. It’s not that 100 percent of the system relies on each company all the time, but 100 percent of the system can fail if any one of them fails. But doing better is expensive and doesn’t immediately contribute to a company’s bottom line.

Follow the link for the context of that comparison.

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Screening into the Night 0

At Psychology Today Blogs, Dr. Lantie Elisabeth Jorandby reacts to Surgeon General’s recent proposal that “social” media should come with warning labels for young persons by looking at the ample evidence that “social” media isn’t. Here’s a small piece of her piece:

A key piece of damning evidence cited in the advisory was a recent study of 6,595 adolescents. Researchers found that those who spent more than three hours a day on social media had double the risk of mental health problems. These included depression and anxiety.

Given that the average daily social media use among that age group is now 4.8 hours, and that 3 hours a day is associated with twice the depression and anxiety risk, you have to ask: What effect could 4.8 hours a day have on young people?

The entire article is worth your whiles.

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Twits Own Twitter X Offenders . . . 0

A fellow Tech Billionaire calls Elon Musk to task. A snippet:

Vinod Khosla, the billionaire venture capitalist co-founder of the bygone Sun Microsystems, called for an open Democratic convention on X following Biden’s announcement, saying he wanted to get a “more moderate candidate who can easily beat” Trump. Musk, replying to Khosla’s post, urged him to instead back Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, saying “LFG!!”

“Hard for me to support someone with no values, lies, cheats, rapes, demeans women, hates immigrants like me,” Khosla replied. “He may cut my taxes or reduce some regulation but that is no reason to accept depravity in his personal values. Do you want President who will set back climate by a decade in his first year? Do you want his example for your kids as values?”

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Our Surveillance Society 0

Couple sitting in restaurant with drone buzzing above them.  Woman says,

Click to view the original image.

In related news, the EFF wants you to know that your car may be watching you.

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Geeking Out 0

Mageia v. 9 with the Fluxbox window manager. The wallpaper is from my collection.

Screenshot

Click for a larger image.

I’ve been using Mageia on various boxes since v. 3. I find it quite a nice piece of work.

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