Let’s fucking go

The Facebook Files made – and provided evidence for – multiple allegations, including that Facebook was well aware of how toxic Instagram was for many teen girls; that Facebook has a “secret elite” list of people for whom Facebook’s rules don’t apply; that Facebook knew its revised algorithm was fueling rage; and that Facebook didn’t do enough to stop anti-vax propaganda during Covid-19. Most damningly of all, The Facebook Files reported that all of these things were well known to senior executives, including Mark Zuckerberg.

It’s clear which side Sorkin is taking. “I blame Facebook for January 6,” he said last year. “Facebook has been, among other things, tuning its algorithm to promote the most divisive material possible. Because that is what will increase engagement … There’s supposed to be a constant tension at Facebook between growth and integrity. There isn’t. It’s just growth.”

Corps are gonna corp.

I feel like this is the default. Many of the people in my life don’t want to make decisions. They just want to do the simple things that bring immediate contentment and avoid everything else.

That’s a really weird way of looking at it.

That’s how I roll.

Without the database, there’s no central ledger to consult as to whether or not you’re legally a person.

We’re already seeing them do that without a database. 🤷‍♂️

Other countries are able to maintain internal databases without using them to screw over their own citizens (except when they do). The problem isn’t the database.

See the UK Post Office accounting scandal, in which a persistent computer error went unfixed for decades and caused hundreds of post office employees to be fired and dragged through courts for corruption that never happened. A good chunk of them committed suicide.

The database is the least important part of the system: the organizational structure, rules, and procedures are way more important, because they actively help or harm people.

no no, it’s an input to a Palantir database

1. I haven’t seen a built in picker for multi-character emojis, like the ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (on OSX and Android)
2. Sometimes the description I’m thinking of and the picker text doesn’t line up, but I’m not sure if Google’s picker will be that smart.

🤷‍♂️

While the stats vary depending on who’s measuring, the story is consistent: web publishers, who provided the content that trained these AI models, face dramatically diminishing visitors, which means lower advertising and subscription revenues, even amid overall growth in search impressions.

reading text isn’t the easiest with all the colors and blurs everywhere

Agreed - I like the look of these things in an abstract sense, but it makes the text really hard to read. I assume hope there’s a way to disable it in accessibility settings.

I guess that’s why you pay your soldiers.

In the early summer of 2024, months before the opposition launched Operation Deterrence of Aggression, a mobile application began circulating among a group of Syrian army officers. It carried an innocuous name: STFD-686, a string of letters standing for Syria Trust for Development.

…

The STFD-686 app operated with disarming simplicity. It offered the promise of financial aid, requiring only that the victim fill out a few personal details. It asked innocent questions: “What kind of assistance are you expecting?” and “Tell us more about your financial situation.”

…

Determining officers’ ranks made it possible for the app’s operators to identify those in sensitive positions, such as battalion commanders and communications officers, while knowing their exact place of service allowed for the construction of live maps of force deployments. It gave the operators behind the app and the website the ability to chart both strongholds and gaps in the Syrian army’s defensive lines. The most crucial point was the combination of the two pieces of information: Disclosing that “officer X” was stationed at “location Y” was tantamount to handing the enemy the army’s entire operating manual, especially on fluid fronts like those in Idlib and Sweida.

Trolling aside, yeah, being able to explain a concept in everyday terms takes careful thought and discipline. I’m consistently impressed by the people who write Simple articles on Wikipedia. I wish there were more of those articles.

Is the point of Wikipedia to provide everyone with information, or to allow editors to spew jargon into opaque articles that are only accessible to experts?

I think it’s the former. There are very few topics that can’t be explained simply, if the author is willing to consider their audience. Best of all, absolutely nothing is lost when an expert reads a well written article.

There’s a core problem that many Wikipedia articles are hard for a layperson to read and understand. The statement about reading level is one way to express this.

The Simple version of articles shows humans can produce readable text. But there aren’t enough Simple articles, and the Simple articles are often incomplete.

I don’t think AI should be solely trusted with summarization/translation, but it might have a place in the editing cycle.

“I decided I launched [sic] these tools in the first place as a project to build the tool that could be use by LEAs [law enforcement agencies] and PIs [private investigators.]”

According to the developer, they’ve provided the tool to cops in Portugal, Belgium, and “other countries in Europe.” They told 404 Media that the website is meant for private investigators, journalists, and cops.

It sounds like they’re actively peddling it to cops.

My kids aren’t really interested in the movies I like. They actively avoid the music I listen to. I’ve gotten them copies of the books I love and they give up after a few pages. They get bored with the games I played as a kid.

My dad loves Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, the Whole Earth Catalog, and Bruce Springsteen. I do not. If he wills me his copies, I will keep some out of guilt and then my kids will have to throw them away.

Yeah - I’m totally for full, real, actual ownership of digital stuff, and we should be able to give it away.

But I’d be surprised if my kids would be interested in more than a tiny fraction of it. Or anyone else, for that matter.

I’m trying to curate a few hundred photos for my kids. I’ve written a couple of bios of relatives. I’d like to record something like a story for them. If they want to trash it, that’s fine, but at least there will be something meaningful for them if they want it.

Assuming it survives the climate wars. 🫠

Doesn’t archive.org provide that?