TechTakes froztbyte • 1 week ago • 100%

www.prnewswire.com

I will say I'm not much of a fan of mysqls but uhhhhh this seems bad

TechTakes froztbyte • 2 weeks ago • 100%

chipsandcheese.com

saw this kicking around on the lobsters frontpage > IBM also includes a DPU for accelerating IO, along with an on-board AI accelerator ah yes. an AI accelerator. for a chip that goes into a system that'll quite possibly have a lifespan measured in decade-partials. in environments so extremely up to date with the bleeding edge of technology that they are _absolutely_ not losing their programmers to retirement. an AI acceleator for that. makes total sense. imagine being the poor engineers who had to spec that out, design it, and get it actually existing. nevermind even the awe-inspiringly stunning disregard to reality that it takes for some management fuckhead(s) to have "steered" this > Funny enough, I asked why IBM had different terminology compared to the rest of the industry. They said IBM came up with the terminology first, and later on the industry adopted different terminology. It was all lighthearted and funny. ah yes! funny! haha. not at all some weird insular shit from the same company that runs a worlds-apart platform with a control grip so strong it makes larry ellison check if they're infringing on anything actionable...

TechTakes froztbyte • 1 month ago • 100%

Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret. Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no. If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high. > The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be) > > Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

TechTakes froztbyte • 2 months ago • 100%

Need to let loose a primal scream without collecting footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh Awful you’ll near-instantly regret. Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no. If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high. > The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be) > >Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

NotAwfulTech froztbyte • 2 months ago • 100%

jordaneldredge.com

found this kicking around on one of the feeder sites a few days ago and only got to read it now kinda neat. it's the sort of thing that you used to find quite a lot with keygens and other things prone to easter eggs, and that I don't really know of being as prevalent in more recent gaming and such

TechTakes froztbyte • 3 months ago • 100%

Need to make a primal scream without gathering footnotes first? Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid: Welcome to the Stubsack, your first port of call for learning fresh facts of Awful you'll near-instantly regret. Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no. If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post — there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high. > The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be) > Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

Buttcoin froztbyte • 3 months ago • 100%

www.coindesk.com

there is some strong copium in the article, combined with a total description of having a massive gambling addiction without, y’know, actually realising it’s an addiction remarkable stuff

TechTakes froztbyte • 3 months ago • 100%

theconversation.com

there are some remarkable instances of bad behaviour in there already, but imagine being the sort of product team that thinks _users being gaslit by a chatbot that they couldn’t even consent to choose to use_ is totes something to deliver without any modification or remark

SneerClub froztbyte • 4 months ago • 100%

this time in _open letter_ format! that'll sure do it! there are "risks", which they are definite about - the risks are not hypothetical, the risks are real! it's totes even had some acknowledgement in other places! totes real defs for sure this time guize

TechTakes froztbyte • 4 months ago • 100%

Have a sneer percolating in your system but not enough time/energy to make a whole post about it? Go forth and be mid! Any awful.systems sub may be subsneered in this subthread, techtakes or no. If your sneer seems higher quality than you thought, feel free to cut’n’paste it into its own post, there’s no quota for posting and the bar really isn’t that high > The post Xitter web has spawned soo many “esoteric” right wing freaks, but there’s no appropriate sneer-space for them. I’m talking redscare-ish, reality challenged “culture critics” who write about everything but understand nothing. I’m talking about reply-guys who make the same 6 tweets about the same 3 subjects. They’re inescapable at this point, yet I don’t see them mocked (as much as they should be) > Like, there was one dude a while back who insisted that women couldn’t be surgeons because they didn’t believe in the moon or in stars? I think each and every one of these guys is uniquely fucked up and if I can’t escape them, I would love to sneer at them.

FreeAssembly froztbyte • 5 months ago • 100%

since I haven't touched AP before (and figure other possible contributors may not have either), going to use this post as wayfarer bathroom graffiti feel free to contribute your own learning and investigation as well

TechTakes froztbyte • 5 months ago • 100%

www.theverge.com

It’s been a long couple of years with people going hard on building all their communications on the gamer chat company, disregarding all warnings and concerns because of shiny creature comforts Soon: “we trusted you! We moved from slack to you! 😭” Guess it’s only a handful of months before the tortured handwringing starts?

TechTakes froztbyte • 6 months ago • 100%

fortune.com

Unfortunately I can’t snip from mobile easily now, but maybe someone else can archive it and comment with archive link?

TechTakes froztbyte • 6 months ago • 100%

thebaffler.com

Too tired to sneer at the book myself right now but the article doesn’t pull punches either Figured it’s worth posting since the book author has featured here more than once recently and has definitely been an enabler to The Shit

NotAwfulTech froztbyte • 6 months ago • 100%

github.com

found via someone running a server at revision retro fun. quite slick, too!

TechTakes froztbyte • 6 months ago • 100%

boehs.org

Not entirely the usual fare, but i figured some here would appreciate it I often rag on the js/node/npm ecosystem for being utter garbage, and this post is a quite a full demonstration of many of the shortcomings and outright total design failures present in that space

NotAwfulTech froztbyte • 6 months ago • 100%

Invite up at https://2024.revision-party.net/blog/04-invitation/ ~2 weekends away (who cares about the week) Prepare for watching mathematical black magic!

TechTakes froztbyte • 7 months ago • 100%

www.maximumtruth.org

starting out[0] with "I was surprised by the following results" and it just goes further down almost-but-not-quite Getting It Avenue close, but certainly no cigar choice quotes: > > Why is it impressive that a model trained on internet text full of random facts happens to have a lot of random facts memorized? … why does that in any way indicate intelligence or creativity? > That’s a good point. you don't fucking say > I have a website (TrackingAI.org) that already administers a political survey to AIs every day. So I could easily give the AIs a real intelligence test, and track that over time, too. really, how? > As I started manually giving AIs IQ tests oh. > Then it proceeds to mis-identify every single one of the 6 answer options, leading it to pick the wrong answer. There seems to be little rhyme or reason to its misidentifications if this fuckwit had even the slightest fucking understanding of how these things work, it would be glaringly obvious there's plenty more, so remember to practice stretching before you start your eyerolls

One for the sidebar, in the spirit of incident-day-free counters[0], tracking how many days since the last time there was a dipshitted thing from the tescrealtors Could do it with flap-counter or nixie-clock numbers for a bit of feel? [0] - is this an insensitive idea? I know the counters tend to form part of safety culture and their reset indicates harm, but those clowns are exactly dangerous, so..

TechTakes froztbyte • 10 months ago • 100%

blog.google

[open scene] > background: a brightly lit airy Social Gathering space with multicoloured furniture (meeting rooms are so 2010). people have been arriving in clumps of 2~5 for over 30 minutes, and the presentation can start soon sundar: I want to thank you all for coming. this one should be quick today. `* sundar briefly sweeps his eyes across the room before continuing *` sundar: guys! GUYS! we made the prompt VIDEO CAPABLE! it can follow A STREAMING SEQUENCE OF IMAGES!! you can immediately start testing this from your corporate account (*whispers* if you're in the right orgs). for the public *scoff*, we'll start with Ask Us pricing in a few months, and we'll force it on the usual product avenues. the office and mail suites stand ready to roll out the integration updates before anyone can ask. you know how the riffraff gets.... `* some motion and noise in the back *` sundar: ... sorry melanie, what's that? speak up melanie I can't hear your question. you know how much that mask muffles your voice... `* a game of broken telephone for moving a handheld microphone to the back of the room ensues *` melanie: hi sundar, congratulations to the team for their achievement. I wanted to ask: how does gemini pro solve the issues other models have faced? what new innovations have been accomplished? how is it dealing with the usual issues of correctness, energy consumption, cultural contexts? how is it trained on areas where no datasets exist? were any results sourced from cooperation with the AI ethics and responsibility workgroups that have found so many holes in our previous models? sundar: `* smiles brightly, stares directly into middle of crowd. moves hand to the electronic shutter control, and starts pressing the increase button multiple times until shutter is entirely opaque *` [sundar walks off into the fake sunset, breaks open the boardroom whiskey] [inside the private exec room] sundar: FUCK! that was too close. didn't we fire those types already in the last layoffs...? someone get me HR, we need to do something [end scene]

NotAwfulTech froztbyte • 10 months ago • 100%

this is in part because it's for (yet another) post I'm working on, but I figured I'd pop some things here and see if others have contributions too. the post _will_ be completed (and include examples, usecases, etc), but, yeah. I've always taken a fairly strong interest in the tooling I use, for QoL and dtrt reasons usually (but also sometimes tool capability). conversely, I also have things I _absolutely loathe_ using 1. [wireguard](https://www.wireguard.com/). a far better vpn software and protocol than most others (and I have slung tunnels with _many_ a vpn protocol). been using this a few years already, even before the ios app beta came around. good shit, take a look if you haven't before 2. [smallstep cli](https://smallstep.com/cli/). it's one of two pieces of Go software I actually _like_. smallstep is trying to build its own ecosystem of CA tools and solutions (and that's usable in its own right, albeit by default focused to containershit), but the cli is _great_ for what you typically want with certificate handling. compare `step certificate inspect file` and `step certificate inspect --insecure https://totallyreal.froztbyte.net/` to the bullshit you need with openssl. check it out 3. restic. the other of the two Go-softwares I like. I posted about it [here previously](https://awful.systems/post/157098) 4. rust cli things! oh damn there's so many, I'm going to put them on their own list below 5. zsh, extremely lazily configured, with my own little module and scoping system _and no oh-my-zsh_. fish has been a thing I've seen people be happy about but I'm just an extremely lazy computerer so zsh it stays. zsh's complexity is extremely nonzero and it definitely has sharp edges, but it does work well. sunk cost, I guess. bonus round: [race your zsh](https://gist.github.com/froztbyte/67e8eab5b7b899f70e3bc40ad76f5bc4), [check your times](https://gist.github.com/froztbyte/c8b979d84561983a29feb5a734e8d8e4): ``` % hyperfine -m 50 'zsh -i -c echo' Benchmark 1: zsh -i -c echo Time (mean ± σ): 69.1 ms ± 2.8 ms [User: 35.1 ms, System: 28.6 ms] Range (min … max): 67.0 ms … 86.2 ms 50 runs ``` 6. [magic-wormhole](https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole). this is a really, really neat little bit of software for _just fucking sending files to someone_. `wormhole send filename` one side, `wormhole receive the-code-it-gives` the other side, bam! it uses [SPAKE2](https://jml.io/posts/what-is-spake2/) (disclaimer: I did help review that post, it's still good) for session-tied keying, and it's just generally _good software_ 7. [macos specifically] [alfred](https://www.alfredapp.com/). I gotta say, I _barely_ use this to its full potential, and even so it is a great bit of assistive stuff. more capable than spotlight, has a variety of extensibility, and generally snappy as hell. 8. [macos specifically] [choosy](https://choosy.app/). I use this to control link-routing and link-opening on my workstation to a fairly wide degree (because a lot of other software irks me, and does the wrong thing by default). this will be a fuller post on its own, too 9. [macos specifically] [little snitch](https://www.obdev.at/products/littlesnitch/index.html). application-level per-connection highly granular-_capable_ firewalling. with profiles. their site does a decent explanation of it. the first few days of setup tends to be Quite Involved with how many rules you need to add (and you'll probably be surprised at just how many things try to make various kinds of metrics etc connections), but well worth it. one of the ways to make modern software less intolerable. (honorary extra mention: obdev makes a number of handy pieces of mac software, check their site out) 10. [macos specifically] [soundsource](https://rogueamoeba.com/soundsource/). highly capable per-application per-sink audio control software. with the ability to pop in VSTs and AUs at multiple points. extremely helpful for a lot of things (such as perma-muting discord, which never shuts up, even in system dnd mode) rust tools: 1. [b3sum](https://crates.io/crates/b3sum). file checksum thing, but using blake3. [fast!](https://gist.github.com/froztbyte/9e273155934afe5b63706444b4cd4796). worth checking out. probably still niche, might catch on eventually 2. [hyperfine](https://crates.io/crates/hyperfine). does what it says on the tin. see example use above. 3. [dust](https://crates.io/crates/du-dust). like `du`, but better, and _way_ faster. oh dear god it is so much faster. I deal with a lot of pets, and this thing is one of the invaluables in dealing with those. 4. [ripgrep](https://crates.io/crates/ripgrep). the one on this list that people are _most_ likely to know. grep, but better, and faster. 5. [fd](https://crates.io/crates/fd-find). again, find but better and faster. 6. [tokei](https://crates.io/crates/tokei). sloccount but not shit. handy for if you quickly want to assess a codebase/repo. 7. [bottom](https://crates.io/crates/bottom). down the evolutionary chain from `top` and `htop`, has more feature modes and a number of neat interactive view functions/helpers honorary mentions (things I know of but don't use that much): 1. [mrh](https://crates.io/crates/mrh). not doing as much consulting as I used to, using it less. quickly checks all git(?) repos in a path for uncommitted changes 2. [fzf](https://crates.io/crates/fzf). still haven't really gotten to integrating it into my usage 3. [just](https://crates.io/crates/just). need to get to using it more. 4. [jql](https://crates.io/crates/jql). I ... tend to avoid jq? my "this should be in a program. with safety rails." reflex often kicks in when I see jq things. haven't really explored this 5. [rtx](https://crates.io/crates/rtx-cli). their tagline is "a better asdf". I like the idea of it because asdf is a miserable little pile of shell scripts and _fuck that_, but I still haven't really gotten to using it in anger myself. I have my own wrapper methods for keeping pyenv/nvm/etc out of my shell unless needed 6. [pomsky](https://crates.io/crates/pomsky). previously `rulex`. regex creation tool and language. been using it a little bit. not enough to comment in detail yet

TechTakes froztbyte • 10 months ago • 100%

www.reuters.com

[archive](https://archive.ph/10PYh) > "There's absolutely no probability that you're going to see this so-called AGI, where computers are more powerful than people, in the next 12 months. It's going to take years, if not many decades, but I still think the time to focus on safety is now," he said. just days after poor lil sammyboi and co went out and ran their mouths! the horror! > Sources told Reuters that the warning to OpenAI's board was one factor among a longer list of grievances that led to Altman's firing, as well as concerns over commercializing advances before assessing their risks. > > Asked if such a discovery contributed..., but it wasn't fundamentally about a concern like that. god I want to see the boardroom leaks so bad. STOP TEASING! > “What we really need are safety brakes. Just like you have a safety break in an elevator, a circuit breaker for electricity, an emergency brake for a bus – there ought to be safety breaks in AI systems that control critical infrastructure, so that they always remain under human control,” Smith added. this appears to be a vaguely good statement, but I'm gonna (cynically) guess that it's more steered by the fact that MS now repeatedly burned their fingers on human-interaction AI shit, and is reaaaaal reticent about the impending exposure wonder if they'll release a business policy update about usage suitability for *GPT and friends

TechTakes froztbyte • 10 months ago • 95%

[archive](https://archive.ph/HVHHL) (e: [twitter](https://twitter.com/stokel/status/1726502623967392060) [[archive](https://archive.ph/78IMJ)] too, archive for nitter seems a bit funky) it'd be nice if these dipshits, like, came off a factory line somewhere. then you could bin them right at the QC failure

TechTakes froztbyte • 10 months ago • 100%

openai.com

> Mr. Altman’s departure follows a deliberative review process [by the board] "god, he's really cost us... how much can we get back?" > which concluded that he was not consistently candid in his communications with the board not only with the board, kids > hindering its ability to exercise its responsibilities you and me both, brother

NotAwfulTech froztbyte • 11 months ago • 100%

I don't really know enough about the C64 to say anything one way or the other, but this comment on youtube did okay: ``` @eightbitguru 1 year ago 2021: We have definitely seen everything the C64 can do now. 2022: My beer. Hold it. ``` and I'm posting this without even having _seen_ the whole thing yet

TechTakes froztbyte • 11 months ago • 100%

[nitter](https://nitter.net/karpathy/status/1707437820045062561) [archive](https://archive.ph/yhV7x) just in case you haven't done your daily eye stretches yet, here's a workout challenge! remember to count your reps, and to take a break between paragraphs! duet your score! oh and, uh.. you may want to hide any loose keyboards before you read this. because you may find yourself wanting to throw something.

TechTakes froztbyte • 11 months ago • 100%

github.blog

will this sure is gonna go well :sarcmark: it almost feels like when Google+ got shoved into every google product because someone had a bee in their bonnet flipside, I guess, is that we'll soon (at scale!) get to start seeing just how far those ideas can and can't scale

TechTakes froztbyte • 12 months ago • 100%

www.wsj.com

archive[.org](https://web.archive.org/web/20231009155951/https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/ais-costly-buildup-could-make-early-products-a-hard-sell-bdd29b9f) | [and .is](https://archive.is/dxmhV) this is almost a NSFW? some choice snippets: > more than 1.5 million people have used it and it is helping build nearly half of Copilot users’ code > Individuals pay $10 a month for the AI assistant. In the first few months of this year, the company was losing on average more than $20 a month per user, according to a person familiar with the figures, who said some users were costing the company as much as $80 a month. good thing it's so good that _everyone_ will use it amirite > starting around $13 for the basic Microsoft 365 office-software suite for business customers—the company will charge an additional $30 a month for the AI-infused version. > Google, ..., will also be charging $30 a month on top of the regular subscription fee, which starts at $6 a month I wonder how long they'll try that, until they try forcing it on everyone (and raise all prices by some n%)

TechTakes froztbyte • 12 months ago • 100%

www.404media.co

> The Mistral 7B Instruct model is a quick demonstration that the base model can be easily fine-tuned to achieve compelling performance. It does not have any moderation mechanism. We’re looking forward to engaging with the community on ways to make the model finely respect guardrails, allowing for deployment in environments requiring moderated outputs. “Whoops, it’s done now, oh well, guess we’ll have to do it later” Go fucking directly to jail

NotAwfulTech froztbyte • 12 months ago • 100%

www.pouet.net

[my comment over there](https://awful.systems/comment/704805) just made me recall this this demo is the next one in a long arc of people doing absolutely remarkable things to the original PC. that series went [8088 corruption](http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption) ([pouet](https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=13722)) -> [8088 domination](https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=63591) -> [8088 mph](https://www.pouet.net/prod.php?which=65371) and if you've never seen them before, you _absolutely_ should area 5150 has a [recording](https://youtu.be/fWDxdoRTZPc) of the production as well as an [audience reaction](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xJZ9I4iqg8) recording from share day it's astoundingly awesome something I really enjoy about the scene is that the more you learn (about the technology, the math, the methodology), the deeper the appreciation of it gets

TechTakes froztbyte • 1 year ago • 100%

a friend linked this to me earlier today: [nitter](https://nitter.net/gokulr/status/1701397204509077547) (someone else maybe archive it? I don't know what tusky has done to birdsite and how to make wayback play nice) in one lens/view one could see this as just more of the same (if people were already gunning for YC track shit, there's other things already implied etc), but even so: just how bad is(/must) the "belief" (be) for young people to feel this intensely about it? I'm over here just watching the arc of likely events and I can barely fathom the anger and disappointment that may[0] come about in a few years after this [0] - "may" because it seems a lot of folks have their anger redirected far too easily; remains to be seen if it can remain correctly directed in future

TechTakes froztbyte • 1 year ago • 100%

www.404media.co

> Halm, who according to his social media profiles just graduated from Harvard, tweeted that he’s simply in the arena trying stuff. "I just wanna buuuuuuuuilllddddd" goes the annoying little fuck even _before_ he's asked any questions about social impact and such > “The goal is to create the most addicting & personalized image recommendation system. V1 is as simple as possible. Future versions trained on current data will enable even more personalized images & user interaction in image generation." just fuck right off

NotAwfulTech froztbyte • 1 year ago • 100%

I've been using it for a good while now, but figured it's worth a shoutout incase others don't know it. one of the few pieces of Go-ware I don't substantially hate. I've previously slapped together a [tiny set of shellscripts](https://gist.github.com/froztbyte/2a3b0bbdb11aa1b6cbdce93dcda081b2) for my use of it which you're welcome to steal from. also recently seen backupninja as something that can use this, but haven't tried that

TechTakes froztbyte • 1 year ago • 100%

mastodon.social

content: image of google "moderating" (i.e. eliminating, permanently, without apparent recourse) an entry in a user's URL collection/bookmarks. the entry is for kickasstorrents. ([archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20230828220432/https://strangeobject.space/@silvermoon82/110969122337810598)) I recall seeing an example of them doing something like this to people's gdocs stuff (and iirc that was on paid account, but I could be misremembering). seems like they're ramping up the where to more coverage of their services/assets

TechTakes froztbyte • 1 year ago • 100%

> The new silicon chips, made by Chicago-based p-Chip, use blockchain technology to authenticate data that can trace the cheese as far back as the producer of the milk used. The chips have been in advanced testing on more than 100,000 Parmigiano wheels for more than a year. ....honestly I don't even know what to say here the absurdity of it is quite something the consent problem is another quite something this is so fucking nuts