Jons Mostovojs @jonn@social.doma.dev

ok, kurš jau paspēja?

Being #blind is fun. Just encountered a visual captcha with no audio option. So I used JAWS Picture Smart to get AI to read me the text of the visual clue, which I typed in and got through. So basically I'm a human who needs a robot to prove to another robot that I am not a robot. Without my robot, the other robot would have thought I was a robot. Also I was trying to make a payment on my PAP machine, which really should in itself indicate that I am not a robot. #Disability #Disabled

I turned off #Apple #Intelligence because not only did it write things resembling "My grandfather fell out of one of those things and died when he was a baby," they made it so that if you press the space bar twice (which used to insert a period) now will insert that frequently used phrase or sentence ending instead. If you're typing and not reading what you're typing, chances are you're gonna say some very strange things.

I could probably go up on a rant on this, but when did people decide that #writing ought to be dumbed down to what everybody else is saying, rather than using your brain to come up with something eloquent to move your audience? Are we really that lazy?

Yeah, I see the root causes: Greedy corporations wanting to jump onto the next big thing, Gullible #programmers racing to #code the killer feature and bonuses rather than judging the worthiness of the feature. It's a little bit like radium and watch dials, which I brought back for one of my stories with a twist. Madam Curie died because science didn't understand something essential about radioactivity, yet, and who knows how many cases of lung cancer resulted from the glow in the dark watches.

The problem with #AI and ethics is training, the source. A good writer takes training, and that includes willing teachers, reading, experience writing, and feedback. A good AI requires the same thing, they call the feedback "curation." That's "educating" it what is crap and what is gold. Moreover, the training ought be done on the writing of the person using the AI, or by willing and well paid teachers, and I really don't get why Apple didn't take this tack and create something truly useful to that writer.

My best guess why not? The psychology of their perceived user: The need for instant gratification. If we train each AI the way we train each human student, where's the ability to cut out the labor and mass produce writers?

I want the personally trained #AI that can fill in the missing word that's at the tip of my tongue, that can reliably flag my recurring grammar errors, that can complete my sentences with the accuracy of my spouse of decades. As an SF writer or as an essayist, it should recognize my idiosyncratic vocabulary and not autocorrect it, to the point of accepting new words or phrases. It astounds me that AI contribution isn't color-coded in a ADA safe way during composition to show where the writer might want to verify the generated contributions. That all auto correct auto complete doesn't do this is a serious set back to the technology.

Okay, I ranted.

A big thank you to @vextaur for the discussion I sourced this from.

#BoostingIsSharing #writer #writing #author #fiction #SF #sciencefiction #WritingCommunity #writersOfMaston #greed #economics #genai #chatgpt #openai

Hi everyone 👋

For the last month, I've been working on a hobby project, shaping years of my ideas into implementing minimalistic config language -- **ccl: Categorical Configuration Language**.

You can read the motivation and a tutorial in my latest article:

https://chshersh.com/blog/2025-01-06-the-most-elegant-configuration-language.htm

In my quest of solving #AdventOfCode problems in interesting ways, this time I solved the 2020 problem "Seating System" with comonads and stencils in #Haskell. Read my latest #blog post about it: https://abhinavsarkar.net/posts/solving-aoc20-seating-system/

#FunctionalProgramming #Programming

i don't think i've ever seen a wikipedia page cite itself before

Yeah, I know how Capitalism works.

Ftfy, #London

#merkel #putin #freedom

As part of the 20th anniversary of the BBS Documentary's release, I've ripped the 3 DVDs that were included in the project and have them hosted at Internet Archive. These ISO files can be played in the VLC player like DVDs, and include all bonus features, subtitles, director's commentary, etc.

https://archive.org/details/BBS_Documentary_DVD_Set

“I’ve worked for the Washington Post since 2008 as an editorial cartoonist. … I’ve never had a cartoon killed because of who or what I chose to aim my pen at. Until now.” https://anntelnaes.substack.com/p/why-im-quitting-the-washington-post?utm_campaign=post&triedRedirect=true

Outraged by the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, a wilderness survival trainer spent years undercover climbing the ranks of right-wing militias.

He didn’t tell police or the FBI. He didn’t tell family or friends. The one person he told was a ProPublica reporter.

https://propub.li/4gF50W0

#News #Militia #Jan6 #Insurrection #Trump #USPolitics #Journalism

online subscription service: hey you need to renew and update your card info

me: okay. here are my magic numbers.

service: no. this card is European

me: yes, I rather went out of my way to pay extra for a mastercard after moving to Europe because American sites take those without being weird about it. yet you’re being weird about it

service: because the last time you renewed, you paid in the currency trusted by God Himself, the American dollar. Now you claim to only have socialist Euros

me: yes?? so?? do you think I got an account with a European bank to defraud you, a sixty dollar annual subscription service???

service: you can’t say you’re in America one year and in Europe the next. that doesn’t make sense. no one has ever done that

me: … can I gift a subscription to myself?

service: yes of course. thank you for gifting a subscription to this stalwart American, mysterious European lady

"The Prime Minister has to realize, the US will now be lead by a president whose values we do not share, and who has zero respect for US allies."

These are the words of @pelle, party leader of the Danish party Enhedslisten, who recommends Denmark puts a coming deal about US airbases in Denmark on ice, as a consequence of Trump's offensive words about Greenland.

Source (in Danish):

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/politik/dragsted-efterlyser-svar-fra-statsministeren-og-vil-stoppe-usa-aftale

Oh man, I'm glad the planet is being cooked alive for this useful technology.

"We are not a #Russian rag": thousands of people protested against #Fico's policies in #Bratislava, #Aktuality.

About 4,000 people protested in #Bratislava today, expressing their dissatisfaction with Prime Minister #Robert_Fico's foreign policy. Demonstrators waved #EU and #Slovak flags and chanted, "We are not #Russia" and "#Fico, go to #Moscow."

Join | #WARSHAL ✙

#ukraine #putinisamasskiller #putinisawarcriminal @kardinal691

#Russia underestimated #Chechnya and was defeated in what later became known as the First #Chechen_War.

Later, #Russia learned from its mistakes and won the Second #Chechen_War, levelling #Grozny to the ground.

#Ukraine needs reliable functioning security guarantees for a lasting peace, not just a ceasefire that will allow #Russia to attack again. This is of the utmost importance not just for #Ukraine but for #European security in general.

#ukraine #putinisamasskiller #putinisawarcriminal