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I prefer using the self checkout, I don’t consider it work, because I also consider it work to mentally deal with meaningless small talk, and to deal with waiting in line for ten minutes when I’m buying just a few items.

You might feel like it’s work for you, and that’s fine. You can then use the staffed checkout lanes, which are explicitly there for anyone who dislikes doing self checkout.

The problem isn’t doing “work” by using self checkouts, the problem is capitalist cost-cutting, which would be done with or without self checkout machines.

I could see this as a way to make fun collage photos of yourself (i.e. you in multiple different poses in a wide shot of you in front of some cool mural/object)

But I feel like this then takes the meaning out of being there in the photo when you directly edit your entire presence into the photo.

I can understand tweaking eyes to remove red-eye, or replacing the background with a slightly better lit one from a different photo in the same shot, because that still captures the original essence of the shot, but when half the people in a photo quite literally weren’t even next to the others, it doesn’t feel like one side of the photo recognizes the presence of the other side, because they weren’t really there.

I find those kinds of chatbots useful, but those aren’t the ones I encounter 90% of the time. Most of the time, it’s a chatbot that summarizes the help articles I just read, giving faulty interpretations of the source material, that then goes on to never direct me to a real person unless I tell it multiple times that the articles it’s paraphrasing aren’t helping. (and sometimes, they have no live support at all, and only an LLM + support articles)

Oh yeah, it’s definitely useful for that!

Since LLMs are essentially just very complicated probabilistic links between words, it seems to be extremely good at picking the exact word or phrase that even a thesaurus couldn’t get me.

I primarily end up using LLMs through DuckDuckGo’s private frontend alongside a search, so if my current search doesn’t yield the correct answer to my question (i.e. I ask for something but those keywords only ever turn up search results on a different, but similar topic) then I go to the LLM and ask a more refined question, that otherwise doesn’t produce any relevant results in a traditional keyword search.

I also use integrated LLMs to format and distill my offhand notes, (and reformat arbitrary text based on specific criteria repeatedly for structured notes,) learn programming syntax more at my own pace and in my own way, and just generally get answers on more well-known topics a lot faster than I would scrolling past 5 pages of SEO-“optimized” garbage just designed to fill time for the ads to load before actually giving me a good answer.

I have never once found an “AI” feature integrated by a corporation useful.

I have only ever found “AI” useful when it’s unobtrusive, and something I chose to use manually. Sometimes an LLM is useful to use, but I don’t need it shilled to me inside a search bar or in a support chat that won’t solve my problem until I bypass the LLM.

Several parables in the Bible foreshadow the insight of quantum entanglement about paired photons having opposite spin

Interesting, I wonder what their evidence is for that-

by contrasting two men in their relationship with God. The Prodigal Son contrasts two brothers, two churchgoers are contrasted in Luke 18:9–14 , and two brothers are further contrasted in Luke 21:28-31

Just… 2 people being compared?

LOL

I feel like this says more about these students’ schools, rather than the students themselves.

How have I never heard of this before!? I’ve been looking for exactly this for ages now.

Already spinning up a docker container!

You will eat here, and you will be happy about it! 😡

it’s getting so hard nowadays

It’s definitely not easy, but sometimes we just do the best we can, even if it’s not the most that could be done.

Everyone has their own unique threat model. A random everyday person will have less need for personal privacy than, say, a government employee that works for an intelligence agency. Do what you can to protect what matters most to you, but don’t stress if you can’t upend your entire life to improve your privacy.

there are so many more important problems

You can support multiple solutions to world issues at the same time, without needing to make any individual one the most important one, or completely throwing out your other beliefs.

Privacy protects you from anything ranging from annoying ads, to targeted election misinformation, is key to dismantling the surveillance state that is regularly used to silence opposition to current political powers, and protects your right to free speech in a world where every government wishes they could control you just a bit more.

Privacy protects you from self-censorship. It keeps you safe from people who might want to harm you or your family for your views. It lets you protest oppressive policy.

Companies make money off your data. And what are these companies contributing to? Global warming through ever-expanding datacenters running AI models you didn’t ask for. Political campaigns that endorse monopolies. The exploitation of third-world countries.

By taking away their ability to sell you for profit, you indirectly reduce numerous other harms.

I just can’t remember why I thought it was something worth fighting for

The world is crazy. It’s not weird to let things like privacy fall to the wayside when seemingly larger problems pop up, but privacy doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Everything is interconnected, and privacy directly impacts these other issues.

It’s okay to just do what you can. the world isn’t perfect, and neither are we.

Privacy directly helps dismantle systems of power, surveillance, advertising, and manipulation. So if that’s worth it to you, then keep fighting.

The thing is, the people pushing these anti-free-lunch policies don’t actually care about the children.

The majority of those in poverty are not white.

Voters (and the politicians they support) are substantially more white in the Republican party, than the Democratic party.

And the Republican party often ends up spreading white supremacist ideology like the Great Replacement Theory.

When kids in poverty can’t learn, or even survive, due to lack of food, are of a race you think is trying to replace you, and you know is less likely to vote for you… well, I think you can see their motivations.

And recently, Mozilla has been trying to develop a privacy-preserving ads business.

I’m not a big fan of ads, but if Mozilla can actually make ads that don’t track users, and are uninvasive, they might be able to garner some market share in the ad space, and distance their revenue from Google even further.

No, we couldn’t possibly feed these children! They just need to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and get to work! Maybe then they’ll be able to afford food! /s

The very strategy of asking LLMs to “reason” or explain an answer tends to make them more accurate.

Because instead of the first token being “Yes” or “No”, it’s “That depends,” or If we look at…"

Thus increasing the number of tokens that determines the answer from 1, to theoretically hundreds or more.

I think we’ll probably see a phone comparable to at least 2022 specs in the coming years, since they seem to release a new model every 2-3 years, with pretty decent improvements each time. Especially with their growing partnerships with chip manufacturers, it might even be possible to keep prices more reasonable too.

I currently use a phone released in 2022, and it’s perfectly functional for all my needs. Would more performance be nice? Sure, but yeah, I don’t actually need more than that.

If Fairphone could reach that mark, I would consider my next replacement phone being a Fairphone, although the lack of GrapheneOS support is kind of a deal-breaker for any phone purchase for me right now.

Even if you buy a phone that isn’t a pixel, then you just end up giving money to a different privacy-invasive corporation that will continue to partner with Google for search deals and surveillance advertising.

Pixels have wide aftermarket repair parts available, relatively reasonable pricing, and the largest support from custom roms since they all test on Pixels as a standard device. (same with app developers)

Pixels often have longer update periods than other brands, and many custom roms provide extended security updates on top of that.

Android development is guaranteed to continue supporting at least the Pixel phones over all others, it’ll be easier to repair down the line, and the money Google makes from the sale is nothing compared to the money they’ll lose by having less power to surveil you.

And as much as I like Fairphone, the specs just aren’t worth the cost currently, although they are catching up as time goes on.

I personally use a Pixel with GrapheneOS, and it works better than any phone from Samsung I’ve owned in the past. (plus it’s usually a bit easier to unlock the bootloader)

Just make sure that, no matter what phone you buy, you don’t buy it through your carrier, as that will make your bootloader un-unlockable unless you pay off the full payment plan and have a carrier that supports unlocking the bootloader in the first place.

Both jokes can be true 😅