Hans-Christoph Steiner @eighthave@librem.one

@gwagner that would be a nice economic analysis to see! What you describe is what I experienced in Tokyo. I think Vienna is also a good example. Tokyo vs NYC for a comparison of metacities and Vienna vs NYC for cities with a large portion of immigrants

oh funny someone published an academic research paper on this, the abstract sounds interesting: https://www.nber.org/papers/w34910

anyone know anything about it?

Could there be an "uncanny valley" of #AI #LLM #bullshit, where the error rates are low enough that humans get lazy and stop checking, which then leads to higher error rates than when humans did it without AI. Unfortunately, the current #BigTech business models prioritize #adoption and #engagement, so that will bias them towards ignoring this affect.

And what I find quite funny is that maybe a third of the phone call would be taken up with the standard Austrian pleasantries one must use, including a proper greeting and minimum two forms of goodbye 😉

Someone should do a quantitative #productivity analysis of #Debian's #workflow vs #Microsoft's for #Windows, or #Google's for #Android which both surely include #LLM #AI tricks that this point. I'd bet both those companies have done that internally. Any chance of leaks? 😉 So much of how Debian works is in public, so anyone could do some kind of analysis.

@neil I think that's definitely true in places where the real estate is not really regulated. In Vienna, its possible to get an unlimited lease that is pegged to inflation. That makes it a lot easier for small restaurants and cafes to survive. In NYC, I saw what you describe again and again: a few individuals renovate really rundown and empty places. The commercial street takes off again, then 10 years later, those small owners are put out of business by a 5x or 10x rent increase.

@lehtimaeki I totally agree technically. It really should work better. But nonetheless, they are still a shining example of how to do business without compromising on free software.

I've been an early adopter of #Internet things for decades, but at the same time, I work to be able to realistically assess the value as compared to other methods. Many things in #Austria still happen in person and via the #telephone, so its a good testing ground. I'm frequently surprised at how #efficient in-person/telephone can be when compared to #online, like government offices have employees that handle making appointments by phone, they are often really good at it, so its surprisingly fast

@neil I've also had this fantasy! I actually tried to take over an old cafe here in Vienna when the owner retired. It was a fabulously shabby place full of hundreds of board games, young and old guests, musicians playing informal sessions in the back room, and little billards and more. Unfortuntely, it didn't work out.

@lehtimaeki yeah totally. They are a crazy combination of a little city, logistics warehouse, market and a social gathering space. Then there is the dystopian feeling of being locked into a cheesy shopping mall.

The #internet is full of fun locking #garden #hack ideas for all sorts of things but almost always, they use #toxic materials that you really don't want leaching into your #soil. Even common #plastics like water bottles or #polypropylene turn quite toxic when exposed to #sunlight for a while. For example, https://rosal.web.uah.es/pub/Aquatic%20toxicity%20of%20commercial%20polypropylene%20and%20associated%20chemicals.pdf

@drwhax I just bought it from bleep.com, its so lovely that I can just buy MP3 files and support the artist without feeling like I'm being extorted by some shitty megacorp. @vitriolix take a listen, its quite good!

@Gina @neil this sums up so much of what is wrong with how technology is developed!

@drwhax oh wow, who would've thought they'd release more stuff! Its been quite a while since the last. Listening now!

At this beginning stage of the death spiral of #BigTech, they will become more #dangerous than before. They still have immense #power and resources, but the remaining employees will be more obedient and transactional since that's what it takes to keep your job amid #layoffs. The principled employees left as "don't be evil" was phased out, as AI was sold to militaries for offensive use, etc. I bet we'll see more technically adept shady behavior than before, for example, https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016740482600026X

Hey UX designers of the world! And all you people making #software! How about we stop making ever more complicated methods of managing #notifications, #DoNotDisturb, #DigitalWellness etc and instead focus on reducing the amount of time-on-screen spent for each task? We need to stop thinking about #engagement and think about #efficiency. We need to recognize the nature of #DigitalMedia makes us forget about the analog world. Being #online exacerbates that.