Old Fucking Punk @lwriemen@librem.one

I really hope that CreativeCommons changes their stance on generative AI when they realize how much work people who wanted an open internet are now putting into locking down their data.
https://creativecommons.org/2023/02/06/better-sharing-for-generative-ai/

TL;DR: Their current position is that since open sharing of information is good, generative AI must also be good.

The widely told hero story that Britain innovated the technique to make wrought iron from scrap, propelling it in the Industrial Revolution as a powerhouse, turns out to be false.

Named after the British entrepreneur that capitalised upon it, the 'Cort Process' to make wrought iron was in fact stolen from 76 black metallurgists near Iron Bay, Jamaica. Cort patented it in the 1780's, claimed to be inventor, & forcibly shut down the Jamaican foundry.

New research:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07341512.2023.2220991

1500 words into Curveball Year Four!

I will be giving a keynote at both Blue Team Con and WWHF about lessons I have learned in a decade of mentoring job seekers and career changes in cybersecurity, but here is one tip for free right now - never give greatly more to a company than they generally return to you. If they pay you to do a job, do a good job at it. Have integrity! But don't go overboard in perpetual overtime or free work, missing time with family, losing your health in a way they would never commit to you - most organizations today in the US will lay you off and replace you in a moment. If they go above and beyond for you in real, meaningful ways, return that loyalty and commitment in kind. But never gratuitously more. You only live one life, and your job is not your family. It is a contract for labor, and if you are lucky one you learn from and somewhat enjoy.

It’s good to have some #rain again after so many weeks of parched conditions.

#Summer #Weather

I am once again encouraging #Fediverse #admins to add a clause to prohibit using their server’s data for machine training into their Terms of Use, because at some point in the near future there is likely going to be a lawsuit against some major company for scraping and exploiting users’ data, and we should make sure we have a legal leg to stand on.

Please ask your server’s admin to do this.

@seb please consider doing this. https://mastodon.world/@Chimaera/110652906429977656

the idea of being visited by aliens lost its appeal when i realized they’d likely just be some other planet’s asshole billionaires

Acknowledging that there were good things in the past and are bad things today is not advocacy for “returning to the past” or primitivism. I can’t believe I have to make this explicit but it’s an incredibly tiresome strawman that I encounter frequently.

I don't advocate that you live like me, you who are not cursed to casually stumble over critical vulnerabilities everywhere you go, but I do want you to understand that I live like this for a reason.

🤭

#linux

End-to-end encryption; the will of the British people

https://element.io/blog/end-to-end-encryption-the-will-of-the-british-people/

Ideally, this section would introduce a guarantee that this type of notice would not be imposed on providers of end-to-end encrypted communications. Instead it relies on questionable concepts such as “accredited technology” to wistfully wave some form of assurance that ‘this sort of thing’ is technically possible and it’ll all be fine, secure and appropriate.

Be under no illusion; “accredited technology” is no more reassuring than a lock which can be opened by a skeleton key.

It’s this aspect of the Online Safety Bill - the potential for undermining of end-to-end encryption - that we refute as completely flawed. It is not possible to have both secure communications and blanket surveillance, in the same way you cannot “have your cake and eat it.”

#encryption #privacy #security #matrix #element #whatsapp #signal #uk #britain

"The #Threads app can collect data related to your health, financial information, contact information, browsing history, location and purchases, among other things." - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/04/threads-app-instagram-twitter-competitor-meta-to-launch-rival to be confirmed, but seems plausible... #privacy

Suggestion: Reach out to your local government, emergency service provider, and/or news org. Let them know that Twitter has ended public access to content and that Mastodon is a working alternative *today*. I did this on the weekend with my local emergency folks and this morning I got a reply back saying they had noticed the embedded Twitter feed on their webpage was broken.

They didn't realize Twitter had cut that service. Now, hopefully, they are considering their options including Mastodon.

If you're thinking of using Facebook/Instagram's Twitter clone, here's a reminder of just how invasive it will be of your privacy:

@Deglassco

Republicans in the South would rather keep their racism than anything else.

These are things sacrificed to keep racism
1. Universal health care
2. Inexpensive college educations
3. International standing
4. Public education & health
5. Climate action
6. Voting rights
7. Reproductive rights
8. Financial stability
9. Economic growth
10. Reputation damage

#AI #GenerativeAI #Productivity #Automation: "More fundamental, of course, there is the error rate. ChatGPT can try to answer ‘anything’ but the answer might be wrong. People call this hallucinations, making things up, lying or bullshitting - it’s the ‘overconfident undergraduate’ problem. I think these are all unhelpful framings: I think the best way to understand this is that when you type something into a prompt, you’re not actually asking it to answer a question at all. Rather, you’re asking it “what sort of answers would be people be likely to produce to questions that look like this?” You’re asking it to match a pattern.

Hence, if I ask ChatGPT4 to write a biography of myself, and then ask it again, it gives different answers. It suggests I went to Cambridge, Oxford or the LSE; my first job was in equity research, consulting or financial journalism. These are always the right pattern: it’s the right kind of university and the right kind of job (it never says Anglia Poly and then catering management). It is giving 100% correct answers to the question “what kinds of degrees and jobs are people like Benedict likely to have done?” It’s not doing a database lookup: it’s making a pattern." https://www.ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2023/7/2/working-with-ai

Want to help me with my "Haphaestus" TV browser?

A component I've had to shunt off onto next year is a startpage I've been referring to as "Hearth" after the setting of Magus Elgar audioshow.

It'd need to include an addressbar, settings, bookmark manager, & ideally a feedreader. We could add other navigation aids. A griddy layout would be well suited to TVs.

History would be handled seperately.

Anyone interested in designing or implementing this as local serverside webapp?

in #CoopCloud news, the federation decision making seems to be running smoothly! weve settled on a 2 week period as a reasonable default for gathering consent. this gives members enough time to weigh in. ive just submitted a proposal which sets up a standing budget for critical fixes: https://docs.coopcloud.tech/federation/resolutions/in-progress/010/ this builds on previous decisions around membership, common fund, buffer, hourly rates and budgets!

@dynamic Sure, can do: "Given how digital technologies function, training AI in this way necessarily involves making an initial copy of images in order to analyze them. As we’ve explored in the past and will discuss in future posts about these recent lawsuits, we think this sort of copying can and should be permissible under copyright law." https://creativecommons.org/2023/02/06/better-sharing-for-generative-ai/

Union militancy works

https://thehill.com/business/4078232-ups-reaches-deal-that-lowers-chances-of-nationwide-teamsters-strike/