There’s also Craig Mokhiber:

On October 28, 2023, Mokhiber stepped down as the director of the New York office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), four days before he was due to retire. In his final letter to High Commissioner Volker Türk, he harshly criticized the organization’s response to the war in Gaza, calling Israel’s military intervention a “textbook genocide” and accusing the UN of failing to act.

But he actually started his resignation in March of 2023, citing human rights violations in the West Bank.

There’s a great interview with him here: https://youtube.com/watch?v=wiGp2mvFLY0

Same. TouchBar Macs inadvertently forced me to move to a more comfy layout.

There are ways to watermark plaintext. But it’s relatively brittle, because it loses signal as the output is further modified, and you also need to know what specific LLM’s watermarks you’re looking for.

So it’s not a great solution on its own, but it could be part of something more comprehensive.

As for non-plaintext file formats…

A simple signature would indeed give us a source but not method, but I think that’s probably 90% of what we care about when it comes to mass disinformation. If an article or an image is signed by Reuters, you can probably trust it. If it’s signed by OpenAI or Stability, you probably can’t. And if it’s not signed at all or signed by some rando, you should remain skeptical.

But there are efforts like C2PA that include a log of how the asset was changed over time, providing a much more detailed explanation of what was done explicitly by humans vs. generative automated tools.

I understand the concern about privacy, but it’s not like you have to use a format that supports proving that an image is legit. But if you want to prove that it is legit, then you have to provide something that grounds it in reality. It doesn’t have to be personally-identifying. It could just be a key baked into your digital camera (assuming that the resulting signature is strong enough that it’s computationally expensive to try to reverse-engineer the key and find who bought the camera).

If you think about it, it’s kind of crazy that we’ve made it this far with a trust model that’s no more sophisticated than “I can tell from the pixels and from seeing quite a few shops in my time”.

Not quite how digital signatures work, but not far off from a likely scenario once issued keys start getting compromised and used to spread convincing images for a short period before being invalidated. Your uncle on Facebook: “They said this image was authentic yesterday, and now they say it isn’t! Who is making these decisions?!”

Look, I’m just setting my rent according to an analysis of the current market rate for similar properties.

Yes, that analysis is provided by the same company that does estimates for the other properties.

No, I’ve never heard of “price fixing”. Look, your avocado toast is super expensive and it’s cuz the government gave you $600 three years ago so PAY MY MORTGAGE ALREADY YOU EASILY REPLACEABLE COW IN A PEN.

Haha, it was just a joke!

Unless… 👉👈

I mean, haha!

Unless…?

Kind of a bummer that they’re talking about the phrase “do your own research” and misinformation, but didn’t include the paper specifically about the phrase “do your own research”.

https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/support-for-doing-your-own-research-is-associated-with-covid-19-misperceptions-and-scientific-mistrust/

It’s not the counting to 12 that’s confusing, it’s that 12 should really be called 0 if 12:00 noon counts as PM.

It’s really weird that it goes 12:00PM -> 12:59PM… -> 1:00PM… -> 11:59PM… -> 12:00AM

It would make more sense to go 0:00PM -> 0:59PM… -> 1:00PM… -> 11:59PM… -> 0:00AM

SantaBlack lmao

Is that why he’s impossible to see?

His last wish:

“I want one of my inventions to finally do something good for the world!”

choking noises

Not only invented them, but poisoned the hell outta himself trying to prove they were safe.

And then when he was too bedridden to do anything, he invented an automated bed to help him move around and strangled himself to death in the ropes.

Truly an inspiration.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility

Accessibility is the design of products, devices, services, vehicles, or environments so as to be usable by people with disabilities.

Assistive technology is the creation of a new device that assists a person in completing a task that would otherwise be impossible. Some examples include new computer software programs like screen readers, and inventions such as assistive listening devices, including hearing aids, and traffic lights with a standard color code that enables colorblind individuals to understand the correct signal.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/gusalexiou/2020/09/08/could-elon-musks-neuralink-be-a-game-changer-for-people-with-disabilities

Disabled people are likely to have had their attention piqued by Musk reiterating that, in the first instance, Neuralink would be looking to “solve important brain and spine problems.”

In fact, throughout the presentation, several chronic and life-limiting conditions were cited as being potentially treatable by Neuralink — ranging from blindness, spinal cord injuries, memory loss, brain damage and even depression.

The company’s first round of clinical trials will focus on patients with spinal cord injuries.

https://www.reuters.com/technology/musks-neuralink-start-human-trials-brain-implant-2023-09-19/

…Neuralink said, adding that its initial goal is to enable people to control a computer cursor or keyboard using their thoughts alone.

ETA:

I have no interest in defending the muskrat or his dystopian vision for this technology. I’m just a developer who gives half a shit about making accessible software, so I want people to know what that means.

I hadn’t really formed an opinion on this article specifically, but… If I had spinal damage? I might consider signing up for the monkey-killer chip too. A shot at getting my body back might be too enticing to resist.

I don’t think that word means what you think it means.

The “Liquid Tree” is Very Cool Actually

Unless you invert it

See also: How Chiropractic Started as a Ghost Religion

loose an afternoon

That’s alright. A chiropractor can tighten up that afternoon for ya.

as megaprojects expert Bent Flyvbjerg explains in the following article, these grandiose projects operate by an iron law: over budget, over time, over and over again

Performance data for megaprojects speak their own language. Nine out of ten such projects have cost overruns. Overruns of up to 50 percent in real terms are common, over 50 percent not uncommon. Cost overrun for the Channel Tunnel, the longest underwater rail tunnel in Europe, connecting the UK and France, was 80 percent in real terms. For Boston’s Big Dig, 220 percent. The Sydney Opera House, 1,400 percent. Similarly, benefit shortfalls of up to 50 percent are also common, and above 50 percent not uncommon.

https://www.cato.org/policy-report/january/february-2017/megaprojects-over-budget-over-time-over-over

How does your ISP have anything to do with port forwarding, or wired vs. wifi?

That’s fucking hilarious.