verdare [he/him]

This was the first comment on this post that made me feel like I wasn’t taking crazy pills. I agree completely. I still don’t see how Threads joining ActivityPub is a bad thing for us, unless it convinces a large number of people to migrate to Threads from their current instance.

I’m giving you bonus points for the alliteration.

I think the currently available apps not being free software is less important than the protocol being open, which is good. It allows for the possibility of FOSS clients in the future. My bigger concern at the moment is if most/all of the actual backend infrastructure is controlled by a single stakeholder.

Google and Apple are finally working together

I think this is the primary reason. Apple only announced working on RCS support very recently. Once that’s out, I don’t really see a place in the market for this.

And it isn’t just compressed images. MMS doesn’t support reactions, replies, typing indicators, or read receipts because it’s ancient. A proper, standardized replacement has been long overdue.

Granted, I’ve heard that RCS is currently heavily reliant on Google’s own servers, so it could be argued as to how “open” this really is.

Whenever I’ve shared my contact card over iMessage, I’ve been prompted to choose exactly which pieces of information I want to share. The address isn’t shared unless I explicitly select it.

I believe so. They actually are called “sailor” uniforms.

What do you mean by “most Windows programs running as root?” I don’t think that’s accurate, unless you’ve disabled UAC.

You had me until the “sheeple” thing.

From my understanding, Flatpak is built on top of OSTree, which will automatically deduplicate files across different packages. That said, I’m not sure if this extends to downloading packages. The site claims that it does do “delta updates,” which would hopefully mean that it doesn’t download files that are already on the system, even if they’re part of another package.

I’m just going off what I read in the docs. Someone with more understanding of the system can clarify.

It’s tiring when automation is repeatedly blamed for the failures of capitalism. Yes, this might take away jobs. That should be a good thing. It’s only a problem because our economic system doesn’t value human life and only values human labor.

I think signed hardware components are actually a good thing. The problem is that Apple makes it so that unapproved hardware doesn’t work at all. I think the device should warn the user, but allow them to override and continue at their own risk.

Of course, Apple isn’t going to allow that unless they’re forced to. Glances sideways at the EU.

Mike from RedLetterMedia

I understand the impulse, but I think that’s a knee-jerk reaction. I am immediately suspicious of any technology that claims to use blockchains.

I reject the framing of “ignoring your instincts” and “jumping on a fan bandwagon” as a dichotomy. You have the option to just do… neither of those things. Admit the limits of your own knowledge and avoid taking too strong a stance either way.

I firmly disagree with this post. People should not just “rely on their instincts,” which have proven time and again to be highly inaccurate and subject to bias. This is starting to look like what those “body language experts” do, and those people have lower accuracy than a coin toss in controlled experiments.

The only reliable way to tell if someone is lying is through actual evidence. What we know so far certainly paints LMG in a bad light, but I will continue to wait for more information to come out.

LLMs do replicate a small subset of human cognition, but not the full scope. This can result in human-like behavior, but it’s important to be aware of the limitations.

The biggest limitation is the misalignment in goals. LLMs won’t perform a very deep analysis of their input because they don’t need to. Their goal isn’t honest discussion, a pursuit for truth, or even having a coherent set of beliefs about the world. Their only goal is to sound plausible. And, as it turns out, it’s not too hard to just bullshit your way through the Turing test.

Thank you, General Mahamatra.

What do you mean? You obviously have an NFT (Nothing Fone Two).

I understood that reference…

I’ve been switching between Mlem and the PWA. I’ve honestly found the PWA to be pretty laggy, with things not loading or the whole app just freezing. Given the connection issues I’m also seeing on Mlem, I suspect the issue is server-side.