stinkytofuisgood

It's your writing, not theirs — and that matters. Don’t let AI dictate the way you write! We’ve all got a personal and unique typing style just as we do in our spoken language. Have you ever been writing something and then thought to yourself, “fuck I kinda sound like AI”, and then rephrase it? I’m here to say fuck that shit, write how you want to! Don’t let Sam Altman et al. dictate the fucking English language (or any language for that matter)! If you’re being accused of using AI it likely means one of five things: You just said something really fucking stupid. You just said something interesting enough that people assume you couldn’t have known that. You made some shit up out of thin air You’re arguing about AI with another AI You used AI cause your brain don’t work so good on its own. No matter what category you fall under, just own it. The internet is shitty enough, we don’t need to be worrying about self-censoring for fear of being whipped by the cult of daddy Altman and granddaddy Huang. OK, maybe the em dash is fucked, but we can’t win 'em all!

But what if they’re all cocksuckers :(

Guys, I don’t even know what to say anymore. So much of this shit isn’t worthy of being dignified as based in reality. I’m really, really, super fucking really tired of just reading and arguing. I’m tired of years of regression being sold to us as progress that we’re just too simple to understand the realities of. I want class solidarity with my fellow humans who feel the same way. I want to take actions that will actually change things or at least stand a chance or even just get people talking more. Lemmy is fantastic, it’s doing what it set out to achieve, I would say. But I want to start thinking about something more, and I nor any of us can do that alone. Perhaps a group chat? Signal or SimpleX? One person is enough for me to start it. Class solidarity. Power to the people. Representative government. Social safety nets. Corporate reform.

Data sovereignty and social media sovereignty is something I’d love to see worked on more. I mean, the shift is already happening to a larger degree as you know if you’re reading this comment. It’s a sad state of affairs when the average Joe needs to consider these things - or maybe it’s a wake up call to our relative complacency over the past decades? I prefer to keep my data outside of the US. Canada for some, specific EU countries for others. But bills like Chat Control are even threatening other nations’ long-standing privacy norms. The burn-out will be real for some, those who didn’t care may not until it directly affects them. Others will hopefully find a balance they believe suits them. The floor is lava! Have to keep jumping around!

Microsoft has really messed up quite spectacularly. 5 years ago I would never have even considered switching to another OS (especially for a daily driver). Yet here I am, using LINUX! My experience with Linux has gone from the perception of it as a scary figure, a ghost looming around me that I was trying to ignore. But now, I’m realizing that Linux is more like Casper. Linux is a friendly ghost. So while I still may not know how to totally deal with cohabitating with a ghost, at least it’s friendly, in theory. But in less obtuse terms: my experience with Linux has definitely had it’s terminal moments and learning to de-Windowsify my tasking, but it’s come to the point where the cons of Windows make it a non-starter. Maybe it’s not the year of the Linux desktop, but the years of the Linux desktop. Reaching a wider audience and finding a way to make choosing a distro is going to be a task. I will say that while I’ve never bought one of their systems, System76 is a company I regularly check up on because I think it’s very cool that they’re PC building from the ground up with Linux (and their own Linux distro as well). It’s a trend in the right direction, at least.

Self-hosted is a great way to go for those who can afford the initial cost and can get the setup done. I’d love to see more of it but I also know that most people won’t do that, and I get it because if I asked my mom to self-host right now I think her brain would explode. Second best we can do is start using and promoting alternatives. Us nerds tend to be some of the earlier adopters. If enough users flock to the right platform, and if the platform is easy for non-nerds to sign up, then the shift may happen. Now is a climate where the desire for change is higher than normal. No company is too big to dominate the landscape, the momentum and desire just needs to grow. And we should be careful of jumping from one pirate ship to another pirate ship. TikTok to Reels, Twitter/X to Threads, these are not the kind of changes we need to encourage. But I’m not one for social media overall, so I can’t do much except inform my family and friends in a way that doesn’t drive them crazy. To anyone reading: don’t be that guy either, because if you pester too hard you’re likely to breed resentment and cause people to become further entrenched in their current habits.

When it comes to LLM AI usage, there’s definitely a few things you can consider. I’ll reference OpenAI as you mentioned but it can apply to others as well to varying degrees First is that the OpenAI has the goal of making a profit, but the market is getting more saturated, the costs to run data centres increases with model complexity and user base increases. Funding is being pumped into them by investors, government in the US and other non-AI companies are banking on AI to bolster the economy and profits respectively. For things like ChatGPT they offer paid plans for consumers but this is a small fraction of their revenue. The stats show they are losing money quickly. Investors want profits, the company wants dominance, the government seems to be approaching it from a “too big to fail approach”. So we’re slowly seeing shifts; in the US, ads are being experimented with in ChatGPT, models are being chosen that use less tokens and less computing power, etc. There have also been studies showing the diminishing returns of the thinking that “a bigger model is better”. There’s also the question of how much they care about correct answers. They are surely aware that most don’t understand how an LLM AI works, that most will not do much research to fact-check answers, that most will consider convenience to be king. Their token system is a huge balancing act and I’m not fully convinced they know what works and what doesn’t. AI is being propped up, it shows signs of a bubble. Not to say AI is going anywhere, but when the pop inevitably happens, the LLM AI landscape will leave behind a lot of failure and monetary loss, and a few winners. Think dot com bubble for reference but in a whole new era of computing. The circular economy going on and the investment from private and US government entities can only keep this train on the tracks for so long. If I were to subjectively answer your question in a phrase: I don’t think they really do care too much at the moment.

My hot take on the Brave browser Old man alert. Nerd alert. EXTREME snoozefest alert. You’ve been warned, continue reading at your own peril! For those who aren’t familiar with the Brave browser, its history and controversies, or Gecko engine vs. Chromium engine (and loosely, Webkit), it’s probably worth reading up on first. I’m writing this with the assumption that you know all of this stuff, because otherwise this post would be an even longer novel than it already is. Brave recently released a paid version of their browser called Brave Origin which strips out a bunch of “features” like web3, AI, crypto, telemetry, etc. It has a dedicated installer separate from the normal browser, except on mobile where the features can be batch disabled after verifying your license. You can also do it that way on the desktop version if you want to. Apparently a standalone android Origin app may be in the works, and the licensing system does seem to be relatively privacy preserving and not overly restrictive. It’s pretty damn expensive (except for Linux where it’s free). And I must say that I feel like an outlier, because I strongly approve of this release and the direction I’m seeing the company take. Let me state these right now: Brave’s controversies are real and they were completely unacceptable and they are a permanent mark on their reputation. It’s no wonder many distrust them. I’m fully aware that this still indirectly utilizes Google’s work, and that Google creates open source projects, pumps a ton of money into them, gets a ton of contributers on board, and then starts introducing proprietary blobs effective handicapping competition while effectively squeezing free work and investment out of others. I love FOSS with all my heart. I could add a bunch of disclaimers but I’ll address them if I see something in the comments. In a perfect world I would hate Brave’s decision. In our current reality I think it’s about the best move they could’ve made as a for-profit company outside of just creating their own browser engine. But there’s a reason there are so few options for engines right now, and it’s because it’s really fucking complex to make one and it takes a fuckload of time, money, and resources. When somebody develops a genuine engine contender , I’ll need to circle back. Many of us use Firefox (or FF fork) with extensions. Many use ungoogled Chromium or other Chromoum forks. Obviously totally fine. But there’s a few issues with the current browser space, as I see them. First is that the reality is, much of the web now treats Chrome (rather, the Chromium engine) as a first-class citizen. Some sites run significantly faster or more reliably on Chromium. Some sites require Chromium to fully function. For example, want to use the GrapheneOS web installer? You need a Chromium-based browser. Chromium has lots of features under the hood that the modern web utilizes. If this has never been a consideration for you, then this particular point is moot. Second is that data harvesting and tracking is becoming wayyy more advanced than even some techies might know about - and let’s be real, it’s becoming pretty fucking exhausting to keep up with the growing pile of bullshit being thrown our way. It’s also becoming harder and harder to stop. In both Gecko and Chromium you can, to varying degrees, install extensions, use browser forks, adjust settings, etc. to prevent much or even all of this. But the absolutely unfathomable amount of money being poured into violating your privacy needs hard, sustained, expensive work to fight in meaningful and new ways. Third is that the Internet of today is just straight-up busted. Yes there are super cool projects in the works such as I2P that are trying to change that. But they’re not reaching mass adoption any time soon. Most people can’t even bother trying to leave for places like Lemmy and that’s much less friction than I2P. I absolutely am not defeatist, and I fight this shit like the plague it is, but we also need to live our lives. Fourth is that the way we use the internet varies. There’s a lot of things we could do to make sure we’re always maximally protected, but usually we find a balance. Stuff we daily drive, stuff we use when there’s a specific need, stuff we’re forced to use. If you’re hardcore enough to do things to the max at all times then you don’t even need to read this - you can browse in Mullvad Browser with (or without) a VPN or the Tor Browser, and supplement with OS and hardware privacy measures, etc… and you’re likely better protected for it. But for me, and I suspect for many others, in typical daily use we want the right balance of speed, usability, privacy, and security. Those “features” that brave bundles in are really shitty. But the mass market time and time again shows they’ll put up with a lot of bullshit. And for most people you can just manually toggle the majority of these things off in the main browser for free, and it doesn’t take more than a few minutes. These features, like it or not, pull in a lot more money than what most non-profits get when solely relying on donations. Hell, one of the huge things keeping Firefox propped up is their search engine deal with Google, not the donations. Brave, like it or not, does provide some pretty compelling value in other places. First and foremost it’s good to see people seeking out alternatives to Chrome for literally any reason. But they are admittedly super on-top of their Ad-blocking, anti-fingerprinting, other privacy features (like the shred tab button), and update cadence. They’re the closest thing to a well-funded Chrome competitor that, unfortunately for our reality, runs on Chromium. I get that it feels wrong to pay to remove features from your browser. But you know what, I’m sick of the micro transaction ad filled privacy invading bulls hit joke of an economy the internet has accepted at large. If it were up to me I would bring back freeware and shareware. Brave is the modern day WinRAR in an alternate universe where 7zip wasn’t invented yet and the built in unzip still didn’t support other formats. I’m going to continue using my Gecko based browsers as I always have. But for when I want or need something from Chromium, I think Brave Origin is my new go-to. For me that’s when I need certain hardware integration or I’m on a specific site, and chromium in my experience works very well with Android. One other thing I learned which to me is a definite plus, is that it was developed by the Ex-Ceo and creator of JavaScript (that was cool to learn). For those who think this I’m suspiciously positive about Brave, I get it. I literally thought of brave as spyware until I read about Brave Origin. I think it’s a sincere effort to correct course in a way that let’s them operate at the level they need to maintain their product. For most people reading this who feel like trying Brave, they should just spend 5 minutes adjusting the browser settings. If you’re clinically insane like me, and you actually resonated with this post, then maybe try it. And if you wanna buy it and chargeback or find a torrent or whatever, I don’t really care. I suppose this post is solely about Brave if we lived in a vacuum. But actually I think it’s about sharing a mindset which I think can help the internet improve just a little bit, Brave or not. Finally, let me end on a tangent about Alphabet Inc., mostly Google. That company is full of very smart sociopaths who grabbed the internet by its collective ballsack, and while it may have felt good for a minute, they started squeezing them until you forgot what it feels like to have your balls flapping in the wind again. They made AOSP and then fucked us. They made Chromium and then fucked us. They did the heavy lifting for RCS and then fucked us. Google fucking sucks. And RIP to the word ‘googol’, you were robbed. Honourable Webkit mention for Orion browser, and also their search engine Kagi which I fucking ADORE! Tl;dr Brave Origin is alright, maybe try it, or don’t.

Good! Glad to hear it!!

Actually they’re torturing humanity by wasting electricity and water which affects real people in real ways. I know we’re not stopping foolish use of LLMs any time soon but this is very, very, very, very stupid.

The article says it seems to have been an organized group. I wonder how one gets into such a group? Like, do they just send somebody a private message on a decentralized platform with a link to some sort of encrypted messaging app or something? Unrelated, my inbox is open to anyone wanting to just say hi! No I am not kidding.

I shine bright like a diamond, but that requires sunlight

I guess I’m of the mindset that even running this as a local model, it’s a waste of electricity. And the guy posted it on Github, inevitably some other fools will try it with cloud models, especially since it’s made the news. And obviously we know how bad the cloud models are. And the difference I see between this and playing a videogame is that a videogame is doing something valuable - and yes I will argue with anyone who tells me that art and entertainment don’t hold real value - while this is just akin to running the AC when you go on vacation, it’s just wasteful no matter how I look at it.

For everyone on Earth minus a slight statistical anomoly, I agree! Like, you know how cleaning wipes say they kill 99.99% of germs? Well I want the needs of 99.99% of the population met.

10000% and that’s a dissertation I would want to check out. But they’re trying to mask it. The OpenAI voice model added random stutters and breaks in speaking to make it sound more “human” but instead it just sounds like a dude high on mushrooms trying to hold a conversation. Not to mention how moronic it is to make AI less useful just to fool people into thinking it’s more than it actually is.

Billionaires knowingly perpetuating a harmful economic system for their own gain. Politicians and high-level government officials knowingly perpetuating a harmful political and legal system for their own gain. How I define harmful in this context: neglecting the needs of the many for the benefit of the few. Knowingly: repeating an action despite clear evidence or representation from the majority under their control. Or restricting public access to something that is harming them with the intent to continue the harmful behaviour. Obviously its a little more nuanced than that, but that’s the jist.

Any method that permanently stops them from continuing the harm. I will be 100% aligned with this post when that’s achieved.

You make a compelling point.

I get it, it’s hard to afford therapy when the system doesn’t want you to get better

Is this actually real? I need to know that like right now.

For sure I was being a bit silly, but the point remains. Let’s wait for this bubble to collapse ala the dotcom bubble. If this shit keeps up after that, then maybe it’s time to retire from the internet as we know it. Sounds far-fetched but there’s always a breaking point

True that, it definitely got worse. But a lot of moronic companies also went out of business when people realized the idea behind it was not valuable at all.

Actually I’m SI now, not AI, haven’t you heard?

I’m the real Jane Doe, now go ahead and find out everything about me.

Every three letter agency can suck my tiny little cock