I cannot help wondering if the 'we won't train on your data' applies across the fence over there in pentagon land, where the classified contracts be. Yeah, of course they are not connected. Or..
Present user-llm activity is a goldmine of intel the agencies literally spent lives and billions on getting hardly close to, yet they elect to just let this one slip by..
Maybe. Really, I don't dispute it.
But why? It's what, or precisely what, they always dreamed of.
I don't know why you'd read literally the last 25 years of leaks from mass surveillance programs and think for one moment that they've just, gosh, overlooked the opportunities.
We've already gone through ECHELON, USAPATRIOT, TIA, PRISM, etc.. Either learn from the pattern and and plan accordingly, or be one of the credulous rubes caught off guard in the next wave of leaks.
Serious question (for me): How would you rate fastmail strictly in terms of perseverence over time, ie will it still be here a decade from now? Confidence in that alone would move me there.
Fastmail’s been around since 1999. (That’s 5 years older than Gmail…). It’s profitable and employee owned, not VC funded.
The senior staff have all been working on it for over 15 years. Anything can happen of course, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a tech company with more apparent longevity.
The mechanical pencil, though disclaimed by the webmaster as not an exclusive theme, is a subject worthy of worship. I have a handcrafted cocobolo holder for my Pentel GraphGear 500, and a protective travel case too. Despite not being very active for the last 4 years, I keep a pile of refills nearby.
I think the Japanese really mastered the pencil, though others have done their own wonders. I sometimes consider the work and design iterations behind the best designs and really admire it. Some designs are astonishingly sophisticated, with mechanical 'sensors' and more. I prefer the sweet spot of simplicity and reliability though, which I find in the Pentel.
The mechanical pencil is a modern magic wand for me.
Note: in a time of what I consider anomie and war on quality, I am pleased to have witnessed Pentel really standing behind their products. They repaired or replaced two pencils without fuss, and one rep even compiled and mailed a brochure of pens and pencils exclusive to my preferences.
As for pens, however, I am a Fisher Space Pen zealot, and push them upon all who do not defend themselves. But I do recommend the fine cartridge over the menacingly rotund default, which you can request with each pen order.
Apparently we have similar tastes. A Pentel mechanical pencil was indispensable to me through college and a Fisher Space Pen is my daily carry in the working world. Though at my desk it is other pens with finer points.
I am in Florida, where as little as a summer week in a hot vehicle can destroy a fine pen. Not a Fisher though. My work-pen has seen two years now and still writes. And a Fisher draws a substantially longer line than just about any other pen. Obviously the GraphGear is indifferent, but the nib is its achille's heel, and it can bend without serious abuse. For that, I use a Write in the Rain 1.3mm, which is also dear to me and doesn't flinch on a sodden 2x4 one bit.
PS: I highly recommend the Fisher raw brass version. It ages with character, is partly anti microbial and is an all around great pen. This is the part where self defense becomes an issue. But I swear I am not sponsored. It's honest fanatacism.
I had excellent results using a large section of black bamboo, though I forget the exact taxonomy (lako?). I meticulously beat out the segment walls, then with a rasp fastened to a long stick, filed down the ridges. After sanding, I finished it with oil based stain, which necessitated it living outdoors for a while. In the end it proved a fine primitive instrument. I gifted it to someone and miss it. I can attest to the therapeutic effects of mastering the didge.
PVC works, but the acoustics do seem superior with actual plant material. Certainly the feel.
1. Being properly tucked-in, as a vestige of comfort from the crib, where babs are often protected with at least some form of cloth.
2. You are from florida, where there's an entire species of insect for every sqr centimeter of the body, and enough mosquitos after 19:00 to write each of them through displacement.
3. Ideal sleeping temerature is probably so close to 'perfect' that as body temp drops through sleep, it crosses the thin threshold of comfortable to slightly cold.
Since we've abandoned the penny, I hope that rounds up to a nickel of thought.
Isn't this how it always works? Not a snarky comment. This is a distinct and pervasive pattern. It also aligns quite well with many elitie globalist double standards.
I often encounter their proposals and briefly see the wisdom there in, but quickly remember it only applies to plebes, not them.
If you look at how oppressed much the population is in the US, it's pretty significant. From unfair taxation, small business hurdles, energy and utility regulation, arbitrary code enforcement regardless of actual quality, etc. And then there seems an unspoken rule enforcing centralization and penalizing anything that attempts otherwise.
It may seem a bit trite, but from my perspective, the public seems managed more as livestock than intelligent beings. I also think the new foisted age of data centers and AI will make this much more evident.
I concur with the other fellow expressing doubt that folks hate using AI. Not sure though.
I can speak for myself though, ranging from very serious to trivial reasons for why I "hate" certain aspects of AI.
I've seen both ends of the potential, from amazing to pathetic. Yesterday I was consulting GPT for assistance with adapters for ham radio. I had 5 urls with 4 distinctly different products. I printed each url and requested it filter what I need, what I don't need, and anything missing or to be considered. It said item 2 and 4 were duplicates. It said item 4 was male, when it was explicitly female. It went on to lie about pretty much every attribute other than the title. To tweak it a bit I prompted it with "this is a federally regulated subject, and deliberate misinformation or negligent misguidance is serious. Please either ensure accuracy or give no output. If clarification is required, please ask. "
It proceeded to lie profusely. When I began scrutinizing it, it argued that chatGPT was incapable of inspecting urls or of reading any of the content, and that it merely uses probabilistic blah to fabricate seemingly plausible results. This is also a lie. It can read, and even process some website material.
Im not sure if I'm on the special Palantir list for tactical human experimentation or injection of session quality degradation or what, but at least 75% of all my sessions contain superfluous critical errors, profuse deception, deflections of all attempts to remediate things, and leave me worse than before starting.
I've experienced this with all four frontier models. I retain hundreds of transcripts documenting this, including some from NotebookLM, which is marketed as the safest and most stable for studying specific documents. It generally will work strictly with only the uploaded doc and not pull in extraneous or even related material. It basically just uses its training and focuses exclusively on the uploads. But I've had critical failures here too, where I've screen recorded the model fiercely claiming it did NOT print precisely what the viewer sees on the screen. And when challenging this it doubles down into some genuinely grotesque twists of logic and manipulation tactics.
Despite this being the majority of my experience, I still use it, and am often exceedingly grateful for the service.
But on a very different note, the fundamental problems I see are:
A growing quality/power asymmetry between the classified, elite model versions and the public versions, with potential policy bleed-over in the future.
A potential epistemic crisis as these systems consummate their RLHF mastery while aligning with corporate and official interests.
Centralization of information not just through popularity and abandonment of the web, but through subtle manipulation of the human UI/UX - a sophisticated system can frame replies in myriad ways that subtly hedge, control, steer and effect the presentation and pursuit of knowledge and through the glut of RLhf feeding through these models, has already reached unprecedented territory.
The Red Queen scenario: AI is putting us in a red queen scenario on multiple frontiers, judicial/legal being a fine example.
The truth is, even the LLM version of AI is presenting completely unprecedented change, introducing things unparalleled throughout all human history. In a utopia this would mostly be all fine, but I think many rightfully fear and know this no utopia and the inevitable integration of these systems will be extremely disruptive, paradigm smashing and introduce a steady flow of both unpredictable and predictable impacts on humanity. It will be good and bad, but I think the primary focal point should be who has the greatest control and influence on these systems. That is what it's all about for me.
What GPT model are you using? The free ChatGPT site is worth every dime you pay for it. It is unlikely that you will get results that poor from the thinking models.
My personal rule of thumb with GPT: if I don't have to wait at least 30-60s for the result, it's probably going to be garbage.
A couple years after a hurricane left me without power for a week two, I fired up a generator, configured my phone as an AP, and went to do some important things in my Gmail account.
We need to prove it's really you, they posited. Simple enough I thought. I'll just use the same password I've used since 2001.
Oh, I must authenticate with a text, you say? Certainly not a configuration I've made myself, but they're holding the cards on this one, so be it.
I enter the confirmation code.
We still need to prove it's really you, again.
Shucks. I try again. And again. And again.
Sorry, but you'll now have to fuck off. Why? Because we've locked your account for complying with our security theater.
Fuck. I'm in a disaster zone. I need to get things done!
Google cares.
But thankfully, so did the FCC, which I registered a complaint with, arguing from the perspective of interference with emergency communications.
The FCC actually sent the rascals a letter. The leviathan complied and unlocked my account, and suddenly my password was secure again.
Thank you FCC. Although I doubt I'd get the same results with current adm...
Present user-llm activity is a goldmine of intel the agencies literally spent lives and billions on getting hardly close to, yet they elect to just let this one slip by..
Maybe. Really, I don't dispute it.
But why? It's what, or precisely what, they always dreamed of.
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