lvxferre

@lvxferre@mander.xyz

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Tech Companies Apparently Do Not Understand Why We Dislike AI⁩ ⁨⁨12⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m not opposed to A"I"; far from that, I actually use text generators a fair bit, sometimes image gens. It’s simply a technology and I use it as such. And I still bloody hate how corporations handle it:

  • Always two weights, two measures. If you violate their IP, you’re a filthy criminal; if they violate yours, you’re overreacting and a luddite and harming progress. I want to see copyright gone, but if it is not, then apply it consistently to all sides. (By the way, fuck “Open"A"I” and their Bob Dylan defence.)
  • Always nagging you to use it. If you’re nagging me to use something, it’s because it’s in yours best interests that I use it, not mine. No means “no” dammit.
  • Always implicitly lying about its abilities. No, I’m not going to ask it anything where a bullshit answer might ruin my day, stop misleading me to do so.
  • Always downplaying issues. Yeah, nah, I’m not blind to the environmental concerns around training those huge models. Or that corporations - that don’t understand what “consent” means - basically DDoS sites to train their models.
• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Research Announcements Shifting to Bluesky⁩ ⁨⁨13⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Yes, it is a waste of effort. But as my grandma used to say, “a lazy person works twice” - those people can’t be arsed to learn how to use platforms more resistant to this sort of enshittification, so they keep migrating.

  Even then, it’s still better that they’re doing this silly dance and migrating again than sticking to that Xithole.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Research Announcements Shifting to Bluesky⁩ ⁨⁨18⁩ ⁨hours⁩ ago⁩:

  Bluesky might be far from ideal, but I’m still glad to see researchers aren’t playing along Musk and his dog’s bullshit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Paradox Interactive's return-to-office policy may be driving employees away from the studio⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Cool. Get dunked, Paradox.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Perplexity CEO says its browser will track everything users do online to sell 'hyper personalized' ads⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Welcome to real life: advertisement is seen as filth. People might tolerate it in exchange for something else, but being “targetted” doesn’t make them less filthy; on the contrary, once you get how it’s being targetted at the expense of your privacy, comparing it with dog shit becomes unfair - because dog shit is less worse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Hexbear started in Reddit, as r/chapotraphouse.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨WhatsApp defends 'optional' AI tool that cannot be turned off⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  “Personal information fuels much of AI innovation so people need to trust that organisations are using their information responsibly,” it said.

  *sigh* Please make me forget that “trusting” is just an euphemism for “gullible”.

  Anyway. It’ll get worse over time; for now they claim that your messages aren’t being fed into Meta AI, but that’s bound to change later on.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Perfect analogy. I still used /vg/ and very rarely /a/, but nowhere as much as I did before. Methheads moved in, I moved out, and now the house burned.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Fair point. And frankly, he should’ve done this.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  moot sold the site to hiro in 2015, but I think your reasoning is valid - it’s possible hiro is not too eager to defend the fascists who infested 4chan, and simply won’t bother to put the site up again.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  NO U

  Image

  Can you even triforce? NO YOU CAN’T BECAUSE YOU’RE A NEWBIE, THE CANCER KILLING /b/! FUCKING SUMMER

  ▲  
▲ ▲

  …fuck, I can’t triforce either!

  (About the -fag suffix: sorry to be “that guy” but let’s avoid using it, OK? It’s 2025, and we aren’t in 4chan, that implicit “-fag means nothing” context is gone.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  Image

  (Caveat lector: IDK/DC who are Roy Moore or Doug Jones.)

  …this sort of power-tripping bastard, desperate to enforce their opinions, was really common in 4chan. However Fubarberry is talking about structure; structurally speaking 4chan highlighted divisive opinions, while e.g. Lemmy, Lebbit etc. do the opposite.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  /ck/ (cooking - mentioned by the article), /vg/ (where people discussed video games; /v/ aka /b corta/ was a shithole), /sci/ (science) were also decent. /tr/ /vp/ (Pokemon) was also really fun, at least when I still enjoyed the franchise. /a/ (anime) was a bit of hit-or-miss.

  /b/ was only the main pipeline of cancer until /pol/ was created and took over the crown - instead of cancer mixed with dumb trolls and memes, /pol/ was pure and distilled cancer.

  probably a hangover from too much Robot Unicorn Attack

  Fuck, I miss that Flash game. Catchy song, simple but addictive mechanic, weird and awesome.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago⁩:

  I remember when /b/ was good. But then that “moot” newbie came in, and ruined things forever.

  …jokes aside I’m going to miss 4chan. Or at least the 4chan from the late 00s ~ early 10s, that I used periodically; it was already problematic, but as other users here said it was a unique experience.

  See ya, space cowboys.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Trump excludes smartphones, computers, chips from tariffs⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Be careful with this sort of comment. You don’t want to piss off Musk by mocking his property, do you?

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Adobe Deletes Bluesky Posts After Furious Backlash⁩ ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Delicious.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Asian tech reacts to US tariffs with delays, doubts, deals⁩ ⁨⁨4⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I feel like those tech companies will do this “let’s set up a façade in Vietnam, until Vietnam gets tariffed and we do it elsewhere” silly dance for now. But eventually they’ll stop caring - as USA’s customer market becomes increasingly impoverished, it becomes less of an issue to appease its kinglet Musk and its dog Trump.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Teachers warn AI is impacting students' critical thinking⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Kinda - it was about people being unable to do maths if they rely too much on calculators. And it’s actually a valid argument, if you care about mental maths*.

  There are two differences here, though:

  1. Calculators are rather good at simple calculations. Large language models suck at outputting anything resembling critical thinking. They’re always bullshitting, and unless you have good critical thinking you’ll swallow bullshit after bullshit, because your tool requires a skill that you don’t have due to your unrestricted usage of that tool.
  2. Critical thinking is a considerably bigger deal than being able to do simple maths by head or by hand.

  *you should - it’s often faster and less laborious to do coarse maths by head than by calculator, and it allows you to spot errors you wouldn’t otherwise. Same deal with any other tool, tools are great but you should be able to do the basics without them too.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Teachers warn AI is impacting students' critical thinking⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Dunno if it’s by design, “bug turned into feature”, or simply neglect. In any case, the result is the same, though - masses that are easy to manipulate, composed of dysfunctional individuals.

  The lack of critical thinking is why the far right has room to breathe

  100% this. People often say “you’re not immune to propaganda”, and that’s true - complete immunity is impossible. However, critical thinking does raise your resistance, as it makes you less eager to swallow bullshit.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Teachers warn AI is impacting students' critical thinking⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The root of the problem is way, way older than AI. It’s a mix of

  • humans being naturally lazy, typically not developing skills or knowledge unless we’re clearly getting something out of it
  • we have a thoooousand tools enabling us to do stuff without skill/knowledge
  • our education systems do not value self-improvement enough to promote the development of those skills and knowledge

  So it’s a lot like you not remembering phone numbers by heart because you can check them in your contact list, you know?

  And, yes, text generators do play a role on that. But when it comes to critical thinking, it’s a death of a thousand cuts.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨[deleted]⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Here’s how I’d answer it: “No. And do not contact me further.”

  Odds are that they will insist. If they do, the answer is longer:

  *“You seem to have a really hard time understanding simple words, such as «no». So let me rephrase what I said, in a way that hopefully even you will understand:

  I DO NOT WANT TO TOUCH YOUR BLOODY COMPANY, LED BY A LITERAL NAZI, WITH A THREE METERS POLE. NO MEANS NO. SOD OFF YOU BLOODY MUPPET, THIS IS NOT UP TO DEBATE, STOP BUGGING ME WITH THIS SHITE.”*

  then block it.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Beyond RGB: A new image file format efficiently stores invisible light data⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  For further info, check this. Two things to keep in mind:

  • your unaided sight doesn’t distinguish between a pure wavelength and a mix of wavelengths
  • your sight only works for a rather narrow range of wavelengths, 380nm~750nm (violet~red)

  And most of our tech and art are based on both limitations. For example, your screen outputs red (620nm), green (520nm) and blue (460nm) lights; it won’t output a pure yellow light (580nm), but who cares - you won’t notice the difference between that 580nm yellow and a mix of 620nm and 520nm anyway*. And image file formats were also made with that into account.

  So far, so good. But this shit breaks once you need to take into account the actual wavelengths, instead of just replicating what you’d perceive as the same thing; the article mentions a few situations where this is relevant, but it’s mostly

  • different substances and chemical elements emit specific wavelengths. This is useful to know the composition of something, or the presence/absence of a certain substance (like grease from merchant fingers messing with that precious Voynich manuscript)
  • in specific light conditions, wavelength differences do make you notice things in a different way. [Black flames are cool example of that)[www.youtube.com/watch?v=1o8ktldjcog].

  So far this has been handled by a format called OpenEXR, that allows an arbitrarily large number of colour channels. So instead of having red/green/blue channels you’d have, let’s say: one channel for 900nm infrared, another for 899nm infrared, another for 898nm infrared […] 650nm red, 649nm red… […] 380nm violet, 379nm ultraviolet… yup. No wonder file sizes were so bloody big.

  Doing some simple maths, if you were to use one channel per 1nm range, and stick only to the visible range, you’d have 370 colour channels. Yup - and it gets worse if you include IR and UV. No wonder image sizes were so big.

  *NOTE: at least, not with unaided vision. If you wear thick glasses, and look at the source of light sideways, the red+green light mix forms two partially overlapping coloured “ghosts”, and the pure wavelength doesn’t. But it’s your glasses doing it, not your body.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨In the latest Windows 11 preview build, Microsoft removed the “bypassnro” command, which let users skip signing into a Microsoft Account when installing Windows.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  I don’t even use Windows, but this “it’s for security lol” pseudo-explanation is so blatantly false that it’s pissing me off.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Musk's xAI buys social media platform X for $45 billion⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  The boat is sinking, so tie it to another boat. Now they can sink together.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Musk 'Pressured' Reddit CEO to Silence DOGE Critics, Leaving Moderators Outraged: Report.⁩ ⁨⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩:

  Is this a surprise for anyone? It’s Steve “greedy pigboy” Huffman that we’re talking about, one of the saddest pieces of shit out there. He openly praised Elon “1488” Musk’s handling of Twitter, and has been doing the same with Reddit for ages.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Paradox date Stellaris 4.0, a "phoenix update" to attract new players and improve performance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I’m pretty sure they mean The Company Formerly Known As Electronic Arts.

  Exactly. (I should’ve used its full name, now I get where Madbrad200 got that “early access” thing.)

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Paradox date Stellaris 4.0, a "phoenix update" to attract new players and improve performance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I know Stellaris isn’t an early access title. And it shows the same problems as EU4: Paradox is so invested on milking players through a predatory DLC policy that the game becomes a sloppy mess of feature creep, without any sort of consistent design behind the new features. Just like EA loves doing, except with a niche genre.

  it’s also probably their best managed game.

  Given how poorly managed the other games are, might as well say “so far the poor management is a bit more bearable”.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨Paradox date Stellaris 4.0, a "phoenix update" to attract new players and improve performance⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Hipsters’ EA is hyping a game update. “Wohoo”.

  …seriously, I’m not touching anything Paradox does with a 3m pole.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A court has rejected Elon Musk's request for a temporary injunction against OpenAI, OpenAI says Elon Musk "is finding out, facts matter - especially in court".⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  I hope that it haunts OpenAI.

• ⁨Comment⁩ on ⁨A Reddit moderation tool is flagging ‘Luigi’ as potentially violent content⁩ ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago⁩:

  Luixi Manxone. Lvigi. The CEO buster. Green Mario (thanks expatriado!). Crappy Yoshi.

  Done!