@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

ralfmaximus

@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social

49% Evil Is Not Half Bad

Atlanta, Georgia, USA
Multi-fandom nerd but lots of Star Trek.
Multiple careers, but centered around software & technology & public healthcare especially EH.

I write sometimes, mostly science fictiony things.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Gift link wasn’t available. Sigh.

Justice discloses two 2019 trips paid for by Harlan Crow

2023 financial disclosure reports for Supreme Court justices also show six-figure book payments for Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Jackson

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/06/07/supreme-court-financial-disclosures-gifts-thomas/

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

> Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. was granted an extension to file his report

Extension granted by Samuel A. Alito Jr. perhaps? Hmmmmm

Also, link didn't nag me with a paywall, but just in case: https://archive.ph/zzruf

GottaLaff, (edited ) to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

FINALLY! ! Belated #WompWomp

Judge rules #Bannon must go to prison by July 1 while appealing contempt case
The former #Trump adviser is challenging a four-month prison term for contempt of Congress after failing to appear before a House panel investigating #Jan6
#legal

Gift: https://wapo.st/3X9kc6M

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

Yayy! Belated WompWomp better than no WompWomp

arstechnica, to random
@arstechnica@mastodon.social avatar

Periods are starting earlier, becoming less regular, iPhone study finds

Earlier and irregular periods are both linked to poor health outcomes.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2024/05/periods-are-starting-earlier-becoming-less-regular-iphone-study-finds/?utm_brand=arstechnica&utm_social-type=owned&utm_source=mastodon&utm_medium=social

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@arstechnica

71,000+ participants shared their complete demographics + menstruation data.

Was the data anonymized? How secure is this data? No chance of (say) Texas acquiring it?

GottaLaff, to Canada
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Ahem. Attention please.

I am now in . 🇨🇦🍁

That is all.

👏🏻💃🏼🥳💥‼️‼️‼️‼️

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

Congratulations!

jasonkoebler, to random
@jasonkoebler@mastodon.social avatar

Scoop: I obtained the contract Samsung requires independent shops to sign to buy phone repair parts from them.

It requires:

  • "Daily" dumps of customer data
  • The "immediate destruction" of any phones a shop comes across that has third-party parts

https://www.404media.co/samsung-requires-independent-repair-shops-to-share-customer-data-snitch-on-people-who-use-aftermarket-parts-leaked-contract-shows/

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@nightdream @00Aaron @jasonkoebler

Me: Here, please fix my phone

Authorized Repair Guy: downloads all my contacts, emails, SMS, photos

Authorized Repair Guy: drops my phone into an industrial shredder

Authorized Repair Guy: That'll be $199

mentallyalex, to random
@mentallyalex@beige.party avatar

Cybertrucks are vulnerable to rusting in the rain, correct?

A flatbed was stranded on the side of the road as it was raining on it and the cybertruck it carried.

I'm curious what this means. If the truck rusts, did the owner strike it lucky by being able to hold the tow truck liable? IS the truck liable?

I imagine the situation is a bad to worse, typically people do not have flatbeds towing their healthy vehicles.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@mentallyalex

US commercial tow trucks are required to carry liability insurance (up to $750K I think) should they be deemed liable for damages inflicted during a tow.

One could argue the Cybertruck should have been covered with a tarp (same as if a convertible was towed with the top down, or windows rolled down in the rain) so making a claim should be pretty straightforward. Assuming the cybertruck melted or whatever.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@mentallyalex

Oh I thoroughly agree. ANY vehicle should endure being outside without damage, especially something marketed as a rugged truck.

Having said that, tow truck operators do try to protect the vehicles they tow via a collection of straps & tarps if required. Flatbed drivers especially. That's just part of the job.

KNOWING that a cybertruck needs special treatment? That's iffy. I mean anybody can claim damages for anything, but whether or not they're successful? Who knows.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

#MSNBC is planning a primetime special about #Trump’s New York criminal trial, which will wrap up in the coming days.

The special, Prosecuting Donald Trump: Witness to History, will debut Sunday June 2 at 9 p.m., streaming on Peacock the next day.
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/msnbc-primetime-special-prosecuting-donald-trump-witness-history-1235905538/

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

Excellent news. I'm still encountering people on the daily who don't even know Trump is on trial. More primetime shows like this please.

KathyReid, to microsoft
@KathyReid@aus.social avatar

Why does #Microsoft want to implement #Recall? It's not about images. It's about modelling what workers do on Windows, and then replacing them.

The most expensive part of a computer is the fallible feelings-filled unpredictable meat sack that operates it.

Google has YouTube, Google Photos, Maps, and a bucket load of search data, Google Analytics, advertising, as well as it's #GCP data (e.g. #STT transcriptions). And a bunch of data from Android services. From this data they can model speech, model videos and model advertising systems, and how humans respond to them.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Amazon has Prime data, and a bucket load of compute. But no operating system data. They can build models based around e-commerce and advertising systems.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Meta has waves hands enough analytics to model human behaviour in the Metaverse.

But they can't model what people do on computers.

Microsoft has GitHub.
Microsoft has LinkedIn.
Microsoft has SharePoint.
Microsoft has Teams.
Microsoft has Dynamics.
Microsoft has O365.
Microsoft has Windows telemetry data.

Microsoft can model what people do on (Windows) computers. Like fill out spreadsheets.Write emails. Synthesize web pages of research. Interact with colleagues on Teams. Create and edit documents.

Microsoft wants #MicrosoftRecall data so they can model what people do with operating systems.

Then replace them.

Imagine a CoPilot that doesn't just write buggy code. Imagine one that also does spreadsheets. That creates documents on SharePoint. That communicates with colleages on Teams. That has a customer pipeline on Dynamics.

That's what Recall is about - 360 degree surveillance of the worker, to model their functions, make them fungible, replicable - and replaceable.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@KathyReid

There is absolutely zero doubt that MS would love to model human workers as you suggest.

However, from my understanding of how Recall is implemented, all that history data is encrypted & stored locally on the machine. The OCR is handled by a local Copilot instance. MS says they are not uploading any of that to their cloud. For now, anyway.

So assuming this is correct, how could they build anything with Recall data? I'd just assumed it was a workplace turbo-surveillance tool.

_L1vY_, to random
@_L1vY_@mstdn.social avatar

Will current Windows desktops be forcing us to "upgrade" to the screenshot surveillance nightmare? Or is it only new machines?

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@_L1vY_ @Nonya_Bidniss

Y'all, you can probably keep using Windows 10 for the foreseeable future. While Microsoft End-Of-Lifes it in 2025, all that means is that Windows Update will stop rebooting your PC against your will every two or three weeks.

So long as you keep a malware program installed (I like Malware Bytes Premium) and avoid opening phishing emails, you'll be fine.

dpnash, to random
@dpnash@c.im avatar

After a period of relatively restrained handling of "AI" topics, my division at work decided that all the developers, designers, engineers, whatever, ... need to "use AI more in our everyday work". (Oh, joy.) This included a series of workshops designed to introduce everybody to some representative examples.

One workshop involved Github Copilot, and the following things happened to one development team, all senior developers:

  • Copilot generated a unit test case that was hard to get to pass.
  • When asked to generate empty test cases, Copilot generated the same (irrelevant) code over and over again.
  • Copilot stopped giving suggestions to one developer after a while.
  • Getting useful information out of Copilot frequently required a lot of fussy or non-obvious prompt editing and tweaking.

I won't supply direct quotes without the explicit consent of the people involved, but there was a very clear general sense that Copilot was not fit for purpose -- even when it did produce something not totally wrong, it was not a useful timesaver for the types of work this team was doing.

It wasn't just Copilot that seemed half baked. The workshop's guidelines (which are themselves part of a fairly polished Github repo) were poorly proofread. One example had a prominent typo in some HTML you were supposed to generate: '<button class=""btn" ...>' (note the extra double-quote). A newbie to web development would very likely add the spurious double quote mark to otherwise ok Copilot output to make sure it matched the instructions.

Finally, our IT department disallows results from Copilot that come from training on "public" code, for what should be fairly obvious legal concerns regarding copyright and similar issues. For one developer, Copilot repeatedly started to generate a result but then stopped, with an alert that the result appears to match known "public" code.

If it wasn't clear before that Copilot's basic mode (no "private code" option) is a copyright-laundering and license-laundering tool, it's really obvious now.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@felyashono @dpnash

^^This. Before you use a LLM to generate output for actual use, test it by asking it to generate stuff YOU are an expert in. Often the results will be shockingly bad.

The fact this test never goes well should be a HUGE red flag.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@resuna

I once asked Bing "who is ralfmaximus?" and it did a terrifyingly accurate deep dive into my writing, but then informed me I live in Dusseldorf Germany. Which I do not.

@felyashono
@dpnash

paninid, to random
@paninid@mastodon.world avatar

All the details of this story lead me to say: #FuckGolf
https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/40162983/scottie-scheffler-detained-police-prior-start-pga-championship

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@paninid

Wow. The details are chilling. Way worse than the headlines suggest.

Apparently the only people more powerful than cops are white pro golfers.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Worth emphasizing this, because most news outlets did not:

“Rep. Matt (R-Fla.) on Thursday ominously invoked Donald ’s call to far-right violent extremists while joining the former president at his criminal trial in New York.

“Standing back and standing by, Mr. President,” Gaetz wrote on social media, along with a photo of himself positioned behind Trump at his trial.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/matt-gaetz-stand-back-stand-by-proud-boys_n_66462d52e4b0dd63cd2ba653 https://uk.news.yahoo.com/stand-back-stand-matt-gaetz-174110101.html

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

He realllllly wants that VP slot. A magic wand to make his own criminal problems go away.

GottaLaff, to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

NEW 🧵starts HERE.

Remember: I cannot reply while live-posting, so plz use NFL (Not For Laffy.. no hashtag) so I can skip your replies. THANK YOU.

1/… First, via Lawrence O'Donnell:

J.D. Vance was on the phone the entire time. He wasn’t taking in a word of testimony. Tuberville, to his credit, looking straight ahead, taking it all in as best he can, whatever sense he can make of it

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff NFL

> but we're sure as hell seeing them now

In case anyone's wondering, Signal (and other end-to-end encrypted apps) certainly do use encryption to protect messages from interception. But if an attacker gains access to a physical phone with the messages stored locally? Not so much. And prosecutors subpoenaed Cohen's phone, giving them access.

Similarly, lots of Jan6 participants were ratted out by 3rd party group chat participants, even though everything was encrypted end-to-end.

GottaLaff, to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

🧵starts HERE.

Remember: I cannot reply while live-posting, so plz use NFL (Not For Laffy.. no hashtag) so I can skip your replies. THANK YOU.

1/… more preamble, via Rupar:

Trump this morning printed out new NYT poll showing him ahead in swing states+ some Fox columns for good measure.

"A legal expense is a legal expense. It's marked down in the book, 'legal expense'" --Trump still pretending he doesn't understand why he was charged w crimes re Stormy payment

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff NFL

Defendant Trump is more timely & accurate nowadays.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Word-slaw.

#Trump: The case is not about all of the other stuff you’ve been seeing because we’re using that to attempt, it’s had no impact because it’s so old, attempt to do something to me politically

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

An excellent strategy: it can't be a violation of his gag order if it's incomprehensible.

GottaLaff, to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

#WompWomp

Via Kyle Cheney:

BREAKING: Judge MERCHAN has just quashed #Trump's effort to subpoena Mark Pomerantz, former prosecutors in Bragg's office. https://www.nycourts.gov/LegacyPDFS/press/PDFs/DM-PomerantzSubpoena.pdf

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

First whompwomp of the day?

nixCraft, to random
@nixCraft@mastodon.social avatar

¯_(ツ)_/¯

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@nixCraft

https://www.thetastelesstrex.com/p/about.html

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

I have an idea. I would like to build a desk for myself using a slab of wood and a bunch of milk crates.

Milk crates are cheap. You can buy them for $5-$6 each on specialty sites.

I have the perfect spot for it on my third floor, next to a window. I could theoretically fit a 100-inch slab of wood in the spot.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@ernie

With a nice pre-drilled hole for cables.

GottaLaff, to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

🧵starts HERE.

REMEMBER: I can’t/won’t reply while live-posting. Please use NFL (Not For Laffy) so I can skip your reply, but NO hashtag on that. Thx.

1/…

Tyler McBrien::

Necheles rises to renew Trump's objection to Daniels testifying about any "sexual details," which she says has no relevance and is prejudicial.
By details, Merchan asks, more than just "we had sex"? Yes, Necheles says.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@not2b

> I don't see why a mistrial makes sense

It's not about making sense. It's (1) performative for the Defendant and (2) their legal strategy has always been "throw everything at the wall and see what sticks".

@GottaLaff NFL

GottaLaff, to Georgia
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

Via Tamar Hallerman:

This came after committee's GOP chair said he would subpoena Willis if she did not voluntarily testify.

The panel is probing whether Willis misused any public funds during her relationship with former spl prosec Nathan Wade

Rob DiRienzo:

DA says she will not testify before the GOP-led senate investigative committee: "I will not appear to anything that is unlawful," adding. "I'm sorry that folks get pissed off that everybody gets treated evenly."

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff

Pretty sure this was asked & answered during the last "investigation".

Too bad double jeopardy doesn't apply to state investigations kike this because Willis has not been accused of any actual crimes. They'll just keep asking questions as a form of harassment.

GottaLaff, to legal
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

🧵STARTS HERE. 1/…

(Please remember to use NFL …Not For Laffy… in replies)

😂 See my previous post, just before this one, in my TL

Pagliery:

The judge starts out be making an odd clarification about his gag order.

He says that despite the restrictions on what Trump can say outside the courtroom, he can absolutely testify from the witness stand.

Trump lawyer Todd Blanche thanks him.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GottaLaff NFL

The "locker room talk" dismissal has always made me nauseous. Nobody I know says shit like that, even in private.

Adam_Cadmon1, to random
@Adam_Cadmon1@mastodon.online avatar

I'm not against people using whatever they use to get off ( as long as it's consensual and doesn't involve kids) but sex doll brothels still bother me.

They BOTHER ME.

Not the sex dolls. The sex doll brothels.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@_L1vY_ @Adam_Cadmon1

Except that nobody worries about catching the clap from a rented chainsaw.

GrimmReality, to random
@GrimmReality@beige.party avatar

I am editing a book for someone and, while it is my job to clean this up, I would like to take a moment to step outside this immediate task and IMPLORE everyone this might apply to to stop using apostrophes to indicate plurality. Thank you in advance.

ralfmaximus,
@ralfmaximus@mastodon.social avatar

@GrimmReality

How about in the case of a plural possessive?

The apples's tree.
Our minds's thoughts.

Also what about in my stupid made up alien language where apostrophes are sprinkled about like glitter? The proud K'than'gas's many languages use apostrophes to indicate group possession!

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