@drahardja@sfba.social
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

drahardja

@drahardja@sfba.social

Software since 1998. Ex-Apple. I smushed AppKit and UIKit together and never looked back.

Black lives matter. Trans lives matter. LGBT+ rights are human rights. Healthcare, security, a decent income, and housing with dignity are human rights. Abortion is healthcare. Science is our best hope as a species. Kindness and empathy are the noblest of human traits.

I block assholes and bigots.

He/him.

My posts are searchable.

Ask me anonymously: https://ngl.link/drahardja

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

fraying, to random
@fraying@xoxo.zone avatar

I keep hearing people say AI generated text "will get better” as if that’s a known, accepted fact.

But it's not a known, accepted fact. Massive language model AI text generators have been around for YEARS, and they've always been this bad, this prone to lying, this full of shit. We’re just getting it shoved in our faces now.

“It will get better” is a bet, not a statement of fact, and I bet against it.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@fraying I hate it when techbros say “it’ll get better in the future” for a product that’s already for sale. If it sucks today, and it’ll get better in the future…then sell it to me when it gets better. Why sell this shit today?

drahardja, to Nissan
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

#Takata is the gift that keeps on giving.

“Nissan warns owners of older vehicles not to drive them due to risk of exploding air bag inflators”

#nissan #recall #cars

https://abc7.com/post/nissan-warns-owners-older-vehicles-drive-due-risk/14887854/

Holberg, to random
@Holberg@mstdn.social avatar

Still getting through that long read on Trump and APPRENTICE by Bill Pruitt at Slate—his onerous NDA just expired after 20 years—but something that still amazes me is that people watched it religiously, listened to his reasoning, saw how he behaved and STILL believed he was a good businessman.

Never gave that tacky, vulgar man much thought. But all it took was a few random episodes for me to see he made decisions for completely idiotic, capricious, vain reasons. Not a best practice in sight.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@Holberg I felt exactly the same way. I watched a couple of episodes, and aside from the fact that the producers blatantly exploited the show’s contestants for entertainment value, I saw nothing from Donald that I would use if I ran my own shop.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@Holberg Donald’s one and only trick is to bully people and rely on mobs of people who support his privilege. It’s gotten him surprisingly far.

drahardja, to windows
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

So it seems that what does is take screenshots, sorts windows by application, then runs each window through an image-to-text model and logs its contents, capturing text, web domain information, and the topic of the content. This information is then logged in a searchable local database.

This has to be combined with some way to get back to the content, right? So if I searched for a topic in the future, Windows has to be able to restore the app and the document that you were viewing. So there has to be some URL or file path associated with each window content.

I know people are freaked out about this feature, but I think it’s basically Spotlight on steroids. I’m actually not that freaked out about it if it’s local-only, and I think this can actually be useful for someone with like me who loses content all the time.

The real questions: what privacy-protection mechanisms are present, who gets to access to this data, how easily it can be exfiltrated?

https://mastodon.social/@detective/112513529733646088

drahardja, (edited )
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

uses UserActivity to allow apps to log which document a window displays and what the user was doing at the time. This activity is used to restore the window. This is exactly the same mechanism that iOS/iPadOS uses to save your scenes for multitasking.

There is also a setting for corporate admins to disable this feature.

It’s not immediately clear from the current docs, but I’m sure apps can use new API to directly offer database entries instead of relying on image-to-text models, and also to exclude windows (e.g. private browsing sessions) from being indexed.

It’s important to demistfy this feature. I don’t think it’s the bogeyman that some people think it is.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/ai/apis/recall

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@overstrike I’m comparing it to Spotlight because the UX is likely similar: a single search box that will display file search and app activity entries in a single list of results. Note that Spotlight on Mac and iOS also display a bunch of entries that aren’t related to file search (including #AI-detected local photo content, which is kinda-sorta similar to Recall).

You’re right that the Recall DB may contain entries for files that are deleted; these entries must be garbage-collected, either periodically, or just before they are displayed—I suspect both will happen.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@overstrike If you don’t like the Spotlight analogy, actually the closest one is Console.app, which allows you to search log entries in a giant database. Recall is basically a daemon that periodically logs what windows are on your screen, and what they contain.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@overstrike Yes, there is not a perfect analogy, because this is a new feature.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@argv_minus_one I think so. I think it’s common practice for OS makers to onboard existing apps to new features automatically whenever possible. For instance, if Apple introduced Spotlight search (mdfind) today, would you require apps to opt in, or would you simply index all existing files? I think the latter would make the feature far less useful for users.

IMO the salient question here is whether you’re comfortable with the new security and privacy risks that are put in place by logging your activity and document content over time, not how it’s logged. If you’re not comfortable with automatic logging, you would probably not want this feature, AI or no. If you are comfortable, then the AI part of this feature is incidental, not central to its function, and is in fact a boon because it allows you to bring along older apps into this convenience.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@grork @overstrike Just to be clear: the screenshots are not stored as far as I can tell from the database schema. They are only used to derive content text and “topic” from app windows that don’t use the API to explicitly tell the system what the user is working on. The screenshots are discarded once the log entry is made.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@adrake @overstrike I think you’re overthinking it. There are many UX strategies that they can employ to minimize surfacing obsolete results. For instance, only the most recent log entry for a file should be featured, while older entries which may contain hits for deleted content can be separated in an “older matches” section, maybe expandable Time Machine-style.

In many cases, getting a hit at all for a file, even for a piece of data which has been deleted from it, will be enough to jog a user’s memory to lead them down a path to recover it from a backup. This sure beats the existing situation where I would have no idea where to even start looking.

Is this a net negative user privacy? Maybe. Most convenience features trade off against security and/or privacy. What’s important is a transparent statement of the new threat models introduced vs the convenience offered.

Is it worth it for you? That’s up to you. I think it’s pretty neat.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@argv_minus_one It’s possible. The fact that Windows 11 shows ads makes it suspiciously likely, even. But I have yet to see evidence of it.

drahardja,
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

@adrake @overstrike There’s no need for “deep application integration”—that API already exists and it’s pretty simple; see the UserActivity API that I linked above.

Instead of debating about user expectations about data erasure, etc. and how this feature may or may not meet their expectation, I’m going to say that I think this has the potential to be a useful tool for may people (especially people with ADHD like me, like I mentioned above). Whether you think the privacy/security vs convenience tradeoff is worth it is up to you. You can certainly turn the feature off.

drahardja, to random
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

#sfba: 85°F

Me: mild heat exhaustion

I’m so spoiled 🥵

drahardja, to cars
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Have you ever wanted to own Busta Rhymes’ #Lamborghini Murciélago? Now you can!

#cars #supercars

https://www.issimi.com/vehicles/2002-lamborghini-murcielago

drahardja, to random
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

DO IT https://mastodon.scot/@Funwithphotos/112519579198858917

drahardja, to random
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Note to self: do not retire in Rhode Island. https://mastodon.world/@HoustonDog/112522092272105102

drahardja, to Pixar
@drahardja@sfba.social avatar

Et tu, #Pixar?

“In a fresh blow to the tech and entertainment industries, Pixar, a unit of Walt Disney Co., told the state’s labor agency that it would cut 181 jobs in Emeryville.”

#layoffs #jobs

https://www.mercurynews.com/2024/05/28/pixar-jobs-emeryville-east-bay-tech-layoff-economy-disney-movie-showbiz/

Non-paywall: https://archive.ph/XS8N4

GossiTheDog, to random
@GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    drahardja,
    @drahardja@sfba.social avatar

    @GossiTheDog Elon’s “next year” = “never”

    futurebird, (edited ) to random
    @futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

    These AI SEO spam operations have used lists of common searches to ensure that their pages come up first in searches in the “long fat tail” the kind of search where it used to be about 50/50 if you’d find a page addressing your needs. But, it used to be if you found something like “The top 15 smallest ants in the world” it wouldn’t be nonsense. It’d either exist and be the work of another person who cared OR you found nothing. Not so now! I can’t possibly over-stress how bad this is! 1/

    drahardja,
    @drahardja@sfba.social avatar

    @futurebird Like someone said, you don’t have to burn down the Library of Alexandria to make it useless; you just have to stuff it full of plausible-sounding scrolls that actually contain nonsense.

    drahardja, to random
    @drahardja@sfba.social avatar

    A Brit just explained to me that a lot of homeownership in England is based on a leasehold arrangement, where you own your house, but RENT the land from a landowner. When the lease expires, the land AND THE HOUSE IT CONTAINS reverts to the landowner, even if you’ve paid for it. While leases can be extended basically indefinitely, it is possible for it to lapse and for landowners to seize the house that YOU BUILT for zero money.

    Can someone confirm this? If true, that is…landlording and “generational passive income” taken to a WHOLE new level.

    drahardja,
    @drahardja@sfba.social avatar

    @deirdresm @kyozou I would prefer this level of control to be held by a publicly-accountable office rather than a corporation or individual.

    drahardja, to macos
    @drahardja@sfba.social avatar

    Why is it so hard to have my Mac mini consistently appear on Finder via #ZeroConf #Bonjour? Half the time the computer isn’t visible, and there’s no amount of flushcache or killing mDNSResponder or Finder that brings it back. I wait many minutes with my Finder open and…it spontaneously comes back? WTF?

    So flaky. #macOS #apple

    drahardja,
    @drahardja@sfba.social avatar

    @stevenodb On the Mac mini? Maybe I should do that. The WiFi sometimes saves me a trip down to the basement when the Thunderbolt Ethernet adapter fails 😄 which happens once in a while.

    a2, to AppleVisionPro
    @a2@social.lol avatar

    A 3D print from yesterday that also came out great. It's the Venus de Milo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus_de_Milo) but she's wearing Apple Vision Pro. Might make her a little shirt before I bring it to the office though.
    #AppleVisionPro #3DPrint #3DPrinting

    drahardja,
    @drahardja@sfba.social avatar

    @a2 She should wear one of the Apple Park shirts they sell at the Apple Store.

    inquiline, to random
    @inquiline@union.place avatar

    While I myself might not agree with everything student protesters choose to do, I find a certain genre of handwringing about their (not centralized/top-down) choices quite tiresome. If only demands could be expressed sufficiently moderately, then they'd really succeed! 🥱

    drahardja,
    @drahardja@sfba.social avatar

    @inquiline Ah, yes, the Politeness Trap. If only you’d protest more politely, we would then actually listen to you.

    https://sfba.social/@drahardja/112409245126944392

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