* Posts by Kimo

322 publicly visible posts • joined 31 Dec 2007

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We put salt in our tea so you don't have to

Kimo

Not all Americans

I grew up in the Pacific Northwest to Episcopalian parents, and there was generally a nice cuppa after church. Most of Oregon and Washington you could get a real cup of tea served alongside hippy herbal crap.

Then my wife and I went through over a decade of hell in Texas, Mississippi, and Arkansas. Her regular fights and taunts and fits trying to get a cup of TEA, not iced sugar water with a few leaves waved in it, were both epic and heartbreaking. On more than one occasion a well meaning but clueless server offered to microwave the Ice tea.

BOFH: Looks like you're writing an email. Fancy telling your colleague to #$%^ off?

Kimo

Re: "coloured pencil office"

"These aren't baked goods. These are BAKED BADS!" ~The Tick

Kimo

Re: Another one bites the dust

Two great energy wastes that waste more together.

US judge rejects spyware slinger NSO's attempt to bin Apple lawsuit

Kimo

Re: "Suffered no loss"?

More likely it gives Apple grounds for additional legal action if they develop for later versions of iOS devices. You can't stop them, but you can sue them after the fact.

Equal Employment Commission sues Tesla for racist discrimination, retaliation at Fremont plant

Kimo

For me it was when he called a diver who was on the ground a paedophile for calling out Musk's stupid idea.

Colleges snub Turnitin's AI-writing detector over fears it'll wrongly accuse students

Kimo

Re: Turditin

If only we could train college administrators in this area. And if I am reading a paper, I am reading a paper. TurnItIn notes don't add anything useful.

Kimo

If it's as good as their other products...

...it's crap. One university I worked for briefly required all papers to go through TurnItIn(ToOurDataMiner) which generated a percentage score. It counted repeated page headers as evidence of cheating, as well as properly cited quotations. I ignore the output entirely. The one person who did try to buy two papers and splice them together to meet an assignment requirement to talk about two creation myths was easy to spot without it, as the student wrote for shit and the paper they turned in was decently written but took a wild shift in tone at the halfway mark. And it didn't cover the requirements anyway.

Textbook publishers sue shadow library LibGen for copyright infringement

Kimo

Re: They are blocked in France

My unit at a large state Engineering college have shifted almost entirely to using open access materials for course readings. We found that the textbooks just didn't cover what we teach very well, and they are far too expensive. It only takes a small investment in time to get our students information that is free to them.

BMW deems drivers worthy of warmth, ends heated car seat subscription

Kimo

I understood. My point is that access to the cellular network is not free. If they offered a system to cut out their servers, I would have to pay to connect my car to a cellular network to use remote start. Hondalink costs $110 a year. Verizon charges me $10/month to add a smart device to my plan. Either option would cost about the same.

Kimo

If it uses the cellular network, somebody is paying for it. If I'm in Bluetooth range, I could have used the keyfob. If it uses WiFi, it isn't going to work in a remote parking lot with no coverage.

Kimo

Exactly this. If the hardware is installed in the car, there is a 0% chance that the cost was not included in the purchase price. If there is no ongoing cost, then I would never buy that car.

My Honda does have two remote start options. If I am parked in line of sight, I can use the keyfob to warm up the vehicle. I have street parking, but 99% of the time I can see the car from my bedroom window. This is included 100% in the cost of the car. There is an option to use a cellphone app to remote start the car. If I lived where I was in a neighborhood of taller apartments, I could see the use of that. Or I could use it to warm the car since I shuttle to my office from a surface lot. I understand that operating an app that requires sending a signal over a cellular network costs money every time it is used, and so I would not mind paying if I needed that option. While it uses hardware already installed in my car, there is a cost to operate that Honda should be able to recover.

The Anti Defamation League is Musk's latest excuse for Twitter's tanking ad revenue

Kimo

Re: They can both go away.

This started with antisemitism. It is, in this case, entirely on topic.

Kimo

Re: Musk's Master Plan

Anti-SLAPP laws are state level. He may have a hard time in California but not Texas. On the other hand, the ADL could counter-sue and force Musk into discovery where they could demand material on X's moderation policies (or lack thereof), decision making process (or lack thereof) and since Musk is blaming them for economic damage, they could require X to turn over substantial business records showing their value, revenue, and expenditures as well as how Musk's actions have impacted the company's value.

Kimo

Re: PT-73?

Most of their investments are about making money. But when they bought into Musk's Xwitter, they knew that the price he was paying was far above the value of the company even before he steered for the iceberg.

Kimo

Re: They can both go away.

The prefer the term Alt Reich these days.

Internet Archive sued by record labels as battle with book publishers intensifies

Kimo

Re: "artists such as Frank Sinatra .." etc

Many of the tracks listed in the complaint are available for streaming. These are not entirely obscure or endangered recordings.

Supreme Court says Genius' song lyric copying claim against Google wasn't smart

Kimo

Re: Copyright is the wrong claim

At this point they already have a good source of lyrics from YouTube auto captions.

Texas judge demands lawyers declare AI-generated docs

Kimo

Re: ChatGPT makes stuff up for effect

They seem to be very good at creating citations that match the format you ask for, but in academic papers ChatGPT will list a real researcher and journal title in the relivant discipline and make up the other parts. The way legal and academic journals are usually paywalled it would be difficult for a program to access and parse actual articles.

Musk tells Twitter advertisers: You're welcome back, but don't make demands

Kimo

Re: Wow...

Jobs nearly ran Apple into the ground on his first go. He learned from that and his time at Pixar. Musk so far shows no sign of being able to learn.

Kimo

Re: don't make demands

The truck also requires a vestibule for the driver to enter the seat, reducing room for a sleeping compartment. That removes a second driver.

Techie called out to customer ASAP, then: Do nothing

Kimo

Re: This is REALLY common.

They don't really need to fix anything. In my old life I would demonstrate to my boss that I was working on a problem by calling Dell and getting put on hold while I looked up the solution, because reading apparently wasn't real work by holding was.

Is Neuralink ready for human brain implants? Allegedly so

Kimo

Re: MoreLeft Pondian references

A US Quarter is just about the size of a £1 coin.

Russian developers blocked from contributing to FOSS tools

Kimo

Re: Sanctions misunderstood

And it is helpful to note that the company that this engineer works for is owned by a company that is owned by a person on the sanctions list for their contributions to Russia's military and defense software and hardware, including their systems to track and punish dissent. Their cog in the machine may not be in the military sector, but the machine very much is.

No reliable way to detect AI-generated text, boffins sigh

Kimo

I for one welcome our new robot overlords.

I teach writing in a large college of Engineering. So far, I can be pretty sure that I have received very few papers written by AI. Those that I think were written by AI don't follow the requirements of the assignment very well. So in that they are very good at mimicking student writing.

The best way I have of spotting AI or other cheating is working closely with students in class activities and research. If a student can't tell you anything about their sources, they probably didn't read them. Of course that also never stops students from using them.

With that being said, next year I plan on having students edit text from popular AI sources. Let's face it, people are going to use these tools in the workplace. I can see using ChatGPT for a rough draft. We will talk about the ethics of using writing tools, how to attribute authorship, and why you never ever want to feed them proprietary information. But I assume students are going to use the tools, so I want them to use them well.

BOFH: I care a lot ... about onion bhajis

Kimo

Re: Mort and the unversal logic

Stop Making Sense was released in 1984.

University students recruit AI to write essays for them. Now what?

Kimo

I teach a University writing course aimed primary at Engineering students. My experience is that students who cheat do more work and get lower scores.

By the time they turn in a draft assignment in my class they need a bibliography and outline of their thesis and supporting evidence. They ave to discuss their topics in class and on discussion boards. Once they have done that, they can flesh out their pre-writings into a complete memo, proposal, or white paper (we don't have them write "college essays").

Even if they did use an AI, I would be impressed if they can construct a prompt that includes all of the assignment requirements and generates a cohesive piece of writing. Still plagarism under OSU definitions, but I would be impressed.

Twitter will lose 32 million users by end of 2024, Insider Intelligence predicts

Kimo

Another option...

How many of those unpaid bills cover data centers? Losing one won't kill Twitter, but it makes it less stable and slower. Losing one and then having an outage?

How do you solve the problem that is Twitter?

Kimo

Re: Problem isn't technical

But one thing that I think Musk fails to consider is that popularity IS a technical problem. His Tesla consulting engineers may not have been impressed with Twitter's code, and Musk himself appears to be focused on features like adding video, changing search, and prioritization. But much of the challenge at Twitter isn't just adding features and tweaking UI. It's keeping the system robust enough to handle millions of people making billions of Tweets. Twitter is still relatively simple because it's freaking big. Big and simple with a good support staff allows them to have very good uptime. Big and complex will make a lot more crashes and service outages. Add to this Musk's stated desire to cut back on the number of data centers that spread traffic and provide redundancy to cover if one goes down, and he's looking at more and more little problems adding up over time towards major outrages. Start monkeying with the code base, especially more large files when you start sharing long form video, and the system will not hold up. It is possible that he will hire enough people to cover the existing operations and roll out new features, but I will not hold my breath. He's lost the most experienced staff. Even if he went on a hiring spree, the people with institutional knowledge are seriously thinned out.

US could save billions in health costs if it changed wind energy strategy

Kimo

This pales in comparison

to what we could save in money and the health benefits of a national healthcare system with preventive care benefits. We won't be doing that either.

Block Fi seeks bankruptcy protection as 'shocking' FTX contagion spreads

Kimo

No matter what you think of crypto...

The first lesson should be to never sign a financial agreement with a financial company that does not have a Chief Financial Officer.

Koch-funded group sues US state agency for installing 'spyware' on 1m Android devices

Kimo

Just a quick reminder that the right to privacy was thrown out along with Rowe v. Wade. There are a lot of court decisions that relied on the same legal theory that the Supreme Court invalidated.

Elon Musk issues ultimatum to Twitter staff: Go hardcore or go home

Kimo

The problem is Twitter users care. The blue check allowed them to follow the verified accounts of that they are interested in. It was exclusive, but that made it both more trustworthy and more valuable.

People use Twitter because they want to share their thoughts and follow people they are interested in. People don't join Twitter to pay money. We have PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay, Venmo, and a host of other platforms that people use.

Musk has blown up the niche Twitter occupied in order to enter a niche that is overcrowded already.

Kimo

Tesla is down about 30% since Musk announced he was buying Twitter.

Kimo

As a historian, i would say this is pretty accurate.

Kimo

The fact that Musk thinks Twitter is a software and server company is why he is shedding billions of dollars. Twitter software isn't all that innovative. It does take a lot of work to run a microblog site with the volume of Twitter, but it isn't like creating self-driving cars (which his other company is failing at).

The value of Twitter is, or rapidly was, its community. He doesn't seem to grasp the social part of Social Media, and that's why he rolled out a subscription Blue Check program with disastrous results. The blue check was valuable because you couldn't buy it. Lots of people want to find Stephen King. Very few people want to find my account. Nobody wants to find Steven King (blue check mark). But if paying $8 a month prioritizes my posts and the fake King over Stephen King's, people will leave the platform.

The coding part of allowing people to buy a blue check was simple. They pushed it out in under a week. The social part of letting people buy a blue check was a disaster that led to impersonation of accounts, hid content people wanted to find, and destroyed the trust that Twitter spent years building in the community of users that joined Twitter to find content from authors, entertainers, journalists, and brands.

FCC takes on robotexts. Good news if your dad thinks IRS gives SMS rebates

Kimo

Oh no...

How will they reach me about my vehicle's extended warranty?

Girls Who Code books 'banned' in some US classrooms

Kimo

Re: The last sentence of the article has it.

Plessy v Ferguson was decided in 1896. That set the legal basis for Jim Crow. And all too often that "officer on a horse" turned out to be Nathan Bedford Forest, founder of the Ku Klux Klan. Those can be considered oppressive.

Kimo

Re: The last sentence of the article has it.

I have done archival work for collections including SCV and UDC materials. They absolutely intended to oppress African Americans when they sponsored public monuments.

Florida asks Supreme Court if it's OK to ban content moderation it doesn't like

Kimo

The United States is a Republic and a Democracy. The United Kingdom is a Democracy but not a Republic. The Democratic Republic of North Korea is a Republic but not a Democracy.

Meta, Google learn the art of the quiet layoff

Kimo

Could be worse...

I worked at a state job once where there was a policy that if you were laid off, you could apply for a position currently held by a less senior employee. That boosted morale during layoffs.

BOFH: It's Friday, it's time to RTFM

Kimo

Really Tenacious Ferengi Money Describes the cost of replacing all the software you own with subscriptions.

Kimo

Re: The only one missing is . . .

Franz Ferdinand+Sparks. Excellent taste.

Kimo

BINGO!

Filled in my Acronym Bingo sheet by the third paragraph, thanks.

One man's battle to get patent rights for AI inventors in America may be over

Kimo

AI is a tool

We are not talking about a self aware intelligence that can make it's own decisions. If we get there, then we can have a different conversation. But right now AI is a tool. It can use inputs to process complex problems. A bunch of humans created the AI. One or more humans refined a series of inputs until they got a usable result. One or more humans selected which results to apply for a patent on. Humans switch the power to the AI on and off. Until an AI can create a design without nay input and without filtering the output, they should not have the ability to hold a patent.

Yandex speaks out from front line of Western sanctions against Russia

Kimo

Re: Not Enough

"Mobster" is literally a description of the people Putin recruited on his rise to power and put into key positions in the Russian government. He co-opted organized crime as it was the largest source of power and biggest potential impediment to his rise.

Kimo

Until the war started, Yandex was running a trial of food delivery robots on the Ohio State University campus. I hope my friend A078 has not been drafted.

Buying a USB adapter: Pennies. Knowing where to stick it: Priceless

Kimo

Re: Seems ok

It took 15 minutes ON SITE. To which he travelled. that also took time. He quoted what it was worth to show up at their office and do the data recovery. It's not unusual to have either a minimum rate or a service call fee to cover the cost and time of travel.

FTC sues Intuit for false advertising, says 'free' TurboTax isn't always free

Kimo

Re: It’s government tax

There is a FreeFile option from the IRS, but it takes some digging to find. If your gross income is over $68K that's the only free electronic option (unless you are a senior).

BOFH: Gaming rig for your home office? Yeah right

Kimo

Re: Poacher turned gamekeeper?

If it comes from the IT budget, that's not for company use.

To our total surprise, Apple makes adding alternative payment systems to apps 'painful, expensive, clunky'

Kimo

Preach. The Ohio State University is about to end our free iPad program for students just after they had us adapt our courses to using them, including buying up a bunch of servers for virtual Windows desktops since the 3D modeling software the College of Engineering uses doesn't run on iPads. Now we have to make the choice of revamping our courses again or having students buy their own iPads

(which will end up bring less powerful than the Pro versions we have been using).

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