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LukeZaz

@ LukeZaz @beehaw.org

Posts
4
Comments
155
Joined
2 yr. ago

  • Don't call it a Substack

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  • It is a blogging site, but it's also notable for being in favor of free-speech absolutism, to the point of allowing Nazis on the platform. From Wikipedia:

    In January 2022, the Center for Countering Digital Hate accused Substack of allowing content that could be dangerous to public health. The Center estimated that the company earned $2.5 million per year from the top five anti-vaccine authors alone. The three founders responded via blog post affirming their commitment to minimal censorship.

    Substack faced further criticism in November 2023 for allowing its platform to be used by white nationalists, Nazis, and antisemites. In an open letter, more than 100 Substack creators threatened to leave the platform and implored Substack's leadership to stop giving bigotry a platform. In response, Substack CEO Hamish McKenzie said the company would continue to allow the publication of extremist views because attempting to censor them would make the problem worse. Creators like Casey Newton, Molly White, and Ryan Broderick left the platform as a result.

  • 'Architects of AI' named Time Magazine's Person of the Year

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  • Doesn't really matter if they say it's praise or not. The reality is that it's free press, and hardly could be said to be negative. It benefits them.

  • U.S.-Backed Forces Are Carrying Out an Electoral Coup in Honduras

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  • ?????

    I have a suspicion that you once heard someone say something similar to what I've said here, and that they followed it with something hateful towards you, obscenely stupid, something you disagree with intensely, or some combination of those. Now is a good time to remind you that I'm not them.

    If it makes you feel any better, try to remember that Henry Kissinger is dead.

  • U.S.-Backed Forces Are Carrying Out an Electoral Coup in Honduras

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  • telesur

    So, there's some important context on this outlet that I think should be posted:

    Telesur (stylized as teleSUR) is a Latin American terrestrial and satellite news television network headquartered in Caracas, Venezuela, and sponsored by the governments of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.

    — Wikipedia

    I distrust the U.S. – especially the current admin – plenty. Election interference would be neither surprising or new. But considering how this is a biased source at best, I don't think it's very trustworthy either. I'm open to the possibility, but I'm not taking it from this site.

    Edit: After some light digging, here's some other reading options:

    2025 Honduras National Elections: Allegations of fraud and external interference (Wikipedia)

    Hondurans vote in election shadowed by Trump aid threats (BBC) — Archive of an older version of the article. Current version here.

  • Grok Says It Would Kill Every Jewish Person on the Planet to Save Elon Musk

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  • If I'm being honest, I don't think Grok posts deserve attention here. This isn't news; we already know Grok is shit because LLMs are shit and Elon is extremely shit. We really don't need reminders.

    All this does is draw people's attention to more slop and hate, same as they've been seeing all year. That's not just unimportant, it's unhealthy.

  • Hey that OS alot of people care about righ now is hiring, please consider & share to other

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  • FUD

    What is this, a crypto forum? You make it sound like they're trying to single-handedly tear down GrapheneOS or something.

  • Thank Mozilla for Killing Localization on Support Mozilla (And Replacing Human Contributions With AI Bots)

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  • As time goes ever onward, I find myself increasingly in the position of using Firefox solely because it isn't Chromium, rather than because of any inherent good quality.

    Which is not to say that Firefox isn't still at least fine as a browser. But this is what Mozilla is now, and if there's anything the leaders of that organization are doing, it is that they are committing corporate suicide because none of those idiots know their foot from their mouth. Firefox can't stay decent with money-men at the helm.

    I swear, getting a business major should be considered self-harm.

  • FFmpeg to Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs

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  • Alright, lemme try to explain this:

    1. You stated you don't care about FFmpeg.
    2. Someone asked why and stated it was useful.
    3. You brought up "bad journalism" in response, implying your lack of care for FFmpeg was due to the article not describing why it was useful.
    4. To refute your accusation of bad journalism, I pointed out the first paragraph of the article, which directly makes a case for FFmpeg and which you seemed to have missed.
    5. You somehow seem to think I'm defending FFmpeg in some fashion, thus missing my point. (Also, you seem to be calling FFmpeg a "format," presumably because it has "mpeg" in the name? FFmpeg handles a litany of formats.)

    The author has not done bad journalism. You just missed stuff while reading. That's fine so long as you address it. I would ask you not insult me for pointing this out, though.

  • FFmpeg to Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs

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  • You seem to be under the impression that AI is a good tool for finding undiscovered security bugs. It's not. It's a crapshoot that requires a ton of extra effort to verify. Using it to find bugs wastes time and has a high risk of side-effects, given that AI has no understanding and thus cannot know if an issue is important, if fixing it has unwanted implications, or if there even is one at all. And if you're going to try to solve that with human supervision, then you may as well just have the human do the review to begin with and leave the AI out of it.

  • FFmpeg to Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs

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  • Bad journalism has nothing to do with this. Literal first paragraph of the article:

    You may never have heard of FFmpeg, but you’ve used it. This open source program’s robust multimedia framework is used to process video and audio media files and streams across numerous platforms and devices. It provides tools and libraries for format conversion, aka transcoding, playback, editing, streaming, and post-production effects for both audio and video media.

    If you weren't paying attention until someone pointed out your error, just say that. We won't crucify you.

  • FFmpeg to Google: Fund Us or Stop Sending Bugs

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  • Better suggestion: Stop using AI to do any of this shit. Security research and vulnerability patching should not be reliant upon de facto black-box random number generators.

  • French PM resigns hours after naming government, plunging France further into political chaos

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  • So what I'm hearing is that someone needs a head of lettuce ready once the next one's in, huh?

  • Are OpenShot and/or Shotcut good video editors?

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  • I've used Shotcut and Kdenlive. The former felt pretty limited, but okay enough. Kdenlive felt a lot more developed while still working perfectly well. I should note though that I don't edit very much at all, so I've little knowledge on how either program works for anything that isn't a simple, short one-off thing.

  • Hundreds of Google AI Workers Were Fired Amid Fight Over Working Conditions

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  • Well that's a non-sequitur if I've ever seen one.

  • Artists are losing work, wages, and hope as bosses and clients embrace AI

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  • The fundamental issue is and has always been that automation is being used to replace people, when it should be used to free up their time. Productivity increases could've meant shorter work weeks. But that didn't generate as much money for the shareholders, so it didn't get pursued. And now we've got LLMs and generative AI, which could've been a (admittedly rather shitty and niche) tool, but for the same reasons as before, companies would rather throw people under the bus instead.

    Artists aren't telling you that people washing dishes don't matter. They're telling you they might be getting fired just like those dishwashers were. If you care about either, I suggest standing up for the artists here. And once that's done, they can stand up for everyone else right back. I think you'll find they'd be happy to return the favor.

  • An AI Social Coach Is Teaching Empathy to People with Autism

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  • You were the only one here suggesting this required an explanation.

    Alright, I think you're being deliberately antagonistic now. Bye!

  • An AI Social Coach Is Teaching Empathy to People with Autism

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  • I was suggesting that no one else needs it explained to them either.

    You'd hope so! But alas, some idiots exist. And when a title like this appears, it becomes difficult to tell if such an idiot wrote it at first glance, and more to point, a title like that tends to create more idiots (and it's also just kinda offensive). That's why it's important not to write headlines like this.

    Sidenote: If you want people to not take things personally, avoid personal pronouns. "Is that something that you need explained?" → "Is that something that people need explained?" It makes a world of difference and I'm confident I've avoided several arguments that could've spawned from my own posts thanks to making that kind of change. Not foolproof, sure – we are on the internet – but it helps.

  • Men are opening up about mental health to AI instead of humans

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  • In case anyone's like me and was curious if such a claim might've had a conflict-of-interest in it, have a look at the site's logo:

    I'm gonna go with "yes."

  • An AI Social Coach Is Teaching Empathy to People with Autism

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  • You didn't stop reading? Then it's a bit weird that you'd think I don't know autistic people have empathy, unless you decided to arbitrarily take the most bad faith reading you could've done. If that's the case, I recommend taking breathers before posting so that you don't do that.