jaschop

joined 7 months ago
[–] jaschop@awful.systems 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Can't be done vs. won't be done is a distinction. I said it was a nitpick.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

The point would be, to roll it all into the ID issuing process. I think most EU IDs already have cryptographic identities built in. The certificate issuing should probably be a state service as well. The alternative would probably be, just mail your birth certificate and a 3D scan of your anus to the private age verification provider of your choice.

It of course all falls back to a central state authority. But the process wouldn't have to be more centralized and privacy-invasive than state IDs already are. Control of resident data could be kept at municipality level, and you wouldn't need a central approver, that gets a running feed of all my age-restricted activities.

Before I sound like I'm soying over ID verification, I'll add that all this junk can become insidious very quick, if it becomes easy to implement and gets used everywhere. I also detest beyond measure that my ID currently stores a scan of my fingerprint, and I hope the court-ordered deadline makes that shit illegal again in 2027.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (6 children)

I'll slightly nitpick the claim about the central ID register, because you can do a lot of this stuff decentralized with smart IDs.

I imagine it works like this: You somehow get your hands on a certificate that reads "yo, the controller of the key pair with public key a4c6... is over 18 - signed, new south wales records agency". You hook up your smart card to pass some cryptographic test, and voilá: you proved you have the ID of an adult and know their PIN.

Not that I advocate for IDing everytime you visit a website, but I guess I'd be fine with it for ordering weed online. I expect we'll get something like it in the EU, if we decide not to go full fucking surveillance state.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 5 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If the Youtube player is giving you trouble, check out this Android App (alternative FDroid Repo) or the tool it's based on (GitHub).

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 5 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Apropos Bruce, I have this writeup sitting around half-finished, where I go over the AI chapters of A Hackers Mind and try to pinpoint his naivité (however you spell that) of the subject. I really should dump that in a Snubstack.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

After reading his older article, I can totally see how he fits into one of the middle layers of the diagram in the UAntwerp paper. He moved beyond basic followership and knows enough to stan EA to potential recruits. But he hasn't advanced to the part where you score comfy research positions in backroom deals with rich benefactors. So AI doom is just one of those things he doesn't really get, but a lot of people he respects take it super seriously, so it's got to be something.

Amazing how well he it the nail on the head back then.

In the beginning, EA was mostly about fighting global poverty. Now it’s becoming more and more about funding computer science research to forestall an artificial intelligence–provoked apocalypse. At the risk of overgeneralizing, the computer science majors have convinced each other that the best way to save the world is to do computer science research. Compared to that, multiple attendees said, global poverty is a “rounding error.”

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 16 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Coroner says it was sudoku.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 17 points 2 weeks ago

"In popular culture" section coming in clutch per usual:

The two Argentine developers, Jaun Linietsky & Ariel Manzur, were repeatedly tasked with updating the engine from a period of time from 2001 to 2014, and chose the name "Godot" due to its relation to the play, as it represents the never-ending wish of adding new features in the engine, which would get it closer to an exhaustive product, but would never actually be completed.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems -1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I don't know shit about these stats, and everything can be debated, but just wanted to say: don't let people get you down.

Feeling positive/hopeful isn't always appropriate about everything, but people in here are acting like it's a mental illness.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 4 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

I'll add that such statistics are very much a moving target, since AVs are still "getting better every day". The software is (and will be) under constant development, and there will likely be tradeoffs between safety for pedestrians and convenience for passagers (e.g. how sensitive is the trigger for an emergency break?)

Looking at it as an ongoing relationship between AV operators, regulators and people makes a lot of sense to me. I agree with the points of the video, that operators will likely push for a "just safe enough" standard and try to offload responsibilities onto bystanders.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 14 points 1 month ago (4 children)

His Wikipedia article is quite a ride. Apparently he and a Stephen Chamberlain were recently found innocent for a bunch of fraud charges. They boil down to inflating the value of a SW company he sold to Hewlett-Packart. They died within a day of each other in unrelated accidents. Must be rough.

[–] jaschop@awful.systems 7 points 1 month ago

Dear god, my ribs are hurting after 2 paragraphs already.

 
 

archive of the mentioned NYT article

 

So I recently got an excuse rant about my opinions on federated tech. I think it's pretty much the best we can hope for in terms of liberating tech, with very few niches where fully distributed tech is preferable.

Needing a server places users under the power of the server administrator. Why do we bother? "No gods, no masters, no admins!' I hear you shout. Well, there's a couple reasons...

Maybe using software is just an intrinsically centralized activity. One or a few people design and code it, and an unlimited number of people can digitally replicate and use it. Sure, it may be free software that everyone can inspect and modify... but how many people will really bother? (Nevermind that most people don't even have the skills necessary.)

Okay, so we always kind of rely on a central-ish dev team when we use tech. Why rely on admins on top of that? I believe the vast vast majority of people doesn't have the skills and time to operate a truly independent node of a fully distributed tech. Let's take Jami as an example:

"With the default name server (ns.jami.net), the usernames are registered on an Ethereum blockchain."

So a feature of Jami is (for most users) implemented as a centralized service. Yikes. You could build and run your own name server (with less embarrassing tech choices hopefully), but who will really bother?

But say you bothered, wouldn't it be nice if your friends could use that name server too, and gain a little independence? That sounds a lot like decentralized/federated tech.

Keeping a decent service online is a pain in the butt. Installing SW updates, managing backups, paying for hardware and name services... nevermind just the general bothering to understand all that mess. And moderation, don't forget moderation. I'm saying it's not for everyone (and we should appreciate the fuck out of [local admin]).

I believe that servers and admins are our best bet for actual non-centralized tech. A tech-literate person tending a service for a small- to medium-size community is much more feasible than every person running their independent node (which will probably still depend on something centralized).

And maybe that's just the way we bring good ol' division of labour to the Internet. You have your shoemaker, your baker, your social media admin. A respectable and useful position in society. And they lived happily ever after.

 

Apparently a senior SW engineer got fired for questioning readiness of the product, dude must still be chuckling to himself.

Found the story here https://hachyderm.io/@wesley83/112572728237770554

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