Flutterby™! (short)

A good little thread from tef @tef@mastodon.social on being a meat proxy.

it's funny how i got told "you will be left behind" and as it turns out the skill you need to develop is simply spending more tokens when any problems occur

Eric Eggert @yatil@yatil.social

Oh man, don't y'all also hate it when rogue potato chips break containment and access your stomach?

There's just nothing you can do.

zip @zip@wandering.shop

We already had a job in software engineering that involved giving vague instructions and expecting a quick answer, not understanding what the computer is doing, letting technical debt balloon then being surprised when it costs you, and being easily bamboozled by a shiny demo: it's called management.

There are particular annoyances this misses (Munging PDF downloads!), and a good feature to add to attract users would be better reader mode (or maybe that's just uBlock), and also, Brave? Really? but a good read.

I didn't leave Firefox, it left me.

David Timothy: Firefox Didn’t Just Lose the Browser War. Mozilla Slowly Gave It Away | HackerNoon. Via.

Also, truth: :: Asta :: @aud@spectre.asta.lgbt

old browser wars: netscape vs microsoft
new browser wars: browser vs you

A friend with whom I walk for coffee once a week has been working on Rinzler Synth, and I've been a little unhappy with the direction that SquareDesk has been going and thinking about audio processing a bit, so when the extraordinary claims about the Fast Fourier Transform came about I was intrigued. This is a good dive:

Ben Recht — arg min : Faster Fourier Transforms

The OpenAI algorithm for the FFT is less a breakthrough and more a malicious exploit.

Via.

A trip down memory lane trying to find a hobby shop of my childhood lead to finding mention of my dad leading a design of a sulfur hexafluoride gas-insulated transformer. And a neat history of an industry now gone.

https://ethw.org/Archives:Transformers_at_Pittsfield,_part_1

Today's "duh, of course": LR @lritter@mastodon.gamedev.place

that is an attack angle i hadn't even considered yet, which i just learned is actually happening:

1. be scammer
2. advertise claude API access
3. route user requests to cheaper model
4. extract secrets from logs

And just like that I have a new comic to put on my regular rotation: https://www.freecheesecomix.com/comics/return-on-investment/

Colin Beveridge @icecolbeveridge@mathstodon.xyz

I think the sensible course is to meet halfway and call it superficial intelligence.

There are some words that I, as a white guy, just cannot use comfortably, even quoting someone who is entitled to the word. jamelle @jamellebouie.net has a take on John Gruber/Daring Fireball's trolling around returning to X/Twitter that is one such.

⏩️︎VOTE⏪️︎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ⁼ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (Ben Royce) @benroyce@mastodon.social

@meltedcheese

I find it rather funny we spend our time complaining about #AI #datacenters and #fossilFuel derived #climateChange, and #Ukraine is out there blowing up #oilRefineries and AI datacenters

Supporting Ukraine is a simple matter of understanding the principles and the stakes involved

But Ukraine sure makes a compelling argument for support on rather brutally direct terms rather than mere rhetoric

Charlotte @charlotte@akko.chir.rs

playboy: traditionally attractive women in lingerie
playgirl: traditionally attractive men in lingerie
playstation: traditionally attractive trains in lingerie

Russia's Yandex bot traffic nearly eliminated overnight after Ukraine drone strikes cripple multiple of 'Russia's Google' data centers — Ukraine intensifies bombing of Yandex data centers in response to Moscow’s strikes on Kyiv data centers

Michael Dexter @dexter@bsd.network

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of chat bots suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something wonderful has happened."

Oh wow/ouch: Select all squares with enemy combatants.

A product of Darren Cullent at Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives.

ZDNet reviews the Ugreen Nexode 240W USB-C cable, which, first of all, 240 watts on USBC, but a full color display (for charge rates) in a USB-C cable end.

Yesterday we were helping neighbors put up some halloween decorations, and I was reminded that I live in the future by some of the built-in lighting and laser diodes in the inflatables, but a full color touch screen in your laptop charging cable is also living in the future.

Not necessarily a future I need or want, but a the future.

A friend on a Slack channel posted Eric Parker: The most INSANE Hardware Supply Chain Compromise (YouTube video) which I'm letting play as I get my morning started. It's about a dedicated crypto ledger that's had a supply chain attack.

It's derived from a bunch of Twitter posts and Tibane: Ledger Nano X: the spy implant,

Lots of discussion about company acquisitions and whatnot about whether you can trust devices, but I think what's most fascinating is that in the end he comes down to the idea that individuals people shouldn't manage their own crypto wallets, and if you want to invest in cryptocurrencies you should buy into an ETF.

Also some interesting discussion about attack surfaces of phones vs dedicated cryptocurrency hardware, not that there was any real insight in the video, but interesting to ponder mass market devices which attackers are able to compromise some cross-section of, vs dedicated devices where an attack can be very specific.

Which both puts specific words to the lie of the original promises of cryptocurrencies, and... "if you want to invest in extortion and repressive regimes bypassing sanctions, this is your investment vehicle".

Another amazing episode of Trump Con Law, and I learned about Bird v. Holbrook (1825).

https://trumpconlaw.com/99-a-certain-dangerous-engine