176
submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/technology@lemmy.ml

It's time to call a spade a spade. ChatGPT isn't just hallucinating. It's a bullshit machine.

From TFA (thanks @mxtiffanyleigh for sharing):

"Bullshit is 'any utterance produced where a speaker has indifference towards the truth of the utterance'. That explanation, in turn, is divided into two "species": hard bullshit, which occurs when there is an agenda to mislead, or soft bullshit, which is uttered without agenda.

"ChatGPT is at minimum a soft bullshitter or a bullshit machine, because if it is not an agent then it can neither hold any attitudes towards truth nor towards deceiving hearers about its (or, perhaps more properly, its users') agenda."

https://futurism.com/the-byte/researchers-ai-chatgpt-hallucinations-terminology

@technology #technology #chatGPT #LLM #LargeLanguageModels

49

Time for an ICQ for the Fediverse?

Looks like ICQ is finally shutting down, just as interest in retro internet tools is growing.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/5/25/24164579/icq-shut-down-june

@fediverse #ICQ #Fediverse

126
submitted 1 month ago by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

I'm thinking seriously about getting Google out of my life, and trying NextCloud.

Looking to get a personal account through a managed provider.

Does anyone have any experience with it?

How does it compare to ownCloud?

Any hosts I should look at or avoid?

Any apps I should get for it, or avoid?

Any issues I should be aware of before I switch?

@asklemmy #NextCloud #OpenSource #Linux #Cloud

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 17 points 1 month ago

@lemmyreader Here's a starting point for a fediverse StackExchange: Make sure it's interoperable with Lemmy.

Now, you may not get the full feature set on Lemmy, but you should be able to interact with it from Lemmy as if it's a group on there.

#StackExchange #Fediverse #Coding

22

A huge congratulations to @philipthalis on his well-deserved award.

Philip is undeniably both one of Australia's most respected architects and a tireless advocate for good urban design.

More importantly, he's not afraid to speak up publicly against bad state government planning decisions, as he did with Barangaroo, even when there's a personal cost.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/architect-philip-thalis-paid-the-price-for-being-outspoken-now-he-s-won-the-profession-s-gold-medal-20240510-p5jcjb.html

@urbanism #Planning #UrbanPlanning #Cities #Urbanism #Buildings #Architecture #Transport #Architect #Walking #Walkability

90

So despite climate change, Australia's federal government has just committed an extra $3.25 billion into building a toll road and a 20-lane freeway widening.

For those who wonder why Aussies think toll roads are a scam (https://aus.social/@LesserAbe@lemmy.world/112405373613706682), here's a great example of why.

"Pouring an extra $3.25 billion worth of federal funds into Melbourne’s North East Link is a good use of taxpayer money, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted, despite the project’s cost doubling just a few months ago.

...

"The North East Link – which includes 6½ kilometres of tunnels – will stretch from Bulleen to Greensborough. It will widen the Eastern Freeway by up to 20 lanes.

"Allan revealed in December that the 10-kilometre toll road had more than doubled in cost since it was first announced.

"The toll road was initially budgeted at $10 billion and reassessed in 2019 at $15 billion. But the government revealed last year that the updated cost estimate was $26 billion."

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/federal-funding-to-boost-victorian-road-link-by-3-25-billion-20240509-p5ii7b.html

@fuck_cars #Urbanism #Auspol #Vicpol #roads #UrbanPlanning #transport #cities #Melbourne #Naarm #Victoria #Australia

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 24 points 1 month ago

@alcoholicorn It is when it has been privatised to a company that pretty much pays no tax (hi Transurban!), for roads that taxpayers helped to pay for, and those toll roads connect car dependent suburbs that have next to no public transport.

78

The toll road scam: A government-made monopoly you pay for.

Here's a funny-because-it's-true take on Transurban and the poor tax it imposes, from Punter's Politics:

https://youtu.be/FlKBakPAtiw?si=G39_0GcJzSB0SSA8

#cars #roads #fuckcars @fuck_cars #tolls #tollroads #memes #funny #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #auspol #vicpol #nswpol

47
submitted 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/fuck_cars@lemmy.ml

So the RTA's own modelling showed the Rozelle Interchange would be a traffic disaster—but generating more toll road trips for Transurban was more important.

"The [NSW Roads and Traffic Authority] finalised the first business case for the WestConnex tunnel project in June 2013, with the help of road designers from around the world.

"[Paul Forward, a former CEO of the RTA] said the initial concept did not include the Rozelle Interchange.

...

"In 2014, an expert review group was formed to assess these plans.

"Mr Forward said it was at this point that TfNSW bureaucrats began to question the connectivity provided by the design.

"The RTA's former director of traffic Chris Ford told the inquiry that 15 alternative designs were modelled.

"Mr Ford said the modelling found that another motorway leading to the Anzac Bridge would cause congestion.

"'The issues that we see today were very clearly established in the modelling in 2014,' he said.

"In November 2015, after Mr Forward and Mr Ford were dismissed, TfNSW updated the WestConnex business case to include the tunnel to the Anzac Bridge, despite the congestion concerns raised by the modelling.

"In 2016, Transport for NSW updated the business case a second time ... creating a tunnel linking the Iron Cove Bridge to the Anzac Bridge."

...

"In 2018, the NSW government sold its 51 per cent stake in the Sydney Motorway Corporation, the body responsible for operating WestConnex, to Transurban for $9 billion.

"Mr Forward said the final design would generate a larger number of toll trips than previous options."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-03/sydney-western-harbour-tunnel-warringah-freeway-traffic-disaster/103801818

@fuck_cars #roads #cars #urbanism #nswpol #sydney #WestConnex #UrbanPlanning #transport

46

"It's going to be a bloody disaster": Tell me again about how the second road tunnel under Sydney Harbour won't make congestion worse?

"Civil engineer Les Wielinga, a former CEO at the now-defunct Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), made the fiery comments at a NSW parliamentary inquiry into the bungled Rozelle Interchange.

"The Western Harbour Tunnel, which is under construction, will allow drivers travelling between the inner west and the North Shore to bypass the CBD.

"Entries and exits to the tunnel will lie at the Ernest Street interchange in Cammeray and near the Falcon Street interchange at North Sydney.

"'It's going to be a bloody disaster,' Mr Wielinga told the upper house committee on Friday.

"Paul Forward, another former CEO of the RTA, told the inquiry he was concerned about the project's design.

"'You've now got three motorways coming out into this short area, and whilst I would recognise there are some exit points, some off-ramps, those motorways are now all going into the Lane Cove Tunnel,' he said.

"'A large number of lanes are going into two lanes at the Lane Cove Tunnel. Sounds familiar?'"

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-03/sydney-western-harbour-tunnel-warringah-freeway-traffic-disaster/103801818

@fuck_cars #sydney #roads #planning #UrbanPlanning

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 12 points 2 months ago

@quicken @tardigrada Really great point.

If Albo really wanted to send a message to Musk, here's how he could do it:

  1. Ask all federal Labor MPs to stop posting on X, and start posting on Mastodon.

  2. Order all federal government departments and agencies to stop posting on X, and start posting on Mastodon.

  3. Bribe the states to do the same.

"Hi Queensland, guess what? We just found a billion dollars under the couch for a shiny new Olympic stadium. Hi Tasmania, likewise for your new AFL stadium. And look Victoria, here's a few billion for the airport rail link — we'll cover the cost difference to put the airport station underground.

"But only if you direct all your MPs, departments, and agencies to switch to Mastodon."

55
submitted 2 months ago by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/fuck_cars@lemmy.ml

How to remove a freeway...

The decision to build freeways instead of rail in the post-war years, along with the low-rise single-zoned suburbs it promoted, has been an absolute planning disaster.

But the mistake can be fixed, and freeways can be removed.

City Beautiful's Dave Amos @citybeautiful has an interesting look at some of America's endangered freeways, and how communities can get them removed:

https://youtu.be/XOpjDSUmPtU?si=F7SHc-uDLJkKd9Gu

@fuck_cars #freeways #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #cars

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 17 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

@Naich @ardi60 Totally agree.

I mean, Windows is just such a weird proprietary distro.

It doesn't use the latest Linux kernel, or even a mainstream POSIX-compliant alternative like BSD. Instead, you have a strange CP/M-like monolithic kernel — I think they used to call it DOS — that's been extended to behave more like VAX and MP/M.

It also doesn't use either X11 or Wayland as a display manager. Instead, you have an incredibly unintuitive overblown WINE-like subsystem handling the display.

Because it doesn't use Linux, Wayland, or X11, you are limited in the desktop environment that you can use. There's really limited support for KDE, despite the best efforts of volunteers.

Instead, there's a buggy and error-prone proprietary window manager that ships with it by default. A bit like how Canonical tried to ship Unity as it's default desktop environment with Ubuntu.

And confusingly, they've named that window manager Windows as well!

That window manager lacks many of the features an everyday Gnome or KDE user would expect out of the box.

It also doesn't ship with a standard package manager, and most of the packages ship as x86 binaries, so installing software works differently to how an everyday Linux user would expect.

There's also only one company maintaining all of these projects. It insists on closed source, and it has a long history of abandoning its projects.

And sure, if you're a nerd who's into alternative operating systems, toying with Windows can be fun.

But if your grandpa is used to Linux, frankly he'll be utterly bamboozled by the Windows experience.

I'm sorry to be glib, because Windows does have some nice ideas.

But.

Windows on the desktop just isn't ready for your average, everyday Linux user.

#Linux #Windows #PC

24
submitted 2 months ago by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/green@lemmy.ml

General rule of thumb: Low gross emissions are better than net zero or net negative emissions.

Especially when those low gross emissions are across scope one (on premises), two (off-site energy), and three (supply chain).

Doubly so if those net zero/negative emissions are due to carbon offsets.

#ClimateChange #Climate #Environment @green #GlobalWarming #CarbonEsmissions #NetZero

60
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/politics@lemmy.ml

So who are the corporations and billionaires funding the American far right?

A lot of the discourse around the US far right, on both the left and the right, has presented it as being essentially a working class movement.

White working class Southerners (perhaps with some manipulation from Russia) advocating for their prejudiced world view, the narrative goes.

But what if that's not the situation? What if the rise of the far right has been funded with millions of dollars from extremely wealthy individuals?

Where are the resources coming from?

You probably already know about Rupert Murdoch with Fox News and Elon at Twitter, but there's a few others...

"Two billionaire Texas brothers whose fortunes derive from oil and gas fracking have pumped millions of dollars into rightwing media outfits that have promoted climate-crisis denialism.

...

"Farris and Dan Wilks have each doled out millions of dollars through separate foundations over the last decade to a number of high-profile conservative and religious groups including the Heritage Foundation, Family Research Council and Focus on the Family.

"The Wilks brothers, for instance, have poured millions of dollars into PragerU and the Daily Wire

...

"In 2015, Farris Wilks gave $4.7m to help launch the Daily Wire and remains an owner of the media company, whose founding editor and co-owner Ben Shapiro has forged ties with Dennis Prager, the PragerU founder and talkshow host. Shapiro and Prager are slated to attend a PragerU “founders’ retreat” in September for donors who give at least $100,000 a year."

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/05/texas-fracking-billionaire-brothers-prageru-daily-wire

"[One America News] founder and chief executive Robert Herring Sr has testified that the inspiration to launch OAN in 2013 came from AT&T executives.

"AT&T has been a crucial source of funds flowing into OAN, providing tens of millions of dollars in revenue, court records show. Ninety percent of OAN’s revenue came from a contract with AT&T-owned television platforms ... according to 2020 sworn testimony by an OAN accountant."

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-oneamerica-att/

"[Robert] Mercer is a Christian conservative, gun enthusiast, a climate change denier, religious, small-government proponent and a man who despises the political establishment as incompetent and corrupt. He has donated over $100 million (€84 million) to various right-wing candidates and think-tanks. Most of that money has gone through the Mercer Family Foundation, run by Robert Mercer's daughter Rebekah.

"The Mercers hold a major stake in a company called Cambridge Analytica, which uses digital data to tailor election propaganda to voters.

"The Mercers first met Andrew Breitbart, the founder of what is now Breitbart News Network in 2011 ... The Mercers also invested $10 million in Breitbart and gained a large stake in the nascent company."

https://www.dw.com/en/who-are-the-mercers-the-wealthy-backers-of-breitbart/a-42100407

(1/2)

@politics #capitalism #politics #uspol #environment #america #business #ClimateChange #trump #elon

25
submitted 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) by ajsadauskas@aus.social to c/fuck_cars@lemmy.ml

The saga of Waverley Park — Melbourne's car-dependent suburban AFL stadium with a planned seated capacity of over 150,000 (not a typo!)

A really good run down by @philip on the plans by the AFL (and its predecessor, the VFL) to build the world's largest stadium in outer-suburban Melbourne.

Unfortunately, a planned railway line past the stadium to Rowville was never built. That meant a massive 25,000-spot car park as the only real means to get there.

While most of it has been demolished and redeveloped for housing, the oval itself still used by Hawthorn Football Club as a training and administration centre.

https://youtu.be/LvvLwiRCx4s?si=x2QvxepgPtBtJZfx

@fuck_cars #AFL #Urbanism #UrbanPlanning #cars #stadium #stadia #Melbourne #sport #footy #football #stadiums #history #Victoria #VicPol #Australia #planning #Hawthorn #AusPol #CarBrain

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 16 points 3 months ago

@deadsuperhero @nutomic I think the concept of a TikTok on the Fediverse is solid. And if short form videos help to get more people on the Fedi, and engaging with the Fedi, that's a good thing in my book.

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 27 points 3 months ago

@vividspecter @M500 It's also important to note that there's a huge difference between a social critique and a personal insult.

The lack of viable transport alternatives is a systemic issue. It's not a personal moral failure.

It is not a personal moral fault to drive where no good alternatives exist.

The solution is not a different personal transport choice. The solution is systemic change to how transport, infrastructure, and planning are delivered.

The survey looks at how people have been socially conditioned to accept the systemic issues.

It involves a lot of blame shifting, and victim blaming.

It involves dropping or changing a number of socially accepted rights and wrongs as soon as a car is involved.

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 15 points 4 months ago

@voracitude I think the biggest subsidy of all is the hidden one.

Burning fossil fuels leads to more frequent and severe floods, droughts, bushfires, heatwaves, and hurricanes.

The costs of rebuilding and recovering from those disasters are a cost of using fossil fuels.

If the fossil fuel companies aren't paying that cost, they're receiving a subsidy. And it's already a massive one.

Also.

I didn't include it in the post above, but apparently the CEO of ExxonMobil is also totally against subsidies...

For climate action:

"The way that the government is incentivized and trying to catalyze investments in this space is through subsidies. Driving significant investments at a scale that even gets close to moving the needle is going to cost a lot of money.

...

"But I would tell you building a business on government subsidy is not a long-term sustainable strategy—we don’t support that."

https://fortune.com/2024/02/27/exxon-ceo-darren-woods-interview-pay-the-price-for-net-zero/

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 22 points 4 months ago

@drolex I'm telling you some arbitrarily designated regions are far larger than most people imagine them to be.

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 19 points 6 months ago

@No1 @Zagorath Especially in inner-city areas, many of those deliveries are done by bike.

And because most suburbs lack proper Dutch-style protected bike lanes, those riders either have to try to avoid getting hit by cars if they cycle on the road, or dodge pedestrians on the footpath.

Fewer parking spots and more protected bike lanes would help, rather than hinder, many food deliveries.

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 14 points 7 months ago

@cosmicrookie @morry040 It's also telling how many of these same managers have never had any problems with outsourcing their manufacturing roles overseas.

Or outsourcing contact centres to India.

Or outsourcing business processes to Manila.

Or outsourcing IT work to a Silicon Valley cloud platform provider.

You can't get too much more remote than being in another country.

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 24 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

@janAkali @maxprime You certainly can follow Lemmy groups from Mastodon. And you can reply to Lemmy threads from Masto.

In fact, take a look at my account — I'm doing it right now...

[-] ajsadauskas@aus.social 40 points 11 months ago

@Sina @Blaubarschmann Google is more like a restaurant that has a large chalk board covered with specials. The kind that has a soup of the day, and a fish of the day, and a chef's special.

There are a few core menu items that are perennials on its printed menu. Search, maps, photos, ads, Gmail, Google Docs, Chrome, Android, Chromebook, YouTube...

Then there's the messaging app of the day, the TV platform of the day, the flavour-of-the-month device selection...

view more: next ›

ajsadauskas

joined 2 years ago