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blurg

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blurg ,

However, Wikipedia editors consider Media Bias/Fact Check as “generally unreliable”, recommending against its use for what some see as breaking Wikipedia’s neutral point of view.

source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Bias/Fact_Check

blurg ,

Huh, that’s so, it was there last January. It used to follow this paragraph (still there today anyway), which contains a similar criticism with citation:

It is widely used and has sometimes been criticised for its methodology.[4] Scientific studies[5] using its ratings note that ratings from Media Bias/Fact Check show high agreement with an independent fact checking dataset from 2017,[6] with NewsGuard[7] and with BuzzFeed journalists.

So if those are considered fact-based, there’s no need to delve further.

blurg ,

Though errors are somewhat monitored by Retraction Watch.

blurg ,

Or as Dijkstra puts it: “asking whether a machine can think is as dumb as asking if a submarine can swim”.

Alan Turing puts it similarly, the question is nonsense. However, if you define “machine” and “thinking”, and redefine the question to mean: is machine thinking differentiable from human thinking; you can answer affirmatively, theoretically (rough paraphrasing). Though the current evidence suggests otherwise (e.g. AI learning from other AI drifts toward nonsense).

For more, see: Computing Machinery and Intelligence, and Turing’s original paper (which goes into the Imitation Game).

blurg ,

Yet use AI (possibly) to determine users’ AI answers.

blurg , (edited )

The “running joke” used by millions for serious and playful projects? [edited for punctuation]

blurg ,

Oooooh, okay, I misread. Apologies.

blurg ,

Let’s extend this thought experiment a little. Consider just forum posts; the numbers will be somewhat similar for articles and other writings, as well as photos and videos.

A bot creates how many more posts than a human? Being (ridiculously) conservative, we’ll say 10x more.

On day one: 10 humans are posting (for simplicity’s sake) 10 times a day, totaling 100 posts. Bot is posting 100 a day. For a total of 200 human and bot posts; 50% of which are the bot.

In your (extended) example, at the end of a year: 10 humans are still posting 100 times a day. The 10 bots are posting a total of 1000 times a day. Bots are at 90%, humans 10%.

This statistic can lead you to think human participation in the Internet is difficult to find.

Returning to reality, consider how inhuman AI bots are, with each probably able to outpost humans by millions or billions of times under millions of aliases each. If you find search engines, articles, forums, reviews, and such are bonkers now, just wait a few years. Predicting general chaotic nonsense for the Internet is a rational conclusion, with very few islands of humanity. Unless bots are stopped.

Right now though, bots are increasing.

blurg ,

Yes, though in some locales there are “work crews” (slave labor) that clear brush, road litter, and such for businesses, organizations, the state, and individuals.

blurg ,

Exactly. A more accurate headline would be “Americans are Falling Behind on their Income.”

blurg ,

Back in 2000, there was something like that for the kernel with SELinux (Security-Enhanced Linux). Which continues to live in various distributions’ kernels. Not a full O/S though, and not generally regarded as a PoS.

Weedkiller manufacturer seeks lawmakers' help to squelch claims it failed to warn about cancer (apnews.com)

Stung by paying billions of dollars for settlements and trials, chemical giant Bayer has been lobbying lawmakers in three states to pass bills providing it a legal shield from lawsuits that claim its popular weedkiller Roundup causes cancer....

blurg ,

Yeah, there are two basic approaches to safety: evidence of harm and evidence of safety. Evidence of safety is the higher standard (e.g. broad long-term independent studies). Evidence of harm is a low standard (e.g. small studies, short-term studies). Guess which one is used for herbicides, pesticides, food, …

blurg ,

And what would be better recommendations for the poor individuals trapped by loans?

blurg ,

Yeah, that sounds reasonable in the long run (years), while the laptop plan is more immediately useful.

blurg ,

The reactions follow a KFF Health News article published by NPR outlining how licensed brokers’ easy access to policyholder information on HealthCare.gov has led unscrupulous agents to switch people’s policies without express permission. Those agents can then take the commission that comes with signing a new customer.

The original NPR and also the linked KFF articles are worth reading.

blurg ,

As to how rationales go, this is the clearest.

I hate it.

blurg ,

What if the RAID 5 gets encrypted with ransomware, how many backups are there?

blurg ,

LibreOffice does “develop and maintain a certification system for professionals of various kinds who deliver and sell services around LibreOffice.”

blurg ,

The judge leaned back in a squeaky chair, self-righteously satisfied that the letter of the law had been followed.

The spirit of the law lay trampled on the ground, unable to get up or even breathe. Until the public, individuals carrying the breath of actual humanity, walked into the judge’s chambers, giving the spirit mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Offering a mirror to the judge, who didn’t know how reflection works.

blurg ,

While the article discusses antibiotic resistant gonorrhea in China, the US, and Canada, the problem is not about one country, or one country versus another; but rather…

… this is not just an alarming finding for China but also a “pressing public health concern” for the entire world.

blurg ,

And, as a quick aside, a side effect of the sweetener is to damage DNA.

blurg ,

If a registrar goes out of business, ICANN transfers the domain(s) to another registrar.

If a name server business fails, you change name servers through your registrar.

You can’t really fix registrar services in your name server, nor name server problems through your registrar. (Unless, of course, your registrar is also your name server.)

blurg ,

After a bit of research, I’m forced by facts (NS records can be cached for an undetermined time) to see what you’re saying. Thank you for teaching me.

The workings are, of course, a bit more complicated than what either of us have said (here’s a taste), but there is a situation as you describe, where separating the registrar from the name servers, and the name servers from the domain, could save the domain from going down.

blurg ,

It’s a decent testable hypothesis. If there were a center. Which seems obvious in the familiar mechanical way of say a firecracker. It certainly has a center with debris going every direction from that point.

However (to use a problematic oversimplification): what if the universe has a similarity to the surface of a balloon being blown up, where is the center?

Wherever you put your finger, the whole rest of the surface of the balloon is expanding away from that point. One center point is earth. Every other place in the universe also appears to be a center.

When looking at the evidence, data from telescopes and such, describing the expansion of the universe is closer to the balloon surface theory than the firecracker theory. Even though the firecracker theory is easier to comprehend.

blurg ,

A registration system where only registered parts are allowed, so no clean room (software engineering) third-party manufacturing? Every single part has to be registered with the original device manufacturer? This seems like a detour around right to repair.

blurg ,

Like, say, slow down an older phone so one has to buy a new faster phone? Source

deleted_by_author

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    blurg ,

    Source: Passmark (CPU Benchmark).

    blurg ,

    Sounds like a job for Lenny bot. (There are samples on video sites).

    AI-generated content and other unfavorable practices have put longtime staple CNET on Wikipedia's blacklisted sources (www.tomshardware.com)

    In the wave of AI controversies and lawsuits, CNET has been publicly admonished since it first started posting thinly-veiled AI-generated content on its site in late 2022— a scandal that has culminated in the site being demoted from Trusted to Untrusted Sources on Wikipedia....

    blurg ,

    This would be seriously useful, what are the impeccable primary sources?

    blurg ,

    The way the market works: You charge a competitive price that allows you to cover your costs and make a profit. If your product provides enough value to the buyer, they’ll pay for it.

    That’s what’s taught. There’s quite a bit more in practice, including: what insurance companies learned from management consultants.

    But they aren’t colluding to eek every ounce of money from people.

    Maybe so, though there appears to be a common interest.

    More 128TB SSDs are coming as almost no one noticed this launch — another SSD controller that can support up to 128TB appeared paving the way for HDD-beating capacities (www.techradar.com)

    More 128TB SSDs are coming as almost no one noticed this launch — another SSD controller that can support up to 128TB appeared paving the way for HDD-beating capacities::Phison quietly revealed an updated X2 SSD platform at CES

    blurg ,

    In 2016, HDDs were more reliable (MTBF).

    In 2022, for the first 5 years, SSDs are looking more reliable. With more of a constant failure rate (1%/yr), than the increasing failure rate of HDDs after 5 years.

    (Caveat: not just bit rot, but general failure data.)

    Damn Small Linux 2024 (www.damnsmalllinux.org)

    The New DSL 2024 has been reborn as a compact Linux distribution tailored for low-spec x86 computers. It packs a lot of applications into a small package. All the applications are chosen for their functionality, small size, and low dependencies. DSL 2024 also has many text-based applications that make it handy to use in a term...

    blurg ,

    Small enough to fit on a CD, which isn’t everyone’s definition of “small.” There are, of course, much smaller Linux distros, less than a tenth the size; particularly if CLI is adequate.

    blurg ,

    In addition to traditional answers (Plato, Solipsism, Descartes, …) this question is also the next-to-last step of coming of age: the realization that other people have minds, feelings, reasons, memories, and existences as complex, varied, and real as your own.

    Though, rather excitingly, this does not reduce the questions.

    blurg ,

    nearly did a push-up

    Sounds more like: couldn’t do a push-up.

    The Biden administration is slow to act as millions are booted off Medicaid, advocates say (apnews.com)

    The projections from the health consulting firm Avalere come as states undertake a sweeping reevaluation of the 94 million people enrolled in Medicaid, government’s health insurance for the neediest Americans. A host of problems have surfaced across the country, including hourslong phone wait times in Florida, confusing...

    blurg ,

    The arguments are pretty spot on (with plenty of exceptions, e.g. efforts to privatize healthcare in each country; but we’re generalizing here), not so much the conclusion:

    not sure why you’re talking about expanding the very thing we’re politically unable to sustain as if it’s a way to sidestep the problem.

    Unsustainable: US healthcare for profit. Evidence: Most expensive healthcare in the world with average or worse results.

    Sustainable: Universal healthcare for everyone. Evidence: Every other country in North America, Europe, Australia, parts of Africa and South America.

    blurg ,

    The US is already among the worst for infant mortality (bottom 4th among North American and Western European countries). The downward-trend causes and solutions are interrelated and complex, and include (and aren’t limited to):

    • For profit (privatized) healthcare (for those under 65, the child-raising generations); solution: universal basic (single-payer) healthcare.
    • Laws limiting healthcare options for women; solution: reinstate Roe v. Wade
    • Limiting financial support for families forced by law (and religion-based moral public pressure) into providing for a child they can’t afford; solution: universal basic income and healthcare.
    • Local environmental conditions (chemical exposure of workers and residents); solution: improve, enforce, and fund environmental protection.
    • Pharmaceuticals based on loose evidence for lack of harm (e.g. short-term, limited, selective studies); solution: independent long-term studies based on evidence of safety.

    None of the problems are a surprise, they are the predictable consequences of choices. None of the solutions are flawless, even while they head in a more public direction.

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