Working for me in the States. Maybe try turning on VPN mode?

Thanks for all the suggestions and info. One thing to consider is that I’m physically disabled, and fooling around with swapping drives and whatnot is not something I really want to mess around with at this stage. (and yes, I used to be a tech, haha)

You’re not a fan of the stick idea, I take it? It seems like it would be a good, low-energy way for me to give Mint a test drive…

Mint - Cinnamon sounds promising from what I gather, so I’ll see if I can get that working on the stick. If you feel like linking me to some starter site, feel free, otherwise I’ll just search something up…

Constantly, yeah. But the idea that the potential is there and can theoretically be used against you at any time without you being able to stop it is the concern. What if there’s a backdoor, for example?

I’m not particularly paranoid, but to have an increasing number of devices & gadgets with this potential is naturally going to make a lot of people uncomfortable.

Ah, nice idea! I do have a 128gb stick laying around that I haven’t used yet.

So, you’re happy with “Mint”?

I actually did get a new Win11 mini-PC last year to beat the Win10 deadline, and intended to get Linux set up as a dual-boot, but still haven’t gotten around to it yet.

The last time I tried to install Linux (loong time ago now) there were driver issues. I guess I’m scared that I’ll screw something up, and my backup PC is old and uncertain at this point.

Thanks for the extensive comment. I guess theoretically if I was going to get a Smart TV, I’d first look in to whatever surveillance it contained, and what my options were to disable such.

Methinks it would be a shame to lose out on internet connectivity.

I haven’t had a TV in years, so I’m kinda hazy on what the main concern of Smart TV’s would be. Are they recording you via camera and speaker, is that it? If so, is there a way to block that?

If it’s moreso that they’re gathering your watching habits, it’s hard for me to see that as alarming. Er, I think.

If I understand correctly, some (or most?) TV remotes now have mics built in. The stated aim is allegedly so that the user can quickly search something up without tediously typing, but the surveillance opportunity seems pretty glaring. A smaller extension of Smart TV’s, I guess.

Yeah I’m just kind of a rubbernecker here, but from the last couple articles I read, it sounds like group-wise they’re not remotely profitable yet. At the same time, in the States and I guess elsewhere, the data centers have been rammed through against local taxpayer objection, meaning that at least to some degree they and the state are going to be subsidizing the DC’s. Also being harmed by their irreplaceable aquifers being tapped.

Far as I know, Nestle is a big player in pulling that shit, and is arguably a benefitee of regularity capture, which naturally means a certain degree of politicians enriching themselves, ultimately paid for by taxpayers & sustainability. My point is that similar things do seem to be happening with LLM’s and their DC’s. So probably all that moves the profitability needle somewhat.

Btw, this particular chart of the author’s helped me understand some things:

Fascinating stuff, altho to me, like multiple articles all rolled in to one, which could easily double as a fairly high-level university course.

My take is that tools & tech indeed get normalised over time, with all kinds of assumptions and expectations built-in as time progresses, which can… lead to some pretty interesting or even catastrophic results, eventually. Like the Bronze Age collapse, perhaps, in which the breakdown of trade rather suddenly crippled multiple city-states, reeling them back to tools & tech from centuries or more earlier. In short, any tool can become a dangerous thing IMO, for a multitude of reasons.

I agree that calling an LLM ‘just a tool’ is both disingenuous and patently false. For me, it’s a kind of dream or fantasy tool that I never really thought would be developed to this extent, back when I was horsing around with stuff like Eliza and Racter. Later, when Deep Blue 2 beat Kasparov (debatably the greatest chess player of all time) almost 30yrs ago, things started to look a little different.

At this point, I’m curious if anyone here feels like critiquing my primary LLM usage. Before explaining, I also want to add that I’m fully on board with the idea that AI will turn out to be a global disaster in the end, and that it’s already been pretty horrible, for example in terms of killing jobs and building massive abominations that we so delightfully call “data centers.”

Personally, I use GPT on a near-daily basis to do complex searches and then pull the results together, saving me a load of time & effort. As someone with ME/CFS, that really is something super-valuable to me. Of course I’ve learned over time that GPT has its strengths and weaknesses, and loves to hallucinate and make fundamental errors when given the chance. To deal with that, I’ve built up something like ~20 global directives to help mitigate such behavior, and of course, sometimes GPT’s own baked-in programming will essentially ignore some of my directives. Still, part of the process as I see it of better understanding where it shines and where it’s most likely to crap the bed. TBH, I’m also pretty blown-away by how much better it’s gotten across only a year or two.

Am I wrong? :P

Ah, that’s a classic.

A trickier one is maybe when a person’s in a toxic workplace environment but the economy is such that it’s very hard for them to find a similar spot elsewhere. So Redditors insisting that they quit can be both right & wrong, so to speak.

Yeah, I can definitely envision that. I’ve been using GPT the past year or two mainly as an enhanced search tool, and hated the out-of-box sycophantic personality. It’s taken me a good deal of work over time to damp down that behavior and train it in other ways via (verbal) global settings.

Funnily enough, I also happen to find r/AmITheAsshole and a couple similar communities to frequently contain some of the most deranged comments of all when it comes to balanced user response. Sadly common is for the body of users to look at OP issues as rigidly B&W, unwilling to consider nuance and other POV’s. I imagine this as a combination of young-skewing demographic and drive-by shit-commenting so to speak. Also of course, many people love spewing opinions and regurgitating their own belief systems on others without being very good listeners, or considerate of specific situations, cultures, mindsets, etc.

I’m probably overstepping it a bit there, but IMO these are real, chronic issues at places like that.

Is there something of a TL:DR that springs out of all that, or is it moreso about the pure stream of observation?

Can you still see twitter posts without logging in?

I believe so, but: 1) usually any worthwhile media content at such places has some level of protection when viewed in the standard way, 2) if it’s like Instagram and others, it won’t actually let you browse for very long, 3) just my stance on strictly avoiding toxic platforms, denying them any support or views whatsoever.

I hate how posts on the internet are literally just screenshots of peoples hot takes…without any context and you have to guess where it came from.

Yeah, the worst stuff is certainly pretty annoying, altho TBF the better stuff makes interesting or funny points, which I don’t mind even if little context is given.

Meanwhile, I’m bummed that so many are still using Twitter, and how so many Twitter link-sharers can’t be arsed to use a simple proxy, like Nitter.Net or XCancel.com. Talk about ‘not being the change’ when it’s in one’s best interest to do so.

Fun read!

Interesting how he manages to bring social media issues (rather successfully) in to this impressive, natural event.

The secondary link gave me problems, so:
https://archive.is/uFJ6F

Fellow disabled-person, salut! (I have CFS/ME)

Well, good on them. And I still need to add Linux as a dual-boot, here. >_<

Thanks! Spoken French is too fast for me to understand.

windows planned obsolescence

Okay, so basically the 2nd thing I mentioned. Not that Windows is totally going extinct as an OS. (altho that might be a nice idea, hehe)

Good for these people, then.