mastodon - Link to source

I remember my own experiments with “AI” a long time ago. It could be fun (AI Dungeon, anyone?) even if it couldn’t produce reliable results. But it was also extremely inefficient. Like: even on a GPU, producing a single moderately long response would occupy the entire GPU for seconds! Meanwhile my web server can handle thousands of parallel requests on much cheaper hardware and with a fraction of the power usage. So surely nobody would attempt this at scale…

I clearly underestimated the industry’s dedication to burning money and resources (often enough literally) while chasing the newest fad. investor.nexteraenergy.com/new…


NextEra Energy and Google Announce New Collaboration to Accelerate Nuclear Energy Deployment in the U.S.

Duane Arnold Energy Center restart to strengthen American energy grid resilience; Iowa's only nuclear facility is targeted to be fully operational by the first quarter of 2029 Project expected to create approximately 400 direct, high-quality full-tim…
www.investor.nexteraenergy.com
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Wladimir Palant

mastodon - Link to source

Wladimir Palant

So OpenAI managed to lose $11.5 billion in just one quarter. Not quite unexpectedly given how expensive it is to improve and simply run their machinery and how little money it brings in. theregister.com/2025/10/29/mic…

And that is totally fine of course as long as this still counts as a huge success, so that even more investor money flows in. And OpenAI (just as everyone else in AI) keeps raising the stakes to justify their need for more money. Now if that isn’t a Ponzi scheme…

At this rate it cannot be long until the bubble bursts. You cannot bring in an investor with pockets as deep as Microsoft’s every few months.


Microsoft just revealed that OpenAI lost more than $11.5B last quarter

updated: Satya has also delivered Sam most of the cash he promised
Matt Rosoff (The Register)
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to Wladimir Palant

mastodon - Link to source

Wladimir Palant

I’m pretty sure that all those AI companies hold a meeting somewhere and brainstorm bad ideas to outperform each other. Burning massive amounts of power? Nah, too trivial. Let’s support it by building new nuclear plants! No, been there. We can shoot data centers into space! That will take too long. Why don’t we involve AI when military decisions need to be made under extreme pressure?

Well, we have a new contender.

“Microsoft and nuclear power company Westinghouse Nuclear want to use AI to speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States.”


Sure, why not put a bullshit generator in charge of designing something that could contaminate a huge chunk of land for the foreseeable future if done wrong?

404media.co/power-companies-ar…


Power Companies Are Using AI To Build Nuclear Power Plants

Tech companies are betting big on nuclear energy to meet AIs massive power demands and they're using that AI to speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants.
Matthew Gault (404 Media)

glitchsoc - Link to source

"Remember when you thought age verification laws couldn't get any worse? Well, lawmakers in Wisconsin, Michigan, and beyond are about to blow you away.

It's unfortunately no longer enough to force websites to check your government-issued ID before you can access certain content, because politicians have now discovered that people are using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to protect their privacy and bypass these invasive laws. Their solution? Entirely ban the use of VPNs.

Yes, really.

As of this writing, Wisconsin lawmakers are escalating their war on privacy by targeting VPNs in the name of “protecting children” in A.B. 105/S.B. 130. It’s an age verification bill that requires all websites distributing material that could conceivably be deemed “sexual content” to both implement an age verification system and also to block the access of users connected via VPN. The bill seeks to broadly expand the definition of materials that are “harmful to minors” beyond the type of speech that states can prohibit minors from accessing—potentially encompassing things like depictions and discussions of human anatomy, sexuality, and reproduction.

This follows a notable pattern: As we’ve explained previously, lawmakers, prosecutors, and activists in conservative states have worked for years to aggressively expand the definition of “harmful to minors” to censor a broad swath of content: diverse educational materials, sex education resources, art, and even award-winning literature."

eff.org/deeplinks/2025/11/lawm…

#VPNs #AgeVerification #CyberSecurity #Privacy #DigitalRights


Lawmakers Want to Ban VPNs—And They Have No Idea What They're Doing

It's unfortunately no longer enough to force websites to check your government-issued ID before you can access certain content, because politicians have now discovered that people are using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to protect their privacy and…
Electronic Frontier Foundation
#privacy #cybersecurity #digitalrights #ageverification #vpns

mastodon - Link to source

I’ve been testing a theory: many people who are high on #AI and #LLMs are just new to automation and don’t realize you can automate processes with simple programming, if/then conditions, and API calls with zero AI involved.

So far it’s been working!

Whenever I’ve been asked to make an AI flow or find a way to implement AI in our work with a client, I’ve returned back with an automation flow that uses 0 AI.

Things like “when a new document is added here, add a link to it in this spreadsheet and then create a task in our project management software assigned to X with label Y”.

And the people who were frothing at the mouth at how I must change my mind on AI have (so far) all responded with resounding enthusiasm and excitement.

They think it’s the same thing. They just don’t understand how much automation is possible without any generative tools.

#AI #LLMs

Dennis reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

This is TERRIBLE! Mozilla people who used to follow me here... Talk some sense into your coworkers/management!

People don't use Firefox because it's loaded with crap and AI, they use it because it's not corporate owned and not feeding all your browsing data into the data machine. AI is not of any benefit to add to your browser, no matter the hype.

blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai…

#firefox #ai #mozilla


Introducing AI, the Firefox way: A look at what we're working on and how you can help shape it

AI Window is a user-controlled space we’re building in Firefox that lets you chat with an AI assistant and get help while you browse.
Kristina Bravo (The Mozilla Blog)
#firefox #mozilla #AI

reshared this

mastodon - Link to source
Blind Telegram users. Under no circumstances should you update Telegram on iOS to the latest version. The developers have broken all accessibility. When using the VoiceOver screen reader, it is now impossible to type text messages or record voice messages. VoiceOver no longer focuses on these elements.

reshared this

glitchsoc - Link to source
I finally got some time to reconfigure my network. From now on #Turris #OmniaNG is my main gateway to the internet.
Well, the software needs a lot of polish:
🪲 It has a wifi7 card, but I have to run it only in AC mode, or any connected client causes restart of all radios. I hope this will be fixed soon.
🪲 The display only worked on first boot, since than it only shows scrambled image or nothing. I don't mind it, as it's just a novelty for me. One day I would like to try render my own stuff maybe.
❓ It has two SFP+ ports, so I also bought 2×Turris metallic 1/2.5/5/10G SFP+ modules. One for older Omnia, one for Omnia NG. It makes the connection, but it runs 2.5G in one direction (that's ok, it's the maximum older omnia can handle) and 0.2G in the other direction.
I don't understand why. Is it a hardware failure? Or software bug? Or technolohy incompatibilty of some kind? 🤷‍♂️
🪲 Some LEDs are resetting brightness to max often. That's a bit annoying.
Connected and running Turris Omnia NG
#turris #omniang

Peter Vágner reshared this.

mastodon - Link to source

Fellow free software people, read this essay. writing.exchange/@erlend/11554… It is tremendous.

Erlend Sogge Heggen

2025-11-14 18:12:55

mastodon - Link to source

Anti-fascistic software is made possible by pro-labor licensing.

blog.muni.town/open-source-pow…

I've been trying to write this piece for years. Every time I get started I'm just overwhelmed with paralyzing visions of the FOSS commentariat accusing me of WrongThink, more so here on the fediverse than anywhere else.

But I'm scared and tired and we urgently need to get our shit together.

#OpenSource #foss #licensing



Open Source Power

We have to talk about open source licensing.
Erlend Sogge Heggen (Muni Blog)

mastodon - Link to source

Anti-fascistic software is made possible by pro-labor licensing.

blog.muni.town/open-source-pow…

I've been trying to write this piece for years. Every time I get started I'm just overwhelmed with paralyzing visions of the FOSS commentariat accusing me of WrongThink, more so here on the fediverse than anywhere else.

But I'm scared and tired and we urgently need to get our shit together.

#OpenSource #foss #licensing


Open Source Power

We have to talk about open source licensing.
Erlend Sogge Heggen (Muni Blog)
#foss #opensource #licensing
in reply to Toni Barth

mastodon - Link to source

Day Garwood

@ToniBarth Yup. Landlord's coming to fix it tomorrow so I'm hoping against hope it'll stop raining and/or my protections won't give in overnight. Some of the wires have been moved a little further away but not sure just how close to the sockets the leak is. It's been going for some time though, so I don't think it's that close - I'm typing on the computer right now and my S88 still works... really hoping it stays that way.
@Toni Barth

mastodon - Link to source

All I want from #Mozilla is for them to improve* the damn bookmarks organizer dialog (the one that shows up with Ctrl+Shift+O) & bookmark popover in #Firefox, but instead I get an opt-in hallucination engine that I'm never going to use :psyduck: : blog.mozilla.org/en/firefox/ai…

These, instead, are the kind of improvements I want:
* bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.…
* bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.…
* bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.…
* bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.…
* bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.…
* bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.…

#privacy #UX


Introducing AI, the Firefox way: A look at what we're working on and how you can help shape it

AI Window is a user-controlled space we’re building in Firefox that lets you chat with an AI assistant and get help while you browse.
Kristina Bravo (The Mozilla Blog)
#firefox #privacy #mozilla #UX
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to feld

pleroma - Link to source

Meko #nowar

@feld I mean that usually this option "TearFree" is recommended with driver "Intel" like this:

Section "Device"
Identifier "Intel Graphics"
Driver "intel"
Option "TearFree" "true"
EndSection

The issue is that the "intel" driver description literally says "don't use it if your GPU is never than 18 years old" and you'll better use "modesetting" driver then.

Yes, it works, but it breaks quite a lot of stuff, including some steam games, hardware video acceleration in a browser and also causes some app glitching.

The issue is that for some systems (including Debian 13) if you don't specify "Intel" driver this option won't work at all because the support isn't implemented in that "modesetting" driver (used by default by the way).

Well, technically it is in this pull request from 2022.
gitlab.freedesktop.org/xorg/xs…

So to fix the tearing on my laptop I had to download xorg source package from Debian and apply this pull request as a patch.
It worked pretty well and stable by the way.

modesetting: add support for TearFree page flips (!1006) · Merge requests · xorg / xserver · GitLab

This adds support for TearFree page flips to eliminate tearing without the use of a compositor. It allocates two shadow buffers for each CRTC, a back buffer and...
GitLab
@feld
This entry was edited (2 months ago)
in reply to bouriquet

mastodon - Link to source

Quixoticgeek

@bouriquet @cstross rail in the us has so many problems. Many by design. Norway/Sweden/Finland seem quite capable of operating trains in winter. Narvik, Kiruna, Kolari, are all stations way further north than any in the US. And in recent years they've had temps over 30°

But then 20F is only -7°C. Switzerland, Austria, France all get that, and all get 35+ in the summer. Amtrak has a lot of problems, blaming the climate is no excuse.

@Charlie Stross @bouriquet
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