@ploum@mamot.fr cover
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ploum

@ploum@mamot.fr

Joue de la machine à écrire dans un one-man-band pour défendre la liberté et l’imaginaire.

Write SF books, free software and texts about freedom.

Pédale. Plonge dans l’eau froide.

Also on Gemini: gemini://ploum.net

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

ploum , to random
@ploum@mamot.fr avatar

I sometimes click on the "Explore" tab of my Mastodon instance and see toots from @loevenbruck , @pluralistic , @scalzi , @cstross or @gregeganSF .

Then I take my eyes away from my screen, look at my beloved bookshelf and see the exact same names but written vertically without the "@".

They say that Mastodon is a failure, that nobody is using it.

That’s fine. They are the kind of nobodies I want to be with.

futurebird , to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I decided to find out if any progress had been made on the science behind why some ants are attracted to electrical fields. After filtering out exterminators (it's so demoralizing to search for information on creatures you love and find nothing but people who know nothing about them boasting about how they will kill them all) I found what looked like a blog. But, who the heck is "James Brown"? Never heard of the dude. Maybe he could be my new friend if he likes ants enough to blog about them!

ploum ,
@ploum@mamot.fr avatar

@nathaliaassaad @futurebird @mistergibson @wa7iut @wmd : the problem is that the use money from… advertising.

The very goal of advertising is to make us consume more and pollute more than what we really need.

Advertising money is a very small fraction of the benefits big corpos would not have made if there was no advertising.

By definition, everything related to advertising is destroying our ecosystem. That’s even the goal itself ( because "consuming" == "transforming ressources into trash")

ploum , to random
@ploum@mamot.fr avatar

Step to write software by human:

  1. Decide what you want your software to do (medium)
  2. Decide what you REALLY want your software to do in all the corner cases (very HARD)
  3. Write the code (Easy to Medium)
  4. Test the code (Medium)
  5. Debug the code (hard to very HARD).

Now, thanks to ChatGPT, you could improve this workflow by:

  • making step 3, the only easy step, somewhat easier (and thus hiring less competent engineers)

  • making step 5 nearly Impossible.

ploum , to random
@ploum@mamot.fr avatar

The kind of professor I’m trying to be at university:

A few of you have talked to me about having trouble getting some of the books for this course. The university is adamant that you purchase textbooks through the official university bookstore. Beware of sites that promise (and deliver) free PDFs of all kinds of books, such as: http://libgen.rs/ https://b-ok.cc/ These sites might seem perfectly helpful in that they deliver exactly what they promise, but they are also free. | can't remember what | was saying. Anyway.
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    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    Thanks everyone! We closed the loop!

    Most websites are now publishing algorithmic generated content in order to please ranking algorithms from search engines in order to display generated ads that will be clicked by crawling bots and automatically generated social profiles.

    No humans needed any more!

    Which means that you can now close your laptop, watch a sunset and talk to real humans near you. Enjoy your life far from your screen.

    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    Dear people writing announcements and blog posts about the new version of your product,

    You lost me at the "new AI integration".

    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    Did you know that, when you share your Mastodon profile, people can read your bio and your tooths without a Mastodon account? They don’t need to know what Mastodon is: there’s no restriction.

    This is unlike LinkedIn and X that will refuse to show your profile to unlogged people. Facebook and Instagram currently display some limited information.

    You thought you were promoting yourself on those platforms? Turns out it is the opposite. Be smart: share your Mastodon profile everywhere!

    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    Remember that if you believe anything an AI tells you, the company using the AI will tell you it is your own fault. You should have known better and not trust the AI.

    https://bc.ctvnews.ca/air-canada-s-chatbot-gave-a-b-c-man-the-wrong-information-now-the-airline-has-to-pay-for-the-mistake-1.6769454

    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    Remember the new @mozilla CEO whose first action was to post a link to her Linkedin profile?

    Some said I was harsh that we should let her the benefit of doubt.

    So here are the first true actions: firing 60 people working on useless products to focus the company on its true mission.

    The useless products?

    • Relay (privacy, protection against spam)
    • VPN (privacy)
    • Mozilla.social (Mastodon)
    • Monitor (privacy)

    True mission to focus:

    • AI (???)

    You can’t made that up

    https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/13/mozilla-downsizes-as-it-refocuses-on-firefox-and-ai-read-the-memo/

    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    According to Apple’s lawyers, "no reasonable user would expect that their actions in Apple’s apps would be private from Apple."

    I repeat to make it clear: According to Apple itself, no reasonable Apple user should expect privacy when using the device.

    So let’s make it even more clear: if you expect basic privacy using your Apple device, you are "unreasonable" (= a fool).

    (originally posted by @mysk )

    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    "People on Mastodon are boring. They talk about polluting less, escaping tech monopolies, biking. They help each other and they seem really afraid of climate change.

    They have complete disdain for real issues like wokism, football results or the last iphone."

    (mostly every Mastodon critic I’ve seen so far)

    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    "I’m not on Mastodon because there’s nobody there, there’s not enough users to make it succeed, my whole community is on Twitter and don’t want to migrate and… hey… I now have a account! Please follow me on Bluesky, it’s very cool, it belongs to a billionaire but is decentralised. Or at least, the billionaire promises us it will be, which is cool."

    – Basically every silicon valley pundit

    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    When I graduated as an engineer, a friend told me "How do you feel entering a plane when you know that people like us build it".

    I’ve worked several years in the automotive industry and saw how software was done there.

    When the 737-MAX crashed, I entered into the rabbit-hole and built a really good understanding of the software issue.

    The results are:

    • I don’t board a boeing plane anymore.
    • I avoid cars as much as I can.
    • I be sure to recommend cars with the less possible software.
    ploum , to random
    @ploum@mamot.fr avatar

    In 1989, Denis Ritchie, Rob Pike, Ken Thompson, Brian Kernighan et al (basically people who invented mordern computing) once teamed with Penn & Teller (two magicians) to play a joke on their boss, Arno Penzias (Physic Nobel Prize).

    The challenge was to trick one of the smartest living man into blindly obeying orders from what appeard to be a "smart understanding computer".

    It worked.

    Nobody is immune to be scammed by computers.

    https://www.bell-labs.com/usr/dmr/www/labscam.html

    https://yt.artemislena.eu/watch?v=fxMKuv0A6z4

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