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Comment no thanks (I'm an author) (Score 1) 30

Won't happen, at least not with my books.

There is a reason writing the last one took two years. Many of its passages have very carefully considered wordings. Intentional ambiguities. Alliterations. Words chosen because the other term for the same thing is too similar to another thing that occurs in the same paragraph. Names picked with intention, by the sound of them (harsher or softer, for example).

I've used AI extensively in many fields. Including translations. It's pretty good for normal texts like newspaper articles or Wikipedia or something. But for a book, where the emotional impact of things matter, where you can't just substitute one words for a synonym and get the same effect - no, I don't think so.

This is one area where even I with a general positive attitude to AI want a human translator with whom I can discuss these things and where I can get a feeling of "did she understand this part of the book and why it's described this way?".

Submission + - The Human Only Public License (vanderessen.com)

nmb3000 writes: With the rapid ascent of AI training, tools, and a push for more autonomous agents, do we need a new software licensing option for developers that don't want their work used to support or advance these systems? One developer says yes.

Whether artificial intelligence systems will end up being a positive or a negative force for humanity is still an open question. But we might find ourselves one day with AI embedded at every layer of our existence, living lives of toned down and diluted humanity with only our dreams for escape. Although I am not yet convinced of this worst case scenario, I believe it is important that we as software developers have at least the option to opt out of that system altogether, to be able to continue hacking, working, and tinkering in a space of our own in total absence of artificial intelligence systems, and share this luxury with our users.

I designed a software license for this purpose. It is called the Human Only Public License, or HOPL for short.

While a license like this is probably entirely unenforceable and goes against a strict open source ethos (both traits shared with the problematic "do not evil" JSON license), the appeal of continuing the tradition of one human creating something specifically for other humans is understandable. It also gives those developers who are concerned with the negative impact AI tools may have on software development as a field and career a way to push back.

The license is also published on GitHub.

Comment Re:What do they care? (Score 1) 44

I don't use an agent but I use AI to find the exact thing I want on Amazon and it gives me the link and I buy it, without having to wade to the crap that Amazon's "search" throws at me.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who noticed that over time Amazon's search feature has enshitified. If that's the correct verb. It used to be fairly good. These days, nah, unless I'm looking for a book or other product from Amazon directly, as a search for the marketplace it's crap.

And since it used to be better, something must be responsible for that. Greed, most likely.

Comment Re: Cue the hate... (Score 1) 68

Not 99% but definitely some of the most useful ones. And yes, stack traces are one of the things that only Linux users send you without an explicit request.

And the advantage of debugging a (this specific exception) error in (this specific file) on (that specific line) over a "hey, the game crashed when I jumped out of the car" bug report cannot be overstated.

Comment Re:Once they make the effort to get H2 by itself (Score 1) 76

The turbines are a sunk cost and so there's value in conversion than turning them to scrap and building fuel cells.

There are no sunk costs around the turbines. The existing turbines will be replaced. From TFS:

In their place, the DWP will install new combined-cycle turbines that are expected to operate on a mixture of natural gas and at least 30% hydrogen with the ultimate goal of running entirely on hydrogen as more supply becomes available.

They're reusing the land and part of the existing structure on it. Almost everything else is getting replaced.

Comment Re:So, the plan is ... (Score 1) 76

Modern combined-cycle gas turbines are much more efficient than that. Most new installations now get around 60% efficiency if not better, and the current record is 64.18%, set by a Siemens turbine at Keadby Unit 2 Power Station in the UK. The end result won't be 68%, but it also won't be 34%. Given the losses associated with electrolysis, the net is likely to be around 50%, which still makes it a bad idea.

Comment Re:Cue the hate... (Score 5, Interesting) 68

As a game developer: Even a few percent are, as the article points out, millions of users. Us indie devs cannot compete with AAA studios in marketing. It's not that the playing field isn't level, it's not even the same playing field.

But in a niche, you have a good chance to be noticed and word of mouth spreading. And that means grabbing as much of the niche as you possibly can.

And it matters to you Windos users as well, because it means games are developed without being tied to a specific OS or driver feature. Which means your new game will run even if you're not running it on the latest hardware.

And finally, it matters because Linux gamers are more useful to a game developer. Maybe 3% of the Steam users run Linux, but for my last game, at least 30% of the useful bug reports came from Linux users.

Comment nope (Score 1) 149

No, it is not. "Too big to fail" is just bullshit bingo. The reason banks et al managed to get saved by taxpayer money with that phrase wasn't that they were. It was that they had a solidly entrenched lobby and connections at the highest levels. "Too big to fail" was simply the icing they coated the shit with to make the public swallow it.

Comment marketing (Score 1) 26

Hobby game developer here - same thing applies. It doesn't matter how good the game you make is. If nobody knows that it exists, it won't sell, simple as that. And there are literally a few hundred games published EVERY DAY, so no you can't hope to be somehow discovered by accident or through the Steam (Epic, GOG, etc.) recommendation features. Well, not at scale. Maybe a few people will randomly find you, but without some marketing efforts, it's just that - a few.

Marketing, no matter how much we techies dislike it, is an essential part of any at-scale business. Customers need to know you exist. They need to know your product exists. They need to know your product can do something they would like.

There's a fine line between advertisement as manipulative exploitation and getting information to people interested in it. For a while, I had hopes that the Internet and search engines would solve that problem. Imagine if there were no advertisement. Anywhere. At all. But you had a magic machine on your desk or in your hands that, if you need something, can tell you where to get it. Need new dishes - here's all the shops selling dishes in the vicinity. Need a new computer - here's all the places you can look at computers and here's all the online shops who'll send them to you. Need a blowjob - here... well, you get the idea.

Unfortunately, it seems I massively underestimated how much advertisers like to keep their jobs, and the whole shit became even worse online.

Comment Re:Based on the article... (Score 2) 248

THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE LEPTON OF CONSCIOUSNESS,

You utterly misunderstand what consciousness is or, for that matter, what 99% of the universe are.

If you grind the universe to a fine powder and look at the result, you can also claim that trees don't exist. Or planets. Or, really, anything.

It is clear to everyone not a complete idiot or fanatic, that consciousness, whatever it ultimately is, is something where structure, organization, patterns and connectivity matter a whole lot. It's not just matter, it is also how that matter is organized in space and time. The exact same molecules can make a pile of trash or a car.

Comment Re:Lack of imagination (Score 1) 248

You dont need one equation to run a simulation, you can work with many.

More than that. A simulation can do things like introduce randomness, recursion, non-trivial dependencies or emergent behaviour that are not easily expressed in equations. There's a huge area where we use computer simulations because either the equations are not known or a calculation of the equations is computationally impossible but a simulation is possible.

Comment Re: Where will they install the rootkits? (Score 2) 71

"lock-in" is the word you're looking for.

People can't switch without considerable cost in money and/or convenience. That could be as simple as using two different systems at home and at work, which adds to the mental load.

Windows has been winning for 30+ years because it's familiar shit. Everyone knows it's shit, but at least you already know the taste. Consumers know that if they use Windos their skills trained at work transfer. Businesses know that if they use Windos then new hires don't need basic computer training. Software developers know that if they support Windos, there's a huge market that runs it.

Everyone is locking everyone else into the shit, and Microsofts sits in the middle and laughs.

I would bet that there's an internal competition among the various teams how much utter crap they can put into their respective parts of the OS before the public rebels against it.

Comment Re:It's 2025 (Score 1) 71

Been a non-windows user for two decades now, and don't miss it one bit. Sometimes sad if a cool game is out only on Windos, but I anyway don't have as much time anymore as I used to.

It's not just Windos, though. DOS was equally horrible. I replaced MS-DOS with Novell DOS on one of my PCs for utterly different reasons (better to run a small BBS system on) and that was miles ahead of the Microsoft shit.

It keeps getting worse because we are not the customers anymore, we are the product. Your data is sold, your user habits are monitizied, and the main reason Windows still rules the games market is so kids grow up on Windows PCs and will demand them in their jobs (businesses are the main buyers of the OS).

And probably because Bill Gates is sad if market share falls. And who can stand old men crying?

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