Hi, I came across this thread and it's something which has raised a lot of concerns for me since Google's announcement. There's a discussion of how it hurts the open-source ecosystem at https://www.reddit.com/r/selfh... and Google's announcement is at https://android-developers.goo...

I like the idea of writing free, open source utilities for others to use. Users having to jump through even more hoops to sideload, or me having to pay money and reveal my identity to Google, get in the way of this --- especially if one of the things I've thought about is e.g. writing a tool to help LGBTQ+ people find locations where they can be reasonably safe in the current US geopolitical climate. That is exactly the sort of utility where the DoJ would make claims I'm some sort of subversive "antifa threat" and demand Google release my identity to them for harassment. Plus, the time where that utility would be most useful -- if someone suddenly has to go someplace unfamiliar on short notice (e.g. getting a call that a relative who lives a few hundred miles away in MAGA territory is getting emergency surgery), having to wait 24 hours to sideload the app if you don't have sideloading currently unlocked, just to find out which rest stops are safe to stop at or not on your drive, would be incredibly unfortunate!

I'm not saying improving app security is a bad thing, and at least Google didn't pull a "We Own Everything And There Is No Way Out Of Our Grip" like they could have, but the options they provide are not nearly good enough. It seems like they only thought about (1) average uninformed users who install things randomly, (2) big commercial developers [who still can get compromised and end up pushing malware, or might even include malware intentionally: just look at LG's McAfee situation, the infamous Sony BMG CD rootkits, etc etc], (3) independent developers who have identity documents Google is willing to recognize [what about the identity document fiascos going on right now with Ukrainian towns Russia is occupying? what about areas occupied in the Middle East by various regimes? what about the way cops confiscate homeless peoples' belongings including ID cards, but you need an ID card to get your belongings back?] plus extra cash [and $25 USD is a lot in some impoverished places, limiting the ability of people in such places to help themselves by becoming app developers], (4) students and hobbyists who only need to share their app with a small group of testers [limiting your ability to test scalability!], and (5) power users who are patient. If you don't fit into the scenarios they planned for, you might be out of luck. And I recognize that the vast majority of legitimate use cases do fall into those above categories, but there are legitimate use cases which don't. They could have at least had a series of open community fora to get feedback on other use cases and plan additional options, but they did not.

It's great that they thought about a few different use cases, at least. But that's not nearly enough!

Could I find an ally to register as the "developer" and publish such an app? Sure, but is that how it *should* be? I would now be dependent on someone else to manage the Play Store listing, which limits my ability to build. Could I spread the word to people who might need such an app that they should unlock sideloading indefinitely just in case? Sure, but maybe that creates new risks for them (and -- what if the option to unlock sideloading indefinitely gets taken away at some future point? Google gets to dictate all the changes here, and users have little recourse if they disagree with the specifics of the implementation)

I just want the guaranteed ability to say "hey, what about XYZ situation, which I or a friend have personal experience with? can you provide a way to handle that?" but I don't. There's no form to fill out to request some sort of special accommodation for an unusual situation, and there probably should be. When you have billions of users, planning for the needs of 99.99% of them still hangs hundreds of thousands of users out to dry. I know trying to accommodate more edge cases isn't as profitable, and having a large enough support team to hear people out when they have an unusual need requires a ton of extra staffing, but smartphone usage has become a critical utility rather than a luxury in much of the world. Google has an immense amount of power over numerous aspects of the lives of all sorts of different people, and if they want to continue to make money from that situation, they need to be prepared to deal with the complexities of it all.

Is GM exiting hardware and switching to software vehicles?

Will their upcoming model compete with Grand Theft Auto?

Yep. Open weights is closer to having precompiled binaries only (though you can do a little bit more with open weights). All training data with labeling, plus a detailed build log including any special fine-tuning logs, is needed, especially to help show how the final weights were arrived at (since there can be randomness involved). Unless someone else can both replicate your final output plus make their own changes to it, it's not fully open source.

We're entering the exciting age of AI-powered cybersecurity attacks. I imagine it won't be too long before something like a malware worm which polymorphs to evade detection and adapts itself as new CVEs get published, able to utilize tuned edge models, shows up. Wireless IoT could mean we end up with physical "e-quarantine" zones, wherein devices keep attacking anything in radio range...

AI has breadth of skills humans cannot offer. I used AI to write a 1000 line Excel VBA. I don't know, don't know anyone who knows, or reall want to know, Excel VBA

The original source code is still free to anyone else who cares to use it. Nothing changed there so it isn't false advertising, as you allege.

Yeah, my argument against deregulation is probably relevant here: big corporate is just big government by another name, except with even less transparency. Never fully trust any entity which has enormous power over your life; even the most well-intentioned mega-entity is still prone to accidentally ruining lives through bureaucratic oversight. So I would hope people protesting government intrusion would also realize that e.g. Facebook is a de facto global governing structure of sorts...

Though this might work for some things, unfortunately, I think it is susceptible to Nazism. "Does this video make society a better place" could get a "yes" from plenty of people who have just sat through a video telling them how $marginalized_group is the root of all evil and must be "dealt with" =/

We moved off on-prem VmWare to Azure cloud. VmWare had a workload management function called VmMotion - to automatically pauses and move VMs between hardware blades, supposedly without skipping a beat. But VMotion used to break cluster management software we ran. So our admins turned it off for susceptible VMs - those stayed 'sticky' on the blade they spun up on.

  As we moved to Azure, I asked how we could avoid a similar situation. Turns out Azure has a similar 'feature' called 'Live Migration'. The difference is you cannot turn off 'Live Migration'. Microsoft uses it when it wants to. Thankfully, our cluster management software was fixed/desensitized by the time we moved to Azure.

Despite that, I think the on-prem VmWare was at least a couple times more stable than Azure.

So theft of physical mail involving thieves putting sticky rods in mailboxes is now common. And the banks are denying their responsibility to detect check alteration. And your response is to blame the victim! Do you not realise the societal breakdown this implies? Has the frog been boiled that well?

This!

Get some sense into you cops. That is a human just like you. Unless he's a suspected suicide bomber approach him with caution and sympathy

"Yes, comrade Stalin"

The truth has no bias ... It is equally for and against left and right.

"I want to know what war is! I want you to show me!!" (Apologies to 'Foreigner')

No, Europe is not at war with Russia - not yet. Sure, Europe spies, facilitates killing of Russians in Ukraine and Russia, and holds onto Russian money. On the other hand, Russia kills Russian dissidents in Europe, snips cables, holds onto European assets and occasionally jams GPS. This isn't war. The two sides should be actively negotiating a wind-down of hostilities with each other and in Ukraine, and retaliating proportionally to offenses to keep each others worse instincts in check. But this is not war.

This is not the Jetsons. If Ukraine had a robo-army, by now there would be no "busification". And yes, Russia is losing more men, but why do you think that is? It is because the Russians are attacking, breaking cover. If the Ukrainians attacked, the same would happen to them.

It may be that the Ukrainians have superiority in autonomous targeting drones; that the Andurils and tech startups of the West help them in this. But how long do you think this superiority will last? Will this period be long enough to enable the Ukrainians to break out and get the the Donbas back? What do you think will happen to the casualty exchange rate when Ukraine attacks?

Yes, drones can help attack, but they cannot hold land. That requires men. Again, we are not in the Jetsons era yet.

Look, Ukraine is already in a demographic death spiral. Using EU funds, it is importing guest workers, already reluctant to enter a warzone, while shipping of it's own youth to die at the front. Ukraine is desperate to involve the West more deeply in the war. This is unsustainable and dangerous for both itself and the West.

Say, your plucky smaller friend is getting trashed in a bar fight with a big guy. He is gesturing at you frantically to join in. Won't the wise option -- for him and for you -- be to urge him to stop the fighting and try to come to terms with his opponent? Rather, the West keeps slipping Zelensky the equivalent of knuckle dusters, tells him "Keep going", "punch him over there", "look out for his left hook", and swears at the Russians while quietly buying uranium and gas from them. Rocky Balboa's coach is doing business with Ivan Draga.

Those Ukrainian defensive lines you speak of, the ones that are too sacrosanct, they are no guarantee. The Ukrainians need to scramble and build new ones behind them anyway. The Russians are still advancing, imposing losses on Ukraine's assault brigades that have taken back territory in the last two months. The Ukrainians aren't going to get a dramatic infusion of soldiers. So they need new lines far in the back anyway, either as defenses after surrendering territory, or as fallbacks if the frontline is breached. The West should help Ukraine build new lines in the back (the only real security guarantee), encourage them to make concessions for peace and broach the topic with the Russians

There is no permanent tech advantage to either side in this war. Only the potential for peace is permanent

Ukraine used Turkish Bayraktars, Russians got Iranian Shaheds
Russians invented cope cages, Ukrainians got them too.
Ukrainians got FPV drones, Russians got them too
Russians invented fiber-optic drones, Ukrainians got them too.
Now if the Ukrainians get assault robotic and evac robots, the Russians will get them too

One side has most of Europe backing it; the other side has most of Asia. Too many resources behind both parties for either to lose easily.

Stop the fighting. There are no winners here. Only worse-off losers.

Both Russian casualties and Ukrainian casualties have long passed the 'unsustainable' mark. Now both side are getting close to the point where either side can tap out. But Ukraine is closer to that point than Russia. Yes, Russia is losing, but Ukraine is losing harder and faster - it has less land, men, money, and munitions than Russia. It is getting attrited faster. Ukraine has the bigger job ahead of it after the war - blowing up unexploded ordanance, demining, rebuilding, repopulating.

Ukraine needs to:
(a) make an offer that the Russians can at least use as a fig leaf to concede peace.
(b) Ukraine also has a problem with a section of insubordinate rightwing soldiery that resists any peace concessions. Ship them straight to the fight. Want to disobey? Go fight then! Just don't take the rest of the country with you.

Why? So Ukrainian people can live. So its current leader can live. So the country is not at risk.