Notices by samir, lost and found (samir@mastodon.functional.computer)

@evan I think there’s more to it. They have outsized influence, not just presence.

Perhaps another term is more useful, then. The UK Competition Act, for example, talks about a “dominant position” in a given market.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1998/41/part/I/chapter/II

@evan I understand that. It’s why I put in my caveat of “companies approximating them”.

@evan I also believe dictionaries are descriptive, and English can change. 🙃

@evan How does it skew when you start looking at revenue and profit, though? How about amount spent on lobbying in rich countries? Influence in standards bodies such as the IETF, W3C, etc?

I don’t think monopolies and duopolies can be defined purely in terms of consumer marketshare.

@evan No, but of all the tech monopolies (or companies approximating them), they may be the least terrible.

This is doubly true for anyone on the Internet. And quadruply true for anyone on the Internet speaking in generalities.

If it’s an American on the Internet speaking in generalities, close the tab immediately.

I have had a much easier time navigating conversations ever since I realised that when people say “you”, they are not talking about you, they’re talking about themselves in the second person.

@dalias @mhoye That’s one of the reasons I don’t use an LLM!

I did try it once, for coding. It lied to me. So I didn’t use it again.

People keep saying “it’s like an intern”. If an intern repeatedly lies to your face, they are bad at the one thing they need to be good at, and I would absolutely forgive you for firing them.

Hey friends, my partner has put together a course to help people with the mental side of landing a tech job. Confidence in interviews, finding stuff that aligns with your values, salary negotiation; that sort of thing.

She’s been a programmer for 15 years and a therapist and coach for a few years now.

She is looking for feedback on the course in exchange for some free coaching on the topic.

If you’re interested, let me know! And boost or forward if you like.

@cwebber hello I am computer, what would you like to computer today

@hipsterelectron @dalias IIRC BSDs (including Darwin/macOS) do too, but Apple relaxed this for their backup tool, Time Machine. You can’t do it yourself though.

When an LLM outputs, “I panicked”, it does not mean it panicked. It means that based on the preceding sentences, “I panicked” was a likely thing to come next.

It means it’s read a lot of fiction, in which drama is necessary.

It didn’t “panic”. It didn’t *anything*. It wrote a likely sequence of words based on a human request, which it then converted into code that matched those words somewhat. And a human, for some reason, allowed that code to be evaluated without oversight.

No, autocorrect, I meant “systemantics”, not “system antics”. The latter is what you get when you ignore the former.

Shit, fam, I’ve lost my coffee.

@revk @neil Evidence strongly implies that quotas work. If you set a minimum diversity quota, on any given axis, it doesn’t just improve your quality (because e.g. women who stay in male-dominated industries tend to be way better than their male counterparts, on average), it also makes people under-represented in the audience more likely to stick around.

So yes, Neil is right to do what he’s trying to do.

An example: https://kjonnsforskning.no/en/2016/10/secret-behind-norways-gender-quota-success

@revk @neil Sure, it was your first sentence that made me feel the need to reply. I hope you are less divided now. 😄

@revk @neil I think it's worth considering the power differential, in the same way that comedians are encouraged to punch up, not down.

@cwebber I love this piece. Thanks for sharing it. I'd not heard of Ink & Switch, and I'm going to enjoy browsing their work. Their spreadsheet ideas are really fascinating.

People seem to be pushing LLMs as the saviour to this problem. I think Lisp and Prolog are probably better answers.

@ryanc @q Only one way to find out.

So, about that bug bounty… I think you have a case.