LWD

joined 2 years ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

So your logic would say Mozilla should require all Firefox Beta users to submit to mandatory data collection?

The only consistent through line I see with your reasoning is adherence to what Mozilla preaches from on high. And that concerns me, because Mozilla's ethics have continued tumbling downwards since they started collecting data at all in 2017.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

If you're talking about the distillations, AFAIK they take somebody else's model and run it through their (actually open-source) distiller. I tried a couple of those models because I was curious. The distilled Qwen model is cagey about Tianmen Square, but Qwen was made by Alibaba. The distillation of a US-made model did not have this problem.

(Edit: we're talking about these distillations, right? If somebody else ran a test and posted it online, I'm not privy to it.)

I don't have enough RAM to run the full DeepSeek R1, but AFAIK it doesn't have this problem. Maybe it does.

In case it isn't clear, BTW, I do despise LLMs and AI in general. The biggest issue with their lies (leaving aside every other issue with them for a moment) isn't the glaringly obvious stuff. Not Tianmen Square, and certainly not the "it's woke!" complaints about generating images of black founding fathers. The worst lies are the subtle and insidious little details like agreeableness - trying to get people to spend a little more time with them, which apparently turns once-reasonable people into members of micro-cults. Like cults, perhaps, spme skeptics think they can join in and not fall for the BS... And then they do.

All four students had by now joined their chosen groups... Hugh had completely disappeared into a nine-week Arica training seminar; he was incommunicado and had mumbled something before he left about “how my energy has moved beyond academia.”

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

What exactly makes this more "open source" than DeepSeek? The linked page doesn't make that particularly clear.

DeepSeek doesn't release their training data (but they release a hell of a lot of other stuff), and I think that's about as "open" as these companies can get before they risk running afoul of copyright issues. Since you can't compile the model from scratch, it's not really open source. It's just freeware. But that's true for both models, as far as I can tell.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

DeepSeek imposes similar restrictions, but only on their website. You can self-host and then enjoy relatively truthful (as truthful as a bullshit generator can be) answers about both Tianmen Square, Palestine, and South Africa (something American-made bullshit generators apparently like making up, to appease their corporate overlords or conspiracy theorists respectively).

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

Sponsored, using affiliate links and accepting donations? Somebody better fork this guide before the GitHub gets yanked

Edit: Okay, after looking around at this, something seems... off. Linking to getoffpocket.com?by=lemmy was odd already, but then I noticed that every single service here appears to have a referral link. Even the OneNote link has a referral code stapled onto it:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app?rby=getoffpocket.com%2Fproprietary%2Fmicrosoft-onenote%2F

For some reason, those same UTM links are used for everything, including links to GitHub?
How about no extra query parameters at all?

I'm also surprised there's not even a passing mention to Obsidian and Evernote.

I think I'll stick to searching out my own recs on AlternativeTo

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

You could have just said I wasn't wrong about your intentions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

Up until recently, Labs did not force anyone to submit data to use it.

With your logic, Firefox can also force people to submit data if they use the browser.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

I know it's a 90% chance you don't care how Mozilla wastes its money and are just looking for an excuse to dismiss that one.

But maybe I'm wrong.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/germ-network_we-went-back-to-convex-to-co-host-our-second-activity-7317934307501662210-UQBz

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

That Steve Teixeira guy seems all right. He successfully lead profitable division and fought against his employees getting laid off ....aaaand he's laid off too.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago

Only after I make sure they're legit by running them through FakeSpot NFT Guard.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago

Network TV still has a huge benefit: it's not capable of watching you.

(Not accounting for the smart TVs, which are basically the only kind of TV you can buy now.)

 

cross-posted from: https://programming.dev/post/32339919

The Nectar project offers 'advanced data analysis' using a wide range of sensitive personal information

A controversial US spy tech firm has landed a contract with UK police to develop a surveillance network that will incorporate data about citizens’ political opinions, philosophical beliefs, health records and other sensitive personal information.

Documents obtained by i and Liberty Investigates show Palantir Technologies has partnered with police forces in the East of England to establish a “real-time data-sharing network” that includes the personal details of vulnerable victims, children and witnesses alongside suspects.

Trade union membership, sexual orientation and race are among the other types of personal information being processed.

The project has sparked alarm from campaigners who fear it will trample over Britons’ human rights and “facilitate dystopian predictive policing” and indiscriminate mass surveillance.

Numerous police forces have previously refused to confirm or deny their links with Palantir, citing risks to law enforcement and national security. However, forces in Bedfordshire and Leicestershire have recently confirmed working with the firm.

Liberty Investigates and i have learned that those projects involve processing data from more than a dozen UK police forces and will serve as a pilot for a potential national rollout of the tech giant’s data mining technology — which has reportedly been used by police forces in the US to predict future crimes.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/67010658

Somewhat buried source that Newsweek is using: https://istories.media/en/stories/2025/06/10/telegram-fsb/

 

Somewhat buried source that Newsweek is using: https://istories.media/en/stories/2025/06/10/telegram-fsb/

 

I have an aging (2 years old now) flagship smartphone and basically want a camera that's as decent as the one I already have, but without Google servers getting pinged every time I'm traveling and want to remember where I am - apparently my phone GPS isn't enough, Google Play Services insist they must get involved.

Some ideal requirements would include:

  • ~3x zoom
  • Solid macro photography
  • Optical image stabilization
  • Functional in low light
  • A sensor at least the same size as my phone's (1/1.3")
  • Small enough to fit in some pocket
  • GPS tagging
  • A sub-$800 price tag?

I understand this is a huge ask, and that modern cell phones have a pocket dimension that somehow fits this hardware inside of them, but I figured I may as well check.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/41151237

Arrest of Alejandro Theodoro Orellana comes as federal officials have been defending ICE use of face masks against mounting criticism

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66561434

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66561410

 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66561410

 
 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/66384550

After I noticed Firefox has removed the Pocket branding but kept the Pocket stories, I also noticed the settings screen on the homepage no longer lets you disable sponsored stories or links.

Firefox 115:

Firefox 139:

You can still remove these advertisements, but you have to leave the homepage and dig through the settings to find that option.

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