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GlassHalfHopeful

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Let go and let entropy. 🌌

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Under Israeli Bombs, a Wartime Economy Emerges in Gaza ( www.nytimes.com )

In the seven months since Israel started bombarding Gaza and imposed a siege in response to the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, the enclave’s economy has been crushed. People have been forced to flee their homes and jobs. Markets, factories and infrastructure have been bombed and flattened. Farmland has been scorched by airstrikes or...

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Is this good...? Do they have enough influence to make a difference.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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I wonder if he's the kind of maniacal leader that puts maintaining power and control first because he genuinely believes he has a plan to better his people, or...

is he's the maniacal leader that puts maintaining power and control first because... power and control are simply all that matters...

I wonder which is more dangerous.

I wonder if it matters at this point.

Netflix Windows app is set to remove its downloads feature, while introducing ads ( www.techradar.com )

Netflix has managed to annoy a good number of its users with an announcement about an upcoming update to its Windows 11 (and Windows 10) app: support for adverts and live events will be added, but the ability to download content is being taken away....

GlassHalfHopeful , (edited )
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It's possible that the move means Netflix can save some money on licensing, which may cost extra if downloads are included – enabling users to take shows and movies around with them and watch them without an internet connection.

Maximize profit. Good for them. Never good for us. Never.

Why is it so terrible to build a company that people love?

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Trunk Monkey Mobile would have been better. 🐒

GlassHalfHopeful , (edited )
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Hell of a cliff hanger for a paid article.

"Scientists find three ancient viruses. They think they can infect modern human cells with them." The end.

Wtf. Are they gonna accidentally murder humanity next? What happens after?! Are we gonna die!?

To be continued...

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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I love ads. I love what Microsoft and the likes are doing.

Said no one ever

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Haha. Are you telling me that we all don't mutually love these attempts to personalize advertisements? There's nothing better than knowing our personal information is being used for our benefit this way. Look at films like Blade Runner. I can't wait to have bright fluorescent ads on every corner and open space.

Without these things, how else am I going to know which medication I should be insisting my doctor prescribe me? And clearly this insurance company with the funny ad is totally going to be there on my side when something happens. That's why they made the commercial, duh. So I would absolutely be certain I can trust them to quickly and fully process a claim.

There's nothing cozier than the snug embrace of consumerism, where we find a peculiar warmth, as if cocooned in a comforter spun from the very fibers of advertising's allure.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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I honestly find this incredible, but yeah... I know people who enjoy being advertised to... and who like "shopping" even though they start out with nothing in mind. Advertising works on them and probably those spam emails I can't believe people click, which only perpetuates the problem. And apparently it's worth billions to keep up the commercialization.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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😭😭😭

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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The portal is a genuinely fun idea. I'd love to see those all around!

But... people being people got to ruin all the fun. So... I don't suppose I'll be seeing one of these any time soon.

Blah.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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But will they learn...

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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My hope is that companies would learn from the brain drain side effects in the long run. You're absolutely right that greater profit is what drives this and it was intentional, but it is short-sighted.

The company I work for just terminated a substantial percentage of its workforce. It was done without truly understanding the effect on many programs. I'm now standing on a desert island, alone, trying to figure out how to continue satisfying a customer with nearly all the knowledge and talent to best do that stripped away. Doing the job of three people was hard enough before. Now I'm doing the job of X people, a variable I can't even adequately quantify now. And a lot of that work is so wildly outside of my sphere of knowledge.

Decisions that these large companies are making are causing side effects that they may not feel for many years, but they will... And it won't matter because those executives have accomplished everything they wanted for themselves in those first moments.

Don't be evil.
Heh.

I really do hope a few of these companies learn. I'd love for people to not be treated as expendable assets that can be ground into dust, but as people to nourish and develop. I'd love to cheer for them. I'd love to contribute to their work.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Genuinely interesting. Perhaps they'd have something to teach us. We humans could use the help. 😏

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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I'd hate to know how they'd feel if they knew how humans would respond to this...

The State Department said that Israel's military campaign in Gaza may have violated international law. ( www.nytimes.com )

The Biden administration has concluded it is “reasonable to assess” that Israel’s military campaign in Gaza has violated international law, but has not found specific instances that would justify the withholding of military aid, the State Department told Congress on Friday....

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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I don't understand how they think citizens can be so stupid as to take these statements at face value.

The government gets away with things because it simply can.

🤬

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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I didn't pick up what you're saying in this particular article.

If so, it seems painfully too little and far too late. More needs to be done and it needs to be done now.

I understand why the relationship between Israel and the US is important. What I don't understand is why the US can't hold them to account at the same time.

It boggles my mind how the government of the United States so easily facilitates atrocities. They can do better. They can be better.

When I hear "Make America Great Again", it seems everyone has lost their minds in terms of what "greatness" truly is.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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I recently read and really enjoyed The Left Hand of Darkness. It's crazy that she wrote such a book back then. Now I'm longing for more books like this.

Today, I'm on (a rare) vacation (yay!). I'm reading through her Earthsea books. When they ended sooner than I expected, I realized they were intended as young adult books. It's not as in depth as other fantasy, but I've enjoyed them nonetheless.

GlassHalfHopeful OP , (edited )
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Makes unfortunate sense. I was also hoping somebody figured out how to liberate it, but I imagined it might be highly tied to the Google app.

  • ChatGPT 3.5 isn't bad.
  • Copilot is... undecided.
  • Gemini I think I like the best in the realm of free AI, but I need to use it in a separate browser (Firefox nightly) and would prefer an app or even a PWA.

Anyway, I felt confident this was the case but people surprise me with how they can manage freeing apps and/or providing separate frontends altogether.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Who lost it? I bet they feel pretty silly now.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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I've no skin in the game related to this device or software. I simply don't care. However, in terms of an AI assistant, I am curious if there is anything on the market, including this APK device, that is worth using. For someone who is privacy centric, advert avoidant, and security focused... does (or even can) such an app/tool exist?

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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What are a couple of the best self hosted options? I wouldn't mind giving it a go on my server. I may not have enough juice with what I currently run, but perhaps as a proof of concept first and then new hardware later.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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So you are using OpenAI's app? Do you have it integrated into your phone? What are the main features that you use (beyond asking questions like one does from their app/site)?

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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huggingface! i found it once and never could remember again who hosted all those models. thank you!

i use a different device than homelab, but now I am curious what I may be able to achieve with my syno system. it's hw weak, so probably not a lot. but i would like to give it a go. if it's decent, i may consider another device for the purpose.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Thank you for all this! Much appreciated!

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Incredible resource! Thanks much. I'm looking forward to playing a bit and seeing how far I can push the hardware I currently have.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Given enough time, other species may evolve and perhaps teach us a thing or two about being better civilized beings.

My money is on the octopi people.

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Ruin

haha! awesome! I haven't read it, but having looked up the plot, I'm now interested. 🙃

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Many octopus species have been shown to have the intelligence of a 7 year old

So about as smart of some former presidents. Awesome!

Besides the fact that it’s a form of intelligence that evolved completely separate from ours

Precisely what I was thinking about when I said that in jest. But seriously, they are incredible creatures!

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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We started episode one, got interrupted, and never finished! Ack! Thanks for the reminder!

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Alright. Grabbed all three books from my local library. Yay!

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Kids always ruining everything. 😏

GlassHalfHopeful ,
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Last I heard, Paramount ditched the show. And I just confirmed it's no longer on their service.

Is Netflix really going to be showing Prodigy again or was that just added for fun?

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