pinball_wizard

joined 2 months ago
[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 80 points 1 day ago (4 children)

"I fight for the user" has been lurking in the hindbrains of so many tech workers since the Tron years, somehow nestling comfortably alongside of the idea that "I don't need a union, I'm a temporarily embarrassed founder."

Oof. I don't like this sentence, because I'm in it.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Fascinating. Thanks for the link.

The first dude seems like a blatant copy of Guile to me, so I had to look up what the court thought:

In spite of the intentional similarities between the two games, the court concluded that Data East did not infringe upon Capcom's copyright, as most of these similarities were not protected under copyright.

Capcom vs Data East

So 100% guilty of being a blatant copy, but not illegal.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 5 points 1 day ago

Are least it's evidence that worry they might need to need to influence anther election.

Silver lining...?

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I wanted to fact check this, but I guess Meta doesn't have a tool for that, anymore. I'll have to accept it at face value.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 18 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

As a developer, we use AI "extensively" because it's currently practically free and we rarely say no to free stuff.

It is, indeed, slightly better than last year's autocomplete.

AI is also amazing at letting non-developers accomplish routine stuff that isn't particularly interesting.

If someone is trying to avoid paying for one afternoon of my time, an AI subscription and months of trial and error are a new option for them. So I guess that's pretty neat.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 12 points 3 weeks ago

Every technology shift creates winners and losers.

There's already documented harm from algorithms making callous biased decisions that ruin people's lives - an example is automated insurance claim rejections.

We know that AI is going to bring algorithmic decisions into many new places where it can do harm. AI adoption is currently on track to get to those places well before the most important harm reduction solutions are mature.

We should take care that we do not gaslight people who will be harmed by this trend, by telling them they are better off.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks for that mental image... Dancing Bear.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 13 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (2 children)

Amazon - the logistics company - is just a front end for (and leech on) various drop shippers, lately, anyway.

Amazon used to carry quality guarantees, and have meaningful reviews, but lately the wild West crapshoot of the rest of the web is just as good.

(And at least on the rest of the web I have some idea who I'm buying from, and can avoid them after a bad experience. On Amazon, it got to where there was no way I could tell.)

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

Controlling people's media experience to push political propaganda that helps powerful people and harms individuals - that seems really shitty.

I can't think of any app developer or political party who would do that.

(This is an attempt at surrealist humor.)

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 14 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago) (1 children)

I'm sure they will grow out of it, by the time they turn 21

(This is intended as an amusing reference to DOGE's habit of hiring surprisingly young professionals.)

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 1 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I would welcome a utility that makes it easy to find donate links for my software packages, based on my Apt, Flatpak, and F-Droid package lists.

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 3 points 4 weeks ago

I'm a developer, so my chances are pretty good. But I take your point.

Even if I weren't, there's enough software options out there that I don't have to pick between paying for proprietary software and living with abandonware.

So I think the need for this security is exaggerated.

Of course. I used proprietary software for a long time. Having things I relied on get abandoned got old, but it worked.

I just expect more from most of my software, now.

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