E
I tried giving the Firefox snap version on #Ubuntu a fair shake, but it just seems constantly broken in new ways. Lately, it's been randomly going into "30 seconds per keypress" mode, apparently some incompatibility with GNOME input methods.
Switching to the Mozilla .deb now to see if this improves things.
Disney is investing $1B in OpenAI, following Warner Music and UMG settlements with Suno/Udio.
Copyright-owning mega-corporations are slowly making their peace with generative AI.
Some big lawsuits (e.g., NYT) are still pending, but the emerging rulebook appears to be a toleration for training, and tightening control of outputs.
Disney is investing in OpenAI and has licensed its iconic characters like Mickey Mouse, Ariel and Iron Man to be used in the Sora AI video generator.
CNBC (www.cnbc.com)
I will, probably, eventually play all the major roguelike deckbuilders. Roguebook (released 2021) is pretty solid, if not extraordinary (the worldbuilding and progression are a bit lacking). Pick it up on sale if you're into the genre (but play Slay the Spire or Dicey Dungeons first if you haven't yet!).
My full review:
Roguelike deckbuilders are one of my favorite indie gaming genres. Definitive titles like Slay the Spire (review) offer 100+ hours of replay value as you explore their combinatorial depths. Roguebook ...
(lib.reviews)
I'm part of their userbase and I wouldn't mind if they were useful features that advance open source AI. Some of the stuff they've done, like llamafile, is useful in that respect.
So far all the _browser_ features I've seen that have shipped were half-baked, buggy, and without a clear user story, and I've disabled them all.
The "AI Window" concept sounds like they're trying to reinvent Open WebUI. That's a very high bar to clear.
It is equating "white" and "native" in its use of statistics, which is the language of ethnonationalism and white supremacy. It calls the march, organized by a fascist with a history of criminal convictions, "heartwarming". The march itself included, of course, a who's who of Europe's shittiest far right politicians.
One thing these folks tend to have in common, though, is that they _really_ don't like being called nazis while they rally for mass deportations.
His blog post here is very explicitly white supremacist and praising fascist Tommy Robinson. The only thing wrong with calling him a nazi is that it doesn't suit his preferred branding.
As soon as I was old enough to travel on my own, London was where I wanted to go. Compared to Copenhagen at the time, there was something so majestic about Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and even the Tube around the turn of the millenium. Not just because their capital is twice as old as ours, but because it endured twice as much, through ...
(world.hey.com)
Musk, his DOGE gang, and Marco Rubio are responsible for a staggering death toll. It should be reason to refuse association with any of Musk's products, but large death tolls become statistics.
In the short doc "Rovina's Choice", Atul Gawande shows what happens when you suddenly withdraw aid that was saving children's lives. You can watch it for free to mobilize that "suicidal empathy".
Atul Gawande writes about the short documentary “Rovina’s Choice,” by Thomas Jennings and Annie Wong, which tells the story of what goes when aid goes.
The New Yorker (www.newyorker.com)
If able, consider donating to the WFP to help. US chapter:
Your gift could be the difference between a child going to bed hungry or eating a nutritious meal. WFP does whatever it takes to deliver lifesaving food to children and families most in need, wherever they are in the world, by providing meals in schools, during emergencies and in conflict zones.
World Food Program USA (donate.wfpusa.org)
In preparation for this release, I used the `VHS` utility to make scripted short videos for various features. Here are videos showcasing a few core features that were also present in older releases:
- Character cards and user personas
- Message presets (configurable, ships with built-ins)
- Code block highlighting and extraction
See more features in action here:
OpenAI-API compatible terminal chatbot in Rust. Contribute to permacommons/chabeau development by creating an account on GitHub.
GitHub (github.com)
Being able to edit assistant messages is one of those features which I feel builds #LLM literacy -- it can be used to easily demonstrate that the LLM will happy build on whatever you shove into its transcript.
Version 0.6.0 also includes a `chabeau say` command (for quick CLI prompts without launching the full TUI), an obligatory `/clear` command (clear the transcript), a new focus system (tab to switch between input and transcript), and lots of fixes for long text input.
Chabeau 0.6.0 (open source chatbot TUI in #Rust) has been released.
This is another feature-packed release. Most notably, it ships the `/refine` command (quick in-place revision of an assistant response using a prompt) and in-place editing of assistant messages (editing your own messages was already supported).
For now, you still still need Rust tooling to install Chabeau; then you can use `cargo install chabeau` to install it. See https://github.com/permacommons/chabeau
The thing I'm learning about TypeScript is that you can spend a lot of time with TypeScript.
But, I don't hate it. It does feel like it gives real payoffs. Just not nearly as "oh, it's just plain JS at the end, super easy to work with!" as people sometimes make it out to be.
Right now I'm refactoring the https://lib.reviews data access layer to be fully strongly typed, which should make stuff like "review.someAspect = someValue" or "someThing = thing.doSomeWork()" assignments a lot safer.
Detailed investigation from Sky on how X boosts extreme right-wing content into user's feeds. Unsurprising, of course. The bigger question is why so many journalists, politicians and institutions (including SkyNews) feel the need to continue to legitimize X through their presence -- a platform that puts new accounts on a steady feed of hate the moment they sign up.
How the world's richest man is boosting the British right
Sky News (news.sky.com)
Gee, I wonder why billionaires want to control the encyclopedia.
(Kudos to the contributors of this very astute section of Zohran Mamdani's Wikipedia bio.)
Thanks, I responded there 
I understand. I disagree that training ML/AI systems constitutes theft (copyright infringement to _obtain_ training data is a different story), or that their outputs automatically constitute derivative works.
Anyway, if you're looking for alternatives, mangrove.reviews has come a long way and has a nice OSM integration:
Hey Nik - I use various AI coding agents to maintain the project, which has been a great help. However, there are absolutely no plans to use AI to generate _content_ or to allow "slop reviews" on the site; that would defeat the purpose.
That said, judging by your posts on the subject, I'm guessing that's enough for you to turn your back on it, which is fair enough. But I felt it important to clarify the distinction, anyway.
Got my first scam call with a spoofed "Kaiser Permanente" caller ID today. Apparently quite common.
Nice reminder not to put too much automatic faith in any form of "identification".
you've heard of the banality of evil
meet its twin brother, the cowardice of institutions
Although Eugen tends to emphasize "easy sign-up via big instance" more than is healthy, I'd like to think that he'd kick off JD Vance or the DHS. But if necessary, the fediverse at least has the self-defense mechanism of cutting of instances -- even big ones. I know not everyone federates with mastodon.social as it is.
Three weird things about social websites:
1) If you run a a social website, you don't actually have to allow nazis and demagogues to sign up.
2) If the nazis and demagogues sign up anyway, you can kick them out. It sounds weird, I know, but it's totally a thing you can do!
3) If you've signed up for a website and the owner allows nazis and demagogues to sign up, maybe even invites them to do so, you can stop using it any time (provided you have not signed a blood covenant under a full moon).