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oliwarner

7,712 karma · joined May 16, 2012

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oliwarner··on Microsoft and Epic Games Suddenly Agree That AI Is Theft
Epic are gleefully slopping out a new client. Is that theft, Tim?

Weird how this stuff only applies when it's not you doing it.

oliwarner··on US Government is hiding a secret court ruling about how it spies on Americans
If that were the case, they'd have done something about it before. This doesn't appear to be new.
oliwarner··on Meta employees say Lula’s accounts restricted in Brazil election: Report
Facebook: demonstrates obvious risks to democracy

Polymarket: Hold my beer.

oliwarner··on We are all living inside of an obscure sci-fi film from 1970
I think this is almost correct. We're living in the wall of expositious text at the start of an obscure 1970s film.

We don't know what's next except that for most of us in here, it'll be dramatically different, worthy of a 1970s film.

oliwarner··on Show HN: Sumi.css – CSS Framework
Plenty of interfaces mimic a form process. If that's the case, and it's really just a page positional thing (not state), I see no problem making button-based navigation.

We don't scream and shout that page nav links all look like content links, after all. Well, maybe you do, but it's not 1996 any more.

oliwarner··on Plex laid off the whole player team
Given their output of the past two years, perhaps firing them was the right move.

I'm not one to ply Plex with praise. They've concepted and birthed every conceivable mistake in the last two years. But the player is a mess. The whole app is a mess. And because they unified, they're all a mess.

People do deserve to lose their jobs over this. I just hope it was the same people pushing for this crap in the first place.

Now I have to decide: vibe code some alterations to Plezy so I can see more than a few things at a time on the home screen, or move away completely. Anyone else facing this choice, let me know what you're doing.

oliwarner··on Victory! Court Rules OPM Data Disclosure to DOGE Is Unlawful
I'd wait a few years before prosecuting anyone though. Or find some way to withdraw Trump's ability to pardon people for crime he enabled.
oliwarner··on Germany's far-right AfD: half a million internal documents leaked
(Source text not published for this comment)
oliwarner··on Israeli settlers attack olive framers & Washington Post journalist in West Bank
What's also bad about all this is that journos were told to be here by the "settlers". Big international news didn't wake up that day and all decide to go to the same place, they were invited.

The settlers know what they're doing and know how it looks internationally. While the IDF, government of Israel, and the Israelis who vote for it all vote for this, they consider themselves bulletproof. They're bragging as they ruin these Palestinians' lives.

Just like Iran, this is extremism that has to be fixed internally at a very low level, but it also looks like they're just getting started. I'd make historical comparisons but I don't need to. As standalone events, these are bad enough to require action.

oliwarner··on Tesla Roadster
I'm sure the roads I drive must be different from yours, but when I started driving a Tesla in traffic, it felt like you can just teleport into spaces. The threshold for being able to overtake and pull into traffic without obstructing is so much lower.

Of course, it's also less safe. But the threat of a quick death in a lithium fire is the only reason some of us get up in the morning.

oliwarner··on Lobbying
> Lobbying is how businesses talk to government.

And if it were just talk, I think people would understand, but it's the mode of discussion, and obvious quid-pro-quos that make it so alien and unpalatable to the actual electorate. And by that I mean everything that isn't a discussion in your office or theirs, with the same treatment they'd have were they to meet with a voter. A cup of coffee and some homemade cake, wonderful. An expense-paid weeklong fishing expo in Bermuda? Nah.

It's hard to have this conversation while the current US administration pillages everything not screwed down and openly give themselves immunity from prosecution, but lawmakers at all levels of all branches should serve the electorate, not themselves. That's the job.

I'm sure your company only does positive, representative things, but the relationship some of your peers have with politicians and judges is unacceptable.

oliwarner··on High Diesel Prices Bankrupted 16 Trucking Companies in Just 30 Days
I sure wonder what the US would look like if they started levying these costs on trucking.

The coasts would be fine, but getting stuff in and out of interior states would instantly hyperinflate.

oliwarner··on Open Source as We Know It Is Dead
> Nowadays, you probably don't have the community to push back and converse with

Why do you think this? People still use open source software and most of them don't immediately turn to a LLM if things aren't working for them, or they want additional features. They have to ask.

What has changed immensely is support. Stack Overflow sites are dead. Forums still get traffic but the impetus to sign up used to be "help me!". LLMs are doing all this work now.

The drive is going remain engaging with people, getting donations, taking about stuff. But I suspect the route into these communities is going to have to evolve.

oliwarner··on Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage
How large? What's the total floor area in cricket pitches?
oliwarner··on Improper redaction reveals Google Data Center water and electricity usage
It's helpful when journos put things in terms the layman can relate to.

I had no idea what 13 million gallons of water was until they pointed out it was like when I filled up my olympic swimming pool 20 times. That was a slow summer.

Given the pressure construed on resources, why not use personal or household usage averages?

Maybe ~450 people-years doesn't have the same impact as Olympic pools.

oliwarner··on Effect 4.0
Absolutely, but there's so little context offered to derive actual meaning. If you already know, it's probably a lot easier.

And if multiple people are wondering what something fundamentally is, perhaps it's the pitch, not the people.

oliwarner··on Redditor buys used CPU, turns out it was banned on Valorant and they are SoL
So this is bullshit, right? We're all going along like it really happened but it doesn't smell right.

If they only bought a CPU and CPUs don't have serial IDs (since P3s and some kooky server CPUs), how could Valorant fingerprint it?

oliwarner··on Effect 4.0
Yes, I read that and left scratching my head. Does it also encabulate?

Really reminded me of this classic pitch (and yes I know it's not the original turbo encabulator).

> More over, whenever fluorescent score motion is required it may also be employed in conjunction with a drawn reciprocation Dingle arm to reduce sinusoidal depleneration. The Retro Encabulator has now reached a high level of development and it's being successfully used in the operation of Millford Trunions. It's available soon wherever Rockwell Automation products are sold.

oliwarner··on Effect 4.0
I'm with the sibling. A library for what? UI, backend, graphing, visual effects? What does this replace?
oliwarner··on I don't want the details
How you can have an informed conversation about change without hearing the problem out?

If you trust someone that much, why are you even in the loop? Why are you badgering them at all? This is just bad management pretending to offer underlings autonomy. As soon as it fails, everyone loses their job.

oliwarner··on Study: Young users (9 to 18Y) ditch Google for AI, with unknown consequences
I still default to Google, but honestly, it's getting close.

The quality of Google has dropped precipitously. Their AI answers are often a horrible misunderstanding of my query, and the SERPs are filled with ads, preferred content providers and sites that have successfully spammed their way to victory despite having no content on the item I'm searching for (fandom has a billion skeleton sites that just hoover up traffic).

LLMs are often wrong, but they feel like they understand. The UX of not having to fight your way to this stop is dramatically more pleasant.

It's hard to see how Google got so bad at this. Perhaps it's a deliberate enshittification to push people at Gemini but it's been sagging so long now I think it's just their trajectory.

oliwarner··on Apple Music to open concert venue in Battersea Power Station
While I agree completely, what else was going to happen?

Malaysians poured £10bn into that hole, and the only tennants who'll give them the smallest chance of recouping that money are trillion dollar multinationals.

It's a shame though. The best shopping centres are the ones full of dodgy little shops but they're long gone in new builds now. Cambridge used to have a few good examples but they've all been pushed out.

oliwarner··on U.S. Small Biz Can't Ship to the EU Anymore
Small businesses in the EU can't ship to the EU.

These new waste charges require administration that put a de facto floor on minimum monthly sales of €300-1500 per-country just to cover PPWR costs. It's insanity.

oliwarner··on AI-generated posters don’t have to be horrible
That's a prompt problem.

If you named a Japanese artist or style rather than giving an adjective derived from a country, you might get something that wasn't national wank.

Yes, a human might do this step for you. A mediocre one might not.

oliwarner··on EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
It's a bit wishy-washy; they're just saying "we're better off working together" not actually doing something.

I can't imaging Canada would be looking to align its standards and laws with the EU. Don't get me wrong, the EU does a lot of things that make it both safer and better, but it makes things more expensive to make, and that only works when there isn't a wild-west next-door-neighbour. It's hard to compete when your biggest and nearest export market has looser labour and product regulations than you.

Of course Canada can do more trade with the EU without broad regulatory alignment, it just seems weird you'd need to announce it.

Please flood the timber market.

oliwarner··on OpenAI bots knew about the RubyGems caching vulnerability
Those provisions are specifically for the breaking or circumvention of technical measures designed to prevent copyright infringement.

I don't see a parallel here.

oliwarner··on OpenAI bots knew about the RubyGems caching vulnerability
A copyright law seems an odd place to start. This is computer misuse.
oliwarner··on Flock cameras used to arrest a child for playing on a swing?
I'm getting really fed up of this. It's it about time we the people rise up and make it clear how appallingly unacceptable it is to hold your lavalier microphone.

But on topic, it's amazing they're getting these things through budget meetings. Are Flock just giving them away in Y1? They're ~$3k including installation and that clip showed several in one area overlapping. Even for legit crime-fighting, that's a lot of taxpayer green on the line for a park.

"We caught the culprits for damaging a $10 swing chain and spent $3000 surveilling them, $200 demanding three settle and $500 prosecuting one in court."

All for doing something that every who's ever been on a swing has done. Everyone involved in taking this to court should personally pay damages and lose their job.

oliwarner··on Why is Google still serving dodgy ads?
It's bizarre to me that there isn't any KYC in advertising. Seemingly any foreign money can buy adverts for anything and redirect traffic.

For a long time, you could host your own adverts, put your own script on third party sites. I'm not sure if this is still a thing but judging from the screenshots, maybe it is. Madness.

If you want to advertise, you should have to prove you're selling what you're advertising in the market you're advertising it in. You should have to prove who you are. If you're caught doing dodgy crap, you should be held responsible.

And if you've taken billions over two decades in advertising, and you don't regularly test the adverts you host, you should be liable for the damage they create.

oliwarner··on My Feed, My Way
> users can opt out of personally recommended content in their default feed and see the friends and creators they choose to follow.

This is huge. This would put turn (eg) Facebook back into what it used to be: a social network where you just see the people you know and follow.

Can't imagine Meta et al will accommodate this willingly.

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