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Defense Department signs OpenAI for $200 million 'frontier AI' pilot project


OpenAI Public Sector LLC, San Francisco, California, has been awarded a fixed amount, prototype, other transaction agreement (HQ0883-25-9-0012) with a value of $200,000,000. Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains. The work will be primarily performed in the National Capital Region with an estimated completion date of July 2026. Fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $1,999,998 are being obligated at time of award. Office of the Secretary of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, Washington D.C., is the contracting activity.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/4218062/



Defense Department signs OpenAI for $200 million 'frontier AI' pilot project


OpenAI Public Sector LLC, San Francisco, California, has been awarded a fixed amount, prototype, other transaction agreement (HQ0883-25-9-0012) with a value of $200,000,000. Under this award, the performer will develop prototype frontier AI capabilities to address critical national security challenges in both warfighting and enterprise domains. The work will be primarily performed in the National Capital Region with an estimated completion date of July 2026. Fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $1,999,998 are being obligated at time of award. Office of the Secretary of Defense Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, Washington D.C., is the contracting activity.

https://www.defense.gov/News/Contracts/Contract/Article/4218062/


in reply to IndustryStandard

Anyone know the missiles fired to landing ratio? I figure it's got to be a large number of missiles/drones to get through the various missile defense systems.
in reply to zigzag

Iran fires a wave of drones first and then time the rockets to land simultaneously.

Iran has multiple missiles, cheaper ballistic ones which follow an arc trajectory, and hyper-sonic ones which are more actively guided

The hypersonic missiles seem to get through frequently.

The ballistic missiles and drones mostly get intercepted, however the goal of those is to deplete interception missile stocks. It is rumored Israel will run out of those in around 12 days.

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)


The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice


Cross-posted from "The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice" by @Pro@programming.dev in !technology@lemmy.world



The end of Windows 10 is approaching, so it's time to consider Linux and LibreOffice


#tech

in reply to cm0002

*In mice

God I’m kinda sick of the clickbait headlines

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)


A great music player for children


I share with the community a great music player for children based on an ESP32; my 4yo son loves it and i'm totally free to choose the content of it and the stories I upload on it.
Chock-resistant...volume control to protect his ears...
A really good invention 😀

in reply to Stamets

If you read from left to right this map starts off pretty accurate and gets progressively more unhinged

in reply to Deceptichum

What’s kind of sad is the Sumerian invention of writing was as much about enforcing debt, taxation, property, and thereby creating a strong heirarchical upper class that wouldn’t have been possible in stateless systems.
Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)



William Fitzsimmons - Gold In The Shadow (2011)


Quello che traspare fin dalle prime note di Gold in the Shadow è una particolare e marcata intimità. Lo stile dato dalla voce e dalla sonorità raffinata, lieve e crepuscolare di William Fitzsimmons, suggeriscono un viaggio emotivo nei meandri del suo, del nostro ‘essere’... Leggi e ascolta...


William Fitzsimmons - Gold In The Shadow (2011)


immagine

Quello che traspare fin dalle prime note di Gold in the Shadow è una particolare e marcata intimità. Lo stile dato dalla voce e dalla sonorità raffinata, lieve e crepuscolare di William Fitzsimmons, suggeriscono un viaggio emotivo nei meandri del suo, del nostro ‘essere’... (Continua a leggere: artesuono.blogspot.com/2014/07…)


Ascolta: album.link/i/1476081042


HomeIdentità DigitaleSono su: Mastodon.uno - Pixelfed - Feddit




How to Dress and Undress your Home



Unknown parent

lemmy - Collegamento all'originale
geneva_convenience

You know what, I checked his most recent video

youtu.be/DB8eC0sd-jA

And for the first time ever I saw him putting not only the blame on Netanyahu but mention Israel multiple times. Not more than Netanyahu, but he has now started to mention Israel.

So you are correct and I will now delete this post.

in reply to geneva_convenience

This is so goddamn pedantic it's not even funny. He literally starts his press release "No War in Iran" with "following Israel's military strikes..."

Netanyahu is the face of an authoritarian government. It's just as valid to say "we need to stop Netanyahu" as it is to say "we need to stop Trump" or "we needed to stop Hitler"

Obviously, the system that supported and enabled the authoritarianism and genocide needs to be fixed. But it starts from the top. It starts with the very public, very human, very deposable face of the regime.

It's much easier to rally specifically against a dictator than it is to rally generally against the system of government that he controls, especially because it helps make one thing clear - Israelis themselves can help make that happen.

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)


Someone lost 20 years worth of Pokemon when trying to transfer data from Switch 1 to Switch 2


I've never transferred Pokemon between gens and I've never used Pokemon Home, but it seems wild to me to be so invested into such a fickle storage system. Thoughts and prayers for the guy affected
in reply to Internet

Is there no way to backup your saves before attempting the transfer? Like just copy the save file?
in reply to MangoPenguin

Nope, the switch only keeps saves on the internal storage or synced to their cloud if you pay for it. When doing transfers between devices like this there is no copy option only a move and delete.

There are some legitimate reasons they want to prevent this like preventing users from duplicating items in multiplayer games, etc. Even if you got access to the files they are encrypted so that only your user can use them.

I think the bigger reason they do this is there are occasionally exploits that are done through corrupted saves. So preventing the user from importing their own saves helps protect the switch from getting soft modded.

If you mod your switch you can get access to the save files and since it has full access it can also decrypt them, so that you can back them up. One of several legitimate reasons to mod your switch.

in reply to greyfox

That's wild, I've been a PC gamer my whole life and I couldn't imagine not being able to just copy/paste files around.
in reply to greyfox

Another case of piracy having far superior user experience compared to the legal, honest way of playing the game, not because piracy is intrinsically better but because the publisher deliberately makes the official experience as inconvenient and exploitative as possible.

I used to have a git repo in my emulator's save directory so I could have checkpoints that I can restore to if I ever get stuck.

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)
in reply to HiddenLayer555

Yeah it is pretty bad when an emulator offers a better experience than even a modded Switch.

Easy to load your choice of directory sync tool (i.e. NextCloud Sync Client/Synology Drive Client/etc, or Google Drive/OneDrive if you are on Windows) pointed at your emulators save directory and have your own automatic cloud sync that you have full control over, built in versioning, the works.

in reply to greyfox

AFAIK Pokemon doesn't do cloud saves.

The reason being to prevent duplication of Pokemon.

Given that the game is largely single player that seems like a stupid reason to me.

While I'm sure some people do a lot of breeding and IV training for the more competitive scene, be assume lots of people just hack together whatever team they need. Wonder Trade and Home have always been full of random shiny Pokemon.

in reply to Internet

Does Pokemon have microtransactions now? If so, I wouldn't be surprised if they deliberately made the transfer mechanism buggy so some kid loses all their Pokemon and their parents are forced to buy them back to get them to stop crying.
in reply to HiddenLayer555

It wouldn't work that way. Individual Pokemon are made up of many stat values that make them much more unique than gacha characters and skins. My Espeon from Gale of Darkness can't be replaced with another Espeon.
in reply to HiddenLayer555

No, they just charge a yearly fee for Home (which allows you to transfer). Pokemon Go (owned by the murderous Saudi royal family now, thanks Niantic) has tons of micro transactions.


in reply to zedgeist

Boycott Divest Sanction.

bdsmovement.net/Guide-to-BDS-B…



deleted


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Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)
in reply to sso0rrllo

It is absolutely a great idea. These shit phones are fucking dangerous.

They're completely different, depending on your needs. Some work easily for those without tech knowledge or very strict needs at usability, some are for privacy enthusiasts or endangered people and some are for techies who want to advance humanity.

I suggest trying on an older phone you already have or buying a used one.

Generally, i suggest not buying new at all, as a form of protest, anyway.

in reply to sso0rrllo

If you own a Pixel, then yes. Otherwise don't. Use uad-ng


in reply to skribe

Luigi is white and they’re trying to send him to the gallows.

I think him being conservative is the factor here.

Although I agree if he weren’t white he would be treated way worse…

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)


Tinder now lets you go on double dates


Crossposted from rss.ponder.cat/post/208519


Tinder is no longer just a platform for solo dates. The company has announced a new “Double Date” feature rolling out in the US that will let you invite a friend to find — and match with – another pair.

The feature lives within a new “Double Date” icon in the top-right corner of the app, where you can invite up to three friends to create pairs with. You can both scroll through a feed of paired profiles, which appear side by side with photos and descriptions. A match is created when one person from both pairs swipes right. Tinder will then open up a group chat with all four users.

The update should help Tinder gain an edge over rivals as the dating app industry continues to experience a slump. It will also allow Tinder to compete directly with platforms built for double dates, like Doubble and Fourplay.

Cleo Long, Tinder’s head of product marketing, told The Verge that the platform has been testing the feature in Europe for a “couple of months,” adding that it’s meant to help relieve dating pressure, especially among younger users. “This is a social-first experience that’s really meant to help relieve some of the pressure that we know a lot of Gen Z experiences with dating by making it more social, more fun, and bringing your friends in to help reinforce that comfort piece,” Long said.

Double Dates builds on some of the other social features Tinder has rolled out in recent years, including a feature that lets you share the details of your dates with other people, as well as a way for friends or family members to find matches for you.

Tinder plans on rolling out Double Dates globally in July.


From The Verge via this RSS feed



UC San Francisco fired me for speaking out against genocide, but as a physician I could not remain silent


#USA


Lingvoj en la eŭropa vojkruciĝo

Denove malsukcesis la provo oficialigi ĉe EU tri regionajn lingvojn de Hispanio. La decido postulas unuanimecon. Spite longajn intertraktadojn en la kulisoj, reprezentantoj de pluraj landoj en ministra kunveno fine de majo kontraŭis la proponon. Nicolau Dols klarigas la fonon kaj la argumentojn.

liberafolio.org/2025/06/17/lin…

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)

Verda Majorano reshared this.



‘No Kings’ protests stir US as Trump celebrates birthday with military parade – in pictures


cross-posted from: lemmy.ml/post/31810747

Julius Constantine Motal
Sat 14 Jun 2025 19.58 EDT



‘No Kings’ protests stir US as Trump celebrates birthday with military parade – in pictures


Julius Constantine Motal
Sat 14 Jun 2025 19.58 EDT


#USA



The Naked Gun | Official Trailer (2025 Movie) - Liam Neeson, Pamela Anderson


Holy shitsnacks, guys!



in reply to RubberDuck

Maybe this is the nuclear winter that will cancel out global warming
in reply to Boomer Humor Doomergod

I forget the title but there’s a sci-fi story where there’s a galactic council between sentient creatures but they don’t invite newly discovered sentient species to the council until they survive the milestone where most sentient species nuke themselves out of existence
in reply to RubberDuck

Maybe the nations belligerently bombed by Israel should begin issuing their own evac orders? "We are going to do something nasty. Please don't be inside overnight on Monday" and then bomb something minor.

Repeat weekly, different day each time. Something small.

Week 11 say Thursday, really wreck some stuff the day before with no injuries, and say "oops".

Repeat until they fucking get it.




Prosecutors say suspect targeted four Minnesota lawmakers during shooting spree


Federal prosecutors say Vance Boelter went to the homes of four Minnesota lawmakers with “the intent to kill them.” They also released images of the guns, ammo, mask and notebooks they say Boelter used to plan and carry out the attack. NBC News’ Maggie Vespa spoke with a witness who says she alerted police after spotting a man she believes was Boelter in the hours before his arrest.


Morro Peak, Jasper NP


Covering a lot of elevation in a short span, this #hike has you wrap around the sheer wall face before ascending to the large bald above the Athabasca river valley. While moderate, the 2k ft gained in less than 2 miles (3.4 total) leads to some steep sections. Hiked 5/11/25

The view to the west towards Jasper from the viewpoint on top of Morro peak.

A nice viewpoint if you can stand it as you wrap back down along the cliff face. While steep and loose, the trail here is four feet wide so it's easy to look away from the open drop below.

Looking up at Morro peak. The trail goes up the left side until around the tree line before crossing to the rught and up and then wrapping up the right edge of the rock wall.



गाजा गोलीबारी: भोजन वितरण केंद्र के पास इजरायली सैनिकों ने की गोलीबारी, 37 फलस्तीनियों की मौत


Gaza News: गाजा में सोमवार को गाजा गोलीबारी की ताजा घटना ने एक बार फिर मानवीय संकट को उजागर किया। इजरायली सैन्य नियंत्रित क्षेत्र में भोजन वितरण केंद्र के पास हुई गोलीबारी में कम से कम 37 फलस्तीनी मारे गए। गाजा स्वास्थ्य मंत्रालय के अनुसार, 33 लोग भोजन केंद्र तक पहुंचने की कोशिश में मारे गए, जबकि चार अन्य जगहों पर हताहत हुए। प्रत्यक्षदर्शियों ने बताया कि सैनिकों ने भीड़ को नियंत्रित करने के लिए गोलीबारी की, जिससे भगदड़ मच गई।

बार-बार हो रही हिंसा


11 जून को भी ऐसी ही एक घटना में 36 फलस्तीनी मारे गए थे, जब इजरायली सेना ने राहत सामग्री लेने की कोशिश कर रहे लोगों पर गोली चलाई। गाजा ह्यूमैनिटेरियन फाउंडेशन के सहायता स्थलों के पास अब तक 200 से अधिक लोग मारे गए और 1600 से ज्यादा घायल हो चुके हैं। इन केंद्रों को इजरायल और अमेरिका ने हमास द्वारा सहायता चोरी रोकने के लिए शुरू किया था, लेकिन संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने इसे अप्रभावी बताया है।

भुखमरी का संकट


इजरायल की नाकाबंदी और सैन्य कार्रवाइयों ने गाजा को अकाल के कगार पर ला खड़ा किया है। खाद्य सामग्री, दवाइयां और बिजली की कमी ने लाखों लोगों का जीवन संकट में डाल दिया। एक स्थानीय निवासी ने कहा, “हम भोजन के लिए जान जोखिम में डालते हैं, लेकिन गोलीबारी हमें रोक देती है।” संयुक्त राष्ट्र ने चेतावनी दी है कि बिना तत्काल सहायता के भुखमरी से बड़े पैमाने पर मौतें हो सकती हैं।

अंतरराष्ट्रीय अपील


संयुक्त राष्ट्र के मानवाधिकार प्रमुख वोल्कर तुर्क ने गाजा गोलीबारी की निंदा करते हुए युद्ध समाप्त करने की अपील की। उन्होंने कहा कि फलस्तीनियों पर हो रही हिंसा अस्वीकार्य है। गाजा में अब तक 50,000 से अधिक लोग मारे जा चुके हैं। इजरायल का कहना है कि वह हमास को निशाना बना रहा है, लेकिन नागरिकों की मौतें चिंता का विषय बनी हुई हैं। अधिक जानकारी के लिए संयुक्त राष्ट्र की वेबसाइट देखें।

#conflict #gaza



Bazzite won't display to my external monitor


Hello there.

I’m a newbie to Linux and am still figuring everything out. I posted here a few days ago and you fine folks helped me with a problem. Now I’m in need again.

I decided to distro hop a little bit just to see what I like best, and am currently testing out Bazzite since I mostly use my PC for gaming at the moment and heard that one’s a good one for gaming. I’m using a laptop hooked up to an external monitor right now. After installing Bazzite I was asked what I wanted to do with the external monitor. Since I never use my laptop screen, I chose the option to only display on the external monitor. Unfortunately that didn’t seem to play nice, and now my laptop screen is black (obviously) but the external monitor is saying no input anymore. It accepted the input up until making that choice. Now I can unplug the monitor and use the laptop screen just fine, but my setup makes that quite annoying, plus I want to use my monitor obviously. The biggest problem is I can’t adjust the monitor settings without the monitor plugged in, and I can’t see anything with the monitor plugged in. Does anyone know of a solution to this problem? I’ve never faced it before in my years of using windows, and I didn’t have this problem in Mint either. I don’t really want to reinstall, but I will if I have to. If anyone knows of a solution without reinstalling I’d appreciate it. Thanks in advance.

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)


[NYT Opinion] Our Bridges Are Old, Our Grid Is on the Fritz and Soon America Will Be Obsolete


archive.is/ymSbq#selection-441…

CW For a lot of liberalism

By Jigar Shah and Raj Pannu
Mr. Shah is a co-host of “Open Circuit,” a podcast on the energy transition. Mr. Pannu is the C.E.O. of Emergence Creative, an advertising agency dedicated to social impact.

Most Americans don’t think about infrastructure unless it fails. But when it does, it’s personal. When subways stall or highways clog, you’re late for work. When a bridge closes, your commute reroutes into chaos. When the storm drain overflows, your basement floods. And when transmission lines fail, the power goes out, leaving homes sweltering, grocery shelves empty and businesses offline.


Weak infrastructure makes your life just a little bit worse.
The United States is sleepwalking into an infrastructure crisis — one that will quietly degrade our quality of life and kneecap our ability to compete in the global economy. It’s not just the older infrastructure that’s in need of repair and replacement; it’s also support for the new systems, such as artificial intelligence.

The crisis calls for a national recommitment to modernization — not as a partisan project, but as a precondition for global competitiveness, national security and basic dignity in daily life. And while responsibility ultimately lies with Congress, it’s also with all of us who understand the stakes.

Today, the average U.S. bridge is over 40 years old, and about 42,000 of them are structurally deficient. Our ports are among the least automated in the industrialized world, leading to higher costs and dangerous pollution in nearby communities.

And America’s grid is stretched thin. In the wintertime last year, about two-thirds of the country faced elevated risks of blackouts, according to the North American Electric Reliability Corporation. We can’t move electricity from areas with excess capacity to where it’s needed because we haven’t built enough transmission lines. And in a world increasingly powered by machine intelligence, if your power goes out, your economy goes offline.

The demand for electricity is rising fast. Training a single large-scale A.I. model now requires as much electricity as a large, urban American neighborhood uses in a year. Data centers, which power everything from those language models to advanced simulations, are projected to consume about 10 percent of the U.S. electricity supply by 2030 — up from around 2 percent today. A new report from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation finds that these facilities are an emerging threat to grid stability because they pull huge amounts of power at unpredictable times. The grid wasn’t built for this. Unless we expand energy generation and build out transmission aggressively, the lights will start to flicker on our future prosperity.

Shaky infrastructure isn’t just a problem for the tech sector. As the United States scrambles to bring back manufacturing, the infrastructure undergirding it is nowhere near ready. More than 920 new or expanded manufacturing facilities have been announced since 2021, projects to make semiconductors, electric vehicles, batteries, critical minerals processing and other components here at home.

For a moment, it seemed like America was serious about modernizing its infrastructure: The Biden administration tried to accelerate permitting, improve transmission planning and unlock hundreds of billions of dollars in federal funding for upgrades. There was real momentum.

Since then, the repeated brinkmanship over government funding and debt ceilings — and short-term budget deals that gut long-term investments — have thrown these gains into limbo. Funding for key offices at the Department of Energy and Department of Transportation have been delayed. The House of Representatives’ proposal to rescind billions in clean energy tax credits and claw back unspent Inflation Reduction Act funds has further chilled investor confidence.

Developers are pausing contracts, and clean energy projects, which help improve the resilience and efficiency of our energy system, are in limbo. According to E2, a nonpartisan group representing business leaders, more than 13,000 clean energy jobs have been lost since the beginning of 2025, largely because of delays and uncertainty. Billions in investment have been held back as projects have stalled. The result? Momentum is lost — possibly for a long time.

The new budget reconciliation deal before the Senate makes these infrastructure bottlenecks worse. It strips away hard-fought gains made under the Biden administration’s agenda — delaying transmission reform, gutting support for fast electricity deployment and muddying the waters for public-private investment. The signal to industry is clear: America can’t make up its mind.

All this is happening while our rivals are building fast. China will spend $138 billion on A.I., robotics and smart infrastructure as part of its “Made in China 2025” plan. Europe is modernizing its ports, roads and digital networks to stay competitive.

some-controversy

Upgrading the infrastructure that underpins American competitiveness should start with the grid. A national transmission strategy must be a cornerstone of economic policy to integrate clean energy generation, large-scale batteries and flexibility. Without it, we can’t move power where it’s needed when it’s needed, and our most promising technologies will die.
We also must ensure that American innovation stays on American soil. Federal investment should focus on scaling technologies invented here, such as advanced nuclear reactors, clean ammonia production, critical minerals processing and next-generation battery chemistry. They are the industrial building blocks of a clean, resilient future, and without strategic government backing, they will be built elsewhere.

Finally, the permitting process, which requires the coordination of federal, state and local agencies, needs to reflect the urgency of the moment. Projects that cut emissions, lower costs and build resilience shouldn’t be forced to wait a decade for approval. Streamlined, sensible permitting reform is essential to unlocking private capital and accelerating deployment.

The infrastructure investments of the past four years represent the most significant progress since the Eisenhower era. But they are neither guaranteed nor permanent. If Congress and the Trump administration don’t act now, we won’t just cede economic advantage. We’ll see energy costs spike, more frequent power outages and investors pushing their companies to scale up in Asia. America will be left with 20th-century tools in a 21st-century world and will once again be left buying back its own inventions.

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)


Industrial Socialism - by William Haywood & Frank Bohn, 1911 (Full Book)


A short and well written book (about 60 pages) that encapsulates the ideas of socialism quite well in a plain and easily understandable manner, with the issues of 1911 mirroring our current predicament well.

Excerpt:

When the worker gets his first job the world about him takes off its mask. He sees it as it is. Hours are long and most work is monotonous. Any child or young person naturally very much dislikes this first harsh experience of the world of the working class. His games and fun-making are given up. His physical growth is stunted and his mind dwarfed more or less. Long ago nearly all of the young men who went to work for wages began by learning a trade. This trade was very often extremely interesting to them. It educated their minds and developed their bodies. If they were apprenticed at eighteen, then, perhaps at twenty one, they were sure of steady work and good wages. Today very few of the working people learn a trade. They work in some factory, store or office at tasks which they perform as well in a month as they do in ten years. If the young wage earner is vigorous in mind and body he revolts at this labor and makes a desperate struggle to secure an education or otherwise make it possible for himself to rise out of the working class. The stronger and healthier his body and the keener his mind, the harder does he fight. But he finds, except in very rare instances, that the doors of opportunity are closed to the children of the >workers.

If the young worker learns one of the trades which still remain in modern industry, he finds after he has learned it that it also is being abolished by the invention of new machinery. He may go to night school and complete a course of study, or take a correspondence course in mechanics or some other form of applied science. If he does he will discover that his knowledge, gotten at such sacrifice of time, savings and effort, will not raise his wages. There are now so many educated poor people that their pay is on the average much less than that of skilled workers in the trades. Another hope of the young workers, men and women, is to save money and start in some small business. Others have risen and become wealthy. Why not they? So, by giving up all pleasures, by overwork and pitiful economies, does the young worker make his start in business. If he has been fortunate enough not to lose his money through some bank swindle, he at last, after years of effort, tries his luck. The best data we have show that more than nine-tenths of those who engage in small business fail utterly. The small portion who "succeed" do so by working night and day, Sundays and holidays. Even they make but meager livings, no better on the average than the wage-workers.

Questa voce è stata modificata (3 mesi fa)


Is there a foss SMS messenger with auto-reply?


I'm looking to direct people to message me on Signal, Matrix, etc.
Any suggestions?
Thanks in advance
in reply to unicornBro

Closest option is watomatic but it only works with whatsapp and Facebook messenger. There are talks about expanding it to support other platforms



in reply to zabadoh

Spooky dooky! I sure hope Chairman Winnie the Pooh doesn't use the Sapir-Worf Hypothesis on us!

Wouldn't OP, should they learn a second language, still have access to their mother tongue? If so, I'm not entirely convinced learning Mandarin is going to have a doubleplusungood effect on their thinking paradigms. Please correct me if I'm looking at things from the wrong angle, however!

in reply to SplashJackson

OP here. Chinese is not my second language, it’s gonna be my sixth one once I learn it (not counting French because I gave up on that one). I am not sentimental about any of them


Gamepad desktop controls


I'm looking for a package that will let me use a gamepad as a mouse for a PC getting hooked up to a tv. Does anyone have any good recommendations?
in reply to Hozerkiller

Try using a PS4 controller. The touchpad works as a mouse.

I'd also recommend getting a wireless keyboard + mouse combo.



Bad brainwaves: ChatGPT makes you stupid


in reply to David Gerard

Posted this on a Discord I'm in - one of the near immediate responses was "I'm glad they made a non-invasive procedure to lobotomise people".

Nothing more to add, I just think that's hilarious



Is Matrix cooked?


In today's episode of Kill The Messenger, Matrix co-founder Matthew Hodgson reveals how full of bullshit is the writer of the original article.

The messages were published in the Office of the Matrix.org Foundation room: matrix.to/#%2F%21sWpnrYUMmaBrl…

paper.wf/alexia/matrix-is-cook… is fascinatingly incorrect
Until the 6th of November 2023 when they—in their words—moved to a different repository and to the AGPL license. In reality, the Foundation did not know this was coming, and a huge support net was pulled away under their feet.

fwiw, the Foundation had a front-row seat in the fact that Element (as incorporated by the folks who created Matrix) had donated $$M to the Foundation over the years, but wasn't going to survive if it kept giving all its work away as apache-licensed code - which in turn would have been catastrophic for the Foundation.

Yes, the high expenses for the Matrix.org homeserver are largely because they are still managed by Element, just not as donated work but instead like with any other customer.

nope, Element passes the hardware costs (and a fraction of the people costs) of running the matrix.org server to the Foundation without any overheads or markup at all.

Either way it shows that Element is seemingly cashing in on selling ,Matrix to governments and B2B as a SaaS solution without it going back to the foundation

Element has literally put tens of millions into the foundation, and is continuing to do so - while some of the costs get passed to the Foundation, Element donates a bunch too (e.g. by funding a large chunk of the Matrix conference as the anchor sponsor, and by donating time all over the place to help support trust & safety etc)

At the same time I can't help but think that this could have been prevented. Even Matthew himself recognizes that putting the future on Matrix on the line with VC funding and alike was not the best idea for the health of Matrix.

No, even Matthew knows that Matrix would never have been funded without routing the VC funding from Element into... building Matrix. We tried to fund it originally purely as a non-profit, but failed (just as it's a nightmare to raise non-profit for the Foundation today even now that Matrix exists and is successful!). If you need to raise serious $ for an ambitious project, you either need to get lucky with a billionaire (as Signal did with Brian Acton) or you have to raise on the for-profit side. Perhaps it would have have been best for Matrix to grow organically, but I suspect that if it did, it would have failed miserably - instead, it succeeded because we already had a team of ~12 people who could crack on and jump-start it if they could work on it as their dayjob; the team who subsequently founded Element.

Ultimately, for-profit companies will do what makes them profit, not what's the best option. Unless the best option happens to coincide with making the most profit.

No, Element is not profitable. Nor is it trying to maximise profit. Right now it's trying to survive and get sustainable and profit-neutral (i.e. break-even) - while doing everything it can to help keep Matrix healthy and successful too (given if Matrix fails, Element fails too).

Unfortunately, supporting the foundation through anything more than “in spirit” and a platinum membership is out of their budget, apparently. I think that morally they owe a lot more than that.

wow.

the FUD level is absolutely astonishing, and I really wonder what the genesis of this is

so, absolutely, spectacularly, depressing

this, my friends, is why we can't have nice things.


In response to an other person suggesting that the publisher is also known as a reasonable person on the platform:

Interesting, the matrix handle that seems behind this blog seems always to have been quite a reasonable person

somewhat why i’m wondering what the backstory is, and whether this is an unfortunate example of spicy lies outpacing the boring truth



UK police working with controversial tech giant Palantir on real-time surveillance network


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.