technology

I know a lot of people suggest Proton and it seems mostly fine, but their free plan does not offer SMTP access which I use for quite a few things and I don't like the idea of paying for an e-mail service because I'm broke and I don't like the idea of potentially losing my e-mail account because I couldn't afford it when it comes time to renew it.

There's Riseup which seems really nice, but it seems you need an invite from an existing user which is also a bummer for me. I took a quick glance at their site and it seems you can't request an account anymore either because they had an issue with spam accounts in the past. :(

Is there anything else that maybe I'm unaware of? or maybe someone here even has a Riseup account that'd be willing to invite me?

Tried LMDE and bazzite nvidia, but I just could not for the life of me get Optimus gpu switching on my 7640u laptop from lenovo to play nice.

I am going all AMD for my next desktop, but I am frustrated and tired with

SOMEBODY CALL NINE-ONE-ONE

SHAWTY FIYA BURNIN' ON THE DANCE FLOOR

WHOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

It's a full-frame mirror-less camera designed and assembled by hand. The recent video about this project is truly insane if you're interested in electronics DIY.

Up until 3 years ago I guess (thought it was more recent tbh), it would show blurry images instead of vector maps and satellite, but it looks like it's detailed now.

Previously I think Google had to comply with some protectionist policy that South Korea had in place so that people would use South Korean maps, or something like that.

https://archive.ph/i3X1L

I am interested in a PC drawing tablet but know nothing about them. I've heard past generations of them are perfectly fine and it's not necessary to get a new one. What are desirable features and signs of quality I should be looking for? Why did you choose yours and how do you feel about it now?

An established cybercrime group with a track record of attacking political targets posted on Tuesday roughly two gigabytes of data from the Heritage Foundation, a prominent conservative think tank based in Washington, D.C.

Self-described “gay furry hackers,” SiegedSec said it released the data in response to Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025, a set of proposals that aim to give Donald Trump a set of ready-made policies to implement if he wins this fall’s election.

The data includes the “full names, email addresses, passwords, and usernames” of people associating with Heritage, vio said, including users with U.S. government email addresses.

The attack was carried out as part of SiegedSec’s “OpTransRights,” campaign, which has previously included the defacement of government websites and data theft from states either considering or implementing anti-abortion or anti-trans legislation.

SiegedSec, which emerged on Telegram in April 2022, has also targeted various NATO portals, the city of Fort Worth and a company involved in the monitoring of offshore oil and gas facilities.

I hope to buy a split mechanichal keyboard (Leaning towards the Sofle with Gateron Milky Yellows) with the remaining wiggle room. I already own a decent mouse.

Dunno if this is off topic, mods feel free to delete if it is, but I picked up a laptop that's a couple years old that needs a fan replacement. I've done a little googling but it's not clear which part(s) I need, where I could buy it, and if it would even be cost-effective to replace anyway.

I can post pics/more info in a couple hours, but in the meantime could anyone point me in the right direction where I can buy laptop fans or a guide on figuring out which fan I would need? I'm not worried about voiding any warranty or anything like that

Edit: the model number is 15-ek0018ca if that helps!

In the company’s zany promo video, a voiceover promises Eve will protect owners from burglars, unwanted animal guests, and any hapless passersby who fail to heed its “zero compliance, zero tolerance” warning.

The consequences for shrugging off Eve’s threats: Getting blasted with paintballs, or perhaps even teargas pellets.

This will signal to the suburban betas that you are the alpha of Cape Coral, FL.

PaintCam’s Kickstarter is set to go live on April 23. No word on release date for now...

Oh it's a scam, how much money did they raise?

€74,190 pledged of €12,000 goal

LOL what's getting developed with 12k of anything? Add a zero to the end of that and maybe you get 1/4th of what's promised here.

A week and a half ago, Goldman Sachs put out a 31-page-report (titled "Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”) that includes some of the most damning literature on generative AI I've ever seen.

The report includes an interview with economist Daron Acemoglu of MIT (page 4), an Institute Professor who published a paper back in May called "The Simple Macroeconomics of AI" that argued that "the upside to US productivity and, consequently, GDP growth from generative AI will likely prove much more limited than many forecasters expect." A month has only made Acemoglu more pessimistic, declaring that "truly transformative changes won't happen quickly and few – if any – will likely occur within the next 10 years," and that generative AI's ability to affect global productivity is low because "many of the tasks that humans currently perform...are multi-faceted and require real-world interaction, which AI won't be able to materially improve anytime soon."

What makes this interview – and really, this paper — so remarkable is how thoroughly and aggressively it attacks every bit of marketing collateral the AI movement has. Acemoglu specifically questions the belief that AI models will simply get more powerful as we throw more data and GPU capacity at them, and specifically ask a question: what does it mean to "double AI's capabilities"? How does that actually make something like, say, a customer service rep better?

While Acemoglu has some positive things to say — for example, that AI models could be trained to help scientists conceive of and test new materials (which happened last year) — his general verdict is quite harsh: that using generative AI and "too much automation too soon could create bottlenecks and other problems for firms that no longer have the flexibility and trouble-shooting capabilities that human capital provides." In essence, replacing humans with AI might break everything if you're one of those bosses that doesn't actually know what the fuck it is they're talking about.

every commentator (both pro and ai-sceptic) seems to not be aware of science in protein designs and docking, where ml is actually doing fantastic things, never before done level of stuff, and can conceivably do drug design much faster (the issue there is, once its done, you don't need to reinvent protein chain making a drug/compound for pennies). For drug design revenues however - the cost of design pales in comparison to clinical trials (10-100 mlns compared to 1-3 billions)

Covello believes that the combined expenditure of all parts of the generative AI boom — data centers, utilities and applications — will cost a trillion dollars in the next several years alone, and asks one very simple question: "what trillion dollar problem will AI solve?" He notes that "replacing low-wage jobs with tremendously costly technology is basically the polar opposite of the prior technology transitions [he's] witnessed in the last thirty years."

In plain English: generative AI isn't making any money for anybody because it doesn't actually make companies that use it any extra money. Efficiency is useful, but it is not company-defining. He also adds that hyperscalers like Google and Microsoft will "also garner incremental revenue" from AI — not the huge returns they’re perhaps counting on, given their vast AI-related expenditure over the past two years.

Just because the internet of things was two hype cycles ago doesn't mean we can't still dunk on it.

CNN — AI images have become an unavoidable roadside attraction on Facebook and other social media, where dramatic and outlandish depictions of emotional scenes lure users into doling out likes, shares and “Amens.”

Among the funhouse images of fake children crying in the street and police officers saving inexplicably huge Bibles from the rain, countless depictions of Jesus Christ seem to take up an outsized amount of AI real estate.

It makes sense. The central figure of Christianity invokes potent reactions from billions of followers around the globe. For the last 2,000 years, faithful hands have labored to create likenesses of their professed savior, projecting onto him various theologies and mythologies combined with aesthetics of the time: Jesus suffering on the cross, Jesus as the Good Shepherd, Jesus the creator of miracles, Jesus the word made flesh, Jesus as cosmic judge.

Now, in the age of AI, Jesus can assume an infinite variety of roles with just a few keystrokes. Jesus as a durian fruit, for instance. Or Jesus battling shirtless with Satan. Sometimes, Jesus is cuddling a person in need in a hospital bed, his chiseled features and strong hands providing divine comfort.

None of these things are in the Bible, but they are alive in the minds of particularly imaginative Christians, or just those who want some easy engagement on Facebook.

What’s unsettling is how many AI-created images of Jesus are unnecessarily handsome and rugged, like one of those Instagram influencers who wears a lot of pendants and is always wandering barefoot through an island jungle.

There’s nothing wrong with that, per se. The Bible doesn’t get specific about Jesus’ looks, and certainly artists over the millennia have taken creative license when it comes to his physique (and, to a different point, his skin tone).

However, generative AI, like the kind that can create images from text prompts, doesn’t work like an artist’s brain. All of these handsome AI Jesus images are created from patterns a machine picks up from the information it is fed. What does that say about us, and how we view the figures most important to our cultural identities?

wasn't there c/the_dunk_tank posts about this lmao