Some days, I wonder if I live in a parallel world.

I want more efficient software (to lower overall power usage of our society, to avoid throwing away hardware after a couple of years, to be able to do more with less).

I fight centralisation of data/knowledge/power in IT (promote open protocols, selfhosting, open source, decentralisation)

I do want a more egalitarian society (no more barriers because of handicaps or upbringing in a non-privileged environment. Improving our democracy with services that help everyone by reducing/eliminating bureaucracy).

I do not want to see our world burn (see point above about reducing waste. But also promoting local LLM usage, and not defaulting to wasteful services for tasks that can be done locally).

Yet... I don't fight genAI. On the contrary, I deeply believe it can help us achieve the above. Faster.

The problem is way too many people are assuming that because (a lot of) people misuse it, the technology must be the issue.

Maybe focus on the people misusing it, and not the technology ? Banning usage of genAI altogether in software projects is, IMHO, both counter-productive and impossible.

Are we going to also ban people using LSP ? Linters ? Fuzzy search tools ? Spell-checks ? Translation tools ? Speech-To-Text assistants ?

Heck, how will you know if I used a LLM to assist me ? Because of the quality of the contribution I provided ? Because I'm not knowledgeable about your project and design ? Because english is not my native language, and I used a tool for translating text ?

Or maybe it's because, shocking, I used it as yet-another-tool. And it didn't replace my brain. I still want to ensure what I'm delivering is correct, useful and maintainable. It doesn't replace all the brainstorming, investigation, analysis, tests, that I do. But helps me iterate on all of those faster.

What is a PITA is random contributors dumping some stuff which they didn't properly review/test. The vibecoders. But how is that different from random "code dumps" of people who did a "wrong" fix ? Lack of education.

Instead of banning genAI altogether, maybe specify what is expected from the human using it. I.e. that person must "own" what it produced, know exactly what it contains, why it does it that way, etc...

BTW, Jellyfin has a precent decent and comprehensive set of rules which are a good middle ground, go read it : https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/contributing/llm-policies/

#rant #LLM #genAI #software

Some days, I wonder if I live in a parallel world.

I want more efficient software (to lower overall power usage of our society, to avoid throwing away hardware after a couple of years, to be able to do more with less).

I fight centralisation of data/knowledge/power in IT (promote open protocols, selfhosting, open source, decentralisation)

I do want a more egalitarian society (no more barriers because of handicaps or upbringing in a non-privileged environment. Improving our democracy with services that help everyone by reducing/eliminating bureaucracy).

I do not want to see our world burn (see point above about reducing waste. But also promoting local LLM usage, and not defaulting to wasteful services for tasks that can be done locally).

Yet... I don't fight genAI. On the contrary, I deeply believe it can help us achieve the above. Faster.

The problem is way too many people are assuming that because (a lot of) people misuse it, the technology must be the issue.

Maybe focus on the people misusing it, and not the technology ? Banning usage of genAI altogether in software projects is, IMHO, both counter-productive and impossible.

Are we going to also ban people using LSP ? Linters ? Fuzzy search tools ? Spell-checks ? Translation tools ? Speech-To-Text assistants ?

Heck, how will you know if I used a LLM to assist me ? Because of the quality of the contribution I provided ? Because I'm not knowledgeable about your project and design ? Because english is not my native language, and I used a tool for translating text ?

Or maybe it's because, shocking, I used it as yet-another-tool. And it didn't replace my brain. I still want to ensure what I'm delivering is correct, useful and maintainable. It doesn't replace all the brainstorming, investigation, analysis, tests, that I do. But helps me iterate on all of those faster.

What is a PITA is random contributors dumping some stuff which they didn't properly review/test. The vibecoders. But how is that different from random "code dumps" of people who did a "wrong" fix ? Lack of education.

Instead of banning genAI altogether, maybe specify what is expected from the human using it. I.e. that person must "own" what it produced, know exactly what it contains, why it does it that way, etc...

BTW, Jellyfin has a precent decent and comprehensive set of rules which are a good middle ground, go read it : https://jellyfin.org/docs/general/contributing/llm-policies/

#rant #LLM #genAI #software

#linux #systemd #wayland #opensource #rant
https://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/linux-product-philosophy.html

#rant incoming. TV ads for cars in the UK. We drive on the left here, like several other countries, but adverts always show left hand drive models swooping around mainland European mountain roads and powering through foreign cities. At the end there's a footnote, 'the model shown may not be available in the UK '. SO STOP BROADCASTING IT HERE THEN. You make £m selling cars here, you can afford to make your ads suit the local market.

#rant incoming. TV ads for cars in the UK. We drive on the left here, like several other countries, but adverts always show left hand drive models swooping around mainland European mountain roads and powering through foreign cities. At the end there's a footnote, 'the model shown may not be available in the UK '. SO STOP BROADCASTING IT HERE THEN. You make £m selling cars here, you can afford to make your ads suit the local market.

So, I ordered a pair of CrocsJp sandals a few weeks ago to use them as indoor slippers during my stay here.

The pair I received was a wrong size, W7, not 23cm, and was way too big. So, I wrote that I received a wrong size pair on the review which they prompted. (I doubt they posted my polite, honest and truthful review. lol)

They reached out by email (for a damage control?), so I replied with what they asked, the item no, size on the sandal, etc. with photos.

They replied back, insisting W7 is 23cm, which clearly is NOT. I know my shoe size. I’ve always worn 23cm or W6. I’m a bit miffed that they don’t admit or correct their mistake. (I wasn’t returning it or asking for the money back.🙄) But hey, I doubt anyone is ordering their stuff, and I otter have known better. My bad. Never again.

#rant

I am so sick and tired of the word 'beats' in music.
It is so genre/generationally narrow as a descriptor that its borderline insulting to the vast majority of people outside those specific genres who still write 'songs' and are songwriters.
outside of the narrow set of genres where 'beats' is normal parlance, everyone is writing songs and are song writers.

#music #musicProduction #rant

None of the ADHD self report surveys I've seen appears to have done in consultation with a reasonable number of actual ADHDers representing the entire spectrum of symptoms and co-morbidities.

It's long occurred to me that asking a person with issues relating to memory how frequently they forget things is only going to get somewhat reliable answers when the person has decided to designate the subject as a compelling topic of interest.

But even if a person does manage to diligently note down their symptoms for a sufficient amount of time, having been a certain way their whole life, how are they supposed to know what "rarely", "sometimes" and "often" mean?

Sure, these things are mostly used as a basis for a conversation with a doctor, but a good doctor can be a rare privilege these days.

Despite concerns*, I do think it would be nice to have better, open licence (like PHQ-9 vs GAD-7), tools for self-diagnosis and more consistent diagnoses.

* Screening tools can lead some people to be denied the care they need because their symptoms don't fit a typical pattern, their symptoms are masked, etc (this is a whole different rant).

#adhd #rant

None of the ADHD self report surveys I've seen appears to have done in consultation with a reasonable number of actual ADHDers representing the entire spectrum of symptoms and co-morbidities.

It's long occurred to me that asking a person with issues relating to memory how frequently they forget things is only going to get somewhat reliable answers when the person has decided to designate the subject as a compelling topic of interest.

But even if a person does manage to diligently note down their symptoms for a sufficient amount of time, having been a certain way their whole life, how are they supposed to know what "rarely", "sometimes" and "often" mean?

Sure, these things are mostly used as a basis for a conversation with a doctor, but a good doctor can be a rare privilege these days.

Despite concerns*, I do think it would be nice to have better, open licence (like PHQ-9 vs GAD-7), tools for self-diagnosis and more consistent diagnoses.

* Screening tools can lead some people to be denied the care they need because their symptoms don't fit a typical pattern, their symptoms are masked, etc (this is a whole different rant).

#adhd #rant

So, here’s a useful Japanese word: “迷惑” (めいわく)[meiwaku]
It means bothersome, annoying, inconvenient, etc.

Meiwaku Mail is a spam email.
Meiwaku denwa means spam call.

You get the gist.

These days, the fashion trend for women’s clothes in Japan is “meiwaku fashion” — otterly inconvenient and annoying that the sleeves are too long or too tight, and the jacket (even t-shirt) length is too short. Designers seem to ignore practicality these days. 🙄

#fashion #fastFashion #MeiwakuFashion #rant 🦺