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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: October 8th, 2023

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  • What you have heard about is a feature called “Recall”, which is something that has not actually rolled out and will only be coming to PCs with specific neural processing units. Other windows users will not be affected (although of course that will change over time as old devices are replaced with new).

    Is it possible? Yes, of course it’s possible. You could say that about pretty much any operating system - including Linux distros - if the functionality turns out to be popular.

    However, to be 100% clear, this is functionality that the user can disable (either entirely, or on an app-by-app basis). And data is never transacted to the cloud or with Microsoft. What’s on the device does not leave the device. It’s also really not in Microsoft’s own interest at all to try taking on that responsibility… How would they know if you paid for an app/game/song or not, even if they wanted to?

    But back to your question: yes, of course it is possible. This type of technology has already been prototyped in different ways (e.g. Apple have done work about identifying CSAM on the iPhone, although not implemented).

    Yes, Linux gives you a lot more control. If you were to make the switch, I would list a hundred other reasons that are far more compelling than this storm in a teacup.

    That said, there’s absolutely no reason a Linux distro couldn’t also bring the same functionality, if there is consumer appetite for it.

    If you are looking to truly make it “impossible”, you need to air-gap your machine and not connect to the internet anymore.


  • In defence of the author, there is absolutely nothing about the term “AI” that just means “LLM” in an informed context (which is what Wired portends to be). And then the words “machine learning” are literally front and centre in the subtitle.

    I don’t see how anyone could misunderstand this unless it was a deliberate misreading… Or else just not attempting to read it at all…

    (That said, yes, I do hate the fact that product managers now love to talk about how every single feature is “AI” regardless of what it actually is/does)


  • It stems from an old proverb: “there is naught so queer as folk”, essentially meaning “people are strange”. The meaning of “queer” has shifted and narrowed over time to refer to sexuality, but kept its ties to this idiom, resulting in the TV show “queer as folk” and the generic phrase “queer folk”.

    There is nothing especially pretentious or mythical about the word. It may just be your own assumptions/interpretations of it. Far more people have an issue with the word “queer” than they do “folk”. If you don’t like it, don’t use it, but you should also aim to shake the stigma from it, as it’s not what 99.9% of people mean when they use it.










  • That’s an appealing ‘conspiracy’ angle, and I understand why it might seem juicy and tantalising to onlookers, but that idea doesn’t hold up to any real scrutiny whatsoever.

    Why would the Board willingly trash their reputation? Why would they drag the former Twitch CEO through the mud and make him look weak and powerless? Why would they not warn Microsoft and risk damaging that relationship? Why would they let MS strike a tentative agreement with the OpenAI employees that upsets their own staff, only to then undo it?

    None of that makes any sense whatsoever from a strategic, corporate “planned” perspective. They are all actions of people who are reacting to things in the heat of the moment and are panicking because they don’t know how it will end.