Onno (VK6FLAB)

That’s very kind.

You can hear my voice any time. [1]

[1] https://podcasts.vk6flab.com/

That said, I have stood on stage many times and if I could come up with a topic worthy of the TED talk platform I’d be game.

Thank you for your kind words.

I have been writing for most of my life. You can for example read (a copy of) the Alt.Best.Of.Internet FAQ I wrote in 1994. [1]

[1] https://www.itmaze.com.au/articles/aboi-faq

I tend to write how I speak and attempt to create enough context so a casual reader on the topic can come away with something whilst still discussing the complexity for someone more versed in the subject.

I have written articles about identity theft, authentication over the phone, as well as other technology issues relevant to the public at large. [2]

[3] https://github.com/ITmaze/articles

I also write a weekly article about the hobby of amateur radio and have done so for over 13 years. It’s published as an audio podcast, with email, video and Morse code versions. [4]

[4] https://podcasts.vk6flab.com/

As for the suggestion of a TED talk, I’ve considered it, but haven’t found a topic worthy of the platform.

As a radio amateur I publish using my callsign, VK6FLAB, as an IT professional, it’s under my company, ITmaze.

Some other articles:

• https://www.itmaze.com.au/articles

The business model to require paid credits in order to interact with bots is in my opinion a thing of sheer bastardry.

Apparently, this is how it works: (*)

Women were on the site for free, men were required to pay for and use credits in order to interact with women.

It appears that there weren’t anywhere near the numbers of women claimed by the company. Instead bots would communicate with men, using their credits in the process.

(*) I say works, because apparently the company still exists today and I’m not aware if they ever admitted to using bots, let alone discontinuing their use. The Netflix series goes into detail, which is where I got this understanding from.

Disclaimer: I’m not a customer, have never been one and my comments are based on a single source as described above.

Yes, and some days it even acknowledges that there are humans living outside of New York, or even beyond the United States.

Perhaps you might expand your game “design” team to include people outside those sitting in the same office.

At the rate you’re going, we are enjoying it less every day.

You need to make an effort to put yourself in places where you can meet people. Often this takes the form of finding a community with a common interest. This could be a hobby, a lecture, a course, book club, gardening, etc.

Other places where you meet people can be a workplace, a volunteering effort, social gatherings like listening to a band, orchestra or a play.

You can go to the local coffee shop and spend time there watching people. If you do this regularly, you’re likely to meet people whom you can talk to and interact with.

If you already know people, acquaintances, then organise or participate in activities with them.

Social media is an add-on to life, not life itself.

The way to make friends is essentially finding ways to interact with other humans, preferably in places where you like to enjoy yourself.

It doesn’t. I recall an experiment a few decades ago where they turned the world upside down. Didn’t take participants long to “normalise” the image.

When they removed the experiment, took even shorter to flip back.

I seem to recall it being done in a train carriage, as art, but I’m not sure.

https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/noahpersaud/89k-chatgpt-conversations

Are the people who work at OpenAI smoking crack?

“Over the last year and a half there have been a lot of questions around what might happen if influence operations use generative AI,” Ben Nimmo, principal investigator on OpenAI’s Intelligence and Investigations team, told members of the media in a press briefing

Here’s a clue, look around you.

ChatGPT isn’t the only fish in the sea and state actors using a public service like it deserve to be caught. Running your own system privately, without scrutiny, without censorship, without constraints is so trivial that teenagers are doing this on their laptops, so much so that you can docker pull your way into any number of LLM images.

Seriously, this is so many levels of absurd that it’s beyond comprehension…

I’m fairly certain that it was ChatGPT, but I’m going from memory. I have a hunch that I saw a Hacker News show and tell post.

Update: It was in my bookmarks.

https://www.kaggle.com/datasets/noahpersaud/89k-chatgpt-conversations

For a period the interactions you had with ChatGPT were public and a live stream was available.

At the time when I looked at it, there was an astonishing amount of non-english traffic, but that might have been due to the fact that my UTC+8 timezone in Perth is the same as mainland China.

I had a quick search just now to see if I could find a link, but all I can locate is posts about new privacy controls, so perhaps that "feature"went by the wayside at some point.

Not just burnout, opportunism features with several users I’ve spoken with. The level of ignorance surrounding ChatGPT is staggering.

One egregious use I know of was a developer who used it to write software to analyse a government dataset despite their department having put in place specific and targeted restrictions specifically against any such activities.

Their workaround was to use their private email to exfiltrate data and subsequently introduce the code.

Their rationale was that it didn’t harm anyone and their ICT department would vet any code. They were not concerned about this private data showing up on the ChatGPT public log, nor were they concerned about the accuracy of their code.

I think that this is just the tip of the iceberg and I think it’s going to take a serious data breach of identifying information before people lose their jobs over this type of misuse.

Yes and no.

At the frequencies that HDMI operates, the path a signal takes can interfere with that signal. It’s why sometimes a cheap HDMI cable causes issues, where one certified for 4K or 8K doesn’t - the requirements to carry more information, means higher frequencies and thus better shielding.

A connector is a potential location where signal can be affected if the connection between two conductors is poor.

In general, less connectors and less joins will give you a higher chance of success and less chance of interference, but it depends entirely on what type of distance and signal you’re trying to send across it.

In general, the shorter the connection, the less loss.

It might be that a single longer cable is worse than a connector and a short cable.

If you already have a connector and a HDMI cable, try it. If you have issues, start by reversing the HDMI cable. It won’t make the electrons reverse or anything like that, but the connection might be slightly different.

If you have neither, I’d get a cable without a join. Buy from people who take returns.

Budget will be the determining factor for most people.

TL;DR; try it.

A better headline:

“Visitor to Taiwan attempts to break biosecurity law and is hit with a fine”

I doubt that anyone has researched the origin of such junk in detail.

If it doesn’t fit in your rubbish bin, generally it costs time, effort and money to properly dispose of things. Tossing it off a bridge is efficient.

Likely there’s a not inconsiderable proportion of anti-social behaviour, like stealing a bike and throwing it into a waterway afterwards.

I’m guessing that at some point your rectum cramps closed and the foreign object ends up being trapped behind the sphincter.

Note that I’m not a medical professional, nor do I pretend to be one on the internet. I do have personal lived experience of constipation induced cramping and it’s not fun, not to mention, painful to the point of passing out.

Actually, in my opinion, Xitter is the worst social media app for society, not just LGBTQ+ people.

Can’t wait to hear the next headlines:

“AP reports that their seized equipment was damaged beyond repair”

And

“IDF apologies for inadvertent destruction of broadcast equipment during seizure”

If it’s like any other Facebook monstrosity, the processes that “detect” such things are purely based around USA morals and values, such as they are.

In other words, show a nipple and the thing is gone. Show something racist and it’s fine as long as it doesn’t show a nipple.

In Australia FB doesn’t care one iota about highly offensive content towards first nations people, perfectly fine with permitting the Australian equivalent of the USA “N” word, just as long as it doesn’t show a nipple.

Oh, yeah, the banned nipple has to be attached to a female, preferably white caucasian. The rest seems fine, especially in an “indigenous setting”.

In other words, FB only cares about its USA morality police and is perfectly fine with extracting money from everyone else, regardless of local sensitivities.

LinkedIn is the same. Not sure if that happened after Microsoft bought it, because until then it was not really a social media site, even if it did horrible things with extracting contacts from unsuspecting users who discovered that everyone in their address book had been invited, even if they were on the address book block list.

I love the (currently one) down vote on your post. Clearly not a connoisseur of René’s work.

Your shower thought on the other hand is on point!

Nicely done.

Spare ribs.