@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioRE: https://hachyderm.io/@thomasfuchs/115840252209889277
I'm thoroughly convinced that a lot of the problems we have as a society in general and with the tech industry in particular is toxic positivity—when people just can't get themselves to call out bad things for what they are; it's so often I see needless defending of bad work or outright insults hurled at customers by big corporations, and endless calls for a false civility.
@pre@boing.worldLike all the rest of the nerds, I did a bit of tech support on family computers.
They're all popping up windows from scam virus scanners lying that subscriptions need to be renewed or machines are unprotected. People don't know how to remove these things. Luckily they also don't really know how to pay the subscription.
Their phones are updating on them. Changing where buttons used to be. Removing options. Forcing people to register to use they things they have been doing for years.
They don't know how to register.
Things pop up asking for passwords and they have no idea who is asking or which password to use.
I tell them that I don't really understand why they keep using Windows now it is so shitty and awful. They say they don't know how to use anything else. The fact they don't really know how to use windows either doesn't seem to register.
The tech corporations have given up completely on being user friendly. They are all deliberately user hostile and exploitative now.
Corporate tech is terrible. The industry is failing it's users, abusing them. People don't even know there is any other way. They are just giving up on achieving their tasks until someone can fix the pop-ups and subscription boxes and passwords and 2fa for them.
Tech sucks now. Sucks hard.
#tech #christmasTechSupport
@lightweight@mastodon.nzoss.nzWho's the real enemy now? Extremely wealthy people (oligarchs) and large corporations (especially in health, fossil fuels, media, & tech). Everything else is probably manageable. We need to hobble the extremely wealthy and the mega corporations. We need to end the 'corporations-as-person' model. as well. It is untenable. That also means rejecting, explicitly & systemically, groups like the Atlas Network/Project 2025.
For the record, these have long been the enemy, b…
@kingconsult@berlin.social> There are now more #BigTech lobbyists than #MEPs¹
➡️ We think: Effective action for democratic, public-interest-oriented, independent #SocialMedia are becoming increasingly important in light of the power of digital corporations.
How do democratic parties intend to suport digitally #sovereign public communication?
@… @… @… @…
¹ 12.11.2025 New episode of EU Watchdog Radio by @…
#SPD #Grüne #Bundestag
@tiotasram@kolektiva.socialWhen "self-driving" cars were first getting some hype back in ~2015 or so, I told people who asked me that I didn't think they'd be safe, and that I wished the same money were being invested in driver-assistance systems instead.
At the time, advocates were claiming that self-driving cars would be safer than human drivers.
We now have both self-driving cars and some nifty new driver assistance things, and it turns out that the self-driving cars are in fact being developed by corporations whose attention to the bottom line results in danger to others on the road pretty regularly. I don't actually have stats here for whether they're "safer than human drivers" or not, but the opportunity for one bad software update to make *all* self-driving cars dangerous at once kinda makes me doubt that.
Here's an example of Waymo cars getting "more aggressive" as they try to balance between being too timid and obstructing traffic (including emergency vehicles) and being too dangerous:
https://archive.ph/JJuGv
Here's another example of passing stopped schoolbusses leading to a software recall:
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/waymo-issue-voluntary-software-recall-after-close-calls/story?id=128207776
In the first article, Waymo claims 91% fewer serious accidents per mile. Obviously an independent audit would be actually trustworthy, but even if we take that claim at face value, it's meaningless if an update tomorrow causes 100,000 accidents.
Note that they could be using better engineering practices, and the fact that they aren't shows that they don't care enough about the risks. They could be deploying new software versions incrementally and slowly, letting new versions rack up lots of miles only on a few vehicles before pushing them to a fleet. The should also have the equivalent of a simulation unit test for "schoolbus is stopped, what do?" and if a software version fails that test, it doesn't make it to the fleet. Clearly they don't have that.
I feel pretty vindicated in my earlier prediction that this tech is a bad idea in the hands of the current advocates.
@thomasfuchs@hachyderm.ioProgrammers used to distrust corporations. But now they’re willing unpaid fluffers for “AI” tech giants.
https://bsky.app/profile/amyhoy.bsky.social/post/3mbzt7bqtck2g
@portaloffreedom@social.linux.pizzaMy controversial take on "AI" ray tracing helpers are that it's a really good idea.
First some background: keep in mind that machine learning tecnologies excell at tasks that have a high reward for success and a small cost for failure. In this case getting most of the rays right improve performance, at the cost of some few rays being shot in nothing.
Secondly, light rays are way too many in real life to be simulated in their entirety, so using some statistics to approximate the lighting model makes a lot of sense here. Plus at the lower quantum scale even phisicists use statistic to explain this stuff, so it's not that irrealistic either.
Finally the source data for this stuff is entirely other games, so ethically sourcing the training data set should not be a concern here.
Here, technology can be good or bad. It's not the tech, it's the use of the tech by the people (but that I mean oligarchic corporations) that makes them good or bad.
@hex@kolektiva.socialFascism has arrived in the US. Here's a video of a (liberal) lawyer just straight up saying the courts won't save you.
The system only speaks two languages now: money and violence. If you want a chance to avoid the second, now is the time to use the first. #MassBlackout is a #Boycott of the American corporations that support the dictatorship. By showing that people have the power to shut down the economy if elites don't listen, we can hit them where it actually hurts.
From now until December 2nd, do as many of these things as you can:
- Stop online or in-store shopping (except for small businesses)
- Stop work
- Stop streaming, cancel subscriptions, no digital purchases
This is one of the few times that boosting stuff on social media and doing nothing else actually *can* make a difference. Boost posts tagged with #WeAintBuyingIt, #MassBlackout, and #BlackOutTheSystem. Make sure everyone you know knows about it. Hold each other accountable to keep from spending. You may already not be spending because.... well,.. #Trump has already made everything too expensive. The thing is that elites can't actually tell the difference. Spreading word, making the protest seem as big and impactful as possible is all that's really needed to fracture elites and turn them against each other. Boost, write your own post, make these tags trend on every platform you can, then do nothing.
Don't buy things, don't work. Just stop. Refuse to participate in capitalism. This is the ultimate "fuck you, make me" because they absolutely can't make you. This is the ultimate reminder of where power actually comes from.
If you're outside the US, (continue to) boycott American products (if the tariffs haven't already taken care of that) until the regime falls. Cancel all American streaming services, and any other American tech you can. If you're stuck on American tech, spend some time to look for local alternatives.
It turns out the world is more interconnected than capitalists would like you to believe, and we all actually have the power to change things. It's time to prove it.
#USPol