@dangillmor Isn't that the only way social media sites can make money ... to somehow monetize what users contribute? I am not sure how this is any different or more slimey than any other monetization.

@dangillmor They could simply be the best question and answer site in the world, but it’s never enough, is it?

@dangillmor@mastodon.social

Funny thing is, with how difficult they make it to answer questions, the impact of users withdrawing content is that the impact of any given user removing answers is amplified.

Too bad it's all for naught (at least from a farming of existing content standpoint): they'll just scan the site backups for content. They'll be boned for future traffic, though.

Funny thing is, the various AI bots have probably already scraped the site of all its contents.

@dangillmor

I can't see how this deal is in _anyone's_ interest.

OpenAI _need_ high-context, unpoisoned data to train on, and even if they correctly keep tabs on what responses are AI-generated, the effect will be to reduce the amount of human-generated expert replies.

Stack Overflow's "product" isn't answers but expertise. If OpenAI could replace that, why bother with StackOverflow, and if not, Stack Overflow just put a big question mark behind their main selling point.

@dangillmor

I knew he was off' @ .. shedding tears in an interview in Australia . . .

meanwhile: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYYXTGyvDmQ

@dangillmor This looks bad for Musk, but the reason Spiro wanted to hide it is that it looks *really* bad for *him*. The plaintiff's attorney took him back to first year law school and then slapped him back and forth with the textbook.

@dangillmor

He is not just a slime ball, he is a moron.

Is this long-covid in action?

Musk was, at one point, considered to be intelligencia but modern experience has shown us his true self to be just the opposite.

@dangillmor I’ve been very happy to be Windows free w/ Mac laptops and Linux desktops for 10+ years now.

@dangillmor AI is in full gold rush, speculation mode. This started when one player in big tech achieved an advantage and the other big players rushed in to catch up. This was perceived as demand from the rest of the market and now we're in a speculation vortex. At a consumer level I'm detecting very little practical demand for, or uptake of AI products. At least the current offerings.

@dangillmor very funny (and exasperating) that they're calling it a "trust problem"

@dangillmor #Counterfactual : How much trust would we place in an employee who regularly and confidently hallucinates?

@dangillmor what browser to install which just browse and does nothing else?

@dangillmor who wants to move to gnome web with me?

I think they almost went with cryptocoins too IIRC @dangillmor

@dangillmor the Democratic party had done nothing to stop any of this and is offering no plans to stop any of this

@dangillmor How will they enforce it?

@dangillmor they going to send slave catchers, er abortion catchers to the north to kidnap doctors and mothers?

How did that go last time?

@dangillmor @emptywheel

Maga Haberman

@dangillmor Why did the Saudis pay Jared $2 billion? Why is there not a congressional committee to find out? Since, you know, Jared was actually on the White House payroll. Unlike Hunter, who’s a private citizen.

@dangillmor the answer is: one more war ended, lots of lives saved.
That's crystal clear, but some hallucinated people are hysterical crying for blood, Ukrainian blood of course.

@dangillmor When is the financial cost to the western nations such as America too much to prop up Ukraine. ? When their currency is devalued ? When their credit score drops ? I don't know and not saying I do.

@dangillmor

A double booster. 📣

:mastodon:

@dangillmor Epic Pinball and ... Lemmings! I haven't played that since I donated my Amiga to a museum!

@dangillmor This is the Internet Explorer problem all over again. If one corporation controls a majority web technology then you get de facto standards instead of universal standards, and the corporation gets to shove whatever crap technology they want at the user. If we don't want another experience like Microsoft's IE browser we can't keep using their technology, including Chromium based browsers like Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, etc.

@dangillmor Firefox is fine, Pulse is fine, Librewolf is even better, albeit it is more limited in some useful functions, like syncing. Currently, the worst is probably MS Edge, infected with ChatGPT…

@dangillmor And this is why I will now instead use browsers that are not Chrome. Including Firefox.

#FirefoxForTheWin
#BoycottGoogleChrome

@dangillmor One problem I think is that many reporters don’t have their own site or blog, just their publication (e.g. Philadelphia Inquirer or Newsweek, etc)

And those *publications* themselves aren’t doing the (simple) work of adding that verification code to the writer bio pages (although I’m sure it’s simple to add a Twitter profile link)

@dangillmor I stand by my still untested theory that if we can just identify or create an activity, mission or tool here that they are compelled to participate in or with, and which they cannot get over there, a migration might be much more organic and less contentious than it is now. I have one such an activity in mind, but I think there must be many more to be thought of out there.

@dangillmor on top of that news orgs could run their own instances... Just like they do for emails. Verification will be implicit when you can trust the domain.

@dangillmor This is the correct, adult, and responsible thing to do and I endorse this advice. But it's going to be REALLY hard to comply.

@dangillmor There are still *lots* of organisations who have their only channel, or only effective channel, of customer service or tech support on Twitter.

@dangillmor while I agree with the "don't beat up on people", thanking people leaving now is quite gross.

They've literally overlooked the dehumanisation of swathes of the world's population, all so they can keep their social media clout. That is not something to encourage.

Anyone leaving Twitter now has to spend time getting their humanity back in the eyes of people who left the moment the Nazis were brought back to Twitter

@dangillmor @Gargron not quite a year, but ditto

@dangillmor @Gargron it somewhat reminds me of usenet before usenet got crapflooded with mediocrites. Which suggests that will eventually happen here. Or maybe not: the ability to define one's own feed, the filter options, and mute/block might be enough to stave off the decline.

@dangillmor This was a thing before 4.0 and then they removed it for some reason. Glad it’s back.

@dangillmor This is huge. Thank you devs!

@dangillmor Or, you can install a browser plugin...!
https://github.com/lartsch/FediAct

@dangillmor

There was a time I thought Musk was going to try to turn Twitter into a blockchain. Maybe he’s still going to try a crypto launch and get arrested for selling an unregistered stock.

@dangillmor this is the same moron that has predicted "full self driving" for almost 10 years

@dangillmor maybe he’s jealous that SBF is getting so much attention for his fraud trial. He’s decided he can do fraud even better.