memfree

memfree @beehaw.org 4mo ago

I appreciate your skepticism and if I was randomly hearing the tale online, I would probably make the same conclusion. Personally, I believe the guy based on how I've seen him treat people for over 40 years and his general politics/world-view. If he'd said it happened to someone else, or if he hadn't seemed so confused and saddened when he asked me if he was wrong, maybe I'd feel different. As it is, I can imagine his shock at being accused may have lead him to exaggerate how hostile the waitress was, but mostly I'm thinking @[email protected] is correct that it was just a case of mishearing what was said.

memfree @beehaw.org 4mo ago

I'm hoping that's what happened because I don't know what else she could have expected.

memfree @beehaw.org 4mo ago

Thank you :-)

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memfree @beehaw.org 4mo ago

Off topic? : 80+ year old friend asked me if he did wrong. As he tells it, when dining out, his waitress announced her pronouns were she/her. That was fine by him. Later, he says he asked, "Could you get me a refill on my iced tea?" He says her reply was hostile, "How rude! I told you my pronouns!" He was truly baffled. He did not know how to use her pronouns in a 'you' context. I told him he was fine and if it ever came up again, to shoot back with, "Excuse me Miss, but I didn't ask some other HER for a refill, I asked you, and 'you', 'thee' and 'thou' include all genders." Maybe I'm ignorant of some new usage, but from grammar stance, I can't make she/her fit into his request and am fine with 'you'.

memfree @beehaw.org 5mo ago

I read that as including human interaction as part of the pain point. They already offer bounties, so they're doing some money management as it is, but the human element becomes very different when you want up-front money from EVERYONE. When an actual human's report is rejected, that human will resent getting 'robbed'. It is much easier to get people to goof around for free than to charge THEM to do work for YOU. You might offer a refund on the charge later, but you'll lose a ton of testers as soon as they have to pay.

That said, the blog's link to sample AI slop bugs immediately showed how much time humans are being forced to waste on bad reports. I'd burn out fast if I had to examine and reply about all those bogus reports.

memfree @beehaw.org 5mo ago

That sounds as likely as any other crazy uninformed reason the Trump team might have.

I do recommend watching those and other government pages because I'm sure this is not the end of the weird edits.

memfree @beehaw.org 5mo ago

These attacks do not have to be reliable to be successful. They only need to work often enough to be cost-effective, and the cost of LLM text generation is cheap and falling. Their sophistication will rise. Link-spam will be augmented by personal posts, images, video, and more subtle, influencer-style recommendations—“Oh my god, you guys, this new electro plug is incredible.” Networks of bots will positively interact with one another, throwing up chaff for moderators. I would not at all be surprised for LLM spambots to contest moderation decisions via email.
I don’t know how to run a community forum in this future. I do not have the time or emotional energy to screen out regular attacks by Large Language Models, with the knowledge that making the wrong decision costs a real human being their connection to a niche community.

Ouch. I'd never want to tell someone 'Denied. I think you're a bot.' -- but I really hate the number of bots already out there. I was fine with the occasional bots that would provide a wiki-link and even the ones who would reply to movie quotes with their own quotes. Those were obvious and you could easily opt to ignore/hide their accounts. As the article states, the particular bot here was also easy to spot once they got in the door, but the initial contact could easily have been human and we can expect bots to continuously seem human as AI improves.

Bots are already driving policy decisions in government by promoting/demoting particular posts and writing their own comments that can redirect conversations. They make it look like there is broad consensus for the views they're paid to promote, and at least some people will take that as a sign that the view is a valid option (ad populum).

Sometimes it feels like the internet is a crowd of bots all shouting at one another and stifling the humans trying to get a word in. The tricky part is that I WANT actual unpaid humans to tell me what they actually: like/hate/do/avoid. I WANT to hear actual stories from real humans. I don't want to find out the 'Am I the A-hole?' story getting everyone so worked up was an 'AI-hole' experiment in manipulating emotions.

I wish I could offer some means to successfully determine human vs. generated content, but the only solutions I've come up with require revealing real-world identities to sites, and that feels as awful as having bots. Otherwise, I imagine that identifying bots will be an ever escalating war akin to Search Engine Optimization wars.

memfree @beehaw.org 8mo ago

Well, my favorite has been DiBruno's Sicilian Pepperoni, -- but they were recently bought up by some corporation so we'll see how it goes.

memfree @beehaw.org 8mo ago

Gallo Salami brand pepperoni

I haven't seen Gallo , so I looked it up and it seems they're branded "Galileo" on my side of the country. I'll give them a try!

memfree @beehaw.org 8mo ago

Lobster Newburg

Hey! Today is "NATIONAL LOBSTER NEWBURG DAY - March 25"

I've made 'seafood' newburg dishes at home at least twice in the last few years (crab and shrimp). I think I like using Harveys Bristol Cream Sherry more than Cognac and serving it on rice is easier than any pastry/bread-y thing. The above has a link to a standard recipe on All Recipes, but I'll put it in the below list, to show how the other two vary.

memfree @beehaw.org 9mo ago

Ah, you mean Matthew Graham stuff rather than David Bowie.

memfree @beehaw.org 9mo ago

memfree @beehaw.org 1y ago

fair enough :-)

2

memfree @beehaw.org 1y ago

Since you aren't vegetarian, may I recommend trying a 'Reuben' pizza (or stromboli)?

Instead of pizza sauce, use Russian dressing. Top with sauerkraut and chopped up corned beef and finish with shredded swiss cheese (use a good swiss and shred yourself for best results). You might optionally add onion before baking or dill pickles afterwards.

memfree @beehaw.org 1y ago

hmmm.... my dough is still rising, but it has a bread-flour base that might make for tough rolls.... though perhaps I can amend the dough to be fluffier before the final rise.

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memfree @beehaw.org 1y ago

Yes! I LOVE veggie crumbles. I use them in spaghetti sauce, chili, tacos, enchiladas, and most everything else that calls for ground hamburger -- especially when in a sauce.

My bigger issue is how to construct a 'thing' that works with dough. Maybe something like a 'cheese steak' stromboli would work.