🇨🇦 Thinker, Hoarder. I gather news and current events to outline and identify issues with a Canadian point of view.
I’ve rented and purchased a carpet cleaner.
Dog went crazy on the rental unit. I imagine everyone rents those things for the same reasons I had so the unit must have smelled like 1000 animals for all I know.
After that thought, I happily just bought a standup carpet cleaner and made plans to remove as much carpet I could to replace with vinyl.
Smith has gone so far as to say judges should be answerable to politicians.
“I wish I could direct the judges, honestly,” Smith said on a radio show, adding that she wanted the Alberta government “to have a joint process to choose those judges so we start choosing judges in Alberta that reflect the values of how we want them to operate here.”
Kaycee Madu was formally reprimanded for contacting the Edmonton Police Service Chief about a ticket. His wife ends up with a lifetime appointment to the bench. I think the UCP have more than enough control over who gets selected to be judges. If Smith’s UCP are not happy with those judges, something else is seriously wrong.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-madu-sanction-1.7448781
Well this poor bastard (me) will be waiting for the RAM, SSDs, and hard drives to come back down in price.
I think the use of AI or LLMs for the Fediverse is a fair topic of discussion. Instances are run by volunteers, and these instances are free to dictate how their communities are to be administered. These Instance Admins can determine the jurisdictions that they operate under, and the laws that they are subject to. I’d suggest then the use of “AI” or LLM products are a choice made by each Instance.
But, just as Instance admins have these powerful choices, I believe that end users should also be given notice that these products are expected to be used so they can decide to continue with their account or move. I also recall that when many “Redditors” decided to leave, they also made a lot of fuss about salting their posts so that their contents not be used as training material to develop a commercial LLM. I’d point out this was a time when Meta and others were found to be combing the internet, downloading pirated materials, and using these for training purposes.
In 2026, these LLMs have already taken these pirated materials and public social media posts. There are news articles of how failed start-ups are even selling their Slack and other work related chats as training materials as well. In time, perhaps these issues can be properly litigated in courts. But for social media Instances run by volunteers, resources are limited already. I don’t think these Instances should be responsible for the privacy of the end users. Rather, good education in generating throw-away email addresses, strong passwords, and VPN use can give users real choices.
While there’s an argument that posts should not have any expectation of privacy, that doesn’t mean we don’t collectively share an interest in the value of privacy - a human right. I don’t believe users who sign up for accounts on the Fediverse and are asked for their email to set up an account, expect in turn that information to just be published to the world with full, open access without some kind of notice or choice to opt out, for example. Ultimately though, I believe the issue must be dealt with at the government level, and that means people getting pitted against professional lobbyists and politicians.
I want to also clarify that there will also be times when intervention is necessary. We’re here to join together in community, and “AI” or LLM activity that ultimately attacks that objective should be a top issue. For example, I’m not sure anyone here would be comfortable with “AI” duplicating an Instance and impersonating the community members within it. Yet that did happen on Mastodon. I recall the community responding, making reports and complaints to ultimately get the instance taken down. Another example would be AI or LLM accounts that do not identify themselves as bots, and are here to post on the Fediverse to astroturf issues or manipulate discussion are clear threats to proper discussion.
But I don’t want to digress too far from the original concern, which was how people feel about LLMs processing Fediverse posts, and related issues. Assuming we are not discussing materials that are already restricted or illegal, we cannot control what people choose to share on these platforms of themselves, and I don’t suggest we even attempt or consider it. But we can try to control how much information these platforms retain about its users - and I suggest that should be as close to zero or nil as possible. In this way, even if an Instance admin faces terrible pressure from a state, the platform itself has as close to nothing additional to report or share besides the face value posts of an account.
I’d also want to point out that we all do some form of labelling or profiling as we go over posts or read. Is there a difference between what we do already, and what an LLM does to create an opinion to profile a collection of posts? Humans get it wrong all the time, as would any LLM for that matter. Computers are valued because they’re good at copying and pasting information. What changed exactly if one person copy and pastes for free and for themselves, vs another who copy and pastes on behalf of a third party for a fee? I’m not really inviting philosophical discussion, this is mostly a question for myself. Whether the copy and paste procedure is done once by hand or thousands of times by computer, I’m still weighing the question.
I think it comes down to exploitation of asymmetric information and the appropriate use of the profits from this exploitation. But I suppose that’s always been an evergreen issue.
I think with recent news of the data leak of Alberta voters information, it goes without saying that age verification, and the data leak that will follow, is part of the design.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/livestory/elections-alberta-electors-list-9.7182971
In awarding the plaintiff more than $1.8 million in damages, Marzari wrote that Paladin’s conduct was “deserving of condemnation and punishment” even beyond the injuries and trauma suffered by the plaintiff.
She wrote that the company admitted to “negligent training of its guards,” and that Paladin representatives failed to review the plaintiff’s serious allegations and consider corrective action in the years afterward.
“On the evidence before me, Paladin’s uncaring attitude is not a one-time occurrence, but part of the culture of how upper management responds to complaints of excessive force employed by their workforce,” Marzari wrote.
Paladin was basically found to have committed a systemic failure that led to discrimination, use of excessive force, and a complete disrespect of the rights of the plaintiff. See anyone else contracting with Paladin?
Wait…this is as far from innovation as it gets. I agree this is gambling on its face, but under the hood is basically a honey pot mechanism where you’re creating a market to price out leaks of confidential or sensitive information. I don’t think there’s anything of value here, just the introduction of vulnerability that cuts vertically all the way to the most vulnerable of society to government agents with potential conflicts of interest.
For all the bluster about the US taking down fascism in World War II, it is with ghastly irony that you have these figures within US society, like Karp and Zamiska, who out right advocate for basically racism and fascism. They simply couch their recycled old bigotry into the vague, covert lingo of the modern post-civil rights America.
But, they project what they want in society. They want less regulation upon themselves, they want more military contracts with the US government, they want the public to give more credibility to the power of their surveillance software, they want the draft so their software can go far and wide, and they want the ability to pay people less and to ask them to work more.
Then they go on to make some obligatory comment about how America has brought such peace and prosperity. And, somewhat tellingly, they wax nostalgia for fascist Germany and Japan. They just don’t say it in so few words. When the US SCOTUS declared that money can translate into political power, these unqualified persons are the symptoms.
I keep asking what the ASEAN members are thinking when they see this garbage while they’re days away from running out of gas and diesel.
A related question that comes to mind is what jurisdiction’s laws should we all be exploring to avoid age verification completely?
I’m not suggesting we all get legal degrees or dispense legal advice, but as conscientious people who are also literate: Should the Fediverse identify lists of these jurisdictions for its community of small to very large instances, and resources to help decide whether those laws of favourable jursidictions should be adopted and some common pitfalls?
We all see the headlines of countries exploring bans on under 16s for social media in the name of improved ad and online surveillance. Which are the countries who are saying no or will resist this?
Oh man, I still need to see that. Thank you for reminding me.
What anime is this?
I sympathize too, but these conditions have persisted for decades. People have sounded the alarm for decades.
Landowners get attention from legacy media, but it took a doctor who had to risk everything to sound the alarm for the people of Fort Chipewyan and beyond. Dr O’Connor faced complaints from his own College and defended himself. He must have felt like an island at that point.
In 2006, Dr. John O’Connor started raising concerns about disproportionately high rates of cancer in Fort Chipewyan, Alta., believing that nearby oilsands sites may have played a role.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-whistleblower-fort-chipewyan-john-o-connor-1.5943389
The US has slowly come alive to the issue of the world cutting them out of the conversation entirely with direct bilateral negotiations with Iran. This is the only way to forcefully inject the US back into the conversation. But as experts already point out, Iran has the home ground advantage. The US navy can maintain that position to block the strait, but antagonizing all of Asia will have consequences.
Asia’s countries face serious shortages of gas and diesel - which is well known. If the US presents itself as not just the cause, but now the enforcer of this very precarious position, many US allies will be forced into a terrible choice: Loyalty or survival.
Canadians are being subjected to a new round of psychological operations on this very issue, and the Liberals are being lobbied to hell and back on the subject given how the news is pushing this.
We’re not new to the issue either. In Calgary the public reaction to a mall’s directory and map kiosk allegedly tracking age and gender data of people walking by was largely negative. American interests are trying to massage this back into the public consciousness.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4355444/chinook-mall-calgary-facial-recognition-technology/
I’m still in the camp that thinks this is a push by the ad and marketing companies to improve their targeting.
The world is savvy to invasions of privacy, and many users probably choose ad and tracking blockers of various kinds. I agree the kids need to be educated about this kind of targeting and manipulation, but I’m not sure another booze er…social media prohibition solves any problem.
As Citizen Lab points out, there’s big money and serious players behind all that targeting and surveillance. Why contribute to it?
https://citizenlab.ca/research/analysis-of-penlinks-ad-based-geolocation-surveillance-tech/
This is PR and American propaganda for the real sauce last month where Reddit, Meta, and Google basically assumed the proper position and voluntarily gave DHS info.
They suffered reputational damage, and this is their government compensation package: a promotional up-do.
Is anyone even going anymore? Anyone got the jet fuel to get there and back?
I thought her family is Zionist. She spent her whole term as VP providing diplomatic protection for Israel, and in part served a meaningful role in one of the worst man made famines in human history and the destruction of Gaza. Maybe she’s not explicitly genocidal, but her actions are what brought the world to this exact global mess. Whether one blames Trump or not, there’s a sequence of actions taken to get here - I’m just saying Harris and the surrounding network is a part of that.
I suppose the world may be in the process of coming to terms that the Americans can no longer solve the issue internally. At some point, I wouldn’t be surprised as more countries just negotiate directly with Iran, and without the US.
DNC re-affirms that money is power, and its commitment of the US to the Israel vs. Middle East conflict.
For rental, I’ve tried the one in the grocery store, which is Rug Doctor.
https://www.rugdoctor.com/rent/machine-options/
For purchase, I’ve had the Bissell branded ProHeat 2X Revolution. I’ve owned this one for a few years now, occasional use for pet accidents. While the unit isn’t remarkable, hasn’t changed much over the years, and doesn’t perform much better than the rental, I typically can access the unit quickly to clean up the mess.
I think if I’m able to get to the mess early enough, it’s simply easier to lift out of carpet. This unit does warm up the cleaning fluid - for whatever that is worth. But, like any carpet cleaner, it’s super loud. I think the uprights definitely have the advantage for cleaning open areas, but they have a hard time getting into the crevices. There are other units out there with an extendible wand that you might want to wait out for a sale.
Hot tip though, if you do go for the purchase, these units usually come with special plastic tools to get into its own crevices to remove dirt and hair. Keep that bit of plastic! You’re never going to find it again. I didn’t for a few years lol.
But like I said, nothing’s better than just removing the carpet entirely. I know not everyone is a fan of that.
https://www.walmart.ca/en/ip/BISSELL-ProHeat-2X-Revolution/6000196048164?classType=REGULAR