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UweSchmidt commented on Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox   blog.mozilla.org/en/produ... · Posted by u/pentagrama
winterbloom · 6 months ago
Disagree

It is your device and you are free to not run that code. You can leave

Of course this changes if it is something you specifically fund like government websites

UweSchmidt · 6 months ago
Ah, the good old Internet Libertarian.

If only free and enlightened individuals could, through their choices in a market in which everything is allowed, spawn such a diverse set of solutions, or allow true self-help, that every need is met...

...rather than everything consolidating under a few big players who leave few realistic alternatives, who confront users and customers with conflicting and hard to identify or quantify problems. There might just be 3 unreconcilable goals like:

- not allowing Google/Chrome to own the internet outright - have privacy for oneself and others who don't "opt out" - have a browser that is established enough to work on most websites

and you can't tell me what browser to use.

The same issue is present almost everywhere you look: All products have such massive permutations of health, energy, waste, sustainability, ethicical and economical parameters that making a decision is almost impossible for any well-informed individual, let alone for enough people to steer change in any meaningful way.

If you maintaing this sort of "Libertarian" view, make sure you're not inadvertendly serve the interest of corporations that would like to not be criticized nor regulated.

UweSchmidt commented on Introducing a terms of use and updated privacy notice for Firefox   blog.mozilla.org/en/produ... · Posted by u/pentagrama
p0w3n3d · 6 months ago
I'm shocked when in 2025 the term "you stay in control" regarding browser emerges as something exclusive.

When a web page or a program is downloaded to my computer I cannot imagine anything else, yet every major company tries to do something opposed - take the control from me as soon as possible.

UweSchmidt · 6 months ago
My mental model of a browser is the same as of any tool, as a hammer, purely defined by its technical capabilities to do a job, like to display a website and offer basic functionality like for saving a bookmark.

The very idea of an entity called "we", an anonymous and ever-changing cast of people managing "responsible defaults" and "simple tools to manage your data" and communicating it on their terms, making me try and keep up, is alien to this idea. They lay their hands on our data; want to know how exactly? Follow several links to this page:

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/#notice

The page in its tone trivializes the entire deal and is just another EULA and as such could just as well be presented in a small textbox in all-caps. It's more than the average user will ever read, and way too vague anyway.

"Be informed about what data we process about you, why and who it’s shared with (that’s this Notice!)" they say, but

...how about you show the entire dataset compiled about any user with information who is using it and for what exactly (excluding truly secret law enforcement requests). Everyone involved would be mortified with shame.

UweSchmidt commented on I do not want AI to "polish" me   thebloggess.com/2025/01/2... · Posted by u/doodpants
pjc50 · 7 months ago
> no you may not ready my proprietary document, nor do I suspect most people using this particular software - I only have it for digital signatures - have permission to share IP with a third party.

This is a massive liability that almost everybody seems to be ignoring. My employer has a ban on using AI on IP until this is properly resolved, because we actually care about it leaking.

Maybe an Information Commissioner will get round to issuing a directive some time in the mid-2030s about how none of this complies with GDPR.

UweSchmidt · 7 months ago
I think in general, no major liability issue will come up:

- if everyone is doing it, you can't really fault anyone

- on some level we are, or will be, kinda dependent on that AI and opting out will probably be made unpleasant via dark patterns as usual

- no pushback to every piece of software, including at the operating system level, slurping all the keystrokes and data, let alone the data that's already in the cloud - big tech knows everything about us but to my surprise no major public leak has happened, i.e. one where you really can see your neighbor's private data without buying leaked data from someone on the dark web or wherever

- things are moving too fast, and you don't know if you can afford to have your programmers not use tomorrow's AI, for example, so your "bans" will have to be soft etc., this limits the potential pushback and outrage

UweSchmidt commented on Librebooting the ThinkPad T480   ezntek.com/posts/libreboo... · Posted by u/axiologist
dewey · 8 months ago
Using memory doesn't have to be about badly written software though, there's many legitimate use cases for actually using your memory to make your experience better.
UweSchmidt · 8 months ago
My comment has not suggested that there were no legitimate cases for using more memory.

It's too easy, and happening too often on HN these days, to reply with a low-effort contrarian statement without engaging with the central point of the argument.

UweSchmidt commented on Amid cuts to basic research, New Zealand scraps all support for social sciences   science.org/content/artic... · Posted by u/zdw
bb86754 · 8 months ago
Agreed. But I don’t think economics is off the hook here either. To me it’s the social science that best masquerades as a “hard” science while still make huge jumps in logic that are rarely justified in the papers I’ve read.
UweSchmidt · 8 months ago
While we're bashing economics, something I truly miss is that no new high level economic systems are being discussed prominently. As important as fusion in physics or cancer treatment in medicine, we badly need to explore and discuss something beyond the heavily ideologized systems of capitalism, communism and feed this to politics to communicate these potential options to the voters. Say, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgism, which is old and half forgotten. It appears as economics is kind of muted, students and professors beholden to an ideology themselves or feeling the need to appease potential employers who are usually politicized institutions with no room for intellectual curiosity. What else remains in terms of practical economics besides determining the inflation rate (oops, that one is also politicized)?
UweSchmidt commented on Librebooting the ThinkPad T480   ezntek.com/posts/libreboo... · Posted by u/axiologist
BenjiWiebe · 8 months ago
No, unused memory should always be used as cache if it has no other use at the moment. It's wasted otherwise.
UweSchmidt · 8 months ago
Is that generally how unused memory is used, and will this kind of "cache" be released if another application truly needs it to load actually vital things?
UweSchmidt commented on Librebooting the ThinkPad T480   ezntek.com/posts/libreboo... · Posted by u/axiologist
dewey · 8 months ago
> manages to fill about ~20GB on a regular basis

Unused memory is wasted memory, so makes sense to always have a lot in memory. Doesn't mean that you'd have a worse experience with 16GB.

UweSchmidt · 8 months ago
"unused memory is wasted memory" is a meme, technically true from a narrow point of view, but leading to bloat and encouraging bad practices. A little bit of care could shave off orders of magnitude of memory use, as well as performance, which could ultimately allow for cheaper computers, sustainable use of legacy hardware and keeping performance reserve for actual use. In reality, I the idea of increased efficiency by using more memory ultimately leads to software requiring that memory that used to be optional, and software not playing nice with other programs that also need space. Of course even with the idea to have everything ready in memory, software is not generally snappy these days, neither in starting up and loading even from fast SSDs and during trivial UI tasks. Performance and efficiency is also generally not something that programmers regularly seem to consider the way real Mechanical-, Civil-, or Electrical Engineers would when designing systems.

I accept trade-offs concerning development effort and time-to-market, however the phrase "Unused memory is wasted memory" does not seem appropriate for a developer who's proud if their work.

Little friday rant, sorry :-)

UweSchmidt commented on Being overweight overtakes tobacco smoking as the leading disease risk factor   scimex.org/newsfeed/being... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico
nerdjon · 9 months ago
There is a middle ground, and I agree that there are some people that have gone too far.

I think body positivity, validating those choices with models that represent more people is a good thing. As a society we should not be judging someone for their choices or making medical claims about their bodies when we don't know their story.

But I also see the extremes of just ignoring it, not even wanting your doctor to talk about it. (I do realize that there are some exceptions to this like when it comes to eating disorders) I don't understand this. I want my doctor to tell me everything, hell I will overshare in the hopes that something is a thing that needs to be addressed.

I have also personally seen a subset of people that push back on anyone wanting to loose weight. I have lost about 45 lbs over the last year (still not at my target weight but I am very close, about 5-10 lbs off so really not stressing and for context I am 6'5). A friend I have not seen in a while recently gave me a hug, commented that I was loosing weight and asked me "Why". I was put off by it, because why is that even a question? You would get mad if I asked why you were gaining weight.

My point here, there is a middle ground and there is a right and wrong place to address this. Society shaming someone isn't the right choice and ignores that we don't know what is really going on with someone.

UweSchmidt · 9 months ago
As usual it comes down to the increasing individualism, that rejects any overarching societal guidance in favour of judgement-free self-expression ("body positivity"). This removes any collective bargaining or collective action (some of which I proposed in my parent comment) and exposes the individual to systemic risks (food industry making people fat, medical industry giving them a pill to feel better), unless the individual is equipped with enough of Bourdieu's social capital to navigate the pervasive health risks of the modern food supply. Allowing this minefield in place is also a convenient way to maintain class, leaving the unwashed masses hampered by health issues (like diabetes), reduced cognitive function and less attractiveness.
UweSchmidt commented on Being overweight overtakes tobacco smoking as the leading disease risk factor   scimex.org/newsfeed/being... · Posted by u/giuliomagnifico
UweSchmidt · 9 months ago
It appears that sentiments that downplay or dispute the health risks are growing in large social media bubbles, with strong effects on the real world. Efforts to push back on serving unhealthy food are undermined, doctors discouraged from discussing weight with their patients as a personal and sensitive issue; overweight models validate unhealthy body compositions. This surely has to please the food industry, which is as culpable as the tobacco industry in harming peoples health.

I would propose a concerted effort through mandatory levels of food quality that is served to the public (e.g. schools, hospitals), funded by a higher tax on sugary atrocities, limits on sale of sugary food and drinks to children, and an outright ban on any substance designed to create cravings.

UweSchmidt commented on From where I left   antirez.com/news/144... · Posted by u/tilt
jart · 9 months ago
Open source is a gift economy. Receiving a gift does not form a social contract that entitles you to future gifts. It is not a "rug pull" for someone to stop giving you gifts. The old versions of Redis are yours for all time. No one can take that away from you. In fact, Redis is still giving you gifts to this day, just with a different wrapping. The new license seems perfectly reasonable, given how much companies like Amazon have exploited the gift economy to the point where it threatens these startups survival.
UweSchmidt · 9 months ago
Open source is not a gift economy, and is in fact a different, and long established social contract. Never has this misplaced metaphor been used to describe open source, nor do the contributers demand any return that amounts to an "entitlement to future gifts".

u/UweSchmidt

KarmaCake day3455January 22, 2013
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Freelance test automation engineer from Germany.

www.korrektesoftware.de

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