downsplat (u/downsplat)

downsplat commented on Android 16 is here blog.google/products/andr... · Posted by u/nsriv

robocat · 3 months ago

Different topic: CSS doesn't have a good way to manage nearby clicks? A tap just a few px outside a button should click the button? <Input>s can steal focus from nearby taps on Mobile Safari (which can also be a fuckup). I hate iPhone taps that slip a little and scrollable areas having queer interactions (causing usability/accessibility issues).

downsplat · 3 months ago

Some positive padding, offset by the same negative margin, will do just that, i.e capture clicks near the link or button. It has some problems, but I've seen it used to make footnote links easier to click on mobile.

Ex: a.fn-link { padding:10px 18px; margin:-10px -18px; }

downsplat commented on Chatbots are replacing Google's search, devastating traffic for some publishers wsj.com/tech/ai/google-ai... · Posted by u/jaredwiener

nitwit005 · 3 months ago

Yes, unfortunately for those saying AIs will only get better, advertising is a major reason we should expect them to get worse.

downsplat · 3 months ago

With the huge usage that LLM APIs are getting in all sorts of industries, they cannot be going away, and they're cheap.

If consumer AI chatbots get enshittified, you can just grab some open source bring-your-api-keys front-end, and chat away for peanuts without ads or anything anti-user.

I use https://github.com/sigoden/aichat , but there are GUIs too.

Plus, anyone enterprising can just write a web front-end and sell it as "the ad-free AI chatbot, only $10/mo, usage limits apply".

downsplat commented on Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex) tech.slashdot.org/story/2... · Posted by u/miles

miohtama · 3 months ago

https://getfirefox.com

downsplat · 3 months ago

Yes. Especially on Android, FF with uBlock Origin is the superpower.

For this particular issue: Three dots > Extensions > uBlock Origin > Open dashboard > Filter list > Privacy, enable "Block Outsider Intrusion into LAN".

downsplat commented on Washington Post's Privacy Tip: Stop Using Chrome, Delete Meta Apps (and Yandex) tech.slashdot.org/story/2... · Posted by u/miles

gman83 · 3 months ago

Try having kids in Europe, everything they do is organized through WhatsApp group chats. I had to get a separate burner phone just for that.

downsplat · 3 months ago

You can create a work profile on Android and install Whatsapp in it, this way it won't have access to your main environment and contacts. For the f-droid loving crowd, try the Shelter app to set up the separate area.

downsplat commented on DNS4EU for Public Is Available joindns4.eu/for-public... · Posted by u/todsacerdoti

downsplat · 3 months ago

My question is, will they block sites when some e.g Greek or Spanish authority tells them too? One thing I appreciate about Cloudflare or Google's dns-over-https servers, on top of the encryption, is that they don't block sites like Anna's Archive, whereas my local ISP sometimes does.

downsplat commented on Mistral ships Le Chat – enterprise AI assistant that can run on prem mistral.ai/news/le-chat-e... · Posted by u/_lateralus_

Deathmax · 4 months ago

Gemini's free tier will absolutely use your inputs for training [1], same with Mistral's free tier [2]. Anthropic and OpenAI let's you opt into data collection for discounted prices or free tokens.

[1]: https://ai.google.dev/gemini-api/terms#data-use-unpaid

[2]: https://mistral.ai/terms#privacy-policy

downsplat · 4 months ago

Yeah, I mean paid API access. You put a credit card in, and it's peanuts at the end of the month. Sorry I didn't specify. Good reminder that with free services you are the product!

downsplat commented on Mistral ships Le Chat – enterprise AI assistant that can run on prem mistral.ai/news/le-chat-e... · Posted by u/_lateralus_

_pdp_ · 4 months ago

While I am rooting for Mistral, having access to a diverse set of models is the killer app IMHO. Sometimes you want to code. Sometimes you want to write. Not all models are made equal.

downsplat · 4 months ago

Same here. Since I started using LLMs a bit more, the killer step for me was to set up API access to a variety of providers (Mistral, Anthropic, Gemini, OpenAI), and use a unified client to access them. I'm usually coding at the CLI, so I installed 'aichat' from github and it does an amazing job. Switch models on the fly, switch between one-shot and session mode, log everything locally for later access, and ask casual questions with a single quick command.

I think all providers guarantee that they will not use your API inputs for training, it's meant as the pro version after all.

Plus it's dirt cheap, I query them several times per day, with access to high end thinking models, and pay just a few € per month.

downsplat commented on Quality-of-Life in Tetris Games jcarlosroldan.com/post/35... · Posted by u/juancroldan

downsplat · 5 months ago

That brings some memories. I got into tetris around 1988 on a 8086 PC with 5" floopy drives. Somebody gave me a copy of a very early tetris, it was a tiny DOS .com file, and the game was in text mode, written by the original Russians. I must have spent entire weeks on that thing, and when I learned programming, I proceeded to write a whole list of tetris variations, including one hexagonal, one for 3 players on a single PC, and a regular Tetris in assembly that fit on a boot sector. To this day it I open a tetris, I expect the exact rotations as that original version. Never got into these easier random generators - all my clones used full random pieces. Except for one where the machine would always throw you the hardest piece :)

downsplat commented on TL;DW: Too Long; Didn't Watch Distill YouTube Videos to the Relevant Information tldw.tube/... · Posted by u/pkaeding

gloosx · 7 months ago

Idea hackneyed since LLM's appeared. Cool that implementation is open-source, though yt automatic captions are sometimes completely off-point, especially when people talking in the video don't have a diction of a tv show host.

I wonder if an idea found it's niche after all? Do you guys summarise you videos to short texts and that leaves you satisfied? For me video is video, I can relax, sit and watch/listen to it. With text it is different, it is a mental exercise to read and process it, so turning video into text feels like an essential downgrade. I would prefer watching at 1.5/2x speed instead of text summary if I want to finish it faster.

downsplat · 7 months ago

> For me video is video, I can relax, sit and watch/listen to it. With text it is different, it is a mental exercise to read and process it, so turning video into text feels like an essential downgrade.

Exact opposite for me. Reading goes at my pace, in silence. Video is much more invasive, so I avoid it except for the highest quality stuff.

downsplat commented on Meta Wants More AI Bots on Facebook and Instagram nymag.com/intelligencer/a... · Posted by u/thm

prinny_ · 8 months ago

The answer is network effect and friction . It is hard to communicate to everyone on your friends list that moving forward they can reach you via email or text only. It’s going to work with close friends and family but other people that want to reach out will not be able to find you. And there are always cases when you want to connect (or be easy to find) with someone who is not a close acquaintance.

downsplat · 8 months ago

Don't people use whatsapp in your corner of the world? Over here in Europe all of that happens over whatsapp, which is still a Meta property at the end of the day, but one that hasn't been enshittified with off-network crap or algorithmic feeds... so far!