FoxQuirk 🦊 @quirk@computerfairi.es

A new gold standard review of 100 studies finds:

- masks are effective in reducing transmission of respiratory diseases

- N95 respirators are significantly more effective than medical or cloth masks

- mask mandates are effective in reducing community transmission

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/cmr.00124-23

ew ew ew

Microsoft is going all in on this AI stuff. They should make a Twitter account powered by an AI!

@RussellsBarbershopQuartet This is the most Microsoft thing I've ever seen, lmao 💀​

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I normally steer very far clear of doctor who content on youtube but this video essay by @sarahzedig is predictably fucking excellent

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6hmBlQiwZ0

Three years from now, when vendors are ripping their hugely expensive and utterly failed AI bullshit out of their products, their Product Owners will be laughing and shaking their heads and saying “what WERE they thinking?” And then rushing to implement the next digital panic to dogshit their products because they can’t let their competitors get a lead on the brand new dogshit.

I find it equally fascinating that in order to get anywhere near an integrated computing experience in 2024 we apparently need constant recording and transformer models.

No structured file systems, no permission models, no shared stores, no capabilities - just firehose the display output and hope for the best.

"Note that Recall does not perform content moderation. It will not hide information such as passwords or financial account numbers."

The computer, however, will stop you from recording DRM'd content.

Find it fascinating that when faced with drawing safety and security boundaries, the primary beneficiary is not the owner of the device, or the person using it, but random corporations who control the intellectual property rights.

The system doesn't work for you.

Similarly, it won't be enough for Microsoft to claim the data their "AI" surveillance features collect is kept local. Based on how they behaved with Win10, you have to assume Microsoft will eventually silently turn a local query into a network query without telling you. And even local storage can be accessed by malware, employers, or family members.

There is only one way, *only* one way, to prevent data being leaked or misused, and that is to not collect it ( see: https://mastodon.social/@arstechnica/112475323390645896 ).

My experience with Windows 10 was me turning off the "Bing" features, and one day turning on my computer and discovering overnight with an automatic update Microsoft had turned them back on, and everything I typed into the Start search was being forwarded to a network service. This happened more than once.

It won't be enough to turn Windows 11's "AI" surveillance features off. Based on how they behaved with Win10, you have to assume a feature you turn off today will be silently turned on later.

"...a would-be hacker would need to gain physical access to your device, unlock it and sign in before they could access saved screenshots."

I've got some news for Microsoft about how domestic abuse works.

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cpwwqp6nx14o

"To reach the cafe car, simply walk forward until you reach the cafe car. If you are unsure which direction on the train is forward, please look out the window, it is the direction the train is moving in"

Conductor getting an early start on stylish sass

KAFKAESQUE: Students at Emory University built an AI study tool. They pitched it to the university at an entrepreneurship competition. They won "grand prize" and $10,000 to build the tool. They built the tool.

The school's Honor Council suspended them for cheating and for building API support into the tool, which is what they pitched

https://www.404media.co/university-suspends-students-for-ai-homework-tool-it-paid-them-10-000-to-make/