I'm always surprised to see HN people saying models aren't good.
What are these guys building? The best engineers I know, from startup to big tech admit these models are incredible.
Including people I don't know personally, foundational engineers from every area. The average HN person though, is doing some quantum-alien computation that not even the best developers in the world can grasp.
I disagree with the author when they say something along the lines of “why don’t we use buttons instead of using these new assistive technology? Buttons are much faster, and I proved humans like fast.”
I think that’s false. Why after 10 years of software development I haven’t learned EMACS? Because I’m lazy, because I don’t think it’s the bottleneck of my work. My bottleneck might be creativity or knowledge and conversational interfaces might be the best thing there are for these (in the lack of a knowledgeable and kind human, which the author also seems to agree with).
Anyway, I don’t know, I found the title a bit disconnected from the content and the conclusions a bit overlappingly confusing but this is a complicated question. In the end I agree that we want a mix of things, we want a couple of keyboard strokes and we want chats. But most of all we probably want direct brain interface! ;)
Built-in components do as much work as possible directly on the client. Any Python code however runs on the server. This makes it dead-simple to e.g. connect to your database and also gives you the full power of real CPython, not just a cut-down WASM/transpiled version.
I wonder why they claim they need this... Tor seems to be doing fine as an organization without collecting user data? Why maintaining Firefox is much more expensive?
I guess the codebase for Firefox is much larger and in the end Tor is a fork of Firefox, right? So maybe they do need much more resources?
Not to say I'm not disappointed with Mozilla once again.
Tor is (was?) heavily subsidised by secret services in a.o. the US.
> likewise, agencies within the U.S. government variously fund Tor (the U.S. State Department, the National Science Foundation, and – through the Broadcasting Board of Governors, which itself partially funded Tor until October 2012 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tor_%28network%29?wprov=sfla1
While it has had funding from some sources we don’t necessarily trust, it’s still entirely open source and the code has been combed through repeatedly.
When it comes to privacy apps, I’d place significantly more trust in something like that than literally anything closed source or unscrutinized to that degree.
Sorry, I wasn't trying to imply that we should not trust it.
I was merely implying that there's a major difference between the model behind TOR and that of Firefox.
And also similarities: if TOR is funded by entitities we don't trust and it turns out to work fine, then Firefox, being "funded" by Google should not have to be a severe problem either.
>And Mozilla leadership is associated with radical left politics, just as an extra.
Do you have proof for this? I'd be curious.
I also fail to see how is that related to the collecting data by default thing. Is that a leftist thing now?
Whether you agree or disagree with what the Mozilla foundation does, it seems fairly matter of fact to say that they are pursuing liberal policies and that posts from the leadership, like the couple below, employ a good bit of leftist rhetoric.
Getting people to identify corporate PR speak with "radical leftist rhetoric" is perhaps one of the most darkly genius angles of the conservative culture war in recent memory.
Who even read these dumb company blogs before this?
Radical right: “Almost nothing great has ever been done in the world except by the genius and firmness of a single man combating the prejudices of the multitude.”
Far-right: “I know there are some who become sick when they see black uniforms… but those who come to fear us at any time must have a guilty conscience before the nation.”
Right: “This means that every Canadian will see their income taxes go down. This means more money to pay the bills, to save up for your kids' education or maybe even finally afford a family vacation.”
Centre: “There is nothing which I dread so much as a division of the republic into two great parties, each arranged under its leader, and concerting measures in opposition to each other.”
Left: “To put it bluntly, no one should be faced with a choice that says, in effect, “your money or your life”. “
far left: “ The role of the police and the military is growing, and the links between these enforcers of ruling class power and far-right and fascist parties and movements, are becoming more visible.”
Radical left: “ They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions.”
Socially left in the American sense (same with "liberal"). You're just insisting on the Old World economic sense, which is totally irrelevant in America.
Oppressing workers is fine, but it better be inclusive oppression.
