Disqus - Latest Comments for samj

Re: The Open Source AI : Understanding the New Standard

samj — Mon, 11 Nov 2024 15:03:23 -0000

The OSAID is a dangerous fork of the Open Source Definition that fails to protect the four essential freedoms of Free Software. It deprives us the possibility to build the next generation of models on top of the last, as has been the case for a quarter century for Open Source, and even prevents the exploited co-designers from assessing let alone addressing ethical issues like bias and fairness.

That's why we launched the Open Source Declaration , locking it in at v1.9 until the community decides otherwise, and cast off a life raft with a stable version of the Open Source Definition that will not be able to be subject to the inevitable "harmonisation" with the OSAID when they return from holidays next year. I invite you to join the uncensored discussion at https://discuss.opensourcedefinition.org .

Here's some pointers for an update or future version of this article: So, you want to write about the OSI’s Open Source AI Definition (OSAID)…

Re: Tech giants fall short of new open-source AI standard

samj — Mon, 04 Nov 2024 11:45:18 -0000

The Open Source AI Definition Erodes the Meaning of “Open Source” , and is almost certainly going to be disavowed by Debian, where fellow developers consider it obvious bulls--t.
Requiring that users must build a substantially equivalent part of the source on their own, as stated in the Data Information paragraph, is obviously at odds with the DFSG. That's like not releasing the source code at all and claiming that it's still free software because "a skilled person" could rewrite it. That's obvious bulls--t.I've covered the process/voting problems extensively on my blog and encourage you to sign the Open Source Declaration to lock in the existing definition and prevent dangerous forks like the OSAID, particularly given the OSI is likely to come back and "harmonise" the conflicting definitions when they return from vacation.

Re:

samj — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 23:58:31 -0000

The Tesla Model Y is an excellent crossover and an even better electric vehicle. It successfully builds on the style, range, technology, and value pioneered by the Model 3 sedan as it brings new functionality to buyers who want the look, the space, and the capability of an SUV.

Re: SG viewquest

samj — Thu, 21 Feb 2019 00:26:11 -0000

Little India area down an hour or two

Re: PTV Timetable and Geographic Information - GTFS - Datasets | Victorian Government Data Directory

samj — Sat, 03 Oct 2015 06:15:01 -0000

Does anyone have any news on this? It's been 6 months now.

Re: Are speed cameras killing us? The stats say yes

samj — Mon, 02 Feb 2015 16:56:45 -0000

You want to try driving in Switzerland where you can't afford to take your eyes off the speedo. There's cameras everywhere here, it's illegal to track or warn drivers of their locations, and the record fine is $1m.

Re: Goodbye Fax, Hello Personal Cloud

samj — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 01:57:13 -0000

You don't even need a public health care system for that... in Switzerland if I visit a doctor they bill my insurance directly. The insurer then consolidates everything and either deducts the amount from my bank account (if I haven't reached my 2,500.- excess) or pays it themselves (if I have). Why would you want to involve individuals on an ad-hoc basis to make up for poor communication between providers who need to talk to each other every day anyway?

Re: Cloud Schmoud – Why no one really cares

samj — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:01:42 -0000

The term "cloud" has served its purpose well — before it (when I moved to France in 2006 to found what would later be called a "cloud" startup) we'd use contrived terms like "virtual private intranet" to describe using multiple applications delivered as a service over the Internet (Google Apps, Salesforce, etc.) with SSO.

Unfortunately threatened vendors with big marketing budgets than our individual voices could compete with jumped on the bandwagon around 2008 and tried to hijack the term (with some amount of success) to mean pretty much whatever we were doing before. Virtualisation vendors and box pushers were particularly guilty of this (some more than others) and it is indeed unfortunate that we didn't use a more benign term like "utility" and/or "service".

You'll be pleased to know that the searches for the term are starting to taper off this year and given today's attention spans you can be sure that "cloud" will fade away before too long. When it does we'll know we've been successful in that it will be implicit in the same way that the term "client-server" was initially used to differentiate from mainframe computing until it too became the default.

Re: RIAA: Someone Else Is Pirating Through Our IP-Addresses

samj — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 05:17:11 -0000

Will they be pursuing the offending vendor?

Re: Sexual Harassment at Technical Conferences: A Big No-No

samj — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 23:31:20 -0000

While I'm sorry I won't be able to make it to OSCON this year, I'm glad to hear that you've committed to adopt a code of conduct and that you've covered the most important points preemptively. Have a great week!

Re: Georgia Mom Convicted of Vehicular Homicide For Crossing Street With Kids

samj — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 10:06:12 -0000

Only in America...

Re: Billy Chasen Wins Anything Goes Contest with SMS-controlled Door Lock!

samj — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:44:27 -0000

Actually there's an easier fix — just change line 20 in door.py (if body == "open") to a password (if body == "letmein")

Re: http://leftovertakeout.com/post/7630183927

samj — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:42:44 -0000

Actually there's an easier fix — just change line 20 in door.py:

if body == "open"

to a password:

if body == "letmein"

Re: http://leftovertakeout.com/post/7630183927

samj — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:13:57 -0000

This (especially the mechanics) is really cool, but it's insecure because it relies on the sender/caller ID which can be trivially spoofed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

For additional security the door should send a challenge to the phone, but triggering the challenge would be itself a challenge.

Re: Billy Chasen Wins Anything Goes Contest with SMS-controlled Door Lock!

samj — Fri, 15 Jul 2011 09:12:33 -0000

I hate to rain on your parade (because this is a pretty cool solution) but SMS spoofing is trivial: http://en.wikipedia.org/wik...

To have any claim of security (outside of obscurity by keeping numbers and/or location secret) you really need to send a challenge to the phone. Sure you could do this with the Twilio API but the UX would be poor.

That said, we are very rarely without our phones so if you could make this work (e.g. with bluetooth, wifi, NFC, etc.) then you could do away with keys!

Re: Private Cloud Choices

samj — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:38:08 -0000

I too don't like the term "enterprise" cloud as it's disparaging of cheaper, commodity alternatives in the same way that "private" cloud implies the alternatives are somehow not private.

By definition a commodity is something that is differentiated only by price — it says nothing of quality. Here's some common commodities for example: http://money.cnn.com/data/c... Would you consider gold or silver to be "cheap and of poor quality"?

I think "commodity" is a more useful term which reflects that the computing fabric is homogenous rather than heterogeneous, without saying anything as to the scale (ala "webscale"). Hardware isn't really a differentiator any more and "commodity" makes this clear.

That said, it can also be useful to refer to small vs large or "web" scale because it's only at scale (~10-100k+ servers) that TCO really tapers off — mixing the concepts is unhelpful.

Re: Private Cloud Choices

samj — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:27:06 -0000

Conversely, both unreliable software on reliable hardware and reliable software on unreliable hardware make sense.

Re: Private Cloud Choices

samj — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:25:10 -0000

My point was that while you could deploy legacy (unreliable) software on commodity (unreliable) hardware or "webscale" (reliable) software on "legacy" or "enterprise" (reliable) hardware there's not much point in doing either — in the former case you'll end up with an unreliable system and in the latter a reliable but expensive one.

Re: Private Cloud Choices

samj — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:18:08 -0000

Troy,

While I think it's useful to distinguish between "legacy" private cloud (in which reliable hardware hosts unreliable software) and "commodity" private cloud (in which unreliable hardware hosts reliable software), I think the "webscale" term you guys have been using more and more these days misses the point.

That is to say, there's nothing stopping you from creating a "webscale" private cloud using legacy hardware, nor anything stopping you from creating a small scale private cloud using commodity hardware.

Fair comment?

Sam

Re: What Exactly Is 'Open Cloud'? Microsoft, Apache Answer Differently

samj — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 15:49:38 -0000

You need look no further than the Open Cloud Principles for a concise yet complete definition of what the community requires of open cloud products and services: http://opencloud.googlecode...

Re: How To Mass Export All Of Your Facebook Friends’ Private Email Addresses

samj — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 07:34:19 -0000

Congratulations!
0 new contacts imported

Re: Like Everyone Else, Amazon Is Testing A Like Button

samj — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 19:32:26 -0000

If this article hadn't been inexplicably censored I might have "Like"d it too:

http://techcrunch.com/2010/...

Re: 100%25+Proof+From+Tawkon%3A+Death+Grip+Impacts+iPhone+4%2C+BlackBerry+Bold+%26amp%3B+Nexus+One%26nbsp%3B%28Video%29

samj — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 18:37:39 -0000

"100% Proof"? Really? That's your "100% Proof"?

Re: The HP/Hurd Accusations: Now With More WTF

samj — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 04:41:14 -0000

WTF?

-1

Re: Delta+Flight+1843+From+JFK+To%26nbsp%3BHell

samj — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 15:11:59 -0000

Virgin America is absolutely amazing... upgraded to first class the other day and it may well have been the best $70 I've ever spent.