-dsr- (accept no substitutes)
@dashdsrdash.tilde.zone.ap.brid.gy
What I say is accurate in all respects, especially predictions and opinions. Would you like to buy a bridge? LEGO minifig (light tan, goatee, glasses; black t-shirt […] 🌉 bridged from ⁂ https://tilde.zone/@dashdsrdash, follow @ap.brid.gy to interact
Exclusive: We obtained a leaked playbook that Flock gives to cops to coach them on "how to speak to city council" to avoid getting their contracts canceled. Includes strategies like "own the narrative" by talking to mayor "before public comment periods" […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
The thing is, I don't believe that this absurdly stupid ticket scam comment went against Facebook's "community standards". It practically defines their community standards. (Context: I quoted Weird Al, from a song written in 1985. A scammer offered tickets. I reported it as fraud. FB/Meta, of […]
Original post on tilde.zone
tilde.zone
Thinking about the first event in history to be attended by more time travellers than contemporaries.
This practical roundup of how to disable AI in Most If Not All Of The Things by @jessamyn is brilliant: https://www.librarian.net/NoToAI/ Thanks, Jessamyn! #NoToAI
How to disable or avoid intrusive AI
[_Put on your own oxygen mask first! Image from San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives_] One of the biggest questions I get at Drop-In Time at the library (besides “what is taking up all my cloud storage?”) is how to disable or avoid intrusive AI that shows up where people don’t want it. I’m going to make a handout that explains how to do some of the basic AI-removal or AI-avoidance things. This is a guide for people who would like less intrusive AI in their tech environment. Maybe you like AI and find it useful? That’s fine, this document is probably not for you. Additions/edits welcome. Leave a comment or drop me an email. ## Google Workspace (Gmail, Google Docs &c) In Gmail, click the Settings (gear) icon, and then select **See all settings**. On the **General** tab, scroll down to **Google Workspace smart features**. Click **Manage Workspace smart feature settings** and toggle off two options: **Smart features in Google Workspace** and **Smart features in other Google products**. Uncheck the box next to **Turn on smart features in Gmail, Chat, and Meet** on the same tab. ## Apple Intelligence & Siri Only exists on iPhone 16 and newer Macs and iPads Open **Settings** (iPhone or iPad) or **System Settings** (Mac) and choose**Apple Intelligence & Siri**. Then turn off the **Apple Intelligence** option. Confirm your choice in the dialog that appears by tapping **Turn Off Apple Intelligence**. More details on how to turn off specific parts of Apple Intelligence and leave others alone. ## Copilot/Windows 11 Copilot exists both as an embedded AI agent in Office 365 and also built into the Windows 11 operating system. Right-click the **Copilot** entry in the **Start** menu and select **Uninstall**. If that option isn’t there, head over to your installed apps list (**Start – Settings – Apps**) and uninstall Copilot from there. In certain builds of Windows 11, Copilot is stuck into the OS, so a simple uninstall might not work. In that case, you can toggle it off via the settings: **Start – Settings – Personalization – Taskbar** –**turn off Copilot** **File Explorer** has some AI built into it which can be turn-onable accidentally. To remove. **Start – Settings – Privacy & Security – Click to Do.** **Notepad** has its own special Copilot, so you’ll need to disable AI there separately. Open the Notepad settings, find the **AI features** section (or a sparkly icon near a **Writing Tools** section), and toggle Copilot off. **Office 365/Outlook** There is a separate **Enable Copilot** checkbox in each app and the checkbox only applies to that app on that device. Read more about how to turn it off. If you don’t have that option, you can change your privacy settings to disable Copilot. “**Text and image generation** ” are turned on by default, affecting Notepad, Photos, Snipping Tool, and Xbox. Turn this off. It is complicated, though not impossible, to remove Copilot from your Windows computer entirely. Here is a link that gets into the details. If you feel comfortable installing software O&O ShutUp 10 is one way to do that, Win11DeBloat is another. ## Browser-embedded AI ### Chrome/AI Nano Type **chrome://flags** into the address bar and hit **Enter**. You’ll see a list of system flags and a search bar; type “**AI** ” into that search bar. This will filter the massive list down to about a dozen AI features (and a few other cases where those letters just happen to be in a word). The second search term you’ll need in this window is “**Gemini** ” set them all to “disabled” ### Edge Similar to Chrome: type **edge://flags** into the Edge address bar, hit **Enter** , then type “**AI** ” or “**Copilot** ” into the search box. Click **Appearance** in the left-hand Settings sidebar, and scroll down to **Copilot and sidebar** Turn the sidebar **off** , and turn off the “**Personalize my top sites in customize sidebar** ” and “**Allow sidebar apps to show notifications** ” toggles. Click**Copilot** under **App specific settings**. Turn off “**Show Copilot button on the toolbar**.” Then, back in the **Copilot and sidebar** settings, turn off the **“Show sidebar button”** toggle that has just appeared. Click **Languages** in the left-hand navigation. Disable **“Use Copilot for writing on the web.”** ### Firefox The latest Firefox (148 and later) has a feature to block all AI enhancements. So update, if you can, go to **Settings** and look for **AI Controls**. Turn **Block AI Enhancements** on (or select more granularly from the list) Using Firefox, this extension removes a lot of the AI junk if you use Google as your default search engine. * * * More details on removing AI slop from search results in different browsers. * Here is a link for how to do this in DuckDuckGo and Bing. * TenBlueLinks gives you some simple steps to do this in Chrome/Firefox ### DuckDuckGo DDG is both a browser and a search engine. They have a no-AI version you can get to by going to https://noai.duckduckgo.com/ You can also change your default search engine to this and stop using Google, here are steps for every browser. If you want to go all out and get the DDG browser, they also have instructions on how to do that. ## WhatsApp AI lives in here in a few places. Suggested Replies, go to **Settings – Chats – Suggestions & smart replies** and toggle off **Suggested replies**. **AI Sticker suggestions** can be shut off in that same menu. For AI message summaries, those are managed in a different location: **Settings – Notifications – AI message summaries**. ## Android/Gemini Depending on your phone’s manufacturer, you may be able to uninstall the Gemini app entirely. If not, there are some application-specific ways you can turn off some of its features ### Messages Tap **your account** picture, select **Messages settings** , then **Gemini in Messages** , and toggle the assistant off. ### Other features in other apps Tap your profile icon, select **Gemini Apps activity** , and then choose **Turn off** or **Turn off and delete activity**. Next, tap the profile icon again and go to the **Connected Apps** setting (check the **Personal Intelligence** setting). Disable all the apps where you don’t want Gemini. ### Power Button If Gemini has “taken over” your power button, you can turn this off. Go to **Settings,** then **System** , then **Gestures** and change the settings under **Press & Hold Power Button** ## Zoom Sign in at Zoom.com. Scroll to **My Account** on the left and select **Settings**. Go to the **Zoom AI** tab on the right where you can disable everything. Note: new AI options get added and they default to “on” so check back. To the right of the **Zoom AI** tab click on **My Notes** and disable “Allow participants to transcribe meetings with My Notes” ## Other useful AI Removal/Detection links * How to spot AI Hallucinations like a Reference Librarian (originally on Substack) * Library Freedom Project has a lot of handouts about AI on their Resources page Inspired by the librarians from Bangor
librarian.net
Is there a term for declarative speech, where the words explaining something are told instead of being shown? e.g. "No pressure" instead of making a gentler suggestion, or "I would like to respectfully request" instead of actually showing any respect.
An astoundingly large percentage of my personal technical policies are guided by the idea that I want to minimize my losses after the next sudden yet inevitable betrayal.
[unsolicited life advice masquerading as an observation] Have you ever noticed that there are major problems in the world which have obvious solutions of the form: 1. Stop doing the problematic thing, which will be better for everyone. 2. Cooperate with other folks, which will be better […]
Original post on tilde.zone
tilde.zone
[Comparative musicology] You* probably know some of the lyrics to a dozen or so songs by Madonna. Every one of them is pre-2000. Since then, she's released 42 albums. Don't worry, you aren't missing anything. This is slightly different from The Eagles. You can also hum about a dozen Eagles […]
Original post on tilde.zone
tilde.zone
The cure is to stop doing that; there are other, better ways. "But it's what everyone is doing!" Yeah, that's why it's a problem. This post is about three hundred and sixty six different things.
To limit personal liability, which could lead to slavery and the confiscation of all personal property, early entrepreneurs invented the practice of common slave ownership, in which a jointly owned slave served as chief executive officer of the enterprise. As slaves were 'things' responsible for […]
Original post on tilde.zone
tilde.zone
I am getting sick of this conflating of every case of "computer use algorithm" into the single gelid blob of "AI" making it impossible to have a productive conversation on the subject When people say they're "against AI", they usually mean certain specific things. "Image generators displacing […]
Original post on mastodon.nz
mastodon.nz
Is no Boston statue safe from the ravages of the Tartan Army?
Heuristics for problem solving real-world computational systems: * Read the output. Describe exactly what is wrong. * (a) the output must exist. Maybe it isn't where you expect it to be? * (b) the output must be readable * (c) if you can't describe what is wrong, you need to find […]
Original post on tilde.zone
tilde.zone
Scottish World Cup fans drank so much beer in Boston that Sam Adams ran out of Boston Lager and one bar sold 3x its St. Patrick's Day sales. Also, traffic cones keep showing up on top of statues, and the word "children" has recently been replaced by "wee'uns".
[USPol] Make Racists Afraid Again. https://apnews.com/article/redistricting-georgia-trump-gerrymander-31f6b532e057174e68be183a9d850ec5 "Privately, Republicans had expressed concerns that a rushed redistricting that diminished Black and other minority voters’ political power could cause a […]
Original post on tilde.zone
tilde.zone
I know, intellectually, that events w/o accessibility details in the description don’t INTEND to say “you and your family aren’t welcome here.” I also know I've hosted many an inaccessible event. My house is made of stairs. We hosted lots of stuff, pre-pandemic. That said, today I sure wish […]
Original post on mas.wrong.tools
mas.wrong.tools
Battery care 1/n: You have a Nickel-Cadmium or Nickel-Metal-Hydride battery: use a dedicated smart charger for that battery type, or throw it in the bin. You might remember how the Nickel batteries in older power tools were shit -- actually the batteries were okay […] [Original post on aus.social]
It occurs to me that Muppets are the anti-AI. AI personas look real, but have no soul. And, despite being made of complex technology, they generate uncanny valley reactions, when they’re visual and not just chatbots. Whereas Muppets look fake, but they have all the soul. They’re made of simple […]
Original post on mastodon.social
mastodon.social
[your reminder that LLMs are bullshit generators] That's bullshit as in "complete disregard for truth". Think of a song (music with lyrics). Take a general field of human endeavor -- finance, physics, fashion. Ask the chatbot interface to interpret the song as a metaphor for the field […]
Original post on tilde.zone
tilde.zone
The disregard of truth in making an argument, "bullshit", is the defining malady of this decade. You need, everyone needs, both gross and specific bullshit detectors.
[Movies: Valley Girl (1983) and Valley Girl (2020)] I watched both of these for the first time tonight. Valley Girl (1983) is... inspired by, but not in any way faithful to, The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet (1597). It is very much about Los Angeles in 1982, and thus about classism, sexism […]
Original post on tilde.zone
tilde.zone
[Cats in their natural habitat] Grace warmed up in the window, decided it was too warm, and is now half-hidden in technology. #cats
If your project can be ruined because your agent read a comment in a code repo telling LLMs to wipe your data, You deserved that. Code is law, right?
Today's ice cream flavor is vanilla rum.
In almost every discussion, there comes a time when questions shift from "what is happening?" to "what should be happening?". Not being clear about which side of the divide you are currently addressing is ... a problem.
linkage does not imply endorsement, or knowing what's going on. https://www.cringely.com/2026/05/21/im-writing-again/
cringely.com
Hey, it's a meme. Ten bands I've seen live: They Might Be Giants (so many times that I've lost count) Van Halen Styx REO Speedwagon Jonathan Coulton George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars Tori Amos Great Big Sea Mighty Mighty Bosstones Seks Bomba
still not quite over the fact that i watched 15 year olds get sued for millions of dollars for downloading twelve songs and now we all have to accept AI slop because every tech company in the known universe decided that IP laws don't exist now that they're inconvenient for them