AmbitiousProcess (they/them)

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 6th, 2025

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  • They used an AI model to repeatedly generate guesses of the code until it matched the compiled bytecode, then AI-generated new code based on the decompiled source to create a technically unique codebase that can do most of the same functions and looks extremely close to the original.

    Has essentially every feature, but also bugs out a lot or has features that technically work, but not in the same way as Photoshop (e.g. magic wand selection tool might bug out and select stuff on more than one layer, and might be less accurate and selecting fine edges)






  • I would be concerned about language collapse (i.e. models incrementally forget vocabulary + fail to adapt to new terms leading to language becoming incrementally worse) before I would worry about knowledge collapse

    Why so?

    The exact same mechanism is on display here. Ask an LLM for information, and it’s more likely to condense an answer, not display additional relevant information, and slowly but surely produce less and less outputs including that given information.

    Sources then begin to be generated by the AI model that adds less and less of that information over time, LLMs cite those new sources that don’t include that information, etc, etc, and now that information is just not present in a majority of sources, and is never stated in any LLM responses.

    If anything, this is more likely than models forgetting certain vocabulary, because while the underlying tokens for a lot of that vocabulary still exist in the model, the subsequent combinations for a given piece of information are substantially less likely, and the models’ finite size can only store a subset of that actual information in statistical averages. (i.e. you can store the alphabet and a dictionary of every word in the English language, and many simple phrases, in a tiny fraction of what the sum of Wikipedia is, and Wikipedia itself will contain a subset of all information on the internet, and so on, but you can still theoretically write any English content you’ll find on Wikipedia or the internet using that alphabet and dictionary)





  • According to the Ars review, the 1.5 hour battery life is when running games on the Steam frame itself

    I was going off the LTT number which put it at 1:36 when streaming Half Life Alyx from a desktop PC, running at 144Hz. Ars’ number is when running on Performance mode with “most VR titles”, so I don’t know how comparable that is.

    The Verge says they never got above 2 hours even when using battery-saving mode or streaming-only, and demanding games got under 1 hour.

    As for charging time, LTT claims it’s 3 hours to 100%, and 2.4 to 95%, and doesn’t seem to state there’s much of a speed increase below that point, and as far as I’m aware you usually only see a major difference in charging speed for the last ~10%, though previously The Verge did also state a power bank could keep them going up to 2.5 hours.

    So with all that said, if it takes around 1-2 hours for it to die after starting from full, and it takes a minimum of 2.4 hours just to get it almost full… that means it’ll still run out of battery eventually, even if plugged in.



  • You could make a super long argument against this but I think there’s a few simple points (that you can use any number of, you don’t really need all of these at once for most people) that usually get it across to people, at least from my experience.

    There’s the moral/emotional argument:

    “You do have something to hide. Wanna unlock your phone and let me go through all your messages/photos/emails, leave the bathroom door open all the time, and never close your blinds? Even if you aren’t doing something illegal AND have no problem with me seeing all your conversations and data, privacy is still a comfort for many people”

    …and there’s the monetary arguments:

    “If a company is collecting that data, it’s because they make money off it. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry, and it’s the only reason Google, Facebook, etc can physically exist. If they know more about you, they can manipulate you into spending money with advertisers easier, allow political campaigns to manipulate your opinion more effectively, etc”

    “You might not have a problem with how your data is used now, but if the law changes, or a corporation decides to do something different, suddenly data about your health and finances that was just for ads might then become a way to increase your health insurance pricing to the max you can afford”


  • all android devices have been using file based disk encryption since several Android versions now.

    All Android devices are supposed to support it, but not all do. (or at least, not all do effectively without compromising the cryptographic root of trust by not implementing proper hardware security chips)

    I’ll grant it to you on the scopes, PIN changes, etc, but realistically I just don’t think anyone can justify GrapheneOS being something that should be supported on Fairphone given how absolutely desolate the phone looks with regard to any attempt at all to hardware security.


  • It really depends on what security level you want out of a phone

    It does, but that’s exactly my point. GrapheneOS will provide you essentially no more security than any other alternative Android operating system, should it have to operate on a Fairphone with all those features not supported by a Fairphone stripped away.

    Unless Fairphone adds more hardware security features that are standard on most other phones, and highly supported on Pixels, installing a heavily crippled GrapheneOS on a Fairphone would get you essentially none of the benefits of GrapheneOS in the first place.


  • Entirely lacking disk encryption for typical users due to not having a secure element is a pretty major flaw.

    It’s also missing hardware accelerated virtualization which is necessary for much of GrapheneOS’s sandboxing, has weak security for other keys in the OS keystore, is missing hardware memory tagging which makes it much easier for apps to use overflow attacks, doesn’t have proper verified boot support once a custom alternative OS is flashed, and leaves exposed debugging APIs even when the phone is locked.

    This breaks:

    • Secure app spawning
    • Memory corruption protection
    • Integer overflow protection
    • Most of Graphene’s kernel hardening
    • Much of Graphene’s attack surface reduction abilities
    • Hardware-based attestation and security monitoring
    • Quick tile protection pre-unlock
    • Debugging access prevention
    • Verified Boot
    • The security of your PIN against any automated attack

    At that point, GrapheneOS can’t physically provide you essentially any security anymore.




  • Some patterns can. This one won’t.

    Adversarial patterns/noise can confuse cameras, but that’s usually done not by tricking it into thinking, for example, that this one van is actually a hundred mini vans crammed into the same space, but by tricking it into thinking there’s not a car there because the pattern just confuses it and it recognizes it as any random sequence of random objects and things simultaneously.

    Just slapping a bunch of car photos won’t make it think it’s a car, because the little photos are tiny, don’t move like a car, are still visually distinct from the background, and are on a much larger car-shaped object. If your car has patterns that makes it look like the general concept of an asphalt road, road signs, lamp posts, etc, then it might be enough to confuse the camera into thinking the odd blob shapes are something else, because cars on the road are also always passing on top, in front of, and by asphalt, road signs, lamp posts, etc.

    The cameras don’t have depth perception, so if your car looks close enough to the road and objects around it, it’ll blend right in, to the camera.