I think it’s worth watching more recent seasons, at least from the first trump presidency. I agree that they had originally a “both sides bad” approach, but over the last 10 years or so, they have much more clearly come down on the side of “maga is wrong and evil”.
There are still a variety of subjects where I’m sure people on the other side of the aisle would take objection (i think of the ultra PC “pc principal” who demands that everyone honor everyone’s pronouns at the threat of violence). Last couple of years though, the tone has shifted, for example the depiction of trump as the literal duplicate of saddam Hussein and satans new boyfriend, who literally impregnates satan with the Antichrist, and then spends the season trying to abort it.
They satire society and that changes with who is in power. A cartoon that can have pc principal then rebrand him as religious maga fan when the tide changes also satires people who shift who they are when the world changes.
PC Principal has an interesting arc when he hooks up with strong woman and has pc babies who reject his transformation and then ultimately accept him.
> they have much more clearly come down on the side of “maga is wrong and evil”.
That's kinda good to hear - I suppose - but they only did that after the consequences of their destructive actions became clear to them, even though nearly every other intelligent person on the planet had been warning about that.
The whole point is it wasn't "hindsight". They took obviously wrong, easily refuted positions on some very important issues, like climate change and political choice, and abused their platform to promote that nonsense.
Impressionable baby techbros here on HN still quote them on that stuff, so the consequences of their multiple fuckups haven't finished playing out yet.
"Hindsight" would be recognizing "oh shit, I'm a fucking idiot and I didn't realize it." But they haven't actually reached that level of hindsight yet.
Essentially, Matt Stone and Trey Parker are enthusiastic heralds of the idiocracy.
Well, when people get their news from entertainers, that’s when things are wrong. One should not be informed on important topics by people who have little understanding of things but have a lot of feelings about things in the world. If you give entertainers that much credibility then you get good along with bad.
Huh? You're right that South Park has had a "both sides bad" approach to politics in the past, but I think you're misrepresenting how the show covered Trump. South Park was pretty much shitting on him the moment he announced his campaign and they painted him as a malevolent force that was going to ruin America, the entire time.
They kinda made fun of Hillary, but nothing beyond she's lame and a bad campaigner. And they were a little hamstrung there considering they were jumping ahead of the real life election cycle a bit.
Yeah there are, Linux supports parameters FALLOC_FL_INSERT_RANGE and FALLOC_FL_COLLAPSE_RANGE for fallocate(2). Like most fancy filesystem features, they are not used by the vast majority of software because it has to run on any filesystem so you'd always need to maintain two implementations (and extensive test cases).
Interesting that after decades of file system history, this is still considered a "fancy feature", considering that editing files is a pretty basic operation for a file system. Though I assume there are reasons why this hasn't become standard long ago.
File systems aren’t databases; they manage flat files, not structured data. You also can’t just insert/remove random amounts of bytes in RAM. The considerations here are actually quite similar, like fragmentation. If you make a hundred small edits to a file, you might end up with the file taking up ten times as much space due to fragmentation, and then you’d need the file system to do some sort of defragmentation pass to rewrite the file more contiguously again.
In addition, it’s generally nontrivial for a program to map changes to an in-memory object structure back to surgical edits of a flat file. It’s much easier to always just serialize the whole thing, or if the file format allows it, appending the serialized changes to the file.
File systems aren't databases, but journaling file systems use journals just like databases. It can theoretically define any granularity for something that might happen to a file to become an irreversible transaction. I suppose that file systems have to remain “general purpose enough” to be useful (otherwise they become part of the specific program or library), and that's why complex features which might become a pitfall for the regular users who expect “just regular files” rarely become the main focus.
But appending changes is a terrible solution, even if it is "much easier" to implement. Not only because it causes data leakage, as in this case, but also because it can strongly inflate the file size. E.g. if you change the header image of a PDF a few times.
Indeed, also userspace-level atomicity is important, so you probably want to save a backup in case power goes out at an unfortunate moment. And since you already need to have a backup, might as well go for a full rewrite + rename combo.
What this does on typical extent-based file systems is split the extent of the file at the given location (which means these operations can only be done with cluster granularity) and then insert a third extent. i.e. calling INSERT_RANGE once will give you a file with at least three extents (fragments). This, plus the mkfs-options-dependent alignment requirements, makes it really quite uninteresting for broad use in a similar fashion as O_DIRECT is uninteresting.
Well, better an uninteresting solution than a solution which is actively terrible: appending changes to a PDF, which will inflate its size and cause data leakage.
Look at the C file API which most software is based on, it simply doesn’t allow it. Writing at a given file position just overwrites existing content. There is no way to insert or remove bytes in the middle.
Apart from that, file systems manage storage in larger fixed-size blocks (commonly 4 KB). One block typically links to the next block (if any) of the same file, but that’s about the extent of it.
I think you have to go market by market to make that statement. In NYC, for example, it was explicitly illegal for yellow cabs to accept radio/pickup calls, which was the domain of the livery cabs (black cars). The tradeoff was that only yellow cabs could do street hails. That worked for everybody for years - yellow cabs did a volume business, livery cabs were for outer boros or luxury/business travel and would sneakily try to pick up street hails.
In those days if you needed a car to take you someplace, aside from the outer boro examples, it was always faster to get a yellow cab. The car services could maybe get there in 45 minutes if you were lucky - big companies would often have deals with car service companies to have a few cars stationed at their buildings for peak times, so execs didn't have to wait for a car.
The yellow cab operators were essentially all independent - many rented their medallion/vehicle, either from a colleague or an agency, but they worked their own schedules and their own instincts on where to be picking up fares at given times.
No one expected something like uber - what is essentially a street hail masquerading as a livery cab. This basically destroyed yellow cabs and the traditional livery cab companies, but some of it is attributable to the VC spend, lowering prices (yellow cab fares are set by the city, livery cab fares are market-regulated) and incentivizing drivers. They made it so lucrative to drive an uber that you had thousands of new uber drivers on the road, or taxi drivers who stopped leasing their medallions and started driving uber.
At some point, though - the subsidies dried up, prices went up, and now its often faster to get a yellow cab than an uber/lyft. This is anecdata, but I take cabs a lot, and I've spoken with ~6 taxi drivers in the last year who either started with driving uber and shifted to driving a taxi, or went taxi-uber-taxi. Then I've had a lot more taxi drivers where they need passengers to put the destination into the driver's waze or google maps, even for simple things like intersections - I suspect they're uber drivers who became depedent on the in-app directions and native language interactions.
But the broader point I'm making is that in NYC, the drivers themselves were essentially unable to do anything about the changing market. The only power they had was to shift between the type of fares they were getting. And today when you order an uber, sometimes you get a yellow cab.
It was a proper Gmail account? Or was it an email@domain account that maybe was using her work email address?
I’m asking because I used to work adjacent to this area, and I know of only a few scenarios where an account becomes a workspace account after being a consumer account.
It's a lot more nuanced than that. If you use the free edition of Code Assist, your data can be used UNLESS you opt out, which is at the bottom of the support article you link to:
"If you don't want this data used to improve Google's machine learning models, you can opt out by following the steps in Set up Gemini Code Assist for individuals."
If you pay for code assist, no data is used to improve. If you use a Gemini API key on a pay as you go account instead, it doesn't get used to improve. It's just if you're using a non-paid, consumer account and you didn't opt out.
Google recently testified in court that they still train on user data after users opt out from training [1]. The loophole is that the opt-out only applies to one organization within Google, but other organizations are still free to train on the data. They may or may not have cleaned up their act given that they're under active investigation, but their recent actions haven't exactly earned them the benefit of the doubt on this topic.
Another dimension here is that any "we don't train on your data" is useless without a matching data retention policy which deletes your data. Case and point of 23andMe not selling your data until they decided to change that policy.
I'll go ahead and say that, even if there was a method that deletes your data when you request it, nothing stops them from using that data to train the model up until that point, which is "good enough" for them.
This is incorrect. The data discussed in court is data freely visible on the web, not user data that the users sent to Google.
If the data is sent by a user to sub-unit X of Google, and X promised not to use it for training, it implies that X can share this data with sub-unit Y only if Y also commits not to use the data for training. Breaking this rule would get everyone in huge trouble.
OTOH, when sub-unit X said "We promise not to use data from the public website if the website owner asks us not to", it does not imply another sub-unit Y must follow that commitment.
Reading about all the nuances is such a trigger for me. To cover your ass is one thing, to imply one thing in a lay sense and go on to do something contradicting it (in bad faith) is douchebaggery. I am very sad and deeply disappointed at Google for this. This completes their transformation to Evil Corp after repealing the “don’t be evil” clause in their code of conduct[1].
Isn't that as toxic? I've read a bunch about Walmart and the whole thing is basically a scam.
They get a ton of tax incentives, subsidies, etc to build shoddy infrastructure that can only be used for big box stores (pretty much), so the end cost for Walmart to build their stores is quite low.
They promise to employ lots of locals, but many of those jobs are intentionally paid so low that they're not actually living wages and employees are intentionally driven to government help (food stamps, etc), and together with other various tax cuts, etc, there's a chance that even their labor costs are basically at break even.
Integrated local stores are better for pretty much everything except having a huge mass to throw around and bully, bribe (pardon me, lobby) and fool (aka persuade aka PR/marketing).
Integrated local stores are better for pretty much everything except for actually having what you want in stock.
There is a reason why rural communities welcome Wal-Mart with open arms. Not such a big deal now that you can mail-order anything more-or-less instantly, but back in the 80s when I was growing up in BFE, Wal-Mart was a godsend.
True. A good example being Sears, which should have become Amazon but didn't. Prior to the arrival of Wal-Mart, if you couldn't find something locally (which, again, was true more often than not) your options were to drive 50-150 miles to the nearest large city, or order from the local Sears catalog merchant.
The latter wasn't what most people think of as a Sears store, because the local economy could never have supported such a thing. It was more like a small office with a counter and a stockroom behind it. They didn't keep any inventory, but could order products for pickup in about a week. Pickup, mind you. You still had to drive to town to get your order. As stupid as this sounds, it was 10x worse in person.
So if Wal-Mart didn't exist, it would have had to be invented. It was not (just) a monster that victimized smaller merchants and suppliers, a tax scam, or a plot to exploit the welfare system. It was something that needed to happen, a large gap in the market that eventually got filled.
Nowadays I wouldn't set foot in one, but it was different at the time. I didn't mean to write a long essay stanning for Wal-Mart, but your original post is a bit of a pet peeve.
Yeah, and because of those 2 words, especially "convenience", we're going to burn the planet down.
Also, did you read my original comment and miss the part about Walmart and co being predatory businesses? That's why they can keep those prices so low, because they're socializing their costs to everyone else.
If you scroll to the bottom, it says that the terms of service are governed based on the mechanism by which you access Gemini. If you access via code assist (which the OP posted), you abide by those privacy terms of code assist, one of the ways of which you access is VScode. If you access via the Gemini API, then those terms apply.
So the gemini CLI (as I understand it) doesn't have their own privacy terms, because it's an open source shell on top of another Gemini system, which could have one of a few different privacy policies based on how you choose to use it and your account settings.
(Note: I work for google, but not on this, this is just my plain reading of the documentation)
I guess the key question is whether the Gemini CLI, when used with a personal Google account, is governed by the broader Gemini Apps privacy settings here? https://myactivity.google.com/product/gemini?pli=1
If so, it appears it can be turned off. However, my CLI activity isn't showing up there?
At the bottom it specifies that the terms of service are dependent on the underlying mechanism that the user chooses to use to fulfill the requests. You can use code assist, gemini API, or Vertex AI. My layperson's perspective is that it's positioned as a wrapper around another service, whose terms you already have accepted/enabled. I would imagine that is separate from the Gemini app, the settings for which you linked to.
Looking at my own settings, my searches on the gemini app appear, but none of my gemini API queries appear.
However, as others pointed out, that link take you to here: https://developers.google.com/gemini-code-assist/resources/p... Which, at the bottom says: "If you don't want this data used to improve Google's machine learning models, you can opt out by following the steps in Set up Gemini Code Assist for individuals." and links to https://developers.google.com/gemini-code-assist/docs/set-up.... That page says "You'll also see a link to the Gemini Code Assist for individuals privacy notice and privacy settings. This link opens a page where you can choose to opt out of allowing Google to use your data to develop and improve Google's machine learning models. These privacy settings are stored at the IDE level."
The issue is that there is no IDE, this is the CLI and no such menu options exist.
Are you saying the Gemini Apps Activity switch controls? Or, that if I download VS Code or Intelli J and make the change, it applies to the CLI? https://developers.google.com/gemini-code-assist/docs/set-up... says "These privacy settings are stored at the IDE level."
"1. Is my code, including prompts and answers, used to train Google's models?
This depends entirely on the type of auth method you use.
Auth method 1: Yes. When you use your personal Google account, the Gemini Code Assist Privacy Notice for Individuals applies. Under this notice, your prompts, answers, and related code are collected and may be used to improve Google's products, which includes model training."
The opt out appear to be about other type of stats, no?
Yes, I'm right about to trust Google to do what they pinky swear.
EDIT: Lmao, case in point, two sibling comments pointing out that Google does indeed do this anyway via some loophole; also they can just retain the data and change the policy unilaterally in the future.
If you want privacy do it local with Free software.
Because as people start bidding they become invested in the outcome, and can often be convinced to go higher than they otherwise would. The trick is to set it under the minimum price the right amount that you can get multiple people bidding on the same item, each topping the other by smallish amounts. That way it doesn’t “feel” like you’re crossing the right price - “I’m already in for $60m, 1 more million is like 2% more, and then I beat this other person for something valuable”
Kickstarter works like this too. If you know anything about fixed manufacturing costs, when you see hardware projects with a 4-digit goal, you cringe. Some have other sources of funding, but the reason you set an artificially low goal is that it 1) gets people more excited when they see the % of goal go to 800% or 3000%, and 2) people are more inclined to back a project that's already hit its goal, regardless of how crowdfunding works.
Are we talking about the same Airbnb? When I think of resorts, I think of staff, bars, restaurants, activities, often all inclusive, and often catered to my desired demographic (adults only, family friendly, etc.)
When I think of Airbnb, I think of an apartment with a pool in the Caribbean, where I have to hunt around to figure out the best places to eat, or cook myself.
Some people genuinely prefer it that way. Or they cannot afford a "true" all-inclusive resort experience but still want to go on vacation in a nice location.
In some countries at least the latter is a well-established tradition that long predates Airbnb. Like, you'd literally just drive or take a train to some coastal town and then look around for signs that say "vacancy".
FWIW, as far as I'm aware, it wasn't gmail scraping that was the cause of Amazon pulling that information. It was third-party plugins that read people's inboxes to provide them with coupons, discounts, etc., and those companies would sometimes sell the pricing data. I assume Amazon wasn't thrilled about that, but there wasn't anything they (or gmail) could do about it as long as the user was granting them access to their inbox.
But also - I just ordered something off of amazon and I noticed that the confirmation had the item that I ordered in it, albeit in a shortened/summarized way? So maybe they brought it back, figuring that with just part of the name, there's not much someone can do with the pricing information? Or maybe they just don't care anymore?
(disclosure: I work at google, but not on this, but worked adjacent to the gmail team for a few years and am going off of my memory. I'll also tap the sign that Google doesn't mine your gmail for ads, for both consumer AND paying customers).
> It doesn't make sense that married people can willfully lower standard of living but non custodial parents cannot.
Of course it does - because both parents are responsible for the welfare of the children, and so if they both decide that they want to lower the standard of living that is a shared/joint agreement.
If the non-custodial parent decides they want to lower their child's standard of living, a) that is a unilateral decision, and b) they (the non-custodial parent) don't have to bear the implications of that lowered standard of living.
> your system would have me a criminal were it I didn't have custody.
Yes, sadly, having children means that sometimes you lack flexibility and can't make the decisions you would like to make.
>Of course it does - because both parents are responsible for the welfare of the children, and so if they both decide that they want to lower the standard of living that is a shared/joint agreement.
So a couple points here
1) we've now moved the goal posts, we went from the child needs the same standard of living, to now it is OK to lower it if both decide, to whatever extent that happens in dual custody situations.
2) except the oversight on child support recipients in most states is not that. The set judgement must be paid, and except for some usually minority line items the rest may be spent as the custodial pleases including the option of unilaterally allocating some stuff for stuff of no benefit to the child. As long as the child is not neglected or abused the custodial can unilaterally raise/lower the sol of child and put to themselves. So you are thinking of something else, it is mostly child support in name and is primarily a redistribution payment without oversight that it is all spent on raised qol of the child.
>Yes, sadly, having children means that sometimes you lack flexibility and can't make the decisions you would like to make.
It means they need necessities. It does not mean they need same qol in the event if divorce, except whoops we will move the goal posts as soon as you mention the double standard.
I didn’t move the goal posts, I was referring to your married couple example. If you are married and you jointly agree to change the standard of living because of your shared goals/values, that’s your business.
When you’re not married anymore, I’m in favor of the idea of making it easier to change child support payments in situations where things are amicable and jointly agreed to. I am very much aware that is not the situation today.
My point about losing flexibility is that when you have kids, your choices are not your own anymore. You can say all you want that they need “necessities”, but I know from experience that the way people interpret that varies widely. I think the only fair way to do it is to keep QOL as the goal. If you want more accountability as to how the money is spent, sure, though I’m not sure how that would work in practice.
You don't have to jointly agree though. If one person is just burned out being a middle manager at a tech company, they can choose to quit and move over to being a construction site traffic controller (holding road signs), for half the pay but a huge boost in happiness. Their partner might not like it, but they're not going to jail over it.
But then they get separated - you no longer have that choice, or you go to jail. It seems orwellian.
I thought of using this argument but realized one could argue the agreement is not divorcing you. If they disagree they will simply divorce and have the judge impute salary at the tech one, which will nearly certainly happen.
If you are married and take a higher pay job that is pretty much always a one way valve where if the spouse doesn't want you to lower it you are trapped. Which of course is how people end up in high stress jobs much longer than they planned, unhappy but no way out.
Google doesn't have a strong record keeping enterprise products around either. I would expect them to absorb this product, release a similar product based on the technology but fully integrated, then sunset Wiz asap.
There are still a variety of subjects where I’m sure people on the other side of the aisle would take objection (i think of the ultra PC “pc principal” who demands that everyone honor everyone’s pronouns at the threat of violence). Last couple of years though, the tone has shifted, for example the depiction of trump as the literal duplicate of saddam Hussein and satans new boyfriend, who literally impregnates satan with the Antichrist, and then spends the season trying to abort it.