sharing this because it reminded me of hearing people's stories in Hacking Diversity research. however I will never forget telling someone I was working on that book and them instantly reacting that "FLOSS is even worse than industry and will never improve" (paraphrase)
@Kels_316 They're everywhere, I tells ya! Everywhere!
This one is parked outside a camping shop. There are two huge jerrycans in the back (water? fuel?) It is a very, very clean vehicle.
Open Australia needs support.
https://oaf.org.au/2026/10/13/this-library-is-running-out-of-money-here-is-how-to-keep-it-open/
Looking at Torvalds using generative AI for Linux, Andrew Tridgell using it for rsync, and a bunch of other very bright and techically very capable people using it to assist them with various tasks makes me think again about the time a very, very intelligent friend of mine suddenly fell into Scientology.
It started me thinking about why it is that clever people fall for these scams, and I have a theory.
I think clever people learn to trust their minds. They learn that their mind will give them correct answers without much effort, and that it will also show them flaws in arguments with the same ease. Because it generally does!
But it's also a weakness. If something comes long that doesn't trigger the automatic defences, the clever mind may let it in.
The cleverness needs to be combined with vigilance, and that cannot be left to an automated system. I think clever people tend to become less vigilant, because their mind has always stood them in good stead.
Once the scam is in it combines with the general human unwillingness to admit to error. Or even to re-evaluate things just in case they are not true. We have a whole complicated social construct called "science" designed to work around that, and not even that works all the time.
And here's the kicker: The scam that tells clever people how clever they are will have the greatest chance of success, because they ARE clever. No false modesty. The scam they fall for is wrapped in the truth that they are clever people, and presented as a thing that only clever people can truly appreciate. The scams that clever people fall for are built up of details, layers, interrelated things that appear to explain each other and support each other. That hide and distract from the basic falsehood at the bottom.
To avoid such a scam you must take a step back from the complicated, dazzling, fascinating, alluring detail. Look at the whole thing and ask what it is, why it is, who is it from? Where does it connect to the world? Who does it benefit, who does it harm? Is it too good to be true?
Asking those questions about generative AI gets you pretty obvious answers.
@decryption The Sizzle 2668: "Microsoft dropping OneDrive storage limits"
Had me going there until I realised you meant "reducing", not "removing"...
Yes indeed. Amazing how often selling off a public asset turns out in hindsight to have been a bad idea. Phones, the Post, electricity, Internet, banks...
Oh wait - did I say in hindsight? I should have said "amazing how often it turns out that governments should have fucking listened to the people who told them what a mind-numbingly stupid idea it was when they first mooted selling off yet another public asset".
The BOM's new rain radar displays are crap - everything is washed out blues. The old ones, with sharp bright colours showing rain intensity, were much better.
Luckily the old BOM site is still there in all its glory, at https://reg.bom.gov.au. Yes - https! They got there eventually.
Also, for reasons I don't understand, the new rain radars don't show up in LibreWolf. They do in Firefox. This means the new rain radars are doing something LibreWolf doesn't like, probably something that looks like finger printing. What a criminal waste of 90-odd millions dollarydoos the new website was.
Great, I managed to sneak back in before the end! Just as Dennis Denuto got up to cross-examine. I am blessed.
Perhaps we will be lucky enough to see this extended for a bit :-)
Why is Maheswaran talking about "loading Cellabrite"?!?
He's been directed to produce something by 4pm tomorrow, I missed what exactly it was, possibly phone messages?
I predict that "I don't precisely recall" is going to get a thrashing today.
It seems that Painting Plus Rendering was in liquidation in 2023. If it's ABN 31610810305.
"This is what lawyers do" - what an arse!
And she schools him right back. Good on you, Ms Dwyer.
The AC needs to smack him again IMHO. Maybe a bit harder.
Maheswaran is still trying to relativise defects in Nassif's buildings. Why?
Maheswaran seems to be trying to make Nassif's antipathy towards David Elliott seem less vicious.
Dwyer made explicit the accusation that Nassif and Co (including Maheswaran) were trying to damage David Elliot. Maheswaran has said Nassif would have welcomed any such damage but was not working to achieve it.
This seems completely unrealistic given everything Maheswaran was doing and discussing around David Elliott, including (for example) surveilling him to find dirt, said surveillance paid for by Nassif...
And another private investigator has entered the picture, engaged by Maheswaran to surveill Elliott.
Some recordings of David Elliot that were thought to be covert recordings were in fact messages left by mistake on one Nathaniel Smith's phone after David Elliot apparently butt-dialled a wrong number several times. The record has been corrected.
Lock your phones, people! :-)
I don't know who Nathaniel Smith is, or why he would decide to forward those messages to Charles Perrottet (which is what he did).
"Have you investigated David Elliott when he was a minister in the NSW Parliament"
"Yes, twice"
One was an open source review, checking public posts, one was a surveillance.
"Are you sure about that" seems like a red flag, but perhaps not :-)
He was instructed by Maheswaran, but is now unsure who the actual client was. He seemed to think it was Toplace, though at the time he reclls thinking it was Maheswaran. "The client" seems to be "whoever paid" in de Kauwe's mind, so I can see how it would get confusing given he sometimes invoived Toplace, sometimes Maheswaran...
I found a good (well, bitterly apposite) pair of toots in my feed. Here they are as a screenclip. The links to the original toots are in the alt-text.
Paras 29 through 31 of the "Guide for Witnesses" contain comprehensive instructions regarding the use of generative AI.
The best bits IMHO (among many good bits):
"Information subject to a suppression order must not be entered into any Gen AI program."
"Where Gen AI has been used in the preparation of [various things] the author must verify in the body of the [things] that all citations, legal and academic authority and case law and legislative references:
a. exist,
b. are accurate, and
c. are relevant to the proceedings"
"Gen AI must not be used in generating the content of affidavits, witness statements, character references or other material that is intended to reflect the deponent or witness’ evidence and/or opinion, or other material tendered in evidence or used in cross examination"
"Gen AI must not be used to draft or prepare the content of an expert report (or any part of an expert report) without prior leave of the Commission."
Plus a lot of stuff about needing to extensively document any use of generative AI and in most cases obtain prior leave to use it at all.
The "Guide for Witnesses" on the ICAC website is quite interesting, especially page 15. On that page, I found an explanation for the hitherto mystifying statement at the start of each new witness' examination, that all questions were "on objection":
"Objecting to giving evidence
If you believe that answering any question, or handing over any document or other thing, may be incriminating (which means you think it may suggest you have done something wrong), you may object. You must still answer the question or hand over the document or other thing, but that evidence cannot then be used against you in any criminal or civil proceedings."
I confess this seems weird - why would people then ever bother lying, given that apparently their answers cannot be used against them anyway?
All I can think of is that if a truthful answer leads to other evidence being found, that other evidence CAN be used against the witness; just not their own words. But if they lie and the Commission can show they lied then they get slapped with penalties for lying! It seems like a gigantic roll of the dice for a witness to lie, but since several of them pretty obviously have, perhaps I am missing something.
Anyone with more legal nous than me (i.e., basically anyone at all) able to comment?
