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I couldn't help but notice the lack of mousepads[1]. Please get your poor guests some mousepads!

[1]: https://lanparty.house/images/office-action-overhead.jpg


Why should someone use this instead of Monero?


I would love to see your prompt(s) and how you managed to make it do this.

I’ve been using Codex in full access mode constantly for the past couple months on a Pro plan and I haven’t had a single incident like this. I’ve used it across macOS, Linux, and Windows as well, so my usage isn’t limited to a specific setup either.


I never sent any prompts to it, it did all of this during the installation. Here is one related GitHub issue I found for it https://github.com/openai/codex/issues/12343 Looks like they don't intend to change this.


Your earlier post is misleading, since "it" sounds like the model, not the installer. (of course if the latter was created by the former, its basically the same complaint, but I suspect what you are talking about was a deliberate design decision by a human)


The problem doesn't exist when granting codex full access. Codex makes you choose upon first launch to "Set up default sandbox" or to "Use non-admin sandbox". The default option creates two new users and messes with NTFS permissions.


> I’ve been using Codex in full access mode constantly for the past couple months on a Pro plan and I haven’t had a single incident like this. I’ve used it across macOS,

That is not how it works: the "but it works for me" is a logical fallacy.

Haven't you followed a bit all the posts about models, for example, escaping their environments?

The "but it works for me" is a random data point: an anecdote.

That there are people / companies where models ran wild and destroyed files / messed up projects is a fact.

When there are documented cases of stuff gone wrong, people must find ways to protect their data.

We literally see posts frontpage, daily, about AI sandboxing and we regularly see posts about AI escapes or AI SNAFUs.

And you come and post "show me your prompt, for it works on my machine"...


I'm taking the person you are replying to as being snarky. But, I believe OP is right, treat these with zero trust.


But it's worth their time to stay on platforms like Bluesky and Mastodon? Something isn't adding up.


You can just look at the numbers. They're seeing 15x more engagement on BlueSky, and even more engagement on Mastodon compared to X:

X post: 124 comments, 79 reblogs, and 337 likes

BlueSky post: 245 comments, 1400 reblogs, and 6.2K likes

Mastodon post: 403 reposts, 458 likes

There's more ROI posting on BlueSky or Mastodon, even ignoring the fact that BlueSky and Mastodon are projects clearly more aligned with internet freedom than X is.

(edited for clarity)


Which post are you looking at? I just posted the numbers for the first post I could find that was the same across X, Bluesky, and Facebook (a little hard since the feeds for all three are different). The X post had 16 times the number of likes as Bluesky and 26 times the number of likes as Facebook. The X post had 17 times the number of comments as Bluesky, 6 times the number as Facebook.

Your post made me randomly spot check another one from a month ago ("The U.S. government on Wednesday..."), the numbers aren't quite as drastic but X is still ahead. Likes/comment shares:

X: 280, 4, 172.

Bluesky: 182, 2, 98.

Because of the algorithms I wouldn't be surprised if you'd be able to cherry pick some Bluesky post that's ahead. But a casual browse through both feeds makes it look like X gets much more engagement.


The people on BlueSky and Mastodon aren't the people they need to convince in the correctness of their message.

If you actually care about getting your point across, hostile environments are exactly the place that you need to be broadcasting. Especially when they haven't put up any barriers for you.

EFF leadership just totally doesn't get it.

Unless the goal isn't what they say it is and they just need the cheerleading squad to make it look like their fundraising is effective.


If an organisation had any serious chance of moving the needle by staying on X, musk would simply find a reason to ban them. X leadership isn't interested in fair and balanced discussion.


An online argument has NEVER EVER EVER changed anyone's mind.

Source: I've argued with strangers on the internet since the mid-90's.

Don't feed the trolls was the rule back then when trolls were just actual people arguing for the sake of getting a reaction - and now the trolls are either a piece of software connected to a language model or paid to argue in bad faith. Like WOPR says: the only winning move is not to play.


This just fundamentally isn't true. What people see online massively influences how they think, to the extent that entire media conglomerates have been bought and sold to do exactly that.


I specifically said "online argument". You talking to someone online, in text format. You can change people's minds in video calls, sometimes. No amount of 1-on-1 online discourse has ever changed anyone's mind on anything.

The general sentiment people observe online definitely changes how they think, it moves the Overton Window considerably. And that's exactly what the bots[0] on Twitter and other platforms like TikTok do, they argue about whatever they get paid to argue for in bad faith, endlessly.

People see this, not knowing it's all artificial, and go "ooh, MANY PEOPLE think like this" and start thinking it's normal to think like that.

[0] I'm using "bot" as shorthand here for bad faith actors, usually the first level is just spamming static canned arguments, stage two is some kind of smart system that responds to the replies somewhat in context and stage three will ping an actual human who will come in with VERY specific deep-cut arguments.

Source: I argue online a lot for fun and relaxation.


So how do you know you've never changed someone's mind? Also, the opposite is just retreating to echo chambers where everyone agrees?

I personally don't care if EFF leaves X. However the message in the article does not line up, it's a bad decision and not justified by the reasons cited.


TBH echo chambers are just fine as long as you know you're in one.

I have peeked outside of my curated chamber and the people in there are completely batshit insane. Like objectively not following any sane logic or reason. And no amount of online discourse will not make them change their ways unless they WANT to change.


They're still on youtube with low hundreds of views. Surely video content requires more effort to boot.


cant they just copy an paste the same messages? like are they trying to manage critical 'seconds' and the eff?


That's why this is clearly a political jab and not a real decision.


If there is an organization who should be promoting federated, decentralized social media services over centralized robber baron engagement factories more than the EFF, I don't know who it would be.

Its not political to prefer open systems.


And the EFF is also looking at conversion rates for those views. Are you convinced that the Elon-pilled still on X are interested in donations to the EFF compared with the weirdos on Mastodon?


This is on point but someone is taking offense by being called a "weirdo" (thus the down votes, I think). Yes, we are weirdos on alternate social media, just like we are weirdos who use Linux, Emacs, write Lisp, etc.. It's weird, i.e.: Unusual. "Geek" might have been a better term to use though.

Geeks and weirdos donate to EFF. :)


On average, they're getting <9,000 views per post on X. With 100 - 150K followers on both Bluesky and Mastodon, I'd expect their impressions to beat those X numbers.

But as they say in the article, their reason for leaving isn't solely the low impressions. It's the low impressions, plus "Musk fired the entire human rights team and laid off staffers in countries where the company previously fought off censorship demands from repressive regimes," plus X's unwillingness to give users more control, consider end-to-end DM encryption, or offer transparent moderation.


So the real reason is Musk, hidden amongst some platitudes to make the political motivation less obvious.


Its wild that we've gotten to the point that 'allows tyrants to silence users on their platform' is no longer something we're allowed to dislike without it being a 'political' stance. Some time in the last 30 years acting like a reasonable and decent human being became a political statement.


This is BS to be honest, they don't like Musk, which is ok, I have no problem with that. And they are reconstructing a reason to leave.

Musk fired 90+% of Twitter, not just the human rights team.


Bluesky and mastodon are the direction the EFF would like the internet to take, so their presence there is not tied to effectiveness in the same way.


The reason to leave ex-twitter and the reason to keep using lesser platforms may not be the same reason.

Probably the reason EFF keeps using mastodon/bluesky is not for reach, but to support federated platforms.

As an activist organization EFF needs reach people, but also it needs to show people alternatives to surveillance capitalism exist and encourage their use.


There's presumably engagement on those two.

It's better to have a smaller core of highly engaged people than a mass of disengaged eyeballs glazing over.


"...and we win by putting our time, skills, and members’ support where they will have the most impact. Right now, that means Bluesky, Mastodon, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube"

So pretty much all major sites except X. They are saying LinkedIn is more important to reach people than X, really?


Retreating into smaller and smaller echo chambers where they get their way?


They're also still posting on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube (in addition to BlueSky and Mastodon). It's silly to suggest that anything outside of X is an echo chamber, or that one must communicate on a platform dominated by white supremacists to expose your ideas to a diverse audience.


Does it have to be either/or?


Volunteer your time to do a dual strategy with content that fits both. Comms takes time, the EFF is adapting its comm strategy.


Surely copy-pasting a short text and possibly a link is not actual work that takes time.

All they would need to do is set up some cross-posting pipeline and the work would be pretty much zero.

They could even drive people to click on mastodon/bsky links this way if they wanted people to go to the decentralized web.

This take is not valid.


Pushing messages out to multiple platforms is a solved problem. Parent said

> It's better to have a smaller core of highly engaged people than a mass of disengaged eyeballs glazing over.

which to me, it's better to spew a message out into the ether with the chance that someone might happen upon it rather than close things off entirely.


Well, perhaps it's time to reconsider your perception of Bluesky and Mastodon.


> Something isn't adding up.

Yes, it’s your inability to do even the most basic verification of the data underlying your understanding before making claims.


To answer how it got so big: it didn't start out trying to replace Slack. It just solved an acute pain point for gamers. Skype was becoming increasingly enshittified, and people were floating between TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, and Mumble, none of which were that great. Discord captured the market because it was completely free and had the audio mechanisms in place to make people with shitty mics and background noise tolerable without forcing everyone to use push-to-talk. That’s really it. By the time non-gaming communities were looking for a Slack alternative, they just defaulted to Discord because 90% of their target audience already had the client running in the background.


That is also why I think it "won" over Slack. Discord solved audio comms for gamers, period. It got so good, that SMB and startups started to migrate for stuff like easy pair-programming, open meetings etc.

Discord IMO won because of a killer trio: 1) good comms 2) full history 3) faster UI over bloated Slack.


Shared this in the other Gemini Pro 3.1 thread (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47074735) but wanted to share it here as well.

I just tested the "generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle" prompt and this is what I got: https://codepen.io/takoid/pen/wBWLOKj

The model thought for over 5 minutes to produce this. It's not quite photorealistic (some parts are definitely "off"), but this is definitely a significant leap in complexity.


That looks amazing!

But huh, I get... this: https://www.svgviewer.dev/s/1MOs0uyb (on Gemini 3.1 Pro) ... what... is wrong with my Gemini?


I got this : https://www.svgviewer.dev/s/DNq3oGMB

pro with the 20$ subscription , from the gemini.google.com site , initially the request was routed to nano banana,

so I had to change the prompt and had to be very specific about not generating the image directly, here the exact prompt :

"I want the html svg code for that ( not the generated image) , generate an SVG of a pelican riding a bicycle"


Please don't duplicate comments - it makes merging threads a pain!

Letting us know that there's a dupe situation going on is helpful, if you have a minute to email hn@ycombinator.com.


I just gave it a shot and this is what I got: https://codepen.io/takoid/pen/wBWLOKj

The model thought for over 5 minutes to produce this. It's not quite photorealistic (some parts are definitely "off"), but this is definitely a significant leap in complexity.


Good to see it wearing a helmet. Their safety team must be on their game.


Yes but why would a pelican need a helmet? If it falls over it can just fly away... Common sense 1 Gemini 0


Obviously these domestic pelicans can't fly, otherwise why would they need a bike?


Why would a pelican be riding a bicycle at all, for that matter?


Because the user asked for it


Here's what I got from Gemini Pro on gemini.google.com, it thought for under a minute...might you have been using AI studio? https://jsbin.com/zopekaquga/edit?html,output

It does say 3.1 in the Pro dropdown box in the message sending component.


That's a good pelican. What I like the most is that the SVG is nice and readable. If only Inkscape could output nice SVG like this!


Looks great!


Where did you see this? Elon's account looks fine and I'm not seeing any discussion on X about this.


Related discussion from yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46735545



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