technology

Motherfuckers will do anything except build high speed rail

NAIROBI, Aug 19 (Reuters) - In eight years of working as a taxi driver in Kenya's capital, Judith Chepkwony has never seen business this bad.

A bruising price war between ride-hailing companies Uber Technologies (UBER.N), Estonia's Bolt and local start-ups Little and Faras has driven fares down to a level that many drivers say is unsustainable, forcing them to set their own higher rates. "Most of us have these cars on loan and the cost of living has risen," Chepkwony told Reuters. "I try to convince the customers to agree to the higher rates. If they can't pay, we cancel and let them find another driver."

About half the passengers who get in touch eventually agree to pay more than the price flashing up on their app generated by the companies' algorithms, Chepkwony said, keeping her going.

But Uber has said such arrangements break its guidelines and told its drivers to get back into line, setting up a clash between the slick, automated world of the international ride-hailing industry and the messier realities of one of its biggest developing markets.

The East African nation of 50 million people has been rocked by deadly protests against tax hikes which, together with high prices of basic commodities and elevated interest rates, has been blamed for lower disposable incomes. Kenya, Nigeria and Tanzania - with their growing economies and relatively low car ownership rates - are among the most important markets for Uber in Africa, its executives have said. But there have been challenges along the way. Drivers have gone on strike in Kenya, twice this year and at least once last year, over low commissions.

Uber Head of East Africa Imran Manji told Reuters it was reviewing reports of customers being overcharged. "We encourage all riders to report such instances."

Linda Ndung'u, Bolt's manager for Kenya, said they were discouraging fare-hiking while the industry searches for a solution to balance the needs of drivers and customers.

While everyone waits, the drivers are finding ways to get round the industry's united front.

Many say they use walkie-talkie app Zello to collectively agree on higher prices, meaning a customer will get the same rate even if they shop around.

Drivers have also produced a fare guide, which they print, laminate and post up inside their cars for customers to see.

One seen by Reuters set the minimum fare at 300 shillings ($2.33), above the 200 shillings set by Uber and Bolt who sometimes offer further discounts.

"We first ask the client where they are going and how much is shown on the app. Then we propose a rate based on our chart which can also be done by quickly multiplying by 1.5," Nairobi-based driver Erick Nyamweya said.

"If they agree, we take the ride. If not we either negotiate further or decline because the current rates are not sustainable with higher fuel and spare parts prices."

There has been some movement. Local start-up Faras Cabs raised its fares by up to a fifth this month to accommodate drivers' demands, Chief Commercial Officer Osman Abdi said.

At the end of the day, it is the customer that pays, in money and time spent haggling.

"The negotiations end up taking so much time that it ends up beating the logic of trying to save time by taking a cab," said one customer, Lameck Owesi. "It is frustrating."

($1 = 128.5000 Kenyan shillings)

I'm having a bit of trouble researching what country would be best to rent a VPS in, in terms of not getting communist content on there censored. Because obviously if content is deemed illegal in the country the server is hosted in, the VPS host is obligated to take it down (understandable enough, you can't really ask a company to break the law for you).

I'm also concerned with privacy laws too and protection from them.

I've heard various good things about "freedom of speech laws" and privacy laws in Iceland, Romania, Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland, but I don't know the details.

Does anyone have any input? And if you recommend a certain host country, do you know of reputable VPS providers in that country?

No “Zero-Shot” Without Exponential Data: Pretraining Concept Frequency Determines Multimodal Model Performance

I’m not going to pretend that I can understand the minutiae as someone who basically just has an undergrad degree in IT, but it seems to be implying that exponential data is required for further advancements in generative AI.

A cool paper and all, but I can’t stop thinking about how this shit won’t matter at all to C suites and MBAs who just want to AUTOMATE AUTOMATE AUTOMATE everything under the sun. Reminds me of how the experts in whatever specialized field research a problem and business people just throw away the results and make up their own (i.e. marketing).

The conversation should have always been “Yeah your job will eventually become automated, but it’s not for the reason you think.”

Will be very interesting to see how the next few years play out

Verify discovered an Android package, "Showcase.apk," with excessive system privileges, including remote code execution and remote package installation capabilities, on a very large percentage of Pixel devices shipped worldwide since September 2017

The application downloads a configuration file over an unsecure connection and can be manipulated to execute code at the system level

The application retrieves the configuration file from a single US-based, AWS-hosted domain over unsecured HTTP, which leaves the configuration vulnerable and can makes the device vulnerable

Cybercriminals can use vulnerabilities in the app's infrastructure to execute code or shell commands with system privileges on Android devices to take over devices to perpetrate cybercrime and breaches

Removal of the app is not possible through a user’s standard uninstallation process, and at this time, Google has not offered a patch for the vulnerability

It appears that Showcase.apk is preinstalled in Pixel firmware and included in Google’s OTA image for Pixel devices

Now imagine this happend to a Chinese phone from any manufacturer, may it be Xiaomi, Oneplus or whatever - could you imagine the outcry?

update from GrapheneOS devs explaining that the exploit isn't as bad as it initially looks https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/112967309987371034

I'm reposting the article with the developing discussions around it as it probably deserves more reach. Devs are 50% "it's impossible to do anyways, sensationalism it's FUD", the other 50% is in disarray and being wtf. I'm not a cryptographer though

More discussion here, where Nheko devs refuse to update to Vodozemac: https://github.com/Nheko-Reborn/nheko/issues/1786

Others discussions: https://github.com/quotient-im/libQuotient/issues/780

https://github.com/mautrix/go/issues/262

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/334638

https://github.com/krille-chan/fluffychat/issues/1258

https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/pull/334638/commits/e4767b4727589567da29a90a71947c2bdbe43988

OP's old gist about Matrix: https://web.archive.org/web/20240606031827/https://gist.github.com/soatok/8aef6f67fec9c702f510ee24d19ef92b

Matrix developer reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41249371

From what I understand, for now, Vodozemac, the new Rust implementation, is unusable in other languages than Rust because its bindings are broken. FluffyChat developers seem to be working on fixing them, though.

I think what's more worrying than the exploits is the attitude of the client developers, and the Matrix developer that replied.

I am!

It was down for months.

The return to 65w 8 core chips is neato

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.zip/post/20929554

Facing time constraints, Sakana's "AI Scientist" attempted to change limits placed by researchers.

Original story title: "Gemini is replacing Google Assistant on Pixel phones, and it’s a train wreck"

1. OneDrive mirroring

Stop telling me that I am out of storage, I did not ask you to put my files there.

2. Nvidia Linux drivers

A 2 month old driver from a desktop 3070 failed to detect a laptop 3050, and I had to chroot to remove the offending driver, buuuut

3. Rescue USB

So it turns out the default Tumbleweed ISO is NOT a live image. Recue didn't work nor did usb boot until I realised. Burned LMDE onto the usb key, and I was able to get back up and running relatively quickly.

Please, for the love of all that is holy, just let a meteor hit us already.