TechnoTalk: Time to Tech

[benji]

This video is not monetized. This video covers our serious concerns regarding the data accuracy of Linus Media Group, including Linus Tech Tips, ShortCircuit, and TechQuickie, particularly as it relates to rushing content out the door to favor -- by staff's own admission -- quantity over quality. As the company continues to expand into its LTT Labs direction, the importance of accurate data increases; however, even as 'only' entertainment, there are still certain responsibilities to the consumer and the manufacturers to report fairly (and to have defined corrections processes in place). We tried to approach this as objectively as possible and hope that viewers are able to listen to the evidence we present, particularly as it relates to significant and frequent data errors that now present in nearly every technical review video.

TIMESTAMPS

00:00 - The Last 2 Weeks
01:40 - LMG is Rushing Too Much: Establishing the Premise
03:48 - LTT's Own Employees Agree
06:58 - This Isn't "Drama" & Risks
09:05 - Bad Data from Linus Tech Tips
10:12 - GPU Review Errors
15:02 - CPU Cooler Test Errors
19:09 - PSU Review Errors
19:53 - CPU Review Errors
22:39 - Asterisked Errors
26:15 - Ethical Concerns: Irresponsible Actions & Conflicts
28:21 - Ethical Concerns: The Review of Billet Labs
34:49 - Ethical Concerns: 'Not-Review' of Pwnage Mouse
36:53 - UNACCEPTABLE & The Community is Disturbing
39:22 - Unfair to Consumers, Manufacturers, & Reviewers

I can't believe the weird creepy Canadian exploiting his weird "employees" in out of their way likely illegal ways is making errors in his videos and engaging in questionable ethics.

[benji]

How do you make this graph (or see this graph as a higher-up) and not wonder if something might have been done wrong?

[Cauliflower Of Love]

How do you make this graph (or see this graph as a higher-up) and not wonder if something might have been done wrong?

GPT content.

[Nintex]

Linus Tech Tips is just a content farm scam and they got caught red handed.

[who is ted danson?]

waiting for a few charismatic presenters to leave LTT and start their own channel

the cycle begins again

[Nintex]

waiting for a few charismatic presenters to leave LTT and start their own channel

the cycle begins again

Not sure, different times these. Working on such a channel is now an actual job. There's probably job security in working at a big media company vs. starting your own channel.
None of the LTT guys have the popularity to spin off on their own. The outcome is this is that LTT will probably double down on more clickbait lower quality content where they have to deal with fewer numbers and difficult specifications. Considering the state of the GPU/CPU markets not a move that'll hurt them much. They probably get more views and ad clicks comparing the Switch to the Steamdeck or reviewing pre-built DELL PC's or whatever. 

LTT as a reliable source for reviews and benchmarks though? that's over but only a small percentage of viewers cares about that anyway.
Companies like Nvidia probably DGAF as long as he rigs the numbers in their favor.

[Uncle]

this blew up massively overnight

LTT made an apology video that is just shit



feels extremely safe and corporate, can't resist putting in a plug to buy their shit, and then you get to the Linus segment and he is STILL defensive and offering whiny excuses

but this video was made before Madison came forward with stories of workplace abuse

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741.html

Madison's story is at the top of reddit/r/all, twice in fact, one of the most visible news stories on the internet right now

Similar things would happen whenever I requested ANYTHING. I needed more RAM installed in my PC for months because I was expected to edit RED footage.

It took 5 months and a writer being kind enough to do it for me when the numerous requests I sent in were ignored or put off
I would go to management for help and get told I could handle it myself.

Eventually I was pulled into a meeting for insubordination because I had gone around the system for requesting RAM after I was ignored for months and dealing with my PC crashing and losing work daily.

There was an incident where I requested a $15 notebook.

Keep in mind I had made maybe $25 of purchase requests in my ENTIRE time working at this company.

I requested this notebook to help with my "poor time management skills"

denied "you don't need it, you have lined paper"

I was upset and responded back that this was different. "No" then BAM ANOTHER MEETING Madison, why were you rude and non communicative with this manager.

I remember getting told off for taking my sick days, as in the days you're entitled to.

This no days off, "grindset" culminated in the real moment I realized I had to leave.

I purposefully cut my leg open so badly I would have to go to the ER to get it stapled back together.

It was genuinely the only way in my mind to take a day off without being harassed for a reason why.

[Nintex]

No one at LTT can install RAM for the poor girl? It's probably the easiest part to swap or install  

Great start-up culture

Who knows

[Potato]

this blew up massively overnight

LTT made an apology video that is just shit



feels extremely safe and corporate, can't resist putting in a plug to buy their shit, and then you get to the Linus segment and he is STILL defensive and offering whiny excuses

but this video was made before Madison came forward with stories of workplace abuse

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1691693740254228741.html

Madison's story is at the top of reddit/r/all, twice in fact, one of the most visible news stories on the internet right now

Similar things would happen whenever I requested ANYTHING. I needed more RAM installed in my PC for months because I was expected to edit RED footage.

It took 5 months and a writer being kind enough to do it for me when the numerous requests I sent in were ignored or put off
I would go to management for help and get told I could handle it myself.

Eventually I was pulled into a meeting for insubordination because I had gone around the system for requesting RAM after I was ignored for months and dealing with my PC crashing and losing work daily.

There was an incident where I requested a $15 notebook.

Keep in mind I had made maybe $25 of purchase requests in my ENTIRE time working at this company.

I requested this notebook to help with my "poor time management skills"

denied "you don't need it, you have lined paper"

I was upset and responded back that this was different. "No" then BAM ANOTHER MEETING Madison, why were you rude and non communicative with this manager.

I remember getting told off for taking my sick days, as in the days you're entitled to.

This no days off, "grindset" culminated in the real moment I realized I had to leave.

I purposefully cut my leg open so badly I would have to go to the ER to get it stapled back together.

It was genuinely the only way in my mind to take a day off without being harassed for a reason why.

That person is literally mental. Self-mutilation to get a day off is insane and the person should be committed.

[benji]

You don't understand, she would have been told off otherwise. Getting her leg stapled back together was the less harmful decision.

[Nintex]

It's the grindset baby.


Lifehack: Time is just a construct (watch Tenet), throw away your watch and alarm clock and delete all your clock apps. 
Don't engage with anyone who still works with time. They are literally a waste of time (pun intended).

No more time = Infinite Time
You can't compete at this level because you still operate within the boundaries of time, I'm already kicking your ass.

[Nintex]

Nice video guys 

[NekoFever]

I would pay to see how smug the Gamers Nexus dude is looking right now. One well aimed shot and the dam breaks, helped by Linus’s inability to not make things worse.

How many crying videos will there be by this time next week?

[Nintex]

The real fun begins when Asian corpo man and luke decide that "Linus" is bad for the brand and they want to get rid of him 

[Potato]

I would pay to see how smug the Gamers Nexus dude is looking right now. One well aimed shot and the dam breaks, helped by Linus’s inability to not make things worse.

How many crying videos will there be by this time next week?

Dude will definitely be masturbating furiously over his success.

[Uncle]

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/07/openai-discontinues-its-ai-writing-detector-due-to-low-rate-of-accuracy/

On Thursday, OpenAI quietly pulled its AI Classifier, an experimental tool designed to detect AI-written text. The decommissioning, first noticed by Decrypt, occurred with no major fanfare and was announced through a small note added to OpenAI's official AI Classifier webpage:

As of July 20, 2023, the AI classifier is no longer available due to its low rate of accuracy. We are working to incorporate feedback and are currently researching more effective provenance techniques for text, and have made a commitment to develop and deploy mechanisms that enable users to understand if audio or visual content is AI-generated.

Released on January 31 amid clamor from educators about students potentially using ChatGPT to write essays and schoolwork, OpenAI's AI Classifier always felt like a performative Band-Aid on a deep wound. From the beginning, OpenAI admitted that its AI Classifier was not "fully reliable," correctly identifying only 26 percent of AI-written text as "likely AI-written" and incorrectly labeling human-written works 9 percent of the time.

As we've pointed out on Ars, AI writing detectors such as OpenAI's AI Classifier, Turnitin, and GPTZero simply don't work with enough accuracy to rely on them for trustworthy results. The methodology behind how they work is speculative and unproven, and the tools are currently routinely used to falsely accuse students of cheating.

Humans can write like AI models, and AI models can write like humans if properly prompted. Often, all it takes to evade AI detectors is to simply ask ChatGPT to write in the style of a known author. But this hasn't stopped a small industry of commercial AI detectors from sprouting up over the past six months.

"If OpenAI can't get its AI detection tool to work, nobody else can either," tweeted AI writer and futurist Daniel Jeffries. "I've said before that AI detection tools are snake oil sold to people and this is just further proof that they are. Don't trust them. They're nonsense."

These statements have so far been backed up by recent studies (Sadasivan et al., 2023) and testimonials from educators who often find that their own human-written work is flagged as AI-composed. Additionally, AI writing detectors have been found to unfairly punish non-native English writers and possibly neurodivergent writers.

Research is still underway to determine if AI-generated text can be watermarked (by purposely manipulating the frequency of words in an AI-generated output), but the study cited above shows that text watermarking can easily be defeated by AI models that paraphrase the output.

For now, it seems that AI writing is here to stay. Going ahead, AI-augmented text will likely flow among the great works of mankind undetectably if deployed with skill. It may be time to look beyond how text is composed and ensure that it properly represents what a particular human wants to say, which is the point of all effective communication.

[Potato]

Picked up a Pixel 7 on a massive discount.

Love the hardware. Software was unusable out of the box until I turned those fucking stupid gesture controls off and turned the three-button layout back on.

Google product managers really are idiots.

[Polident]

Random musing about SSDs. Way way back when I built my previous computer, people were always fear mongering about the life span. I had some 256 Samsung drive for my OS, with larger mechanical drives for storage games etc. Over the nine ish years I replaced those storage drives with comparatively pricier SSDs. Still, after nearly 10 years, that untouched OS drive has held up just fine. People were acting like they die after 3 to 5 years?

Anyway, now I’m seeing 2TB Samsung and WD m.2 SSDs going for under $100. Mechanical drives prices are largely unchanged. Aside from needing a shitton of storage, I guess SSDs fully replaced mechanical drives in most cases.

Well, the other concern people share is long term storage. Something about solid state losing its data if left unused or something. But those same people talk about things like mdisc and lto tapes. So maybe they’re a bit intense about storing definitely not pornography.

[Nintex]

In theory SSD's have a more limited lifespan and can't be (partially) recovered. But that won't be a problem for a long time and also depends on storing conditions and useage. Not a big problem for the average consumer.

[Uncle]

I thought they lost their ability to perform more writes and if nothing else would become read only, still recoverable?

[NekoFever]

I’ve somehow got unicorn HDDs in my NAS that have been running continuously for a decade without failure but know I’m pushing my luck and so have one eye on replacements. It’s crazy how SSD pricing has narrowed the gap in that time. 4x4TB SSDs would have been a ludicrous extravagance and now, for the sake of the couple hundred difference in price, I’m thinking I might as well do it for the improvements in noise and reliability alone.

Obviously you can spend silly money with high speed NVMe drives etc, but I’m talking just basic SATA for storage.

[Cauliflower Of Love]

I thought they lost their ability to perform more writes and if nothing else would become read only, still recoverable?

yes, but I'm pretty sure that amount is in the eons.

[Uncle]

I know microSD cards are more like 2 years of being written to continuously which makes using them like a hard drive on Steam Deck a bit questionable

[Cauliflower Of Love]

512 gb of written data for 2 years straight....is alot out side of photo and video editing.

[Uncle]

I mean the idea being that they're better for storage than actively running an OS from, especially something like Windows that doesn't even try to minimize its writes

[TylenolJones]

Future

[benji]

I thought they lost their ability to perform more writes and if nothing else would become read only, still recoverable?

I mean the idea being that they're better for storage than actively running an OS from, especially something like Windows that doesn't even try to minimize its writes

Windows has had the TRIM function for some time, it should be completely fine to run off an SSD. Most every "defrag" thing (or at least the good ones) should be doing this instead so the SSD won't even try to use any written too much sectors.

Even the indexing for search shouldn't be a problem, for one thing unlike on a regular drive it's not having to move anything to do it. I have way too many regular drives with some mechanical issue it's developed but no SSD has ever maxed out.

Personally, I've been using the same Windows 10 install off this 256GB SSD for six years. (Which means it will now fail since I mentioned it.)

[TylenolJones]

I guess we know why James hasn't posted here. 

[Potato]

Another frustration with this Pixel 7 is the call screening function.

I'm not a Millennial. I answer the phone. Why can't I turn this fucking button off? Why did they make the call screening button bigger than the answer or hang up button?

Some fucking idiot at Google was really proud of their invention and now they made Android harder to use. Fuck I hate Google.

[jorma]

I guess we know why James hasn't posted here.