Also, me saying that I can see use cases for LLMs does not equate me endorsing the way LLMs are built today. Plagiarism by LLMs, sites being overwhelmed by unethical bots, and more, are all real things that expose the awfulness of today's generative AI boom. But just saying 'all machine learning is bad because look at these bad things' is throwing out the baby with the bath water IMO.
@justin @paul @rl_dane
No. The use case I gave was 'allow a hooman to query and command the computer in natural language'. I then gave 2 examples, one being home automation. It's not even the best one.
I have email going back several decades. I would like to have a locally-running LLM go over that archive and help me find that one conversation that I vaguely remember from years ago without remembering details.
@paul @rl_dane @justin
Using generative AI to generate answers to questions is almost always wrong. But I do see some valid use cases...
@sotolf @justin @rl_dane @paul
LLMs have the potential to be useful. Any place where a computer needs to understand a human query and do something with that query other than generating an answer, is a place where I can see LLMs as a useful tool.
A tool that links to what it thinks as the correct answer in pre-existing documentation? Awesome (my bank does this, looping the conversation to a human if the answer was declared not helpful)
@sotolf @justin @rl_dane
help wanted, quiet place to stay for a bit
Yeah. They're good value for money but they're definitely not in the lower price range, that's true.
Don't have another option I can think of then, I'm afraid. Good luck with the search!
help wanted, quiet place to stay for a bit
We stayed in this Airbnb in kapellen (5km from the NL border) last month. They are absolutely totally quiet. Have everything you ask for, though obviously I don't know what budget there is or if there is any objection to using Airbnb (which would be fine)
HTH.
https://www.airbnb.com/l/KWVxVNF9
FOSDEM 2026: 31st January and 1st February https://fosdem.org/2026/news/2025-09-18-fosdem-2026/
FOSDEM 2026 Call for Participation https://fosdem.org/2026/news/2025-09-21-call-for-participation/
@glyph I can cite precisely one NIST standard from memory, and this is it: “According to NIST SP 800-63b, section 5.1.1.2, we shouldn’t rotate passwords unless we expect they’ve been compromised.”
I busted that out on a call once and it stopped an entire argument. My CTO was also on the call and I saw him looking over at me, mouth agape.
This history of Return / Enter / whatever it is on your keyboard is more fascinating and surprising than I expected. Worth reading:
https://aresluna.org/the-day-return-became-enter/
(via https://twostopbits.com/ which will be of interest to some of you, via https://tilde.zone/@movq/115124813215685011 via @rk because Attribution Damnit™ as I was indoctrinated long ago and feel like indulging tonight.)
Collectieve ArbeidsOvereenkomst!
(collective work agreement, a Belgian legal term for a particular type of agreement between unions and employers)
No, but only because I spent most of today in a tin can kilometres high up in the air.
To clarify.
The date of FOSDEM depends on the academic calendar of the ULB (which has been graciously hosting FOSDEM since before it was called that). The organisation team has approximately zero influence over that decision.
FOSDEM must wait on the ULB to plan its calendar and communicate to it before it can announce anything.
@Karelt @fosdem @me
