Chasing Simplicity - jan’s thoughts:
Simplicity means fewer things that can go wrong. Less to fiddle with. Less to maintain. A smaller attack surface, if you like.
Chasing simplicity is something I related to hard. That desire has manifested in everything from my mission to preserve my digital assets, to how I make my morning coffee.
Texting a Random Stranger Better for Loneliness Than Talking to a Chatbot, Study Shows
Text me anytime. I’m on Signal fromjason.01
I’ve previously written about the fear that our current AI may be incapable of truly original thought, and that anything we’re seeing that may appear as such is really just algorithmic anomalies that we don’t understand.
MG writes about this as if the notion that AI is incapable of original thought is the fringe argument. But we have studies that prove this. It’s the idea that AI can “think” at all that’s the radical, unproven notion.
AI tools that can do a lot of useful stuff, like transcribing audio and video; describing images; summarizing documents; and automating a lot of labor-intensive graphic editing – such as removing backgrounds or airbrushing passersby out of photos. These will run on our laptops and phones, and open-source hackers will find ways to push them to do things their makers never dreamed of.
AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage:
Creative workers who cheer on lawsuits by the big studios and labels need to remember the first rule of class warfare: things that are good for your boss are rarely what’s good for you.
AI companies will fail. We can salvage something from the wreckage:
And in the meantime, it’s bad art. It’s bad art in the sense of being “eerie”, the word that cultural theorist Mark Fisher used to describe “when there is something present where there should be nothing, or there is nothing present when there should be something”.
Good read.
Bit of info that wasn’t in the original post—Proton also gave up activist’s backup email addresses to the FBI.
All the backup emails were Proton addresses so, unclear how useful that info was to the FBI.
One of the podcast hosts (Koebler?) also stated that this is the first reported instance of Proton working indirectly with the FBI. So washg they refusing before?
Who remembers the nightmare that is the Return to OZ? I was sure this was a knock off movie by some now-defunct studio, but no, this is a Disney movie. Who greenlit this??
This sequel to The Wizard of Oz scared the hell out of me as a kid, partially “the wheelers.” But I remember watching it multiple times?
How Obsidian Fixes Note-Taking’s Biggest Problem
Great video that discusses how note taking and personal knowledge can be procrastination tools 😬. I’ve gotten way better at not falling into the trap. But also, sometimes you gotta rebuild from the ground up. lol Which is what I’m doing.
Moving from Notion to Obsidian. Might make this a write up. Haven’t done a docs post in a while.
Every morning, for the past six months or so, I write down my “Cold Harbor” task for the day. Then I guesstimate how many pomodoros it’ll take me to finish.
Why? Because The Work is Mysterious And Important.
lol jk it’s cause I have a heaping bowl-full of Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, so I must gamify my entire life to get shit accomplished.
Malta is a a Non-alcoholic malted drink. It’s very much an acquired taste, that I so happen to love.
I let my niece try some and she became very upset with me that I “let her drink that.” Lmao.
Meta acquired Moltbook, the AI agent social network that went viral because of fake posts:
Moltbook is joining Meta Superintelligence Labs, a Meta spokesperson told us. Moltbook creators Matt Schlicht and Ben Parr will join the team as part of the acquisition. Deal terms were not disclosed.
Didn’t one of the founders already go to OpenAI?
The Bride! looks so fucking weird. It seems like the perfect movie for one of my famous extravagant theater trips*
*Smoke weed in the parking lot of the movie theater then go in and watch it alone.
The time I stayed on a ranch in South Dakota via Airbnb. That little outhouse thing was my room for two days. It was so fun.
Omg do y’all remember when Grimes posted a video as a “proposition for the communists” around 2021?
She tried to make the argument that AI is the fastest route to communism because it would weed out all the corruption, and other complete nonsense 🥀
I don’t wanna post it here and risk it spreading earnestly. But looking back, it’s obvious she was shilling for Elon Musk’s yet-to-be-released AI chatbot Grok.
This is a photo of my family playing something called The Muffin Man Game. It’s a long lasting tradition of inflicting shame on anyone who falls for it.
How it works—You ask an innocuous question about an unnamed person. “Did you see her come in?”
If someone asks “who?” Or inquires who “her” is, you reply with “THE MUFFIN MAN”
Everyone in the room then loses their shit and shames the person for falling for it.
Contact is one of my all-time favorite sci-fi movies. It’s tries hard, and often succeeds at tackling difficult themes of religion and science.
And I love it despite me not believing for a second that Jodie Foster was attracted to Matthew McConaughey.
Meta’s AI Smart Glasses and Data Privacy Concerns: Workers Say “We See Everything”:
It is an uncomfortable truth for tech giants: the AI revolution is to a large extent built on labor in low-income countries. What we call “machine learning” is often the result of human hands.
It makes sense why Meta is spending 10 billion on a deep sea fiber optic cable that connects the US to India, Brazil, and Africa.
Have y’all seen Very Important People? It’s a “talk show” on Dropout.tv where improvisers get dressed up in movie-quality costumes and they perform an entirely improvised interview.
I’ve only ever watched the clips they post to Youtube, but It’s phenomenal.
Quit ChatGPT: right now! Your subscription is bankrolling authoritarianism:
A grassroots boycott called QuitGPT has been spreading across the US and beyond, asking people to cancel their ChatGPT subscriptions.
So, yes. Absolutely. Quit ChatGPT. BUT. This opinion piece doesn’t pass the smell test. First, The Guardian never publishes op-eds like this.
Second, this “grassroots” movement would be a lot more believable if Rutger Bregman, the guy who wrote this editorial, wasn’t also licking the Anthropic CEO’s boots.
U.S. Senator attacks anti-war Marine - breaking his hand:
Republican Senator Tim Sheehy just attacked anti-war protestor Brian McGinnis during a subcommittee hearing. Sheehy joined Capitol Police is lifting McGinnis up and physically ejecting him from the hearing. McGinnis can be heard saying “No one wants to fight for Israel!!” And bystanders can he heard saying “They broke his hand! A sitting US Senator just broke the hand of a Marine.”
I’ve been so lucky to have amazing culinary experiences in my life. I’ve had sushi in Tokyo and pasta in Italy. Yet, this poor boy’s palette would trade it all for a bacon and egg cheese biscuit and Diet Coke from Mc Donald’s.
CBP Tapped Into the Online Advertising Ecosystem To Track Peoples’ Movements:
The internal document relates to a “pilot” program CBP previously ran from 2019 to 2021, which would “aid in CBP’s targeting, vetting, analysis, and illicit network discovery processes,” it says.
Today’s fascist tools are just yesterday’s neoliberal business model under different TOS.
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