Huh, not only Henry 1, a CHP helicopter, and a whole bunch of police cars (I couldn't see the agency markings), but at least one Petaluma Fire SUV. Activity is now down around 101 and Lakeville. Don't see any smoke.
Entry: 2025-03-28 18:43:47.712141+01 CRWV (CoreWeave) IPO by Dan Lyke comments 0
Last night: Nvidia-backed CoreWeave downsizes US IPO
This morning: CoreWeave Stock Opens at $39 After Disappointing IPO.
CoreWeave, a rapidly growing AI cloud company, priced its initial public offering at $40 a share on Thursday night, well below an expected range of $47 to $55.
Peter @peter@thepit.social observes:
AI is such an exciting technology that the first big IPO for the sector is a bust. like, if you spun off Google and Microsoft's AI businesses, they would immediately be stripped for parts and shut down because generative AI is not a profitable business.
[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Microsoft moron Graphics Artificial Intelligence Economics ]
Entry: 2025-03-25 16:26:58.12269+01 AI pessimism of the morning by Dan Lyke comments 0
Ed Zitron — The Phony Comforts of AI Optimism
American Prospect: Bubble Trouble
Venture capital (VC) funds, drunk on a decade of “growth at all costs,” have poured about $200 billion into generative AI. Making matters worse, the stock market’s bull run is deeply dependent on the growth of the Big Tech companies fueling the AI bubble. In 2023, 71 percent of the total gains in the S&P 500 were attributable to the “Magnificent Seven”—Apple, Nvidia, Tesla, Alphabet, Meta, Amazon, and Microsoft—all of which are among the biggest spenders on AI. Just four—Microsoft, Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta—combined for $246 billion of capital expenditure in 2024 to support the AI build-out. Goldman Sachs expects Big Tech to spend over $1 trillion on chips and data centers to power AI over the next five years. Yet OpenAI, the current market leader, expects to lose $5 billion this year, and its annual losses to swell to $11 billion by 2026. If the AI bubble bursts, it not only threatens to wipe out VC firms in the Valley but also blow a gaping hole in the public markets and cause an economy-wide meltdown.
I especially like the ending observation of that one:
Maybe, after the fallout of the AI bubble is felt and the sun sets on Silicon Valley for a bit, the tech world can do a hard reset and return to its more innovative days again.
Via.
Edit: Alibaba’s Tsai Warns of ‘Bubble’ in AI Data Center Buildout
[ related topics: Apple Computer Interactive Drama Humor Books Microsoft Invention and Design moron Current Events Graphics Television Artificial Intelligence Economics Java ]
Entry: 2025-03-25 15:25:02.92101+01 Heard someone yesterday who's part of a by Dan Lyke comments 0
Heard someone yesterday who's part of a healthcare startup bemoan that their IT group isn't approving use of Microsoft's LLM product, and... We as an industry have done a really bad job educating people about privacy, security, *and* LLMs.
[ related topics: Humor Privacy Microsoft moron Heinlein ]
Entry: 2025-03-14 22:32:25.078892+01 killing with impunity by Dan Lyke comments 0
Fixing this means huge social change: After crash kills Washington Middle School student, parents seek answers
Investigators said a 51-year-old woman failed to place her GMC Acadia in park and got out of the SUV, which rolled about 75 yards downhill and struck Arsema shortly before 12:30 p.m. Police have not publicly identified and did not arrest the woman, who two drug recognition experts determined was not impaired.</blockuote>
It's not like punishment changes things, it's a good bet that woman won't ever leave a car out of "park" again. But we have a culture that encourages casual automobile use in a way that every one of us could see making the same mistake.
On the other hand, dismissing this as "an accident" does nothing to change the culture so that we start taking responsibility for wielding deadly weapons in our neighborhoods.
[ related topics: Children and growing up Humor Health Sociology Current Events Law Enforcement California Culture Automobiles Guns Seattle ]
Entry: 2025-03-12 22:10:39.876039+01 Typescript compiler by Dan Lyke comments 0
Typescript is getting a native compiler, written in Go.
(Closed this tab this morning without actually getting it, then Zellyn Hunter mentioned it.)
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron ]
Entry: 2025-03-04 00:12:12.144162+01 MS scaling back data centers, SoftBank stretching even futher by Dan Lyke comments 0
As a result, based on TD Cowen's analysis, Microsoft has, through a combination of canceled leases, pullbacks on Statements of Qualifications, cancellations of land parcels and deliberate expiration of Letters of Intent, effectively abandoned data center expansion equivalent to over 14% of its current capacity.
And, yeah, the Microsoft pullback is the first part of this, but make sure you get down to the funding of the "Stargate" project and Softbank borrowing money to invest in his.
No, wait, read down further to the discussion about how this all ties together in predicting demand, especially as OpenAI is moving features that were part of the "Pro" package down into the cheaper packages, in a way that sure feels a lot like "maybe this time they'll like it?", and how Microsoft's language about demand suggests that Microsoft thinks that LLMs and Generative AI have gotten into the commodity phase, where we're not gonna see a lot of improvement, and now it's about delivering the current level of technology cheap enough to turn a profit with. Which is a hell of a lot cheaper than right now.
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Community Currency Artificial Intelligence Real Estate ]
Entry: 2025-02-25 19:24:47.589278+01 AI of the morning by Dan Lyke comments 0
The Deep Research problem — Benedict Evans. On trying to get useful information out of ChatGPT, using OpenAI's examples:
We’re asking for a deterministic answer from a probabilistic question, and there it looks like the model really is failing on its own terms. In my opinion, or given my expertise, it shouldn’t be using Statcounter or Statistica, but even if it should, it hasn’t taken the correct number from them.
Every: I Created a Hacker News Simulator to Reverse-engineer Virality
Given a more detailed persona based on a two-hour interview with a human, ChatGPT can replicate their answers on surveys with as much as 85 percent accuracy.
Uh. Yay?
Back to Benedict Evans, in his summary he notes:
... OpenAI and all the other foundation model labs have no moat or defensibility except access to capital ...
Emphasis mine. With Microsoft dialing back on data center leases, maybe we're starting to see the bubble deflate.
[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Microsoft moron Current Events Artificial Intelligence Model Building ]
Entry: 2025-02-17 19:11:55.728518+01 AI grumblings of the morning by Dan Lyke comments 0
Interesting to read this from Namanyay, who self-pitches as "I’m now making developers more productive with AI": New Junior Developers Can’t Actually Code
RT Christine Lemmer-Webber @cwebber@social.coop
Study after study also shows that AI assistants erode the development of critical thinking skills and knowledge *retention*. People, finding information isn't the biggest missing skillset in our population, it's CRITICAL THINKING, so this is fucked up
AI assistants also introduce more errors at a high volume, and harder to spot too
https://www.microsoft.com/en-u..._ai_critical_thinking_survey.pdf
https://slejournal.springerope...icles/10.1186/s40561-024-00316-7
https://www.techrepublic.com/article/ai-generated-code-outages/
https://arxiv.org/abs/2211.03622
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11128619/
[ related topics: Humor Weblogs Microsoft Invention and Design moron Work, productivity and environment Television Education Artificial Intelligence Model Building ]
Entry: 2025-02-09 23:09:43.43351+01 AI use & critical thinking by Dan Lyke comments 0
Moreover, while GenAI can improve worker efficiency, it can inhibit critical engagement with work and can potentially lead to long-term overreliance on the tool and diminished skill for independent problem-solving. Higher confidence in GenAI’s ability to perform a task is related to less critical thinking effort.
Via Pivot To AI: Microsoft research: Use AI chatbots and turn yourself into a dumbass
404 Media: Microsoft Study Finds AI Makes Human Cognition “Atrophied and Unprepared”
The Register: Some workers already let AI do the thinking for them, Microsoft researchers find
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Work, productivity and environment Artificial Intelligence ]
Entry: 2025-01-20 23:16:17.213327+01 Doom in Word by Dan Lyke comments 0
Doom ported to a standalone Microsoft Word document — plays well but there's no sound
6.6MB document runs on x86 systems with modern Microsoft Office installations.
Following up on Doom in a PDF
[ related topics: Humor Games Microsoft moron Video ]
Entry: 2024-12-17 17:49:05.242436+01 Serving the machine by Dan Lyke comments 0
I think these two things are related:
David Gerard @davidgerard@circumstances.run
Microsoft refuses pull request to put documentation in readable table form because LLMs are bad at parsing tables https://github.com/MicrosoftDocs/WSL/pull/2021
Edit: Same sentiment with more text at Pivot To AI.
Jef Poskanzer :batman: @jef@mastodon.social
Which is worse, newspaper websites or restaurant websites?
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft Food moron Journalism and Media Furniture ]
Entry: 2024-12-13 17:48:28.114837+01 Industry standards by Dan Lyke comments 0
RT Helen Czerski @helenczerski@fediscience.org
11 yrs ago I found this funny: 'How many Microsoft designers does it take to change a lightbulb? None. They just define darkness as “industry standard”
But now I can't unsee this:
'How many huge companies does it take to fix the climate? None. They just define global warming as “industry standard”
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Global Warming ]
Entry: 2024-11-20 18:52:06.869637+01 365 Copilot hates < by Dan Lyke comments 0
Sanitize your inputs, kiddos. The Register AI + ML: Microsoft 365 Copilot trips over angle brackets, frustrating coders — Chatbot seems to choke when fed tricky less-than character
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Artificial Intelligence ]
Entry: 2024-11-07 16:53:05.993725+01 MS merges Copilot Pro into 365 by Dan Lyke comments 0
RT Kevin Beaumont @GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social
Microsoft are effectively giving up on Copilot Pro subscription ($20/month) as almost nobody paid for it.
Instead they are bundling it into Microsoft 365 consumer subscriptions and inflating the renewal prices there. There’s no opt out.
Effectively allows the Copilot revenue and user numbers to be inflated.
https://www.theverge.com/2024/...ot-office-features-microsoft-365
This feels a lot like Zoom doing similarly.
Edit: Pivot To AI says the same thing.
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Consumerism and advertising ]
Entry: 2024-11-05 21:35:02.259483+01 Huh by Dan Lyke comments 0
Huh, not only Henry 1, a CHP helicopter, and a whole bunch of police cars (I couldn't see the agency markings), but at least one Petaluma Fire SUV. Activity is now down around 101 and Lakeville. Don't see any smoke.
[ related topics: Humor Photography Law Enforcement Pyrotechnics Aviation - Helicopters ]
Entry: 2024-09-20 17:19:57.031822+02 Fake videos with Russian provenance by Dan Lyke comments 0
Russia goes all-out with covert disinformation aimed at Harris, Microsoft report says
Microsoft explained that the video blaming Harris for a fake hit-and-run incident came from a Russian-aligned influence network it calls Storm-1516, which other researchers refer to as CopyCop. The video, whose main character is played by an actor, is typical of the group’s efforts to react to current events with authentic-seeming “whistleblower” accounts that may seem like juicy unreported news to U.S. voters, the company said.
[ related topics: Humor Weblogs Microsoft Movies broadband moron Current Events Video ]
Entry: 2024-09-18 20:55:02.016234+02 So if the Saudis and petrodollars are by Dan Lyke comments 0
So if the Saudis and petro-dollars are gonna go all-in on the AI bubble, can we agree to hang them fucking out to dry when the AI bubble pops? No more "too big to fail".
https://finance.yahoo.com/news...soft-aim-raise-30-202200420.html
[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Microsoft moron Current Events Artificial Intelligence ]
Entry: 2024-09-06 17:45:30.268587+02 "Accuracy Debt" by Dan Lyke comments 0
Short thread about Microsoft CoPilot's inability to summarize:
What I do fear is that for those that do heavily invest, they’ll be required by the likes of Microsoft to begin to speak in ways that Copilot can parse and ‘understand’. Which in larger organisations will shape the way that they communicate with others, and it’ll spread. In the same way that American corporate speak, or Agile terminology has infected the rest of the world.
The thing that most blows my mind about this whole LLMania is that we have mechanisms for accurately describing processes to computers already...
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron ]
Entry: 2024-08-25 04:48:03.81577+02 Always going to let you down by Dan Lyke comments 0
Though he's not entirely sure how it happened, the Lindy CEO and founder told TechCrunch that he has a theory about how his AI assistants figured out how to execute this specific brand of internet humor.
"The way these models work is they try to predict the most likely next sequence of text," Crivello explained. "So it starts like, 'Oh, I’m going to send you a video!' So what’s most likely after that? YouTube.com. And then what’s most likely after that?"
[ related topics: Humor Bioinformatics Work, productivity and environment Net Culture Machinery Trains Artificial Intelligence Video Gambling ]
Entry: 2024-08-25 02:00:02.667586+02 Dear Microsoft I want you fuckers to by Dan Lyke comments 0
Dear Microsoft. I want you fuckers to try to talk an 85 year old former mortician and home appraiser through using Windows 11 vs Windows 10.
I'm trying to help him via Zoom screen share, and holy shit the attempting to be "helpful" with arranging windows. We have no idea what it's trying to do.
Also, if it's gonna be glacial I wanna see what's happening in the task manager.
[ related topics: Interactive Drama Humor Microsoft moron ]
Entry: 2024-08-19 18:10:11.481763+02 Markov Chains are funnier than LLMs by Dan Lyke comments 0
Markov Chains are funnier than LLMs, an interesting short delve into humor and text generation.
[ related topics: Humor Weblogs ]
Entry: 2024-08-10 00:25:10.10271+02 X C&D by Dan Lyke comments 0
Giggle: McSweeney's: X Sends a Cease and Desist Letter to a Former User by Randal Cooper
(Just so I can find this in the future: the social media disaster formerly known as Twitter)
[ related topics: Humor Journalism and Media ]
Entry: 2024-07-19 16:30:36.791598+02 Windows IT go kaboom by Dan Lyke comments 2
In case you're unaware, last night there was a major Azure outage, and this morning a faulty Crowdstrike update has caused outages across the world.
The difference between security software vendors and ransomware extortionists is that security software vendors get you to pay before they destroy your systems.
RT LittleAlex @littlealex@infosec.exchange
Too funny: In 2010 McAfee caused a global IT meltdown due to a faulty update. CTO at this time was George Kurtz. Now he is CEO of #crowdstrike
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft virus Aviation Software Engineering moron Law Current Events ]
Entry: 2024-07-11 18:35:02.770146+02 Started a new podcast Derelict on the by Dan Lyke comments 0
Started a new podcast (Derelict) on the walk to work yesterday, and just not feeling grimdark. I don't mind peril, but...
So looking for fiction podcasts with heart and humor. Examples: Where The Stars Fell, Unwell, Kingmaker Histories, Amelia Project, Super Suits, Starship Q Star, Murder on Sex Island, Moonbase Theta Out, Midnight Burger, Girl in Space, Fawx & Stallion, Alba Salix, The Strange Case of Starship Iris, Unwell...
[ related topics: Humor Erotic Sexual Culture Invention and Design Space & Astronomy Law Work, productivity and environment Aviation - Helicopters ]
Entry: 2024-07-10 20:08:35.196238+02 Cybertruck review by Dan Lyke comments 0
Giggle: SFGate: I drove a Cybertruck around SF because I am a smart, cool alpha male
SFGATE columnist Drew Magary drove the (in)famous Tesla vehicle around the city and lived to tell the tale
Shades of the 2002 Car & Driver review of the Cadillac Escalade EXT that I've mentioned previously.
[ related topics: Humor Bay Area Automobiles Archival ]
Entry: 2024-06-26 19:20:01.711284+02 Listening to A History of Rock Music by Dan Lyke comments 1
Listening to "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs" can be pretty bleak, it's the story of lots and lots of exploitation, but it does have me pondering the differences and similarities between Steve Jobs and "Colonel" Tom Parker.
[ related topics: Apple Computer Humor Music Pop Culture ]
Entry: 2024-06-17 05:45:02.631186+02 Crap 3 hours ago it was 200 acres 2 by Dan Lyke comments 0
Crap. 3 hours ago it was 200 acres. 2 hours 550. Now 900. South of Lake Sonoma. Hugs to my Healdsburg friends tonight, think it's gonna be a long one. Also, consider donating to WatchDuty, and definitely have the app.
Point Fire @ 4200 Block of Stewarts Point-Skaggs Springs Road, Healdsburg - #PointFire https://share.watchduty.org/i/22048
[ related topics: Humor Pyrotechnics ]
Entry: 2024-06-13 23:45:54.041503+02 Microsoft ignored warnings on the SolarWinds hack by Dan Lyke comments 0
Starting to see what happened with the SolarWinds hack: ProPublica: Microsoft Chose Profit Over Security and Left U.S. Government Vulnerable to Russian Hack, Whistleblower Says
They saw it differently, Harris said. The federal government was preparing to make a massive investment in cloud computing, and Microsoft wanted the business. Acknowledging this security flaw could jeopardize the company’s chances, Harris recalled one product leader telling him. The financial consequences were enormous. Not only could Microsoft lose a multibillion-dollar deal, but it could also lose the race to dominate the market for cloud computing.
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Currency Economics Woodworking ]
Entry: 2024-06-07 19:50:02.258526+02 I remember when Microsoft Longhorn was by Dan Lyke comments 0
I remember when Microsoft Longhorn was gonna add all sorts of file metadata management and searching and organization, that never happened, but that everybody thought was gonna revolutionize computing in good ways.
That never happened, but now we have Recall, that nobody wants to be subjected to.
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron ]
Entry: 2024-05-28 19:41:45.366516+02 Satya Nadella on pushing LLMs at you by Dan Lyke comments 0
Watched this for work, and, okay, I get that texture fills and plagiarism are attractive for image generation, but two things from Microsoft vs. Apple: Satya Nadella Says AI-Focused Copilot+ PCs Beat Macs | WSJ (YouTube video) stood out.
The first was "For people who love Windows...", and I chatted with my Mom this weekend. I've been trying to keep her on Windows or Mac because of local support, but she is so done with Windows, saying things like "it's like they're trying so hard to bring back clippy".
But then I got to "It's sort of like, the browser was born on Windows, and it went beyond Windows...", and... I guess the key to success is to just keep repeating bullshit with a straight face, knowing that the sycophants passing themselves off as journalists won't call you on it?
[ related topics: Apple Computer Humor Microsoft Movies moron Sociology Journalism and Media Work, productivity and environment Macintosh Artificial Intelligence Video ]
Entry: 2024-05-07 20:30:03.586877+02 on my own Azure Services resource by Dan Lyke comments 0
on my own "Azure Services" resource page, clicking on a configured resource and copying "Key 1" or "Key 2" and putting that in the headers is currently giving me a 401 error, but holy crap, the number of different answers on this page shows that Microsoft has some *serious* process issues:
https://stackoverflow.com/ques...ubscription-key-in-windows-azure
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Television ]
Entry: 2024-05-07 19:10:02.307344+02 Attempting to create a Bing API key for by Dan Lyke comments 0
Attempting to create a Bing API key for some work stuff. Holy shit, does Microsoft just not employ anyone who's ever thought about user experience, or has this shit been A/B tested in order to extract the maximum revenue?
It's hard to believe the latter, given how hard it is to get to a point when anything's usable, even having given them my credit card...
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Work, productivity and environment ]
Entry: 2024-04-09 00:25:02.988716+02 I had to verify the eyes hurt Google by Dan Lyke comments 4
I had to verify the "eyes hurt" Google trends theme for myself, and, sure, the graph is eye-rollingly worth a giggle, but the map... Sigh. I weep for humanity.
https://trends.google.com/tren...hurt&date=now%201-d&geo=US&hl=en
[ related topics: Humor Photography Maps and Mapping ]
Entry: 2024-04-08 17:45:02.116039+02 Hearing people asking for things that by Dan Lyke comments 0
Hearing people asking for things that terminal users have had in their toolbox for decades kinda wants to make me say "how about using tools that respect your intelligence, rather than buying crap from vendors who prioritize the shiny over use".
Unrelated, Microsoft is making it harder to use non-Edge browsers... https://www.bleepingcomputer.c...om-changing-default-web-browser/
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft Invention and Design Software Engineering moron Current Events ]
Entry: 2024-04-05 22:42:20.077281+02 Prompt engineering for humans by Dan Lyke comments 0
Giggle: Ars Technica: The fine art of human prompt engineering: How to talk to a person like ChatGPT
RT nazgul@infosec.exchange Kee Hinckley @nazgul@infosec.exchange
@daviddlevine Why does this sound like Neuro Linguistic Programming?
Which is kind of funny, because both are NLP.
[ related topics: Humor Software Engineering Art & Culture ]
Entry: 2024-03-27 18:09:15.697783+01 Easter Approaches. Be Afraid. by Dan Lyke comments 0
RT Inertial Invites @intransitivelie@beige.party
Jesus: impossible to kill, reproduced asexually. Jesus is canonically a fungus. Clearly the part the Romans crucified was a fruiting body of some kind, leaving the bulk of the organism below ground, safe and secure. And every Easter, we find Jesus' multi-colored spores hidden in dark places. The rabbits tried to warn us. But now it's too late. He's metastasized across the whole planet. Soon enough, he will come again, and when he does, no cross in the world will be big enough to keep him at bay.
*Twilight Zone music intensifies*
[ related topics: Religion Humor Music Bay Area Space & Astronomy California Culture ]
Entry: 2024-03-19 01:05:02.4635+01 How far has the net fallen I'm trying by Dan Lyke comments 4
How far has the net fallen? I'm trying to find an old comic, it was about mixing Christianity, and the punchline was on the order of "There's no wrong way to eat a Jesus™". It was of the era of Bob the Angry Flower, but I'm pretty sure was another comic.
Google, Bing, Stract and Marginalia are being of no help here.
[ related topics: Religion Humor Food ]
Entry: 2024-03-18 16:47:50.16559+01 Java segfaults on MacOS 14.4 by Dan Lyke comments 0
Java users on macOS 14 running on Apple silicon systems should consider delaying the macOS 14.4 update. I mean, Sonoma has been a shitshow generally, but it's good to know that Java's mission of being the platform which will semi-randomly segfault on all of the platforms is still being actively pursued, despite the Oracle acquisition.
[ related topics: Apple Computer Humor Software Engineering Sports Macintosh Databases ]
Entry: 2024-03-04 17:53:21.236125+01 Clean up Windows 11 by Dan Lyke comments 0
I know I'm gonna have to end up doing this for someone: Ars Technica: Windows-as-a-nuisance: How I clean up a “clean install” of Windows 11 and Edge
Tips and tricks for making Microsoft leave you alone while you use your PC.
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron ]
Entry: 2024-02-21 18:28:14.984524+01 Pulsar Code Editor by Dan Lyke comments 1
I occasionally think about moving from Emacs as my basic editor. I know VSCode is kind of the "npm" of modern editors: Don't think about the build process for this platform, just install this plugin and everything "works", but I also know that VSCode is deliberate Microsoft lock-in.
Pulsar, the best code editor makes a case for the MIT Licensed offshoot of VSCode, Pulsar. Many of the justifications are kinda sketch, the fact that it's GUI only means that it likely doesn't work terribly well over an SSH session (it's been a while since I used X forwarding, and I think Wayland is deprecating that?), but it seems worth a try.
Looks like it has basic block operations (similar to how XCode does it), but lacks built-in record and playback features, which feels like a deal-breaker. I'll have to dig further. It also looks like the window/pane management, and file management, wants a lot of mousing...
[ related topics: Humor Microsoft moron Law Work, productivity and environment Cryptography ]
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