And just like that I have a new comic to put on my regular rotation: https://www.freecheesecomix.com/comics/return-on-investment/
And just like that I have a new comic Dan Lyke / comment 0
And just like that I have a new comic to put on my regular rotation: https://www.freecheesecomix.com/comics/return-on-investment/
Superficial artifice Dan Lyke / comment 0
Colin Beveridge @icecolbeveridge@mathstodon.xyz
I think the sensible course is to meet halfway and call it superficial intelligence.
Gruber's call for a return to Twitter Dan Lyke / comment 0
There are some words that I, as a white guy, just cannot use comfortably, even quoting someone who is entitled to the word. jamelle @jamellebouie.net has a take on John Gruber/Daring Fireball's trolling around returning to X/Twitter that is one such.
Direct Action Dan Lyke / comment 0
⏩️︎VOTE⏪️︎ ᶜʸⁿⁱᶜⁱˢᵐ⁼ᵃᶜᶜᵉᵖᵗᵃⁿᶜᵉ (Ben Royce) @benroyce@mastodon.social
@meltedcheese
I find it rather funny we spend our time complaining about #AI #datacenters and #fossilFuel derived #climateChange, and #Ukraine is out there blowing up #oilRefineries and AI datacenters
Supporting Ukraine is a simple matter of understanding the principles and the stakes involved
But Ukraine sure makes a compelling argument for support on rather brutally direct terms rather than mere rhetoric
playstation Dan Lyke / comment 0
Charlotte @charlotte@akko.chir.rs
playboy: traditionally attractive women in lingerie
playgirl: traditionally attractive men in lingerie
playstation: traditionally attractive trains in lingerie
millions of chat bots suddenly cried out in terror Dan Lyke / comment 0
Michael Dexter @dexter@bsd.network
“I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of chat bots suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something wonderful has happened."
Select all squares Dan Lyke / comment 0
Oh wow/ouch: Select all squares with enemy combatants.
A product of Darren Cullent at Spelling Mistakes Cost Lives.
USB-C cables with displays in them Dan Lyke / comment 0
ZDNet reviews the Ugreen Nexode 240W USB-C cable, which, first of all, 240 watts on USBC, but a full color display (for charge rates) in a USB-C cable end.
Yesterday we were helping neighbors put up some halloween decorations, and I was reminded that I live in the future by some of the built-in lighting and laser diodes in the inflatables, but a full color touch screen in your laptop charging cable is also living in the future.
Not necessarily a future I need or want, but a the future.
hardware supply chain attack on crypto wallets Dan Lyke / comment 0
A friend on a Slack channel posted Eric Parker: The most INSANE Hardware Supply Chain Compromise (YouTube video) which I'm letting play as I get my morning started. It's about a dedicated crypto ledger that's had a supply chain attack.
It's derived from a bunch of Twitter posts and Tibane: Ledger Nano X: the spy implant,
Lots of discussion about company acquisitions and whatnot about whether you can trust devices, but I think what's most fascinating is that in the end he comes down to the idea that individuals people shouldn't manage their own crypto wallets, and if you want to invest in cryptocurrencies you should buy into an ETF.
Also some interesting discussion about attack surfaces of phones vs dedicated cryptocurrency hardware, not that there was any real insight in the video, but interesting to ponder mass market devices which attackers are able to compromise some cross-section of, vs dedicated devices where an attack can be very specific.
Which both puts specific words to the lie of the original promises of cryptocurrencies, and... "if you want to invest in extortion and repressive regimes bypassing sanctions, this is your investment vehicle".
Another amazing episode of Trump Con Dan Lyke / comment 0
Another amazing episode of Trump Con Law, and I learned about Bird v. Holbrook (1825).
Bonus on the video rental Dan Lyke / comment 0
Bonus on the video rental issue: helping an elderly friend buy with PayPal today. Both email and SMS asadditional factors, email then used a second email and SMS as a factor.
At least I hadn't left my phone and laptop charging on the other end of the house, unlike the TV streaming issue last night.
Reading the prospectus on an ETF that Dan Lyke / comment 0
Reading the prospectus on an ETF that has way more Nvidia exposure than I'm comfortable with. Pondering how to get a mix of "good" tech stocks that aren't deep in "AI". If there are any.
Friend's Tesla FSD was doing so well Dan Lyke / comment 0
Friend's Tesla FSD was doing so well until it turned in front of a fire truck with its lights and sirens going. I mean, I also blame him for not being fast on stomping on the brake, but... "Moral crumple zones" are also a thing, and he is deep in the "AI" delusion.
$1k daily AI bill for a free to play game Dan Lyke / comment 0
“We are currently spending over $1,000 per day on AI services for the demo,” the team wrote on its Steam update. Easy Fox also added, “This isn’t because each player is particularly expensive to support. The total cost has increased because so many people are playing, and we have taken out a bank loan to help keep the demo running.”
Uh. Wait. each player isn't particularly expensive to support, and yet "the cost has increased because so many people are playing"? I'm... not sure what they're saying here.
Anyway, apparently the whole thing is the player talking to Gemini.
A whole bunch of people linking to this, but I'll credit David Gerard.
Thank you for trying to rent a Dan Lyke / comment 0
Thank you for trying to rent a streaming video. From your TV, we've sent an email that leads to a web page which tells you to go check your phone for a code, which...
I am frankly surprised that I didn't have to then go down to 7-11 and buy a money transfer to send to Venezuela or something.
AI erodes persistence Dan Lyke / comment 0
Yet another study suggesting that UC Berkeley News: Using AI for just 10 minutes erodes your ability to persist at hard things
Across a variety of tasks, including mathematical reasoning and reading comprehension, we find that although AI assistance improves performance in the short-term, people perform significantly worse without AI and are more likely to give up. Notably, these effects emerge after only brief interactions with AI (∼10 minutes). These findings are particularly concerning because persistence is foundational to skill acquisition and is one of the strongest predictors of long-term learning.
Project Page: https://ai-project-website.git...-assistance-reduces-persistence/
Bill Amend's Foxtrot ChessGPT this Dan Lyke / comment 0
Bill Amend's Foxtrot: ChessGPT this morning fucking nails it.
DEI as good business Dan Lyke / comment 0
I guess on BlueSky this is a skeet string? Jake Grumbach @jakemgrumbach.bsky.social
Quick story. My op-ed on how corporations that kept their DEI programs performed just as well financially was accepted & factchecked at TIME Magazine. Just needed "pro forma review by the legal department." Suddenly the piece is spiked
Why? Benioff owns TIME and wants to ingratiate himself to Trump
Piece came out at USAToday
Why? Because USAToday owners (Gannett) only own media companies, so they have an incentive to attract an audience & advertisers
Tech elites like Bezos, Ellisons, Musk, & Benioff use their media firm to cozy to Trump, not to make profit
USA Today: DEI initiatives didn't cost companies. Just the opposite.
The lesson is not that the Trump administration's threats are empty. It is that their effectiveness often depends less on whether they are carried out than on whether people believe they will be.
www.usatoday.com/story/opinio... 2/4 DEI initiatives didn't cost companies. Just the opposite. | Opinion Firms that kept DEI, whether due to executive decisions or shareholder pressure, performed as well in the stock market as those that rolled it back. www.usatoday.com
These different incentives from standalone media owners vs. "common owners" like Benioff is the subject of one of my working papers
This is why Musk doesn't mind that that Twitter revenue is down 59% (or Ellison w/ CBS). He's more than making up for that loss via Twitter's political effects-- ingratiating to Trump, fomenting racist panics, etc--which help SpaceX and xAI get favorable public contracts and regulatory treatment"
It also seems to be the end-game for "AI"/LLM investment: use these things as propaganda machines, get the regulatory capture necessary to make up for the fact that the investments are gonna crash.
After a long day hanging out at Dan Lyke / comment 0
After a long day hanging out at Petaluma Pride in the Petaluma Urban Chat booth, came home and crashed out to "Boys Go To Jupiter", an extremely low budget animated film that... reminded me a *lot* of "Repo Man" thematically. Very weird, but maybe just right for the evening.