Flutterby™! (short)

Huh. Don't know how I've missed this "Danger! Do not operate! Man on line." tag dated 12/14/24 on this pole that I've walked past a gazillion times, but I hope dude isn't still up there somewhere, he's gotta be getting thirsty.

Also, "man on line", what century are we in again?

Finally figured out my Deckset issue. As a competent text editor user, I am really digging the trend of "all configuration happens in text files" and "tools do one thing, well."

The Wharton School Research Paper: Thinking—Fast, Slow, and Artificial: How AI is Reshaping Human Reasoning and the Rise of Cognitive Surrender

Tri-System Theory is not a warning about AI’s dangers but a recognition of System 3’s psychological presence. We do not merely use AI; we think with it. In doing so, we must ask new questions: What happens when our judgments are shaped by minds not our own? What becomes of intuition and effort when a generative, artificial partner stands ready to answer? How do we preserve agency, reflection, and autonomy in a world where users engage in cognitive surrender?

https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/yk25n_v1

Via Matt Seybold ‪@mattseybold.bsky.social‬ who characterized it as:

The. Rise. Of. Cognitive. Surrender.

Study finds that people who use GenAI chatbots rely on them 80% of the time, and develop almost no capacity to recognize when a chatbot is feeding them faulty information.

Based on an ancient Cooks Illustrated article, I've been making hash browns by squeezing the grated potatoes, letting the juice sit, pouring off the water and re-incorporating the starch.

(Cook 9 minutes per side, medium heat, plenty of fat.)

I just did my first batch by squeezing and rinsing and discarding the starch, and way crispier!

2,400 year- old skeleton mosaic discovered in Turkey with the caption: "Be cheerful, enjoy your life"

There is some debate over the meaning of the text that’s paired with the recumbent skeleton. The writer İlber Ortaylı reads it as, “You get the pleasure of the food you eat hastily with death,” and believes that the mosaic was in a soup kitchen rather than a rich person’s dining room. But in a thorough post by Livius on The History Blog, they argue that a skeleton “partying with [the Romans] in the dining room” is consistent with the art at the time in which Kara dated it. The mosaic would’ve been a reminder that life is fleeting—so imbibe the wine, eat the bread, and enjoy it while you can.

Found it! Those two images, I didn't have a blank line before the image specifier.

Deskset mavens: I think I'm loving it, except that I have two B&W images from the Library of Congress that I cannot get it to display at a reasonable size, even when I screengrab for them, or convert from TIFF with Image Magick or GIMP.

Any help?

I really really hope that I don't have reason to refer back to this document later, but holy shit: Thoughts following the Jan. 8th NASA Headquarters meeting concerning the Artemis II Heatshield (read-only Google doc), per this skeet from Anil Dash it's written by "former Johnson Space Center engineering director (and astronaut) Charles Camarda".

If the toy collectors on Facebook Marketplace place could stop referring to 1997 as "vintage", I'd appreciate it. Pretty sure that was less than a decade ago...

Defense One: AI may revive old-school tradecraft even as it transforms intelligence work

A recent article in Studies in Intelligence, the CIA- backed academic journal, argues that as AI degrades the reliability of digital communications like text messages and video calls, traditional human intelligence tradecraft — like dead drops, brush passes and in-person meetings — could regain renewed importance.

Via.

At this point I'm not even sure it's worth taking note of software/package management supply chain attacks anymore, but North Korean hackers blamed for hijacking popular Axios open source project to spread malware.

QOTD: MeFi user RonButNotStupid on LLM written code (Specifically Claude Code):

It's like programming as understood by the sovereign citizen movement.

Boris Cherney said "Can confirm Claude Code is 100% written by Claude Code". Time to start pushing back on those DMCA takedowns, and get Anthropic's legal team disbarred for abuse and misconduct.

https://x.com/bcherny/status/2030109840555790357

How is Federal transportation funding broken? Mass DOT Project Information — CHARLEMONT- BRIDGE REPLACEMENT, C-05-009, CHICKLEY ROAD OVER CHICKLEY RIVER.

Estimated Total Contract Cost: $9,139,470.74

Estimated Total Federal Participating Construction Cost: $9,703,075.95

Google Maps link for 296 W. Hawley Rd.. That's nearly $10M to serve a single house. Total assessed value for 72 acres and the 4br/2ba house with attached garage, $402,700 (okay, to be fair, looks like they've got an outbuilding and some solar panels).

House of Saud: Was the Iran War Caused by AI Psychosis?

Leader of Antioch police department texting scandal sentenced to 4 years in prison

"Police terrorist" is the language used by presiding federal judge, Jeffrey White, during the sentencing says Nisenbaum. He says Rombough's confession helped led to the signing of an MOU in December that will Nisenbaum says will transform Antioch into a "constitutional policing model." Even though the prosecution wanted a longer sentence.

Microsoft Copilot Terms of Use explicitly lay out the situation:

• When you request that Copilot take Actions on your behalf, you are solely responsible for those Actions and any results or consequences.
• Copilot is for entertainment purposes only. It can make mistakes, and it may not work as intended. Don’t rely on Copilot for important advice. Use Copilot at your own risk.
• WITHOUT LIMITING SECTION 12 OF THE MICROSOFT SERVICES AGREEMENT IN ANY WAY, BUT FOR THE SAKE OF CLARITY, WE DO NOT MAKE ANY WARRANTY OR REPRESENTATION OF ANY KIND ABOUT COPILOT. For example, we can’t promise that any Copilot’s Responses won’t infringe someone else’s rights (like their copyrights, trademarks, or rights of privacy) or defame them. You are solely responsible if you choose to publish or share Copilot’s Responses publicly or with any other person.

Via ‪Ingrid Burrington‬ ‪@lifewinning.com‬ who also posits

Clippy popping up asking "are you not entertained?"

Calishat @researchbuzz

@danlyke I'm listening to a Wall Street Millennial video about Anthropic right now and I'm not sure the CEO's butter is all the way on his pancake

Wall Street Millenial: Anthropic's feud with the Pentagon is not what you think.

I personally think it's a good thing that the the Department of War declared Anthropic a supply chain risk. Not because it actually is a supply chain risk, but because this is the first time that Dario Amadei is finally held accountable for his fear mongering and propaganda.

The Register: Anthropic goes nude, exposes Claude Code source by accident.

Ars Technica: Entire Claude Code CLI source code leaks thanks to exposed map file.

The New Stack: Inside Claude Code’s leaked source: swarms, daemons, and 44 features Anthropic kept behind flags, Via.

jonny (good kind) @jonny@neuromatch.social

My dogs I am crying. They have a whole series of exception types that end with _I_VERIFIED_THIS_IS_NOT_CODE_OR_FILEPATHS and the docstring explains this is "to confirm you've verified the message contains no sensitive data." Like the LLM resorts to naming its variables with prompt text to remind it to not leak data while writing its code, which, of course, it ignores and prints the error directly.

Michael Bacon @MichaelTBacon@social.coop has some commentary and a link to that jonny thread (above).

T he Register: Claude Code source leak reveals how much info Anthropic can hoover up about you and your system, Via.

tante @tante@tldr.nettime.org has some commentary...

It is fascinating but it is as far away from actual engineering as drunkenly pissing your name in the snow. Dunno what you call the people prompting software at Anthropic but "engineer" is not it.

Reading leaked Claude Code source code, Via Lobste.rs

Rewriting Project Claw Code

Edit: MeFi thread.