My medical practice just sent out an email telling all patients that the AI tool Heidi will be used on an opt-out basis to take notes. You have to ask at the start of the consultation to opt-out. There is no mention of you being asked beforehand. Anyone?

I had forgetten about Vista. www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvKy...

I decided to take a break from Facebook for three weeks, 26 days ago. I am (was) one of the moderators of our local FB group, with 57K+ members. I did this to make more space in my brain to process grief, and be in-person more. What I've noticed is a lot more extra bandwidth than I expected. 1/3

Do vaccines save lives? Yep! Does antivaxx BS kill? Yep. 👇 Cervical cancer deaths for vaccinated young women fall to zero in England: study www.ctvnews.ca/health/artic...

This thread expresses some really key points about why things are so stupid.

Messi xkcd.com/3260/

The entire Microsoft 365 lineup runs so unreliably, slows down my computer processes, and frustrates our clients by asking them to log in even when they don't need to. But at least it's also an expensive subscription with poor integrations that also occasionally deletes saved folders for no reason.

Don’t ban kids using YouTube. Make YouTube behave like a broadcaster. Pay creators. Reinvest in the creative industries. Pay fair tax back into creators’ economies. Follow guidelines on fair usage and copyright. Play fair. It’s bigger than TV now. Make it behave like TV.

I have just cancelled our subscription, which was mostly to support local reporting.

In the last 48 days I've relearned the important message of this song. www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnWA...

Yes, I'm awake now...

GIMP is objectively unintuitive and also can’t parse text layers of PSDs properly, it’s designed by FOSS people that have never created tools for professionals. Telling someone to use it for their job is like saying you can make a feature on iMovie. Technically true but not serious.

Well, I gotta admit it was worth the wait for that curtain to be removed.

I am doing some exercises to be more present and see. Really see. This is really just to get out of my head, but I am starting to notice things... Some of these are photographs, some are observations of the mundane. 1/3

Rare capture of a BMW indicating whilst crossing lanes

Corrected headline: 4% of SpaceX ownership was floated and traded at a price that would theoretically value the entire company at $1.8Tn but there is no objective reality in which that value could be realised nor is Musk a trillionaire.

I guess I'm just dim but I really don't understand who is buying SpaceX at $160 per share. This is a company that is losing billions each quarter and the profits are supposed to come when we colonize Mars and launch data centers in space.

Office has a censor filter in internal comms to replace swear words with other terms. Added a rule changing "AI" to "my cat", so we get "According to my cat..." and "I asked my cat and it said..."

Since it’s getting so cold, here is a classic from my blog about making hot water bottles last longer. richard.hulse.nz/2012/06/26/t...

Every on-hold system seems to have the same music, pretty much. They never give the option to have no music, which always restarts when you are put on hold. This is extremely selfish and bad UX.

Free and open to all. Today’s Chorus on how Aotearoa’s political economy actually works. It’s optimized for leveraged and tax-free gains on residential land values. Not GDP growth or housing affordability. #nzpol thekaka.substack.com/p/auckland-c...

Chorus out. Open to all. Why is our Govt so afraid of a ghost story that is more than 40 years old and actually isn’t true anymore? #nzpol thekaka.substack.com/p/scoop-nz-g...

Gentailers have a monopoly Gentailers keep fossils in the mix Gentailers make 93% margins Gentailers stripped billions in profits rather than invest Price of electricity has rocketed when 87% of ours is renewable Gov sets the rules owns a huge chunk of the gentailers They exploit us #nzpol

Live blogs are again showing how terrible they are for people wanting information. Just like the crashing waves they are covering - chaotic and random. Great UX for reporters though - yes, we are getting stuff out there - but sad it like an unstable southerly for your readers.

Preemptive post:

'But belt-tightening, as it turns out, is for poorer people and public servants. It’s not for the esteemed and often politically-connected candidates they want to install in plum roles on Crown boards.' @haydendonnell.bsky.social #NzPol

In other words, they equated "hallucination" with "sounds wacko" and accepted AI output as true because it sounded levelheaded. The word "hallucination" isn't going away, so we need to explain it better: "Hallucination" is just a fancy word for "confidently makes mistakes." 2/2

You can read a technical breakdown from one of the external researchers who reproduced our findings here:

It's been evident for a while that 95bFM would not continue to have a physical home at the University of Auckland. This morning, after a lot of work, they announced that the station will be moving to a new home on K Road. It's the right place. 95bfm.com/news/were-mo...

Listen to this, you must.

I have had essentially the same landline number my entire life. True or false? I'll explain how in a day or so.

Just remember that anything sent to your private email account or phone that relates to your public office are still public records. www.dpmc.govt.nz/our-business...

'My First Name' - by Susan Harlan (2017) No, you can’t call me By my first name, And yes, I know that A male professor Told you that titles Are silly Because a certain genre Of man Is always dying To performatively Divest himself Of his easily won Authority.

This is absolutely nuts: hackers are hijacking high-profile Instagram accounts by simply asking Meta's AI chatbot to change the email on the account. Meta's AI does it, hacker gets password reset code, they're in. A staggering security issue www.404media.co/hackers-simp...

Today Microsoft moved all its GitHub copilot subscribers to token-based billing. If you want to see what happens when people have to pay the actual costs of AI, the day is finally here. It's obvious that every customer sees the deep, meaningful value and isn't angry at all.

The lesson of 2017-2023 is that when Labour actually does shit to make people's lives improve, they get record popularity and when they back away from doing that and cancel lots of good things, they eat shit at the ballot box. Anyone taking a different lesson from that is learning how to lose twice.

This is my grandmother‘s piano, my wife’s art, random piles of pictures, kids story books, important memories on show on the top. The story of life.

Photo challenge. Take 12 photos in a row in your house. No time limit, but must be in sequence. Focus on noticing. Post one image from the set, with why you like it.

I would also appreciate it if a bunch of nerds helped me iron out any bugs in this: andrewblair.co.uk/apps/who-tit... #doctorwho

This would solve the whole TRANS toilets argument. Simples.

I'll bring drinks too.

A human made an unlawful decision about me when I was receiving a benefit in June 2023. The Ministry has been fighting to avoid the consequences ever since, with the case still before the SSAA. If humans can screw up that easily, imagine adding AI. Oh, don't need to.

In the words of Lady Catherine de Bourgh (from Pride and Prejudice), "I shall now know how to act."

Arts, Culture and Heritage must save $36.4m over the next 4 years. HOW? How can we save any more in an industry that is already bled dry, with artists themselves providing the biggest subsidies so that kiwis can experience our own stories, participate in the arts and make great new works?

Wikimedia Foundation just fired a long time lead developer of MediaWiki as well as its entire community team for unionizing. If you’re a donor, email [email protected] to protest this move. medium.com/@jakeorlowit...

I was trying to explain what ChatGPT is to my mom (she thought it was a messaging app) and after my explanation and some thought, she volunteered, “Oh, so it’s the magic mirror in the beginning of Snow White when it only tells the queen what she wants to hear.” Perfect analogy.

Feeling quite upbeat this morning.

I enjoyed seeing this. A lot. Not feeling guilty at all about that.