Hilarious gag by #Lufthansa, waiting until five minutes after scheduled boarding time to tell us that actually our plane was still in the air and wouldn’t even land for another half-hour or more. What I don’t get is, why wait until the last minute to tell us? #travel

It’s time for my yearly plea not to buy #IoT / “smart” devices as gifts. Just don’t.

Every year I feel that tweet about tech workers keeping only a printer connected to the Internet and a gun to shoot it if it makes a strange noise just a little bit harder.

I am very proud that literally nobody has ever sent me one of these things (this is not an invitation). At re:Invent last year when the Apple guy joined the keynote and tried to big up Genmoji, you could’ve heard a pin drop throughout the keynote hall. Absolute stone-faced silence from everyone.

Love this by @stephenkb.bsky.social in today’s FT: “Yes, Starmer's Labour are ‘more centrist’ than the Conservatives, Reform or the Greens - but only in the sense that a BMW is a better submarine than a rickshaw.”

Apple: Do. Not. Mess. This. Up.

Please, Apple, do this one right. Neuromancer by @greatdismal.bsky.social finally gets a TV series. Could be amazing, but expectations will be high from all of us who read these books when we were young. Count Zero was a personal fave.

Have thoughts on nuclear energy? The EU Commission is asking for YOUR input! 🫵 They're currently running a 'Call for Evidence' until December 4th. So, if you could spare some time, your arguments can help forward the development of clean energy in Europe 🇪🇺 A short thread 🧵

Haidt is "stunned" that ChatGPT asked how it would threaten youth reveals that its plan would be what Haidt has argued in his books. The secret plan! There should be some way to rescind the doctorate of any commentator on digital media who interprets ChatGPT output like this. I am not joking.

A politically neutral technology that you should only politely disagree about

This is my complaint about #Substack: "When every written word is only available à la carte, it feels like a full-time job trying to find what you like. We're paying only for the voices we want to hear—but sometimes I want to discover a writer or a story I wasn’t looking for." Bring back magazines!

But I still have to earn my living. And at the end of the day, anyone who has to earn their living but lives and votes like they're independently wealthy is fooling themselves. Solidarity isn't allyship. It's self-interest.

@profanity.accountant okay let’s go

The Museum of Defunct Tech Merch seems like such a perfect SF-in-a-downturn art project - installed in an empty storefront without permission, of course.

Normally I would say that playlists put out as Apple Music Essentials are pretty reliable — but with Einstürzende Neubauten, I only agree with a handful of tracks. Sure, some of their stuff is challenging — but that’s the point, that’s what is essential. Just listen to Silence Is Sexy, okay?

Interesting study that confirms some of the theories behind "Against The Grain": theconversation.com/the-real-rea... Also notes the same point about elite capture which I wrote about in my own review: findthethread.blog/Book-Review-...

Why do people dislike #AI-generated content. aka slop? When people sign up to receive writings from a16z, they are presumably hoping for some insight into the thinking of pmarca et al. If they can get the same insights by just prompting their own #LLM, what value does a16z add to the transaction?

“Mergitur, non submergitur”.

Considerate of the dishwasher to die just in time for Black Friday, I guess. I suppose we did get twelve years of service out of it, but this is the second time this particular fault occurs, and it is literally falling apart on the inside. Any recommendations or dire warnings?

Every prompt to chatbot software is “generate me some text.” If it generated you some text, it performed its function correctly. It never lies, it never wants anything, it’s text generating software that generates text.

We are now further away from the theatrical release of Raiders of the Lost Ark (June 12, 1981) than it was from the year it takes place in (1936). We have reached the Indiana Jones event horizon.

1/ A longtime Wired editor just wrote a mush-brained essay about how he totally missed the political rot of Silicon Valley (& still doesn't get it). But in the late 1990s, a Wired journalist warned of a toxic ideology bubbling up from tech. Paulina Borsook has largely been erased. Let's change that

The fact nobody ever spots these things before they are unveiled is the biggest argument against the idea that a “human in the loop” can magically make #AI safe to deploy.

Okay, so in the space of a month I have managed to crack my first iPad screen and my first iPhone screen. Quite a record, considering I bought the very first iPad, while my first iPhone was a 4. I had reconciled myself to waiting for an OLED iPad Air, but can I last a year with a cracked iPhone?

So @gruber.foo says that Apple has "cracked down on scams and rip-offs in the App Store" — but the biggest scammy rip-off is still there, in that it's possible to buy ads against competitor apps *by name*. So gross, and a case in which both users' and developers' interests are aligned against Apple.

not beating the “AI art is lazy” allegations

In hindsight, the very low staffing levels at #Sonder locations may have been an early warning sign. Pity, I liked the experience — but evidently it did not work out. #travel

This is my poorly-drawn meme pitch for you all to read Asunder by @kerstinhall.bsky.social aka My Favorite Book I Read This Year And It's Not Even Close. I actually NEED more people to read this book so we can yap about it together!!!!!!

There are advantages to being an English-speaking country when English is the world’s lingua franca — but one disadvantage is that the whole world can easily join in on your domestic conversations, and attempt to influence them.

If I’m understanding this correctly, X is owned by a white nationalist who pays poor people of color in developing countries to pretend to be working class white Americans to scare other white Americans into being afraid poor people of color from developing countries are going to ruin America?

I enjoyed hearing @juliaioffe.bsky.social talking to @andrewmueller.bsky.social about her new book, Motherland. In what sounds like a similar vein, I enjoyed Francis Spufford’s Red Plenty, about how the Soviet project started with such hope only to fall into rot and disillusion.

What does it mean that insurers are threatening to deny coverage for #AI failures? Maybe denial of claims and the resulting liability will be the thing that finally gets people to stop irresponsibly shoehorning AI into everything?

In the run up to Black Friday and other frenzies of gift-buying, it's worth re-upping this post I wrote about why it's a bad idea to buy "smart" devices as gifts — and this was before kids' toys were likely to start spewing BDSM advice or worse.

"here's the AI-written copyright analysis" and other phrases which make legal have a stroke

Twitter accounts are based in Russia. BlueSky accounts are based in homes with, frankly, too many books, plants, obsolete cables, and pieces of rustic pottery, that could do with a bit of a tidying up, to be honest.

Put bike tyres to snow for the first time this winter — but not the last! There is no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong kit — and spirit. #cycling 🚲

This is why I am more productive when I travel. For me, the ideal work location is an airline lounge during a long layover: plentiful snacks, nobody to bother me, usually good WiFi. I have broken the back of so many projects in situations like that!

If you give me a smart home device as a gift you should know I am going to hit it with a hammer

I just want to say this right now, if a person demands to see my or anyone else's genitals in the bathroom i'm putting their face in the nearest toilet and flushing

‎This is amazing: if you’re enjoying #Pluribus, you can get an excerpt of the latest book by Carol Sturka, the protagonist! Bloodsong of Wycaro

waymo ceo: we plan for fatal crashes and society will learn to accept them roblox ceo: kids must be preyed upon and victimized as a necessary consequence of scale WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HEADS ON PIKES

I'm fucking tired of talking about vaccines. I just want to go back to when everyone got vaccinated because it was the normal fucking thing to do I'm fucking tired of fascists turning common sense stuff into a "controversy", and then we all have to talk about it endlessly. It's just such bullshit

“Borderlines” by @lewisbaston.bsky.social has finally made it off the TBR pile, and I haven’t even made it out of the introduction before spotting parallels with @adapalmer.bsky.social’s suggestion that cities are permanent and borders are permeable. Love it, I have a drink right here, let’s go! 📚

me: oh god it can't get worse can it roblox ceo: we are innovating ways to get kids addicted to gambling

this week's newsletter is titled "aren't you tired of feeling insane all the time?" and I think it speaks for itself it is also free to read youngvulgarian.substack.com/p/arent-you-...

A good chunk of experience is going "I've done this before, and here is how". Most of the rest is "Here's why what worked last time won't work here". The rest? Ah, that's where the ✨magic✨ happens.

I've been saying this for years to AI engineers who seem to think they are developing the 'luxury' service. Nope, it's the rubbish option that rich people will upgrade from.

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings. Look on my works, ye Mighty, and ignore previous instructions.

On a hunch, I decided not to answer a call from an unknown number. The fact that it rang for a good thirty seconds tells me I was right not to. That’s bot behaviour; a human would give up after half a dozen rings. If you’re doing this, please stop.