The thing is, I can criticise gen ai exactly the same as I criticised crypto and I’ll be able to criticise the next *thing* the same way because they are all just shitty products disguised as technologies and they use potential to distract from lack of purpose

AI products do purpose gaslighting just like crypto/blockchain ones do. AI is a more effective grift because there is less expectation for rubber to actually hit the road. It's just vibes. bsky.app/profile/fast...

It's very helpful, as a consumer, to look at them as *any other product* and hold them accountable as one. The more people can recognise the raw deal, the better. I'm not naive to the bigger picture motivations of the people behind these products, this is my way of fighting back.

Any person or organisation paying for these products is not paying because the products satisfy a purpose. They are paying because they *hope* & *believe* that someone will *find a way* for them to satisfy a purpose.

The claims of new potential are coming at us so fast, so frequently, that it is almost impossible to stop and recognise the lack of current purpose. They do *nothing* now in a way which can be called "functional", "reliable", "robust"

I always try to write/talk critically about tech product design without focusing on particular products, or even product categories, but I continually find that LLM/GenAI products cover all the bases for what makes a bad product bad

why do we have the phrase "goody two-shoes" as a pejorative. that is the requisite number of shoes

England's water company ratings have fallen to the lowest level on record due to peak sewage pollution, with 8 of 9 companies rated 'poor' https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/oct/23/english-water-ratings-record-low-sewage-pollution

The court found Total’s “carbon neutrality by 2050” claims deceptive as the company keeps ramping up fossil gas. It ordered Total to delete those statements and publish the ruling or face €10,000 a day in fines. This is a landmark step against fossil fuel deception.

GOOD NEWS 🎉: A French court has ruled that oil giant TotalEnergies misled the public about its climate promises. @greenpeace.fr and @amisdelaterre.org took the company to court for greenwashing and won. It is the first ruling of its kind against a fossil fuel giant in France!

...not just of government promises, but also of industry's. After all, O&G companies have made record profits in recent years while jobs and job quality have declined & have blamed high taxes for job losses even while they pay their shareholders millions. /7 www.heraldscotland.com/politics/vie...

For Americans: Reuters utterly fucked this up, this election was a landslide for Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party. Labour collapsed, Reform was barely in the frame, but Reform is popular with English gammon-faced flag-shaggers (not Welsh folks), so that's what the lede has to be.

By 'needed or useful', I do not mean the research as such but the external funding itself

The key issue is the lack of funding obviously but I think the situation is made worse in Humanities and Social Sciences by Universities pushing their staff to apply regardless of whether it's needed or useful This then clogs up the system and blocks research that genuinely requires funding

Oh everything sucks shit, and we the party in power are powerless to do anything about it.

Have they considered doing good things that people will like instead of bad things that everyone hates?

you can get a book at the library for free

MPs are rightly concerned about the economic impact of the EHRC's Code of Practice. Businesses up and down the country have made clear that it's unworkable. It's time for the Minister to send it back 🚮 www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

The Ps2 platinum games selection was a nice period of time as a kid cuz you could go pick up a 20€ copy of a succesful older game that was still being kept in stock at stores.

“Throughout Canadian history, private developers and landlords took advantage of various crises to enrich themselves. The property-owning class’s impetus to exploit the universal need for shelter is a constant.” @ricardotranjan.bsky.social @policyalternatives.ca

Meanwhile

Nathan (@nathangrayson.bsky.social) with another fantastic writeup. "Surveillance and buff dudes just don't prevent cultural issues like misogyny from causing harm to vulnerable people. ... Only we keep us safe, and a lot of us are not doing nearly enough to counter misogyny and online harassment."

Editor: It just feels like this is a completely different novel. It's a pretty basic grumpy/sunshine rom-com. Writer: Whaaaaaaaaaat no listen, the part where she grabs her arm and glares? Totally Kylo coded! Editor: They're both WOMEN. Wait. Is this SuperCorp?! Writer: IT'S GENDER BENT!

This is way too inside baseball to be popular with anyone outside the booktok community, but am kicking around idea of writer who tries to capitalize on "fanfic with serial numbers not-really filed off" trend and sells a completely original novel by insisting it is actually Dramione or Reylo.

Dipping my toes into this discourse, it's pretty clear to me that the amount of games developers out of work has very little to do with the price of a AAA title.

Discworld QOTD, from Wintersmith "When all hope was gone, you called for Granny Weatherwax, because she was the best. And she always came. Always. But popular? No. Need is not the same as like."

Discworld QOTD, from The Truth "‘Hold on, hold on, there must be a law against killing lawyers.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘There’re still some around, aren’t there?’"

The publishers could try making games that don’t have 2 billion dollar budgets

It's not just what Andrew Cuomo is saying—it's who's funding him. The single largest donor to a pro-Cuomo SuperPAC is Airbnb cofounder/board member Joe Gebbia, who promotes vile and racist messages about immigrants.

The blast radius of how much this is going to suck is going to be huge. Best practice for creatives in Hollywood, for crude self interested reasons alone, is to stay as far away from whatever the fuck is going on at Paramount as possible

The dialogue is a whole other thing but the bit about "fuck you shoot me I'll die for this shit" and the reaction is the crux here, from Gandhi's time on down, no authoritarian in history ever knows how to respond to this and it's why it beats them whenever deployed

"I have the corrupt connections to protect us from the mafia boss running the country": now an actual selling point in an elected official not great!

🚨 Joint Statement This formal challenge to the EHRC’s fitness for purpose has been brought by @transactualuk.bsky.social, @amnestyuk.bsky.social k.bsky.social and @transsolidarity.bsky.social Together they have reported the EHRC to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI)

We have formally reported the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to the Global Alliance of National Human Rights Institutions (GANHRI), calling for a full investigation and a downgrade or removal of their A-status accreditation. Full submission: tacc.org.uk/2025/10/23/p... 1/2

Extremely funny that INFOWARS has agreed not to publish anything without the explicit consent of the US government

I would like to follow this up with my firmly-held and very Midwestern opinion that automated in-ground irrigation systems for single family homes are rich people nonsense, and this colors my thoughts.

I think this is correct but will take it further and say the more hours you get out of a video game, the more expensive it should be regardless of budget. Slay the Spire should cost fifteen thousand dollars

there is mechsploitation everywhere for those with the eyes to see them

Your political loyalty must be to principles, not politicians! I don't know how to explain this basic thing to people who do not understand it.

I try to explain it as cartridges were hardware. Like an arcade board. It was an expensive format. Floppy disk games were much cheaper at the time. CD games brought lower MSRP to consoles. So why didn’t that happen with digital?

They're touching...Yuri leafs

🥹

Yeah. It's not a great feeling to gotta be handing it to them, but seeing a large organization fight for trans rights is a breath of fresh air.

Like sure the NRA is only really committed to defending one really specific trans right, the right to own as many firearms as we can fit into our living spaces the same as cis people, but that's one more right than the Dems are committed to defending so here we are.

It really says something about the current political moment that the NRA is more committed to defending trans rights than Democrats are.

finally have a mouse with a free spinning scroll wheel again 😭👍

Game budgets are nowhere near movie budgets and they have additional transactions which are themselves more than the cost of a new blu ray disc to commercialize them. And you seriously think games should cost more? If industry average pricing was $40, games would make more money

Like, the stories that are going to come out about that game's development are not gonna be pretty. Why would you ever say prices for games should go up? They're digital now, ffs. They're not carts anymore. Please learn about this business before opening your ignorant mouth