@realalexbarth.bsky.social 🤔

i strongly, strongly believe that good writing is downstream of clear thinking and a strong understanding of the subject matter at hand. without fail, tortured writing comes from writers who don’t know and can’t think clearly about anything.

“AI is clearly sticking around so you have to get used to it” wrong. I don’t have to get used to shit. I am a practiced hater and I can keep this going for decades if I am required to

Months later, more people have caught onto how the premediated killing of civilians who pose no imminent threat is morally repugnant, and highly criminal. I'm annoyed it took them this long, the murder count is now over 80, but better late than never!

Came across a JetBrains survey that covered AI use by programmers, and the results were grim. My first thought was of something Nik Suresh (of “I will piledrive you…” fame) wrote about the median incompetence of software engineers. But it’s interesting that the top use is “boilerplate”. (1/2)

After 4 episodes of Pluribus, I continue to ponder, “what if they stopped at 1?”. I might change my mind if they stick the landing on where they take it, but so far, exploring the minutia of its big idea has dulled its bite.

Cat Follows Man Through Apartment Like Racist Walgreens Employee https://theonion.com/cat-follows-man-through-apartment-like-racist-walgreens-employee/

I can’t remember a more perfect hour of television than the series premiere of Pluribus (Apple TV). I’m tempted to stop watching, and just leave it where it ends, it’s be my favourite movie of the year at 60 minutes.

People will ask their friends to help them move, but here's a lifehack: ask your enemies instead. They'll be at your door at dawn with a dolly to see your ass out of town.

To be clear I bet Altman thinks promising everybody money is how you become “too big to fail” when in fact it will be “too small to tear into enough pieces”

COUNT I Kat Abughazaleh did, while law enforcement was in heated pursuit, paint what appeared to be the entrance to a cave on a sheer rock wall, causing law enforcement to forcibly bonk into said wall. COUNT II The same thing on a different wall, but then a train came out and ran us over???

Apropos of nothing, I've kept receipts on Wired's gritty investigative journalism of the rampant fraud and dishonesty that pervades AI hype.

I don't know which Google executive needs to hear this, but please stop making the AI voice sound human. You've taken so many wrong lessons from Star Trek, can you please take a right one. The computer voice is smooth, monotone, unemotional, unmistakably machine. It isn't a disembodied dude bro.

like where do they think the robot fucking learned it anyway??? theft machine 4.0 didn't fucking invent grammar ????

"Oxford commas are a sign you write with ai" I will find such a unique way to rip out your spine that they'll make a movie about it

I think one of the saddest things about being a millennial is remembering a time when technology was advancing in a way that made life better and easier and more exciting instead of actively, intentionally worse

From Windows to Linux 🧵 -- going to start a running thread with some of my thoughts and experiences, as a Windows power-user who is experimenting with Linux-based OSs. The pros and cons I've discovered along the way have surprised me.

The gunpoint-robbery that looted a local bank stretched the bounds of property law, say some police officers.

I saw the dot coms crash from a front row seat. AI is running out of money way faster. The evangelism is insecurity from people who made the wrong bet. I’ve seen it before. futurism.com/future-socie...

The commercials for Tron: Ares are the worst I’ve ever (?) seen for a movie with a marketing budget that large.

It's apparent from the messaging of Democratic leadership, they think if they just point how ineffective Trump is at "kitchen table" policy stuff, swing voters will come rushing back. Except really it's an attitude problem, voters crave strong leadership. Dems make things even worse being spineless.

The rationalizations are so familiar to me, as someone who used to follow esports and fight with people on Reddit about it. The “what about” comparisons are never with things that are similarly state-sponsored. This is barely one-step removed from being a paid spokesperson for the Saudi regime.

"Don't speak ill of the dead". If not now, then when?

I'm begging sports reporters to use words like they have meaning. Hint: a "conflict of interest" requires conflicting interests. It's when you wear two hats, and your obligations under one hat conflict with your obligations under the other. This Brady thing involves *complementary* interests.

Good news for the Browns? There's been a JJ McCarthy-type injury (to JJ McCarthy)

Add to the list of Perplexity Pro being given away, so they can book it as full price revenue: also in Canada, to all Bell mobile and internet subscribers. Bell is a top 2 telco, for internet alone it has nearly 5 million subscribers. If you know anything about Bell, you know they wouldn’t pay.

I'm dying at the iPhone shoulder strap that lets you carry your iPhone like a detective's pistol. It's real, I just saw it on the official stream, they really made it. They made the "thinnest iPhone ever" and gave it a shoulder strap.

The MNF theme is such a bizarre genre mash. Phil Collins song covered by a guy in a cowboy hat and long scraggly beard (or just lip synced? Sounds a lot like Phil). Then Snoop Dogg shows up for some fucking reason, and is gone again just as quickly.

what a humiliating way for don jr. to find out his dad sends birthday cards.

I'm tired of these insulting, inaccurate references to AI as a "toaster". It grossly understates AI's energy consumption, efficiency at evaporating water, and propensity to ruin things. AI is a microwave.

I know people are overwhelmed by too much news from every angle, and maybe people are distracted by the "terrorist" language, or just plain exhausted. But this is the President of the United States saying he is going to go around killing people because he thinks they're criminals. And already did.

News media keeps making this assumption with AI that this is "just the beginning". They treat it as so self-evident that they don't even bother to evaluate whether it's true--they just baldly insist that it is. This is not good journalism. www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/dig...

maybe he’s getting ready to somersault out of the white house like willy wonka

Most of us will never write a sentence this good in our entire lives. John Ganz (@lioneltrolling.bsky.social) did it while waiting for his laundry (www.unpopularfront.news/p/the-cracke...)

help me stay alive so I can make more stupid shit ♥ patreon.com/mrlovenstein thank you so much

This is completely insane and a sign of how washed A.I. truly is. Why do you have to threaten people to use this if it's so good

Watching 70s Columbo (beautiful bluray remasters) it can be eerie how 50 yr old stuff remains relevant. Watched S06E01 guesting Shatner, who was, as I watched it, live on Colbert's couch. Then S06E02 guest stars Joyce Van Patten; her niece Grace stars in a Hulu miniseries released this week.

I feel like an elite hacker, because I just added "/rss" to the URL of a blog that has no explicit RSS link, nor indeed any mention of RSS support, and *it fucking worked*.

@davidgerard.co.uk Might be an interesting coda here to the AI video gen series (scroll to the end). I don't know if there's more detailed reporting somewhere else, it was a "closed-door" event. www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general...

With my hands wrapped around Windows 11's metal neck, squeezing in futility: OR YOU COULD JUST HAVE MENUS THAT DON'T SUCK. Seriously it's a problem of their own making, most advanced user tricks involve accessing classic settings buried behind "modern" menus that look pretty but don't work.

and--idk quite how to articulate this--but the work of it is... critical to art-making. like you discover your intentions through the labor of expressing them. if I'd woken up at 17 with the technical ability to write a novel, i wouldn't have known what i was trying to say. the work IS the product.

The plateau of diminishing returns is a very real thing that big tech somehow refuses to comprehend, despite being confronted with it constantly. Unable to make it better, they settle for different, which very often = *worse*. Pick any tech more than a few years old, that pattern is near universal.

This is excellent. Very educational explanation of the psychological mechanism behind chatbots' capacity to break otherwise-smart people's brains. softwarecrisis.dev/letters/llme...

This is indeed excellent, and makes a number of points I’ve been making for some time about artificial intelligence, human thought, and why AGI is likely not possible.

usually if you ask experts why an empire fell they’ll say it’s nuanced and multifaceted, so i think it’s kind of cool that with America future historians will get to just say like “oh they took the idiot train to moronsville”

"War of the Worlds" is umm... Not doing great on Letterboxd. Never seen anything like this.

My teeth grind to dust at chatbots being given cute names/voices/avatars and treated like people. My pitch is that, if we must do this, it be a mathematical average of the bot's programmers and training influences. Like, a terminally-online, basement-dwelling Reddit troll named "Burlap Ballsack"

Severe disparities like this between home and road win rate don’t compute, to me. And in baseball of all sports, what rationale is there for the home crowd to be swinging outcomes this severely? In a sport where cheating is basically inseparable from the pastime, it’s fishy.

It’s like a magician’s illusion being ruined by the glimmer of light off a fishing line. “Oh right, this is all skillful bullshit, magic isn’t real”.