Most male computer uses watch porn and would not want an AI to log that. Many women find porn sickening and don’t understand it and will never understand male urges that result in watching it. The fact that this got into a finished product tells you a lot about Microsoft’s corporate culture.

Excellent point. We saw exactly the same phenomenon play out with Google and Gemini. The tool created racially diverse Nazis. Even a few minutes with the tool revealed major issues. There must have been hundreds of people who witnessed the slow moving train crash in realtime, but were either unwilling or unable to speak out. I think these companies have clearly cultivated a hierarchical culture of fear and intimidation. I recently left a job in which my manager was ex-Google. The stories she would tell were appalling. Her command-and-control style was, frankly, disgusting. She permitted zero critical feedback or discussion. It was her way or “fuck off.” I found that very instructive as to how these companies have morphed into shells of their formers selves. I’m not bullish on the future of these companies. They’re coasting very well on the fumes of their historical successes, and I think their demise is all but assured.

Yeah the concept is pretty damn cool. It’s just horrifying to have a company own and control that data. I suspect this is like Xbox One launch disaster in 2013, in which Microsoft initially required all consoles to have an always-online connection. People rebelled, but today and certainly on our current trajectory, it now looks like Microsoft was just a little ahead of the curve. I think people will eventually become a lot more comfortable with companies owning their data because the benefits will be so enormous. I’m not happy about that future, but I think I understand it.

Yeah fries and soda are an easy ditch. The burger is where it’s at.

Google is on a tear. First Bard, then Gemini, now snippets injected into search results. All spectacular failures.

It’s not like the technology is a con. Brain implants have been iterated upon for decades. This is just the latest incarnation - after extensive animal testing. I don’t think we have a right to tell a quadriplegic they may not meaningfully improve their lives because we feel the risk is too high. They’re locked in a living prison.

There are two definitions:

S: (n) capitalist (a conservative advocate of capitalism)

S: (n) capitalist (a person who invests capital in a business (especially a large business))

No. See Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Tidal. They all contain something like 99% content overlap. You can subscribe to any of them and access almost all music. The difference is price, performance, UX, and features.

I’m a capitalist but even I think visual media needs a come to Jesus. If they had adopted the Spotify model everyone would be a lot happier. I would be paying for content still. Instead they broke up into a dozen different services with walled content. This is so stupid. I have no qualms keeping my own collection when this is the paid offering.

I hit my limit years ago when Netflix removed the (then) very good rating system in favour of their algorithmically gamed thumbs up/down. Then they started auto playing content when one hovered over it. Then they started cutting third party movies and shows in favour of their own… content. I was paying a lot for the privilege of an inferior experience. Now I have a Plex server with everything I like in one place, no ads, and real ratings on the content. Sonarr and Radarr are my favourite apps ever.

I don’t find any of this damning or compelling. I remain a happy subscriber.

100% of people who have one of those stupid anime avatars are insane.

My condolences.

You will never make more interest on an investment than you will get charged interest for the same amount as a loan.

The historical S&P500 average is 11.88% annualised. Unless your interest rate is above this, you’re better off investing. In reality it’s more complex as there are tax considerations, liquidity, risk, opportunity cost etc to calculate. If your interest rate approaches this, paying down debt is indeed the best course of action.

Not just Spotify. If I’m reading this judgement correctly, any developer who was materially impacted by these anti-steering provisions can sue Apple. This could be the beginning of an unprecedented wave of legal action against Apple in Europe. The tricky part is proving damages.

Shorting a stock in effect means selling a stock you don’t own. The stock market derives price based on supply and demand. When more people are selling than people are buying, the stock price goes down. There are many more dynamics at play than this though. Often there are investment firms which will identify a price mismatch and attempt to price out the short sellers by buying and pushing the price up. This can trigger a short squeeze which makes the price suddenly pop.

IPOs are exciting times to be a trader, but individuals are largely in for the ride. They can’t move the market. If they identify one of these larger plays they can join the fun. Game Stop was one of the first examples of a consumer-driven play, and it scared the shit out of institutions because it upended their risk models.

The responses have classic “I run Arch” energy. It’s never the fault of the software. It’s always the fault of the user. Ignore them. This is terrible UX and should be criticised. She did absolutely nothing wrong.

While true, I consider it a reasonable trade. I so rarely need the 100% charge.

Fair trading laws are broad and complex and vary widely by place to place. There are many restrictions on trading practises which mislead customers. Amazon employs a myriad of practises designed to do exactly that. Some of them detailed in the article. I’m sure they think they’re skirting the law to the legal side, but experts are going to determine that now.

I’m much more optimistic. I think battery technology will progress quickly, and as it improves, more and more people will buy EVs. I think the path forward is not to try to convince people to live worse lives. That’s a losing proposition. We should instead make our lives better and cleaner through technology.

These instances of errors are obviously alarming, but all the evidence we have is that they’re still safer than human drivers. They will make mistakes - and sometimes those mistakes will cost lives - but they will make fewer mistakes than humans. Given this, as visceral as it feels when we hear of these stories, I think our ire is misplaced. Automated driving will never be perfect. If that’s the bar we’re aiming for we should just give up and go home. The goal is better than humans, and in many conditions, it’s already there.