UmYeahNo

Another reason why I should become a better touch typist. Too stressful for the under 40wpm gang.

Phrase "may you live in interesting times"

A sardonic curse disguised as well-wishing, where interesting times refers to trouble.

- https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/may_you_live_in_interesting_t...

>In particular, it seems to me to be likely that we have to choose between "make your own identity/be true to yourself" and "you have to have a good job and a good house and good mating prospects". (That seems reasonable; those two expectations are largely at war with each other.)

This feels like a false dichotomy to me.

Having seen Contact, Arrival and Independence Day, are we positive it's "gibberish" and not some type of code we haven't deciphered yet?

I tell you what, if you're a young person you can be publicly shamed for having the wrong color bubble, or outcast by being excluded from a group chat. To you and I that probably doesn't make sense, but for a big portion of the young, phone using population being unable to participate in the iMessage ecosystem is a huge deal socially. You are essentially excluded from the friend group, you're excluded from conversations, and it carries over into real life because you've been excluded and that carries an impact -- you're an outcast. It doesn't have to be rational to be true.

Being excluded from a group chat has a huge social impact for younger people.

"I'm just a Beastie Boys fan."

I don't think that mentality has changed at all. If anything, it's become considerably worse. We'll be experiencing the effects of lots of short-sighted quick-profit decisions being made today for decades. The quantity of discarded electronics because of a "non-replaceable" dead battery comes to mind.

Right, that's what I've been using, I was curious about the higher dose prescription version GP referred to

Interesting. Does the prescription have a drug name? I've been using an OTC CBD balm for bone-on-bone arthritis knee pain, but I'd love something with a bit more oomph to help reduce pain and inflammation. I'd love to be able to ask my doc about it.

The article paints a pretty dire picture. Having never been to that part of the world, is the nearest place that could support Reno? I assume this would need a post-hurricane type support airdrop of supplies?

The UID/PW demo combo doesn't work for me. Tried to actually sign up and couldn't figure it out (maybe you can't yet?)

It sounds interesting, but I can't figure it out.

Have you shopped at Macy's recently? The quality of clothing there is so cheaply made and overpriced, I'm not surprised at all that people aren't shopping there.

I don't see why these would be correlated, personally.

FWIW, Y2K was seen as a bug that needed fixing. While there are many who see that AI as problematic, I don't think it's seen as a "bug" the same way at all.

How many Apple devices are prematurely in landfills simply because an inexpensive or consumable part was deliberately rendered impossible to fix or replace?

Should we write the Google graveyard entry now or in 6 months?

Midjourney can.

https://docs.midjourney.com/docs/image-prompts

Gin drinkers, too

Like many, i've been thinking a lot about this. I feel like we are in the "hdr photo" phase of AI image creation. If you recall when HDR photography as a technique first gained popularity it was heavy handed and obvious, then it became more subtle and harder to identify. Now it's just par for the course. Any well exposed image might be HDR, or might not.

For AI media, given the current pace of improvement, very soon enough it will be truly impossible to tell "real" media from generated media. Images and voice clones and deepfake video will become impossible to determine authentic from fake. If we take it that the quality of generated images "is as bad as it will ever be", then the people born today will never know a world where and recorded image, sound, or video will ever be "true" or trustworthy. When that is true, what does it mean for news, relationships, trust, etc? Sure, we have had photoshop and CGI video, but now virtually anyone can make media of anyone alive today doing or saying anything within minutes, and in a way that will be indistinguishable from an "actual recording".

So, will the people born today just become unbelievably cynical? Will they ever trust...anything they see? What will their relationships be like? How will they get news? How will they elect leaders?

This has really been weighing on me, and I don't know what the future will hold.

macs books air

Not really. It's mostly member supported.

"Presently, NPR receives funding for less than 1% of its budget directly from the federal government, but receives almost 10% of its budget from federal, state, and local governments indirectly."

https://www.influencewatch.org/non-profit/national-public-ra...

>In an AI future, mediocre anything will not exist anymore.

Right! Aren't we all mediocre before we're excellent? Isn't every entry level job some version of trying to get past being mediocre? i.e. Isn't a jr developer "mediocre" compared to a senior dev? If AI replaces the jr dev, how will anyone become a senior dev if they never got the chance to gain experience to become less mediocre?

As someone who is facing the prospect of re-skilling my career again after being "disrupted" out of my first career, happening a second time 15 years later due to AI, my sympathy for your founders is in short supply. Your founders may get screwed like the many, many workers out there that get screwed all the time by factors beyond their control.

I mean, if you can save the jobs of the people you funded, great. But, founding a startup is risky, blah blah blah... and losing a few or a few thousand hardly seems like a reason to call congress. At least no more than any other industry getting disrupted. We've seen, and perhaps you've been part of, putting huge swaths of people put out of work. Huge swaths of business out of business. Industries that came crashing down at no fault of the business owner, other than not being prepared for some an unseen stealth startup who leveraged prior institutional knowledge to come and take it all in a flash.

Well, if I'm going to remain cyncical I'd hazard a guess that many of these startups are to "disrupt" some industry anyway -- automating the previously unautomate-able, putting huge swaths of people out of a job (often with no clear path to a new career) So, if those jobs are preserved a few days / weeks / months longer, I guess it all works out.

There are potentially millions of workers under a great deal of pressure to not lose their jobs to some disruptor or another. Are we somehow less sympathetic to them than these tech workers?

Boy, this got pushed off the front page awfully quickly.

When we little guys put our eggs in one basket, or put excessive reliance in business we have no control of we get accused, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, of being incompetent. That we should've known better. Hmmm....

The cynic in me says this letter is less about bailing out the small companies trying to make payroll and more about the VC's not wanting to lose massive investments.

Putting as many people as possible out of work, in an ever-accelerating cascade.

This looks to be the correct URL: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/01/how-to-control-your-...

Weird. Came here to say the same thing. I let mine charge for a couple days and it wouldn't come back to life, so off to the recyclers it went. Such a shame.

If those things were "cured" and a person could live to 150, or 200 or more, it would likely spell the end of the planet due to over consumption, over population, depletion of resources, etc. So you'd need to choose your way to die somehow.

That makes me wonder if the installation of solar panels on a roof act as "shade" similar to partial tree coverage in some way, since in many cases they add a thin cushion of shaded air between the panel and the roof. I wonder if that provides any meaningful shade or temperature reduction.

Not making an argument either way, I just hadn't really considered if this was a factor until I read your comment.