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danorama

402 karma · joined June 19, 2015

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danorama··on Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope
Tell me you don’t know anything about the ACA’s history without telling me you don’t know anything about the ACA’s history.
danorama··on US Government designates host of noblogs.org a "global terrorist"
"In late September 2017, an exhaustive report by the Treasury Department's inspector general found that from 2004 to 2013, the IRS used both conservative and liberal keywords to choose targets for further scrutiny, blunting claims that the issue had been an Obama-era partisan scandal.[1][2] The 115-page report confirmed the findings of the prior 2013 report that some conservative organizations had been unfairly targeted, but also found that the pattern of misconduct had been ongoing since 2004 and was non-partisan in nature."
danorama··on US DOT deleting bike lane references
Please, do explain which parts of the original quoted statement are made in good faith.
danorama··on ChatGPT Work
I think part of the concern here is that these app changes could be a trial balloon for identical web-side changes in the not too distant future.

Given the product judgment shown in this particular release, it doesn’t seem to be out of the question.

danorama··on ChatGPT Work
So let me get this straight:

1) If you have the Codex desktop app installed, and you update from within the app, it replaces itself with the new chat-demoted-to-an-overlay app called "ChatGPT" and renames your existing ChatGPT app to "ChatGPT Classic."

2) If you get the new ChatGPT app and replace your current app with it, you don't get a "Classic" app and there's no way to download it.

3) They really named an app "Classic." Naming your app Classic is putting a bright red sign on it that says "this app will be abandoned soon." They might as well have called it "ChatGPT Sunset."

If this is all true, that is certainly...one way to do product management.

danorama··on Supreme Court upholds broad conception of birthright citizenship
I think it was edited to add that?
danorama··on Banned book library in a wi-fi smart light bulb
Don’t “necessarily agree” with the Turner Diaries? Why the mystery? Should we guess?
danorama··on Microsoft Wants to 'Make People Addicted' to Its New AI Assistant
No, it was because they weren't supposed to be. They were fulfilling an actual need and creating value in a way that wasn't intended to be addictive. And I was a co-founder of some of those orgs and products, so it wasn't about my employer.

I know it's hard to believe that not every organization is sociopathic, because many are (the larger, the more likely to be). But not every one is.

danorama··on Microsoft Wants to 'Make People Addicted' to Its New AI Assistant
I don't think that's actually true. Heck, from my own experience, I can definitively say it's not actually true. I've worked in several organizations where I helped create and sell products whose job was to provide value, then let people get on with their day. I wouldn't have worked at those places otherwise.

Not saying that intended addictiveness is not common, but let's not normalize corporate sociopathy.

danorama··on AI is just unauthorised plagiarism at a bigger scale
There’s a fallacy that gets used a whole lot to justify things like this (not just with LLMs), and I see it in many of the comments here: If it’s OK (or at least negligible on a small scale), then it must be OK on a large scale.

It usually goes something like: If I can make money by learning something from a web page, why does a computer making money by learning everything from everyone upset people so? It’s the same thing!

It’s like if I go to Golden Gate Park and pick one flower, I shouldn’t do that, but no one cares. But if I build a machine to automatically cut every flower in the park because I want to sell them, that’s different.

“You say I can pick one flower, but you get upset when I take a bunch. That’s inconsistent. Check and mate.”

But quantitative changes in an activity produce qualitative changes. Everyone knows this, but sometimes they seem to find it inconvenient to admit it. Not that effects of the qualitative change are always bad, but they are often different, and worth considering rather than dismissing.

danorama··on SF vibes are frenetic over the divide in outcomes and career uncertainty
Full title: “SF vibes are frenetic over the huge divide in outcomes and career uncertainty for software engineers; over 5 years ~10K people in AI attained retirement wealth”
danorama··on 'I have an A because I use Chat'
Full title: ‘I have an A because I use Chat': What UC, SFSU students say about using AI - and if it's cheating
danorama··on Anti-Trump Instagram pic of seashells now enough to indict ex-FBI directors
Yea Biden was all about repeatedly using the DoJ for personal vendettas. Totally the same thing.
danorama··on The threat is comfortable drift toward not understanding what you're doing
"Bernie Sanders was supposed to be the same, and when he dropped out a lot of us switched to Trump because they represented the same thing."

That is definitely an opinion.

danorama··on Malus – Clean Room as a Service
Poe's Law just smacked me upside the head on this one. Hard.
danorama··on Cluely CEO Roy Lee admits to publicly lying about revenue numbers last year
Maker of lying software caught lying. Then lying about the lying. At least he’s consistent.
danorama··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
"Effective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic."

For a company of Anthropic's size, this may very well be a death sentence, even if their work has nothing to do with the military supply chain. They could have just canceled the contract, but they wanted to go full Darth Vader on them to prove a point in case anyone else thought about "negotiating" "voluntarily" with the federal government.

danorama··on I am directing the Department of War to designate Anthropic a supply-chain risk
I have to admit, “accept this unilateral change to the contract or we will use the full power of the US government to destroy your company” is certainly a tough negotiation stance. You got that part right.
danorama··on Statement from Dario Amodei on our discussions with the Department of War
Seriously.

Hegseth trying to play “I’m altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further” just shows this gang’s total lack of comprehension of second-order effects.

danorama··on Child-free 'Disney adults' are transforming the company's theme parks (2023)
You can't scale up the Magic Kingdom, no. But Disney had a pattern going for a while where they opened a new Florida park every 10 years or so: 1971, 1982, 1989, 1998. That probably helped a lot. They've done some small expansions in the existing parks since then, but they're about 20 years behind in adding a new park. I think that's a huge part of the crowding issue now.

(Now Anaheim, there they're kind of hosed. No space to expand.)

danorama··on Judge scolds Mark Zuckerberg's team for wearing Meta glasses to trial
Original title: "Judge scolds Mark Zuckerberg's team for wearing Meta glasses to social media trial"
danorama··on Peaceandquiet.io
The specific decisions to track particular "Names" on this site is certainly evocative of...a particular way of thinking, is it not?
danorama··on FBI is investigating Minnesota Signal chats tracking ICE
Can I suggest that using the term "liberal hivemind" is really never going to help your case no matter what your "opposing opinion" is?
danorama··on White House alters arrest photo of ICE protester, says "the memes will continue"
Apologies. I forget the /s is mandatory in 2026, since the world is so weird that it's really not obvious any more.
danorama··on White House alters arrest photo of ICE protester, says "the memes will continue"
Not to be too reductive, but while there are some amazing technical achievements there, generative AI seems to be really good for individuals (particularly wealthy ones) and bad for society as a whole. I can create lots of neat new things for my own purposes while social trust dissolves in a sea of slop.

Collective action problems are just the worst.

danorama··on [dead]
I'm legitimately curious what you think an ideal reaction would be.
danorama··on We ran high-level US civil war simulations. Minnesota is how they start
Oooh! I know this one! Just follow the money. All the way back to the Department of Homeland Security. You’ll find the paymasters and your answers there.
danorama··on ‘ELITE’: The Palantir app ICE uses to find neighborhoods to raid
Whoosh.
danorama··on In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All
“Women who stay home for kids invariably watch lots of TV and maybe do three hours of actual recognizable work per day max”

As a parent, I believe I speak for many when I say [citation needed].

danorama··on In a U.S. First, New Mexico Opens Doors to Free Child Care for All
But what if Avery has the skills and training to watch 5 kids at once in a group?
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