matjus

That's a good counterpoint.

I think there's a new large category of uncritically-accepted norms, perhaps much larger than expressing political opinions. I'm thinking about smartphone adoption, mass surveillance, the big yawn at NSA datacenters, the flattening and consolidation of culture (music, tv, hollywood, etc), the normalization of extreme, zero-sum thinking with regard to race, gender and inequity regardless of political affiliation -- for me, this kind of thing is more interesting than stated "beliefs", and certainly more material.

It seems unusual that there are so many frameworks, like describing computers as having "memory" (see: O'Gieblyn) or describing people as having "race", that have quietly gone from the theoretical plane, where they were useful, to being unchallenged fact. Again, this appears to be non-partisan -- and actually helps to explain some of the weirder behaviors of our markets and global politics.

it definitely means something that all that Western opposition appears, at the moment, to have zero effect on Israeli military decision-making. And who would expect it to?

The most notable thing about AI right now is that it's the new widget. The economy wanted it, the zeitgeist wanted it, and for that purpose no more development is necessary. It's already reshaped McKinsey's advice, Microsoft's operating system and the public's trust in the exceptionalism of art creation.

take Auto-Tune: before it blew up, one uncritically accepted that a great sounding vocal performance was simply that. The mere existence of the tool broke a covenant with the public -- artists could assume good faith on behalf of listeners once, but no more.

Similarly, AI's chief effects are likely to be cultural first, and material second. They've already broken the "spell" of the creator. Seemingly overnight, a solution to modern malaise (choice fatigue, lack of education, suspicion of authority) has colonized the moment.

In this sense, one-percenters "seizing power forever" really have found the best possible time to do so -- I can't recall a time where the general populace was this vulnerable, ill-informed, traumatized and submissive.

That the underlying tech barely works (maybe that will change, but I predict it won't) doesn't really matter.

I don't generally support overly regulatory regimes, but in this case I think existing thinking around monopoly (particularly as it affects the psyche of the aspiring American) is sufficient to indicate something needs to happen

Organizing folders is pretty annoying - especially if you have the bad luck to drop a folder somewhere it shouldn't be. Everything freezes while you wait for a couple thousand messages to move where they shouldn't, just so you can move them back where you want them.

Certain aspects of layout state don't persist when you close and reopen. I was annoyed that I spent a few minutes getting the ideal folder/spacing layout for RSS in one tab and Mail in the other only to see both revert to the same on reopening.

I was pleasantly surprised, briefly, by the Matrix chat integration. I use Beeper, and while that program is a marvel, the desktop app is yet another Electron app with few customizations available -- like a lot of Beeper users, I want no pictures, high density, tiny text -- basically, I want xchat!

The Thunderbird chat implementation is tantalizingly close to this. But there are essentially NO options for cleaning up or organizing "Conversations", or open chats. Beeper manages to replace display names (I think by syncing contacts with your phone), it would be awesome if Thunderbird could do the same. Similarly, it archives older chats in a weird tab system ("today", "yesterday") -- why not just put it in the chat window like anybody would expect?

There seems to be confusion about who the Thunderbird user is -- like, I use it because I want RSS and chat and multiple email addresses in one window, I want no-frills, I want a wall of text in a native application, I want to be able to hide profile pictures and backgrounds and icons and any other visual noise.

DAWs will need to refocus on managing recordings of live performances -- young kids are starting guitar bands again, and in a few years I think we will enter yet another period where electronic sounds are out of fashion.

I'd also like to see more music creation nuts & bolts built into DAWs, like integrated lyrics, a quick way to shuffle pieces of a song like "bridge" and "verse", visualizations of key center shifts, chord builders and so on. A lot of that stuff is out there but it's definitely an afterthought.

"Consent" is a loaded word. I'm not sure the family/estate of a person can consent on behalf of the deceased.