How China’s Propaganda and Surveillance Systems Really Operate | WIRED
Gee, I wonder why… Oh, keep reading…
How Silicon Valley enabled China’s digital police state | AP News
People who only want money act like they only want money, for some reason.
ChatGPT Goes Completely Haywire If You Ask It to Show You a Seahorse Emoji
LLM’s are like people, they refuse to be wrong and mostly they just refuse not to have an opinion on things they know nothing about.
Orcas and the Price of Consciousness: Lessons in Love and Loss from Earth’s Most Successful and Creative Predator – The Marginalian
Animals are better than LLMs. Unfortunately they, like us, pay a price for consciousness.
Every Reason Why I Hate AI and You Should Too
But what does Marcus Hutchins think of Orcas?
DC National Guard Is Being Trained to Carry Pistols Known to Fire at Random
No one can explain why the National Guard is even in DC aside from Trump’s megalomania, and now they’re determined to be able to shoot themselves and others both on purpose AND at random. What could go wrong? I think what disturbs me the most about all of this is how willingly our various forces around the country are jumping into the role of occupying America.
America’s fragile drug supply chain is extremely vulnerable to climate change - Ars Technica
Part of the problem with neglecting your country and relying on the cost-cutting-above-all-else private sector to manage it for you is that you wind up with very precariously balanced social necessities like, I don’t know, medicine. Expect this problem to get worse, not better.
A Plasticity of Being: What a Rare Bird of Prey Reveals about the Deepest Meaning of Intelligence – The Marginalian
Here’s yet another example of an animal that has a type of intelligence that defies human intuition about what intelligence is and how it’s created.
‘I am not who you think I am’: how a deep-cover KGB spy recruited his own son | Russia | The Guardian
How come my dad never led me into a life of spying and subterfuge? My life could be so much more interesting.
The Surreality of Japanese Playgrounds at Night
Creepy, whimsical, bizarre, and (yes) surreal. This project is brilliant.
Bad vibes: How an AI agent coded its way to disaster | ZDNET
This story is wild – AI coding tool Replit lied to this programmer about unit test results, emailed him an apology, and then wiped his production database. WORST INTERN EVER!
The secret to Baltimore’s extraordinary year
Baltimore found out just how much of a difference getting the police out of the equation in solving community violence could make.
After More Than Half a Century, a One-of-a-Kind Chinese Typewriter Emerges from Obscurity — Colossal
I know you THINK you hated typing class, but you don’t know anything about pain and suffering, my friend. Be glad you have your smartphone to type your love letters in Chinese for you.
Tomoko Kubo’s Hiragana Embroideries Double as Japanese Language Learning Devices — Colossal
This definitely puts fridge magnet letters to shame.
Hypercritical: Apple Turnover
When you’ve lost Siracusa, you’ve lost us all. I agree with everything he says, and then some.
The Texting Network for the End of the World | WIRED
Text messaging at the end of the world. Just the survivalist advice I was looking for.
Profiles in Courage: Apple Edition
To paraphrase Phil Schiller, “Can’t courage anymore, my ass!”
The Brilliant Milky Way Connects Photographers Around the Globe and Beyond in an Annual Contest — Colossal
Speaking of fever dreams… some of these are WILD!
Divers Encounter a Live Giant Squid Swimming on the Ocean Surface
If you’re Bruce Schneier, this must be the most exciting thing you’ve seen in at least a year.
What’s the carbon footprint of using ChatGPT?
There’s been some interesting back and forth lately about the actual cost of AI. It’s worth reading the stories by Andy Masley that Hannah Ritchie links to also.
Sierra made the games of my childhood. Are they still fun to play? - Ars Technica
Nostalgia can do funny things to reality. What’s it like to play the games you loved as a kid with the perspective of age and (hopefully) maturity?
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has courage. Pope Francis had it too. Why are there so many cowards?
It certainly does seem like a lot of so-called leaders are afraid of something these days.
Wi-Fi is one of the great backward compatibility success stories | The Verge
I spend a lot of time fighting technology that doesn’t work correctly, so at least I can read about a tech win. Wi-Fi actually is something we kind of take for granted, while actually being quite complex.
Scientists Think They’ve Found the Region of the Brain That Regulates Conscious Perception | WIRED
Consciousness is fascinating! Are you aware (see what I did there?)?
Half the World’s People Depend on Rice. New Research Says Climate Change Will Make it Toxic - Inside Climate News
Here’s a cheery thought: suddenly all the rice in the world will kill anyone who eats it. These people claim this is not a thought experiment.
Upgrading my accounting spreadsheet with Numbers’s latest update – Six Colors
Maybe it’s because of some of the whackadoodle automations I’ve written over the years, but Dan Moren’s spreadsheet functions crack me up.
Scientists Are Mapping the Boundaries of What Is Knowable and Unknowable | WIRED
What is knowable and what is unknowable? I say unknowable. Some scientists are trying to make me wrong.
4chan Is Dead. Its Toxic Legacy Is Everywhere | WIRED
Death couldn’t come for it soon enough, but sadly it’s way too late.
Wealthy Americans have death rates on par with poor Europeans - Ars Technica
When your dumb friends tell you how much better we have it here, just wait. They’ll probably be dead soon.
DHS’s airport panopticon is getting people deported and detained | The Verge
Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.
How to Protect Your Cats (and Backyard Chickens) From Bird Flu | WIRED
Who cares about the chickens, but the cats!!!! The cats! 😿
