RickRussell_CA @ RickRussell_CA @beehaw.org

Posts

10

Comments

210

Joined

2 yr. ago

I just don't see it doing any good. Why would Israel's military, supplied with US military hardware, care about Microsoft? Or Apple or Google or Amazon or... I'm sure none of their critical military infrastructure is in danger if one or several of these companies turn on them.

And how does Microsoft even enforce this ban? Turn off Windows remotely? It's not even clear how such a ban on Israel-linked business would work.

If world governments want to put sanctions on Israel and Gaza to try and make the two governments come to the table, I think that's a much better strategy.

Honestly, I struggle to draw a connection between world conflict and non-military technology like Windows or cell phones or whatever.

Is every single Israeli resident complicit in what their government is doing? None of them should be allowed to use Windows? What about Israelis outside of Israel? What about people who support Israel? What about (gasp) Jews? How do you even enforce any of this without massive overreach by the companies?

Call on Microsoft or Apple all you want, ultimately I don't think a company should ban sales to customers on the argument that those customers might not have morals aligned to the company. Not that it's even possible, with world supply chains being what they are.

Capitalism does an extremely poor job of planning beyond the next accounting period.

With respect to the article, it's wrong. AI help desk is already a thing. Yes, it's terrible, but human help desk was already terrible. Businesses are ABSOLUTELY cutting out tier 1 call center positions.

LLMs are exceptionally good at language translation, which should be no surprise as that kind of statistical chaining is right up their alley. Translators are losing jobs. AI Contract analysis & legal blacklining are going to put a lot of junior employees and paralegals out of business.

I am very much an AI skeptic, but I also recognize that people who do the things LLMs are already pretty good at are in real trouble. As AI tools get better at more stuff, that target list of jobs will grow.

Took them 30 seconds to throw animators under the bus to make their point.

It's hopeless. We're all just gonna eat each other so the billionaire class can go live in a giant space station.

It was the style at the time.

Unfortunately the strike ended just a few days ago -- organizers have vowed to come back with a new plan, since Amazon refused to negotiate.

Well, game journalists need to sell gaming hardware and AAA games. Those guys have the ad money.

Just play what you like.

Perhaps, but I don't read anything on Substack unless I'm subscribed. Reputation is the entire point on Substack, without it, the content will get no traffic.

AI with dedicated nuclear power? I can't imagine anything that could possiblye go wrong in this scenario.

Ssssssmokin

"Do you feel... in charge?"

Outer Worlds has no space-based content. Yes, you have a spaceship, but it's essentially a fast-travel device. One of the locations is a space station, but it's no different than a large building (e.g. it's not shaped like a torus or anything interesting like that).

Outer Worlds is a really fun take on the Firefly space western concept, though, as long as you understand all of your activities will take place on worlds/moons with basically the same gravity & atmosphere.

Oh good, now when I search I'll have to wade through the effluent of AI-produced pablum to find an actual human journalism product.

I feel like there should be a line of intention. The artist described in the article was essentially racist by ignorance. She didn't really know any Black folks, and fetishized them from afar. Doesn't excuse her offense entirely, but perhaps ignorance mitigates her offense somewhat.

I was pleasantly surprised that Professor Appiah's take was so nuanced.

Haberdashers rejoice!

Research has shown that adolescents exhibit higher levels of open-earedness

I feel like this reasoning is a bit fallacious. By definition, ALL music is new when you're young.

Sure, as a guy in my 50s, my typical shuffle playlist has like 30% of songs on it from when I was a teen, and another 30% or so from ages 20-45. But that's because my musical tastes have grown somewhat steadily, but I haven't stopped listening to stuff I used to like either. By simple statistics, the "variance" in my music selections has to go down over time, since I'm not discarding old music from my collection. Some kind of "regression to the musical mean" has to happen as you add more music without removing old music.

Remember when Substack, the home of many excellent journalists, started to defend fascist and white supremacist content on their platform?

Oh, wait, that's happening right now.

\3. Asserting that their IT system is a "separate legal entity" and that they are not responsible for the accuracy of the system. They are eating legal loco weed.

I know I'm lucky -- I'm in a senior position in my career, so it's likely I'll find something new for the same or similar salary.

Still, it was completely unprovoked. I had nothing but glowing performance reviews, nothing like an HR writeup or anything.