specproc

The US isn't Rome, it's Constantinople. Rome was Europe, the 20th century was about the colonial appendage achieving supremacy over the former imperial centre.

If you want a lesson in what to avoid to maintain dominance, it's internal conflict, that's what wrecked the European empire.

Good luck with that. Trump and Co will dig in. When they fall, there will be blood.

I think this has already happened to some extent, with social media etc. crowding out reading books. Even higher quality stuff like HN pales in comparison with what a good book brings, and it's a daily struggle to keep reading.

At least we're (mostly) not scrolling feeds all day at work. AI is going to be like this for all our professional competencies.

I've found being over 40 has made me way less wild at parties.

I'm really happy to see this turning out the same way as Glass.

It's rare we get serious wins over big tech. It's tough to think of something else that's been so roundly societally rejected, not so much as a bad product, but as something that's loathed so much it has no future.

I've been playing with it the last few weeks, great software and really fun to use. Fantastic timing. Thanks for all the hard work that went into the release.

I'm particularly happy to see keyboard shortcut preferences in the release notes, that's been a real pain point.

Thanking you kindly, sir.

Mate, you ever read a scientific paper? You dig regression? Did you read TFA yourself? Was I wrong?

Studies typically use regression to account for stuff like that. CBA to look at the article, but I bet any money that's controlled for.

The back crack is excellent. If I feel it getting sore, it fixes it every time.

Not the author, but here you go: https://github.com/Hogwai/LinkedinSponsorBlock/

I'm not at my computer, but I've got such a thing. It's a ViolentMonkey script, something like LinkedIn Sponsor Block or similar. Does just what you need.

These things are very much weapons. Imagine a collection of data centers, pointed at an adversary.

It's not at all about individual action. This scale of problem requires policy intervention and investment at national levels, and inter-governmental coordination internationally.

The big, meaningful wins come from things like stopping the use of coal, not signing-off on new oil and gas exploration, tax-incentives and disincentives, grid work, fining polluters.

We instinctively frame this as an individual problem, the cynic might say we've been encouraged to, but the reality is that whether or not you fly this summer has precisely dick-all impact globally. It's the actions of our governments that count.

No, music and literature are not like VFX, unless I'm truly blind to the magic of After Effects.

A good novel can have you laughing out loud or crying to yourself, they can introduce new ideas that can totally change your outlook on the world. I've read books I've continued to think about for months after I've finished them.

Great music, whether classical or contemporary, particularly when experienced live, can be transcendental.

Both can be wonderful ways of connecting with humanity. To read The Leopard is to inhabit the soul of a minor Sicilian noble, putting on Ride the Lightning is a viceral experience, like hitting a line of speed.

Cinema can evoke these intense experiences, but VFX is but a minor component, and much of the best uses no CGI.

Regardless, as a man who dabbles in AI in his own creative practice, I remain utterly unconvinced that AI is capable of eliciting the response we get from great music or literature. It may produce some filler around the edges, but that great line, the chorus that drives the heart to the sky with a fist raised in the air like an antenna to heaven, this will always be human.

This is for the simple reason that art is fundamentally about human connection and empathy, the transmission of emotion and energy from one sentient being to another.

No LLM could ever write Hallelujah, because no LLM has witnessed heartbreak, contemplated the divine, or practiced bondage.

No diffusion model could paint Reply of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, which incidentally took over a decade, as no machine has ever laughed in contempt of its enemy.

Sure, we can say that there's a human behind each machine, but AI places a wall between the creator and their work. The momentum, inspiration, creative blocks and breakthroughs in the shower, these form the basis of great art.

Re-reading the parent, I've digressed, and perhaps somewhat misinterpreted. I guess I just wanted to write what I've written. Very human.

Yeah, "good" AI blends into the background? No, good art is never in the background. It grabs us, pours into us, and leaves us changed.

God, spent too long on this and need to get some shit done. I'll go put on Ride the Lightning.

The eight-hour-old accounts with strings of digits as handles are also well-known for their balanced and non-partisan perspectives.

Who goes to jail for displaying the ad in a public place? If I ran say, a shop, and put CSAM up on my notice board (because I was paid to) that would see me in prison, surely.

The lack of accountability here is astounding.

They do this in Gaza.

Not being surveilled, sold-to and manipulated by _my_ hardware.

I'm in the process of buying a house, and getting some support from my Dad. AML checks required by app for both of us, he hated it.

I just called the solicitor, said "my Dad hates the app", they immediately presented an alternative.

And generally, 99% of stuff exists in browser. My phone is for messaging, photos, and reading, very little else.

My favourite pub in this area, The Bree Louise, is sadly no more.

So much hate for this piece in the thread, I'm seeing almost no positive comments. I'm tempted to be unkind, but will exercise restraint; we are here, for the most part, technical writers, for whom parsimony is a professional virtue.

I loved it.

We're in an age where matrix multiplication can yawn out endless passages of trite, dull, sludge. The author, to my mind, makes a powerful and inspiring case for a future for human-written prose. The ability to effectively and creatively deploy a rich and complex vocabulary is the flex (in the parlance of our times) that distinguishes the craftsmen from the clankers.

This could well be the last one for a while

> What the writer is talking about is so reminiscent of the early stages of my burnout that I worry for him.

Except it's everyone everywhere. Hands up in the thread anyone who doesn't recognise some of these symptoms. Our jobs, tech and societies are making us ill.

TFA links attention on one hand, and social media and LLM use on the other. I'm not making any points about the scientific validity of those conclusions, but that's the context in which this discussion is taking place.

Personally, I find a very strong link between my devices and my ability to focus, as they're the space in which I spaff my time. I do not believe myself to have ADHD, I believe that the machines I use offer limitless ways for me to lose track when I'm tired.

I'm deeply skeptical of pharmacological solutionism, particularly in the domain of mental health. A variety of drugs can be a boon, life-saving to many, but are over-prescribed and treat symptoms not causes.

With regard to amphetamines in particularly (we called it 'whizz' where I'm from, back in the day), we're talking about a class of drug that can cause dependency, problems with sleep and sex, anxiety and plenty more. I would not say they're not without side effects in the slightest.

Sure, great if this sort of stuff helps, but I find the "just get a diagnosis" line utterly inadequate and borderline disturbing.

FFS. The solution to our machines eating our brains should not be "just take amphetamine, bro".

What if they're already in the wrong hands?

All my notebooks are dirt notebooks

I did the same for a friend's birthday recently: put together a bunch of mix CDs as a present. My concession to the fact he probably doesn't use a CD player much was a QR code, with a link to a matching Spotify playlist.

It's a privacy-focused application for secure communication, last place you want slop.

As noted elsewhere in this thread, scale is important: I think it's entirely reasonable to have different rules for platforms with millions of users.

Aye, it's the curation, innit. If the platform is making opaque decisions on what you see, then it should be accountable for what it's showing you.

I think scale is important here too. If you've got a user-base that's an appreciable proportion of a country's population, you're a utility. My energy supplier has a tiny fraction of the customers of say, Meta, and is subject to considerably stronger oversight.