AI Write Right

Chill Annoying, Tech

This is already happening. One of my team members did his year-end self-review. I read it (am his manager) and it seemed like it sounded AI-ish. I asked him if he’d used AI to create it and he said he hadn’t, though I know he uses ChatGPT for other things. He’s honest and I believe him that he didn’t use AI for this particular item. But the review is written in that style, likely because he has been using AI for other mundane tasks so it has lodged in his brain. I’ve also seen the same in emails from other people that I’m pretty sure were not actually AI-generated.

I do not like this.

Forced Morality

Chill Evil, Lying Liars

In so many areas of life, as in that video from the 1980s I linked below, we used to have a level of freedom that people who did not live through those times quite literally cannot even imagine. When you tell them about it they deny it was real and claim it only happened in movies. That’s how far-removed we are from human flourishing now.

We’ve all descended disgustingly into slave morality and have no will it seems nor desire to transcend as we once did. We used to have so much more, be so much better. Now we click and drool and laugh at anyone who says anything else is possible.

Chill Links

The Age of the U.S. Housing Stock.

U.S. Supreme Court sides with Nebraska man who lost his home over $588.

Squeezed by high prices, a growing number of Americans find shelter in long-term motels.

But for now at least, they also remain—the men who ply the dark surf, who fish hard and sleep little and pull a great American fish from the ocean and know, as all fishermen know, that there is a kind of love that is also violence.

Among the many things to hate about air travel, the processing of cabin luggage is ascendant. Planes are packed, and everyone seems to have more and bigger stuff than the aircraft can accommodate.

The bird at the center of the worst single-species mortality event in modern history isn’t recovering, scientists say.

Post-Luigi, the “extremist” threat is you.

Russia has a history of downing passenger planes — and covering it up. It does seem to be a bit of a hobby for them.

Oops! Consumers finally realize that Trump could worsen inflation. FAFO.

Health Insurers Gave $120 Billion To Shareholders While Denying Your Claim.

Elder Abuse Is No Way to Run a Government. The corridors of power increasingly resemble a nursing home—if not a hospice.

The Year Villainy Won.

Germany Opened Its Doors to Migrants. Now It’s Struggling to Cope. Another colossal mistake of theirs.

The Epic Mess at TGI Fridays.

U.S. homelessness rises 18% amid affordable housing shortage.

Count Me Out

Chill WTF

If you are looking for something merely countably infinite in something uncountably infinite, then you will never find it — and the reason is that the uncountably infinite is so incomprehensibly vastly larger than the merely countably infinite that your search time would also be infinite.

And that’s pretty trippy.

Losses

Chill Clowns

She’s the only person I’ve seen who actually admits they went insane during Covid. Most who did never recovered and if they did get better, never admitted they were once lost to nuthood  It’s so weird that the Covidians still fervently insist there were no lockdowns anywhere and that nothing was different because of Covid, while bleating about how terrible it all was a few seconds later.

I don’t know if therapy works (probably not), but they need some very badly.

1989

Chill Culture, Video, Video (other)

What an awesome fucking time capsule. I remember that world; I was about the same age these kids were in 1989. It was so very different than now, in ways that are hard to describe unless you lived it. Younger people cannot believe a world like that truly existed:

But it did. In important ways, it was a lot freer — there was far less surveillance. Kids were allowed to roam, and have their own lives. There was no social media (except BBSes, which few used). I would not want to go back, but this is one of the few examples I’ve ever found of what it felt like to live in that time. I knew kids just like this dude and his friend who did things just like they are doing in the video.

Drapeaux rouges

Chill Culture

As much as they are considered harmful, I think social media and smartphones are underestimated as a cognitohazard, particularly for women. I saw a dude on Reddit who said the first thing he vets for is the woman’s social media use and addiction as those who are deep into it are so poisoned.

Smartphones should likely be heavily regulated and social media in most forms basically should not exist.

Chill Links

Elon Musk Wants to Pay for His Tax Cuts With Your Social Security and Medicare.

Google Search Changes Are Killing Websites in an Age of AI Spam. Not that I care, but this site gets almost no Google search hits any longer.

Only 35% of Americans trust the US judicial system. This is catastrophic.

Behind Closed Doors: The Spy-World Scientists Who Argued Covid Was a Lab Leak. It certainly was.

2024: The year AI drove everyone crazy.

It’s Taking Many Unemployed Americans More Than a Year to Find a New Job.

‘It’s a scary time’: US universities urge international students to return to campus before Trump inauguration.

Birth Rates Dropped Most in Counties Where Home Values Grew Most. Partially compositional and demographic effects.

Dis the Cog

Chill Clowns

Ha, yeah. I think every guy has had this happen. It’s amazing how quickly it can go from, “All you want is sex!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111111” to “Why didn’t you want SEX??!??!?! What is wrong with you, are you gay??!?!?!?!?!”

Another thing I will never understand. So glad I’m not dating anymore.