Me painting a canvas: *I love this! I’m discovering a new language a new poetics yesss* Me painting six doors and skirting boards after painting too many walls: *DIY as in I want to die!!*

the new algorithm is so weird

the problem is, though, “AI” companies would rather us talk about boohoo users being meanies toward Claude than “AI” use in intelligence gathering and warfare, or the environmental impacts of data centre scale ups or the labor exploitation in LLM supply chains … it’s a marketing distraction tactic

Breaking: Microsoft has updated its usage policy to make clear users cannot be rude to Excel. Be nice to your spreadsheet in case it might one day be conscious. It’s Pascal's wager but for a particular kind of software we're trying to market as powerful beyond belief (ergo, gestures at discourse).

HOMOPHOBIC BULLIES: “being bi and gay is very bad and evil and unnatural and totally fake!!” Bi and gay people, hearing that coming out may be dangerous, that they might lose family of friends, or might not get or keep a job: *keeps quiet about their truth* HOMOPHOBIC BULLIES: “SEE!!”

Well-sourced, eye-opening (but in hindsight, unsurprising) piece from Adam. The main use of AI by publishers appears to be publicity/marketing. I would like to explain why this is a bad use from the perspective of someone who gets pitched dozens of books a week for coverage.

Nooooooooooo (Edinburgh)

the media: "THE AI HAS GONE ROGUE AND TRIED TO TRICK US WITH LIES!!!!"

Overheard this dreadful line of gossip earlier in the pharmacy, whilst waiting, and I’ll do my best to transcribe from memory: “they strike me as someone who appears very concerned with how others perceive them and also dreadful at understanding how that makes others perceive them”

🤣💀🪏⚰️🪦🧟‍♀️

[picture people on LinkedIn thinking about what their thought leadership take of the day would be about the announcement of the live-streamed execution in Texas]

They don’t know this, but everyone in my generation implicitly asks themselves this exact question whenever they’re doing something, anything: but how would this be perceived on my MySpace page??!!

wait until you hear about pudding

omg i sent a similar email this week to some guy who added me to a newsletter list that was about something random like destination fishing which - c'monnnnn, dude, read the room - and i'm like, no unsubscribe is against the law

cute little dogs keep following me

I've gotten two such notifications today. Before you ask, yes, I tried to adjust the settings. No, you cannot choose to only get a reminder the day before your order arrives. Hence, the carrot of the Pulitzer Prize.

I will give a Pulitzer Prize to anyone who can sell me something online and then only send me two emails: 1. A receipt. Thank you. 2. A reminder the day before your order arrives. I just bought perfume and am getting email notifications every time the item moves *between* regional delivery hubs.

can they not help themselves from taking the bait?!? there’s too much oxygen in the “centrist” discourse about ultra rich tech lords adopting “SI” v “AI” when (a) it’s stupid partly because “SI” means as much nothing as “AI” and (b) it’s clearly a fascist dog whistle distracting from myriad things

There are things I greatly miss about my time writing for Vice (RIP) … for example, today I was thinking about writing an essay about the taboo of shigella. Where else in the widely read press would one write a reported essay about shigella today!? What we have lost, dear reader, what we have lost!

you’re in a coffee shop in Seattle, Washington, and the next song begins: “Now I am older than my mother and father when they had their daughter, and what does that say about me?!?!?”