Category Archives: Technical Stuff

AI, Technical Stuff, Weird & Peculiar, Wonkery

Coming: The Invasion of the AI Body [Brain?] Snatchers?

Leave a comment
Ten times faster??? BTW these “Jaspers” are from real ads.

 

[NOTE: Ads with cutesy robots, named “Jasper,” for AI software that reputedly will write my blog posts ten times faster, are popping up on my Facebook page practically every day.

I’m hardly a techie; but I’m no enemy of technology. It was 39 years ago — George Orwell’s 1984 — when I happily traded in the typewriter on which I wrote three books and 18 years of articles, for a pre-Windows “portable” computer that weighed 25 pounds. And I’m “typing” this on what they tell me is a fifth generation Ipad mini that weighs about 2.5 ounces. Continue reading Coming: The Invasion of the AI Body [Brain?] Snatchers? →

Climate, New, Nukes, Science, Technical Stuff

Gwynne Dyer: Nuclear Fusion Can Save Us— If it Arrives In Time

Leave a comment

A nuclear fusion lab

‘What’s not to like about nuclear fusion? Only the delivery date’
Gwynne Dyer · Columnist – December 15, 2022

Nuclear fusion, the holy grail that would finally end all the world’s energy problems, has been receding into the future at the rate of about one year per year all my adult life — it was always “about 30 years away” — but, suddenly, we’re catching up.
Continue reading Gwynne Dyer: Nuclear Fusion Can Save Us— If it Arrives In Time →

Social Media, Technical Stuff

Reuters: Twitter Losing Core Tweeters, Internal Docs Show

Leave a comment

Can’t deny it, but I failed at figuring out how to make TWTR work, as a way of communication or discussion, so never became involved or enamored. In addition, I think crypto is at bottom a scam, so I never was drawn toTWTR by that.

If this Reuters report is correct about a gathering exodus by the platform’s core users, my reaction will be a shrug. I don’t care if Elon Musk’s loses some billions, and even if Facebook is now the gateway for geezers, I’m almost 80 and it serves my social media needs well  enough.

Reuters Exclusive: Twitter is losing its most active users, internal documents show

By

Oct 25 (Reuters) – “Is Twitter dying?” billionaire Elon Musk mused in April, five days before offering to buy the social media platform.

Continue reading Reuters: Twitter Losing Core Tweeters, Internal Docs Show →

Commerce, Journalism/Media, Remarkable People, Science, Signs of the Times, Space, Technical Stuff, Wonkery

Gwynne Dyer on Elon Musk & His Twitter Mess

1 Comment

Gwynne Dyer:  Elon Musk — the benign sociopath who may have thrown a monkey wrench into his great plans for the world

Saltwire — Nov. 1, 2022

Elon Musk is that rarest of things — a benign sociopath — and, therefore, a person of considerable value to the world.

He has just made a mistake that could ruin his long-term plan, for his purchase of Twitter is almost bound to end in tears. The sharks are always circling the very rich and highly geared and I find myself worrying about him.

Musk sort of realized that buying Twitter was a mistake after his initial enthusiasm died down, for a $44-billion punt on an unprofitable social media platform is a risky move, even for the world’s richest man. But, by then, he was legally committed and, after thrashing on the hook for a bit, he decided to accept his fate and try to make it work for him. Continue reading Gwynne Dyer on Elon Musk & His Twitter Mess →

Annals of Inequality, Commerce, Current Affairs, Signs of the Times, Technical Stuff

Quote of the Week: What (& Who) Makes a Chair a “Chair”?

1 Comment

Tom Edsall writes data- and research-driven columns in the New York Times that frequently make my head spin and my heart sink. Today he did both by talking about a chair . . . .

Edsall: David Autor is an economist at M.I.T. who has written on the role of the trade shocks that have driven white working class voters into the arms of the Republican Party . . . .

In a July 2022 paper “The Labor Market Impacts of Technological Change: From Unbridled Enthusiasm to Qualified Optimism to Vast Uncertainty,” Autor describes how artificial intelligence radically enlarges the potential of robotics and automation to replace workers not only performing routine tasks but more complex procedures:

“What makes a task routine is that it follows an explicit, fully specified set of rules and procedures. Tasks fitting this description can in many cases be codified in computer software and executed by machines.”

Continue reading Quote of the Week: What (& Who) Makes a Chair a “Chair”? →