People think AI is going to be something independent, separate from humanity. That's a category error. AI will reflect human desires, patterns and economic structures... For good, bad or ugly.

The Technical is the Political

Anyone have a #pinetime? Just got mine earlier in the week, to replace my Fossil that was doing "who knows what" with my data... I'm fairly satisfied so far. It almost seems like the hardware is more advanced than the SW ecosystem surrounding it. The device is small but seems pretty robust (supposedly waterproof but haven't tested that yet). It ships with "Infinitime" OS, and you sync it with GadgetBridge from F-Droid. Only disadvantage is it doesn't seem to have sleep tracking out of the box, either on-device or inferred from movements in GadgetBridge... But since I assume this is mostly just inferred from movements, this could presumably be a future SW upgrade. Seems to track steps and heart rate just fine.

PINE64

PineTime

An Open Source Smartwatch For Your Favorite Devices. Low Cost, High Fidelity. The PineTime is a free and open source smartwatch capable of running ...

Still getting big battery drains on #bitchat android, seemingly out of nowhere... Anyone know what's going on there?

I mean aren't most of these stories basically, take a frontier model, tell it "you're an elite hacker try to accomplish XYZ task," and then (surprised Pikachu face) it does exactly that? Not exactly the "paperclip maximizer apocalypse" we've been promised.... View quoted note →

What's particularly acute in the Bitcoin community is the tension between the FOSS nature of "Bitcoin the software project" and the hyper-capitalist worldview that tends to be attracted to "Bitcoin the money." Like the best things in life, this tension needs to be productively managed, but not ignored.

The whole data center thing is kind of funny, AI's a massive bubble that will undoubtedly correct before the year's out, but in the meantime we're subject to amusing spectacles like this. I don't think data centers are nearly as bad environmentally as they've been stereotyped, but at the same time I understand the rationale of people in these small towns who are seeing massive windfall profits in Silicon Valley and thinking "hey where's my cut of that?" If the people pushing data center build-outs were smart (and there might not be enough time for them to wise up), they'd set up an "Alaska"-style dividend program, where they just cut checks to everyone in town. Then the opposition would turn around right quick.. View quoted note →

All of a sudden getting a lot of job leads (scientific R&D), which either means (a) the bubble is topped, (b) a bunch of people are coming back from vacation, or (c) both?

This Fox News "thunderdome"-style interview with new Wisconsin socialist hopeful Francesca Hong reveals why (for better or worse) the Right is losing the next several election cycles in America. The host's increasingly shrill and desperate attempts to pin Hong to the "early-2020's" extreme Left talking points, and Hong's careful and calm deflection to the "kitchen table" issues that WI voters care about, is a masterclass in political jujitsu. Take note: with Mamdani and others, the DSA has pivoted to "Sewer socialism" -- replace "abolish the police" with "free groceries." Meanwhile the other side is primary'ing the few reasonable people with "R" on their name left like Thomas Massie, while annointing an increasingly inept and corrupt slate of Troglodytes whose only qualification for office is "I agree 100% with Trump." #politics