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baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason") wrote:

It's clearly going to take the tech industry a while to understand that the "AI" brand is well and truly toxic

If you have a software or feature, sell it on what it does for people. If it's actually useful, then calling it "AI" will just make people assume it's yet another money-grabbing con.

Especially if you aren't using an LLM or diffusion model and instead are just using a non-generative ML model. Why willingly adopt all that negative baggage when you don't have to?

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pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

I think the evidence for alien visits to Earth lurks in the same fantastical nether world inhabited by evidence for gods.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/30/theres-a-sane-reply-and-theres-the-batshit-crazy-reply/

evil alien

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jscalzi@threads.net ("John Scalzi") wrote:

The GOP wants you to die at home so they can kill overseas

https://www.axios.com/2026/03/30/gop-health-care-pay-iran-war

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
uglyreykjavik.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy ("Ugly Reykjavik") wrote:

Now we'll have another week of objects rusting in nature, starting with whatever this is.#Iceland #photography #streetphotography #nature #landscape #naturephotography #landscapephotography #abandoned #decay #trees #rust

An object rusting in nature.

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
PavelASamsonov ("Pavel A. Samsonov") wrote:

Grammarly quietly made an #AI to sell bad writing advice using famous writers' names. They quickly had to backtrack as soon as people found out.

This gamble reflects a broader trend in the #tech industry: everyone is shipping features as quickly as an #LLM can write lines of code, with no way to spot problems until something breaks or someone sues them.

Vibe prototyping replaced thinking through things. But without direction, moving faster is worthless.

https://productpicnic.beehiiv.com/p/grammarly-shows-how-prototyping-turned-into-an-excuse-for-not-thinking

#ux #uxdesign

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
david_chisnall@infosec.exchange ("David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)") wrote:

I was just in a meeting where someone used a thing called Fathom to get an 'AI' summary of the meeting. Aside from some understandable typos arising from not understanding terms of art and replacing them with common English words, one of the key points that it concluded was that A was faster than B. It reached this conclusion because it missed one of the digits in the time for A. This completely inverted the key takeaway from one important section of the meeting.

Do not use plausible-nonsense generators for anything important.

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Boosted by dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase"):
fiore@brain.worm.pink ("φ") wrote:

Bjarne Soup, inventor of C++, created the language after he forgot to null terminate his legs.

bjarne with very long legs

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
tylersticka@social.lol ("Tyler Sticka") wrote:

Hey gang, I need your help.

For @cloudfour’s design practice to survive, we need more projects.

If you’ve ever benefited from any of the 25+ talks, 80+ code repos or 500+ articles we’ve shared for free over the past 19 years, please read and share this post: https://cloudfour.com/thinks/more-projects-please/

#GetFediHired #OpenToWork #WebDesign #UXDesign #UIDesign #ProductDesign

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:

https://www.quinnemanuel.com/the-firm/publications/client-alert-emerging-litigation-risks-in-financing-ai-data-centers-boom/

"Lenders who originated data center loans—including the private credit facilities described in Section A—have begun pooling those loans and selling tranches to asset managers and pension funds, spreading risk well beyond the original lending institutions."

IS
THIS
FUCKING
GOOD

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zkat@toot.cat ("Katerina Marchán") wrote:

I am heartened by how thoroughly César Chávez has been getting erased from everything after the allegations came out and other people in the movement uplifted instead.

This should be the basic bar to clear, but so often we don't even reach this.

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
SnoopJ@hachyderm.io wrote:

@Taweret

Tumblr post by user apisashla foreman scratching his head and frowning at blueprints So we all know the tao that can be named is not the eternal tao. So we kept lookin' until we found a tao that couldn't be named, but wouldn't you know it, that wasn't the eternal tao either. Right now we're on our third nameless tao and the county board's breathing down our necks to finalize the permit, so we got a truck headed in from Houston, but see, we can't find out where it is or when it'll get here without naming the damn thing. Last I heard it was at a rest stop down near Mobile. Anyway Barry achieved absolute stillness of the soul yesterday which is helping our budget projections but we're still lookin' at about $7k down the hole,

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fromjason ("fromjason.xyz ❤️ 💻 ✍️ 🥐 🇵🇷") wrote:

RIP Mac Pro.

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
tarakiyee@mastodon.online ("Tara Tarakiyee") wrote:

Audre Lorde's "master's tools" speech was not about tech platforms. So why does tech discourse keep citing it as if it were? I write about what happens when a Black feminist theorist's words get borrowed, stripped of context, and made to do work they were never meant to do.

https://tarakiyee.com/on-the-enshittification-of-audre-lorde-the-masters-tools-in-tech-discourse/ #enshittification #AudreLorde #techpolicy

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
davidgerard@circumstances.run ("David Gerard") wrote:

OpenAI offers a 17.5% return on a venture deal! How can it do that?

By not guaranteeing it in any way

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2Wp5ZUg1yo&list=UU9rJrMVgcXTfa8xuMnbhAEA - video
https://pivottoai.libsyn.com/20260330-openai-offers-a-175-return-on-a-venture-deal-how-can-it-do-that - podcast

time: 4 min 47 sec

https://pivot-to-ai.com/2026/03/30/openai-offers-17-5-on-venture-deal-how-can-it-do-that/ - blog post

businessman opens the money pipeline, dollars pouring out

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
GossiTheDog@cyberplace.social ("Kevin Beaumont") wrote:

The power of ChatGPT

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
mrtazz@chaos.social ("Daniel") wrote:

2016: every line of code is immediately tech debt, the most important design paradigm is simplicity, I maintain a curated personal blog about minimalism

2026: haha I just have my stochastic labubu generate tons of code all the time, I don't even look at it. More is more. I regularly have nervous breakdowns about what it all means on all social media platforms

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Boosted by baldur@toot.cafe ("Baldur Bjarnason"):
olivia@scholar.social ("Olivia Guest · Ολίβια Γκεστ") wrote:

When I hear somebody say "I only use AI for whatever example" unprompted (pun unintended) I think they are lying like anybody who says "I only smoke when I drink" or "just one a day" — NOT because it's not true per se but because the pragmatics we're invited to agree with is that it's ok. It's not.

Also with respect to smoking, it's one thing to smoke and another to talk about it this way — in this flippant way! — when it's known to be addictive and more.

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Boosted by zkat@toot.cat ("Katerina Marchán"):
tech4palestine@infosec.exchange ("Tech For Palestine") wrote:

Tomorrow Vercel is updating its terms to use your code and agent chats for AI training and third-party data sharing. So we just wanted to remind you that the CEO of this company openly aligns himself with Netanyahu.

Here's quick guide on how to opt-out or even better: how to migrate off Vercel.

https://updates.techforpalestine.org/vercels-ceo-likes-war-criminals-now-he-wants-your-code/

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Boosted by jwz:
dnalounge@sfba.social ("DNA Lounge") wrote:

♬️ Just announced: Thu May 7, 7:30pm: THEY LIVE: MOVIE SCREENING + DANCE PARTY
https://www.dnalounge.com/calendar/2026/05-07.html?utm%5Fsource=sp%5Fma
#dnalounge #theylive #cyberdelia #synthwave #sanfrancisco

Attachments:

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Boosted by jwz:
rgm@cosocial.ca ("Ryan McCuaig") wrote:

We’re an empire now, and when we slam a car door on our dicks, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll slam a car door on our dicks again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.

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Boosted by jwz:
geekysteven@beige.party wrote:

your grandparents voting for reagan

Coop from Interstellar piloting a spaceship and saying "This little maneuver is gonna cost us 51 years"

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Boosted by jwz:
zoom_earth@mapstodon.space ("Zoom Earth") wrote:

Wow! A 1000-mile wall of Saharan dust is currently sweeping across northwest Africa 💨 See here: https://zoom.earth/maps/satellite/#view=25.287,-9.342,6z/date=2026-03-30,17:20

Attachments:

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Boosted by jwz:
theleftistlawyer ("Sheryl Weikal") wrote:

Right wing tech bros: we love Star Trek but it's too woke nowadays. Too preachy. Kirk's show wasn't like this.

Average TOS episode: AI is bad and should never be allowed to run a society. Also, make peace because nationalism kills and every life form must be respected equally.

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
mttaggart@infosec.exchange ("Taggart") wrote:

As a research project, I built a needed tool with Claude Code. I though it would be a disaster, but It wasn't. I have some complicated feelings about it.

https://taggart-tech.com/reckoning/

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

doctor dysfun prescribes cake and ice cream for smoking cessation.

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pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

Iä! Iä! Shakespeare fhtagn!

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/30/now-i-know-what-they-do-at-faculty-meetings-on-the-humanities-social-sciences-side-of-campus/

Cartoon reminding us of all the horrors poets, artists, and teachers have brought into the world, unlike us kindly science folk.

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dysfun@treehouse.systems ("gaytabase") wrote:

i'm still in pain. send pleasing distractions.

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pzmyers@freethought.online ("pzmyers 🕷") wrote:

On my planet, the prairie grasses are golden, the skies are pink, and the kitty cats are green and scaly.

https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2026/03/30/infinite-thread-xxxix/

No Man's Sky screenshot

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
mcc wrote:

ME: It's nice to have MSBuild because XML is a principled, structured language; sh and make are ugly and glitchy because everything is a string

ME, TWO YEARS LATER: *trying to figure out if "true" and "false" are case-sensitive in MSBuild*

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Boosted by glyph ("Glyph"):
ShaulaEvans@zirk.us ("Shaula Evans") wrote:

Me: Why haven't I done [X] yet?

Also me: Looks at the long, winding list of dependencies required to make X possible.

Oh no.