Aaron Parecki

2024: OpenAI releases a free virtual assistant with a weirdly flirty voice.

2025: Millions of men become emotionally attached to the AI.

2026: OpenAI threatens to delete your virtual girlfriend if you don't pay a monthly subscription. You must also buy her digital flowers or she will hate you.

I have never felt the precise mix of ire and awe that this “Millennial CAPTCHA” has left me with. It’s been days since I tried it out and I’m still disgusted and impressed with how perfectly executed it is.

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the-millennial-captcha

hello netherlands you mean to tell me I don't need to download a separate app for every local transportation system for every city I visit but can simply use my existing credit, debit, or EC card as both payment and ticket?

My feeble German mind cannot comprehend this

@aaronpk Apple does not fuck around when it comes to understanding their users.

I made something to watch the 2024 eclipse remotely!

This is every public webcam in the path of totality, with a live-updating view of the umbra.

https://jonty.github.io/2024_eclipse_webcams/

if you're going to name your company boeing the planes should at least bounce when they crash

girl are you the ipv4 address space because you seem completely exhausted

“But AI is cheap!”

It’s not, it has horrendous hardware, server housing and water and power requirements; it’s just that VCs are financing it now so you get in on the hype and later they will charge you rent and it will cost you way more—with inferior results—than, you know, hiring the writers and artists it’s stealing from, but those will be gone by then.

Loading bars explained:

I will never not repost this

Who called it “intellectual property problems around the acquisition of training data for Large Language Models” and not Grand Theft Autocorrect?

What idiot called it "our glorious AI future" instead of "Nightmare on LLM Street"?

@aaronpk Interesting idea. I tend to ebb and flow as to whether I do any "work" on weekends, or at least the depth of work. Example: probably working tomorrow, probably snowshoeing Monday. But 10/4 is definitely food for thought.

New DVR / Gateway Rules Announced for ATSC 3.0
https://blog.lon.tv/2024/02/28/new-dvr-gateway-rules-announced-for-atsc-3-0/

If there was ever a moment when the obvious, catastrophic, imminent risk of trusting Big Tech intermediaries to sit between you and your customers or audience, it was now. This is *not* the moment to be "social first." This is the moment for POSSE (Post Own Site, Share Everywhere), a strategy that sees social media as a strategy for bringing readers to channels that *you* control:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/02/19/now-we-are-two/#two-much-posse

14/

it's all about perspective

@aaronpk you now have #CargoCult #Cats ... fascinating!