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mastermark.me
Trying to do better. A hell of a lot less clever than I used to think I was. Recovering male human
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The cruelty in today's politics feels horribly corrosive. Bringing up that hard-working immigrant families — undocumented, yes, but not violent criminals — are being ripped apart based on immigration status doesn't bring compassion or even pause, but gleeful cheers.

At my (Catholic) high school in the US in the 80s, a teacher used to solicit donations for the IRA

Rightwing nutjobs righteous indignation over Mexican etc flags in Los Angeles... Meanwhile, for over 250 years, white folks in NYC be like... www.nycstpatricksparade.org/about/history/

Practices like continuous testing, continuous code review and continuous integration are Pay-As-You-Go. By the time the code's been written, the bill's already been settled. Your code's earning £ in production while the devs who left it until the end are still trying to attract the waiter's eye.

When Los Angeles actually *was* burning down six months ago, these people didn't give a damn about us. Now they're spreading fake AI videos showing LA burning

Not true. I see you're a luxury watch dealer. I'm also interested in watches. Let me show you how free and easy migration has allowed you to earn a living. 🧵

Similarly, "bean bag rounds" are typically filled with lead shot, not plastic. They can fracture your skull and kill you. After I got hit with one in 2020 (thankfully in the leg), an Austin Police Department officer acted surprised there was metal inside.

Journey en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey...

Try talking to them about actually *living* in a different country... 🙄

This 👇🏼is a quite informative, useful explanation about the $ tax / accounting changes that fueled tech layoffs of the past 2-3 years. It's not bloody AI, but it's hard to explain what it actually *is*. Why are they doing it when profitable etc, Mark? Well... qz.com/tech-layoffs...

This article by MIT Technology Review is a fantastic walk through of the externalities at play for GenAI computing

That's a good headline

“We are embarking on a major experiment in restructuring the innovative engine in America, and China is the control,” said Marcia McNutt, a geophysicist and the president of the National Academy of Sciences. “China is not going to cut its research budget in half.”

This 👇🏼 is a great - GREAT - rumination on ML tech such as LLMs and LVMs, aka 'AI' (and like several other folks have noticed 'pattern synthesis' is a *brilliant* description of what this tech actually is / does) Prescient, thoughtful, well informed - a must read 1/2

Hmm. AKA 'the end justifies the means'...

They say outrageous, indefensible things every day. In part to exhaust you. Conserve your energy. Don’t react to everything. A reminder to myself as much as anyone else.

Whilst I wish it weren't so, to my knowledge, hype trains cannot be stopped. They go where they are going (which is often a crash)

been saying this for like 3 years now, the core constituency of the "manosphere" is not Gen Z or teenage boys, it is 35-55 year old dudes who wish they were still teenage boys

Good 🧵as usual. You really should read it all though...

Three things made the US a rich and powerful nation: the rule of law, its science & innovation system, and openness to foreign talent. Remarkable how Trump has taken a sledgehammer to all three. No enemy of this country could do more.

Tired of 'what?' Too many, too much

What?

What?

Let’s demand more courage and leadership from those who… lead www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Twitter failed. Facebook, Yammer, Jive. Instagram, Snapchat. Etc etc etc. Every damn one of these failed. The constant across all of them is *us*. This piece (I absolutely loved and agree w the point abt Mel Conway) is deep and well worth a slow, careful read 👇🏼 Bluesky will likely fail too

Action horror typing game where enemies have regexes above their head and you have to type something that matches them Is the horror from the enemies or the regex? Yes.

I've said it before, and I'll repeat it: The expulsion of expertise from government and academia during Mao's Cultural Revolution devastated China for decades, particularly in science and technology. That profound harm led the country to take education as seriously as it does today. wapo.st/3YTivKW

In short, Starmer has taken a massive hit among Labour voters, for no gain elsewhere, while boosting Farage's popularity, including doubling his ceiling among Labour voters. I.e., the political scientists were right, Morgan McSweeney was horrendously wrong.

The idea that if something does not work for you, then it must be wrong for everyone, baffles me. I have seen so many articles that claim they know best because their team did not succeed. There is a reason why the most uttered answer by a consultant is "it depends".

Sure, AI may be an environmental disaster and produce mid outcomes in cases where it doesn't straight up lie, but at least it's extremely unprofitable.

Everyone in the past was neurotypical, which is how we got things like this single-author, eight-volume encyclopedia of ferns