Jason Kottke's weblog, home of fine hypertext products since 1998
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Come on everyone, we’re going to Cursor Camp!
The Angine de Poitrine Argument for UBI. “If universal basic income enables even one more Einstein to become Einstein over the course of the next century, it will have paid for itself a thousand times over.”
Who Are the Unexpected Friends in Your Life? “Little did I know that I would find this kind of friendship with my 70-something neighbor, Jesse.”
“There is a feeling I search for: being in good hands. It is the feeling I look to give and the feeling I look to receive. I know I am in good hands when I sense a cohesive point of view expressed with attention to detail.”
“Trump did not cause the attempts on his life. But it would be dishonest to deny that he is responsible for shaping the environment in which we live — for creating an atmosphere in which these kinds of events are more likely.”
On May 22, Boards of Canada is doing a handful of listening parties around the world (NYC, Tokyo, London, etc.) for their new album. “Tickets live Friday 1 May. Sign up for access by Thursday 30 April, 15:00 BST.”
Holy moly, DJ Shadow is doing a 30th anniversary tour for Endtroducing… Starts Sept 24 in San Diego. Endtroducing… is one of my all-time favorite albums.
I Bought Friendster for $30k — Here’s What I’m Doing With It. “I created an iOS app for Friendster, and I made it so that in order to connect with someone as a friend, you have to actually tap phones together in real life.”
A Georgia teen diagnosed with a rare cancer used his Make-A-Wish gift to help the homeless in his community. “I got out of my version of heck, and I want to help others who are in a similar situation, their own version.”
The intelligence of LLMs is “a function of the social complexity of the civilization whose language it digested”, and their widespread use will lead to a thinning of that complexity, “undermining the conditions for its own advancement”. (And ours.)
Teaser trailer for season four of Ted Lasso. Looks like he & Coach Beard are back in the UK to coach AFC Richmond’s women’s team. Premieres Aug 5 on Apple TV.
This is interesting: Talkie is a vintage LLM, trained on “historical pre-1931 English text”. “The training data for the base model is entirely out of copyright (the USA copyright cutoff date is currently January 1, 1931).”
Listen, sometimes you just want to watch things blow up. But safely and without consequence (although Arnold Schwarzenegger did somehow become the governor of California). So, can I interest you in three minutes of movie explosions? The 80s and 90s were really a golden age for kick-ass movie explosions. (via @tvaziri.com)
“A half-century after it was published, The Soul of a New Machine does a better job challenging AI hype than most current criticism.” I thought something similarly (about the web) when I read Kidder’s book 25 years ago, during the aftermath of the dot com bust.
Do I Belong in Tech Anymore? “Why am I here? Does any of this work actually matter? And if I stop caring about the quality of my work… will anyone notice?”
“British energy major BP on Tuesday reported that first-quarter profits more than doubled from a year ago, following a surge in oil and gas prices driven by the Middle East conflict.” Oh, surprise surprise.
Boots Riley made his directorial debut with the totally weirdo (complimentary) movie Sorry to Bother You in 2018. He’s been quiet since then, but he’s back with a new comedy, I Love Boosters. This looks great. From a review on Letterboxd:
Maximalist social commentary delivered with anime action and colourful high strangeness. Did it kind of fall off the rails towards the end? Absolutely. Was it fun as fuck and creative right to the end? You best believe it. God bless the shoplifters. I got major Everything Everywhere All At Once vibes from this…
The film debuted at SXSW in March and is opening in theaters on May 22.
Tags: Boots Riley · I Love Boosters · movies · trailers · video
On the Propaganda of Early Nazism, and How We See it in America Today. “Unlike other political systems, fascism was not meant to be intellectualized or discussed; it was meant to be experienced.”
The Era of AI Malaise. “The AI has learned to code. The AI is building itself. Will I have a job tomorrow? Will the market crash? Why does OpenAI need a bunker? Do I need a bunker? Maybe I should have a bunker.”
It’s the Age of Electricity and America Isn’t Ready. “Our grid is too old and our supply of electricity too small. If we don’t meet this moment, we will face an impoverished future of more expensive, less reliable energy, and slower economic growth.”
Elizabeth Kolbert’s profile of EPA head Lee Zeldin. “In a little more than a year, Zeldin has transformed the E.P.A. from an agency devoted to protecting human health and the environment into one that, more or less openly, sides with polluters.”
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò on magical thinking and elite impunity. “We are ruled by a class of people who seem either to believe or presume that war, disease, and apocalyptic destruction are things that will only ever happen to poorer and browner people.”
Livestream of the Big Bear bald eagle nest (perched 145 feet up in a pine tree) with two fuzzy bald eagle chicks that hatched 3 weeks ago.
Presidents Can Be Impeached Because Benjamin Franklin Thought It Was Better Than Assassination. “The Constitution’s impeachment procedures make the removal of the chief magistrate less violent, less disruptive, and less error-prone than assassination.”
