McCormick, who Zuck noted would be focusing much of her energy on “partnering with governments and sovereigns to build, deploy, invest in, and finance Meta’s infrastructure.”

Meta last week signed three new long-term contracts with TerraPower, Oklo, and Vistra for nuclear energy. Combined with the company’s existing commitments with Constellation Energy, the Social Network has now contracted for roughly 6.6 gigawatts of atomic power

It’s all just so soul crushingly in the open and shameless

Ah, the good ol’ revolving door politics

More eyes in the sky. It seems like even pigeons aren’t save from being replaced by technology…

I would suspect it expects to get nectar, only to be brutally violated in the process

Couldn’t agree more

Honestly, the tech seems quite impressive. But I wouldn’t touch Amazon-backed smart glasses, which “could also provide health insights, such as detecting dry eyes or monitoring posture”, with a ten-foot pole; especially when there’s also entirely passive bifocals and progressives.

India proposes requiring smartphone makers to share source code with the government and make several software changes as part of a raft of security measures.

How does that sound promising at all? Especially when initiated by a government, previously having attempted to enforce government spyware, to be installed on all consumer smartphones. The following excerpts are from India’s proposed phone security rules that are worrying tech firms

Devices must store security audit logs, including app installations and login attempts, for 12 months.

Phones must periodically scan for malware and identify potentially harmful applications.

Defined to be potentially harmful by who? Right.

Phone makers must notify a government organisation before releasing any major updates or security patches.

We cannot approve of the security patch just yet, as we must first extensively exploit the vulnerability…

Devices must detect if phones have been rooted or “jailbroken”, where users bypass built-in security restrictions, and display continuous warning banners to recommend corrective measures.

Phones must permanently block installation of older software versions, even if officially signed by the manufacturer, to prevent security downgrades.

A large stone on a ramp, kept from rolling by a wedge, to be pushed out of position, by use of mechanical advantage through a lever, seems quite doable to me. You could even utilize a smaller initial stone to kick the wedge withholding a larger stone.

So with a healthy amount of skepticism? I agree, but would argue this extends to “reliable” sources too. Just because an author has established a trustworthy track record for themselves, doesn’t mean one should become less critical of future writings.

It becomes more apparent to me everyday, we might be headed towards a society, dynamically managed by digital systems; a “smart society”, or rather a Society-as-a-Service. This seems to be the logical conclusion, if you continue the line of “smart buildings” being part of “smart cities”. With use of IoT sensors and unified digital platforms, data is continuously being gathered on the population, to be analyzed, and its extractions stored indefinitely (in pseudonymized form) by the many data centers, currently being constructed. This data is then used to dynamically adapt the system, to replace the “inefficient” democratic process and public services as a whole. Of course the open-source (too optimistic?) model used, is free of any bias; however nobody has access to the resources required to verify the claim. But given big-tech, historically never having shown any signs of tyranny, a utopian outcome can safely be assumed… Or I might simply just be a nut, with a brain making nonsensical connections, which have no basis in reality.

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I don’t turn my face towards houses while I’m walking if I notice a doorbell camera

I do that haha… In all seriousness, I’ve recently quit my job as mailman, in part because of this. Year after year I saw the number of doorbell cameras increase, and so grew my discomfort of my job requiring me to expose myself, to these privacy-hostile situations. The worst case scenarios were semi-detached houses: since the doors to the paired addresses are right beside another. Between the entries there’s often (decorative) separation, requiring some acrobatics to shortcut to the next address. If the second address would have a doorbell camera, while requiring me to sidestep between the obstructions, I could either: A) face the door and have my face right up to the camera, or B) turn my back to it and spin back into position. I did the latter, and I HATED having to adapt my seemingly simple job to this extend, just to protect my dignity.

The Netherlands technically requires a sign which indicates camera surveillance, besides having to direct cameras in such a way that they cannot capture the public sphere. But have a guess at how much enforcement there is in this regard…

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Interesting concept. If Microsoft were to implement this, one would have to perform a thousand ‘heavy block’ finger pushups, if the user dares to delete persistent bloatware; just for the data to slip out of their hands, and having to do it all over.

So where does the excrement go, on the lid?

“Draft One”? More like “First Draft”

Optimus will ultimately be better than the best human surgeon with a level of precision that is impossible — that is beyond human…

Ever heard of robot-assisted surgery?

People always talked about eliminating poverty, but actually Optimus will actually eliminate poverty.

The wealth gap wouldn’t contribute to the problem of course, buy my solution instead to widen it some more… actually

I’ve reduced it from 9,000 heads to about 5,000 because I need less heads

I be damned, a man wanting less head…

They work hard 24 by 7, you don’t have to pay ’em, and they don’t need any lunch, and they don’t have any healthcare benefits, so they’re very affordable and that really complements our workforce

Why did we ever do away with slaves, am I right?

There’ll be ups and down. This is a revolution. Some people can get their heads cut off.

Friendly reminder: you might want to switch teams, when talking about cutting heads off, in relation to a revolution…

And regardless, these are all really just moments in time. The last week is a moment in time, too

Tech CEO’s in the shower when they see bubbles popping…

Maybe that’s exactly why some of them feel the urge to correct multilinguist haha

Decent article. Governments, neglecting regulation of platform design and provision of digital literacy programs, uphold conditions in which problems can only be exacerbated: legitimizing studies, often financed by interest groups, providing unnuanced headline statistics, which increase the likelihood of citation by sensationalist mass media; ultimately manufacturing consensus on increased government control, among the largely digitally illiterate public.

Given that platforms, like Facebook and YouTube, have been experimenting with both identity and age verification, well before being obligated to, suggests a self-serving interest in, or at least anticipation for these technically challenging regulations. Like the article, I fear minors to migrate to alt-tech platforms instead; leading governments to indiscriminatory mandate the same for these, for which they do not have the resources to comply: killing big-tech’s (future) competitors.

I’m of the opinion that in an alarmingly digitized society, intensified during the COVID pandemic, minors should also be able to participate in it. And if we’ve established, minors can no longer responsibly coexist alongside adults on the internet, perhaps we should create a (hardware) platform specifically for minors. Have children identify themselves to prove they’re young enough to enter, rather than having to prove the contrary: requiring EVERY internet user, to supply additional personally identifiable information.

Although there’s unmistakably reason for concern, I’d argue if we continue this trend long enough, we’ll end up with an effective safety-tyranny.

Ah, indeed. Must’ve read over it