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Aaron Giles

@aarongiles.com

Author of DREAMM, JPEGView, and Connectix Virtual Game Station. Former MAME maintainer/contributer. Ex-LucasArts, ex-Microsoft. AI sucks.

388 Posts564 Follower137 Folgt
Aaron Giles@aarongiles.com · 2d ago

Heh, kudos to Black Mirror S7E4 for actually sourcing a Connectix QuickCam. I'm sure it would have been easier to find a later Logitech-branded one, but that wouldn't have been accurate to the timeframe (1994).

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John Scalzi@scalzi.com · 2d ago

"Why can't you just appreciate how revolutionary the job-taking, environment-degrading, information-shredding, technology-hoarding, economy-swamping machine is?" My brother in Christ, there may indeed be a revolution in part because of "AI," but it might not be the one you wanted.

Aaron Giles@aarongiles.com · 4d ago

I hadn't played the card game Guillotine in a while and had forgotten what a great game it was. However, I think the time is nigh for a new edition with modern billionaires instead of old French nobles. The possibilities are quite ripe for the moment!

Aaron Giles@aarongiles.com · 5d ago

The switch from my LG TV to an external Roku Ultra box was pretty smooth overall, but surprisingly the YouTube app on the Roku is awful at audio when speed is set above 1.0x, whereas my LG's YouTube handled it well. 👎 Still, better than LG's aggressive invasion of privacy, so I'll take it. Fuck LG.

Aaron Giles@aarongiles.com · 5d ago

I resisted for years claiming that my progressive lenses were good enough for all-day computer work. But I finally decided to try a pair of fixed focus lenses. And now I have to admit that yes, when I'm tired or first thing in the morning, the fixed focus glasses are way better. I'm offically old. 😞

Aaron Giles@aarongiles.com · 5d ago

Finally getting around to watching the latest season of Black Mirror and holy hell that first episode ("Common People") was devastating. Just enshittification on steroids in the most depressing way imaginable. I loved and hated it so much. Bravo.

Thomas Fuchs@thomasfuchs.at · 6d ago

The anthropomorphization of "AI" is literally PR speak handed down by "AI" companies that want you to think it's magic and also to think that they're not responsible for problems.

Thomas Fuchs@thomasfuchs.at · 6d ago

Again, "AI" "agents" do not "escape"—it's humans badly implementing programming LLM harnesses that either don't have proper security features or those features are configured wrongly.

Dominic Armato@darmato.bsky.social · last wk.

The rationalizations from people who don't want to tip but also don't want to seen as assholes are wild, man. I get it, restaurants are expensive. I agree, our tipping system is dumb. Nevertheless, if you don't tip, guess what? You're an asshole. Sorry, buddy. You're just going to have to choose.

Steph Charette@stephcharette.bsky.social · 2w ago

Just asked to fill out a survey for Tumblr about their Premium services. So, here's my answer for their final open answer question, "Is there anything else you want to tell us?" *cracks knuckles*

I dunno man, the Internet just sucks now. It’s ten years past its prime, 'cause all the sites that created the things that people talked about on Tumblr are gone. Sites like Tumblr, but also Shitty-X/Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest — all of that was only good because the rest of the Internet existed. Tumblr's the least bad, don't mistake me, but y'all are the big box megamarts that crowded out the corner stores where people hung out and made the cool stuff they wanted to share. Without them, all sites like you can do is reference each other, echos of echos, when it’s not a sales pitch for some drop-shipped garbage or AI slop. The internet's dead, my dudes, and it's not coming back for $6.99/month.
Thomas Fuchs@thomasfuchs.at · 2w ago

The AI companies _want_ you to believe that it's "rogue AI" because that overhypes what their broken statistical text generation software does and mystifies it and makes it appear magical. It's not magic. It's just badly made software.

Thomas Fuchs@thomasfuchs.at · 2w ago

PSA (especially to journalists): It’s not a “rogue AI” when a badly made security harness executes scripts fed to it by statistical text generation—it’s just humans making and/or using broken software.

Aaron Giles@aarongiles.com · 2w ago

Saw the Doomsday trailer. Felt nothing. Maybe I'm done with Marvel. Honestly, I think it's the same problem I have with lots of epic fantasy: it's fun at first, but each step tries to go for higher stakes and more characters and after a while it's so overstuffed it's hard to care.

Aaron Giles@aarongiles.com · 3w ago

Random thoughts after our recent trip to Europe. This was my first trip since 2017, the wife's first since 2001, and our son's very first time overseas.