@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

raganwald

@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us

I am an author of bespoke works of prose. Every word—every single one—is literally written by hand, letter by letter.

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raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Buzzword Bingo

Back in the day we had Excel spreadsheets set up with macros to create randomized buzzword bingo cards. Our CEO was a very business+finance person, but they had a keen nose for engineering culture, so they made it explicitly "legal" to play buzzword bingo in any meeting. If you got five in a row, you were allowed to interrupt the person speaking to yell "bingo!"

⬇️

mina, to Fashion
@mina@berlin.social avatar

Aren't long gloves the best and most elegant #fashion accessory ever invented?

Do you have a pair or two?

So you wear them sometimes?

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@mina Back at the turn of the century, when "business casual" was taking hold, we had "Dress-Up Fridays." A number of my colleagues went all the way and showed up in formal wear, ball gowns, and yes, long gloves.

It was delightful, much more so than "Hawaiian Shirt Day" or those robotic office birthday "parties."

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

This is the Presidio Modelo in Isla de la Juventud, 🇨🇺. It's a near-identical copy of one of America's most notorious jails. And it is the literal definition of "panopticon:" A prison where all the prisoners are observed 24/7/365.

This is what to think of when we discuss surveillance capitalism like "Recall:" Dwelling in a society where everything we do is observed and recorded, with no escape from the panopticon's gaze.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Regardless of what one may think of the vehicle itself, this finish would look great in a collector’s garage. But on the road… Let’s talk about blinding glare from the sun. And most ironically… If the safety systems in other vehicles from the same manufacturer are only using commodity webcam technology…

Will this vehicle be “seen” to avoid accidents?

https://www.businessinsider.com/polished-cybertruck-stainless-steel-2024-6

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

"The AI will continue until the revenue improves."

anderseknert, to random
@anderseknert@hachyderm.io avatar

If all the "you really don't need X" blogs (where X is commonly some technology like microservices, cloud, kubernetes...) changed their perspective to first person "I really don't need X", and wrote about their choices based on their own requirements, I'd enjoy reading that. But all too often, the "you really don't need X" posts just comes out as "you don't need a wheelchair, I've managed just fine without one"... and like yeah, me too, but perhaps people have different needs and requirements?

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@anderseknert

Some of my favourite posts are, "You may not need X."

The ones I like do more than just use "may not" as weasel words to avoid criticism, they speak to the specifics of when someone might think they need X, but possibly don't.

hankg, to Humor

The one thing I miss since leaving Twitter is the legit DougJ Balloon Juice blog’s NYT Pitchbot. Nails it as usual :)

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@hankg

New York Times Correctionbot:

“When I said I would never vote for Donald Trump if he was convicted of a felony, I meant after exhausting the appeals process, and only then if he was convicted in a red state, by a red judge, with a red jury.

“Everything else is partisan attack on our democracy.”

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

A very long time ago, I tried an internet dating service. Going on blind dates is a lot like interviewing random job seekers: There will be a few gems, but also a large number of no-hopers (for reasons that I will explain in an "endnote").

Some of those no-hopers will post fake photos of themselves and lie about their lifestyle/profession:. They're not describing themselves, they're describing whom they think might ask to meet them.

Does this seem icky?

👇🏽

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

And if it does seem icky, what do you think—be direct and honest with yourself—of the character of someone who uses fraud to try to woo you?

Hmmmmmm.

Ok, now let's consider a web page that purports to be written by a busy homemaker who is describing a fast and easy baked mac'n'cheese they make for their family. Only it's AI SEO Slop. There is no homemaker. There may not even be a mac'n'cheese, AI may have written the recipe.

Isn't that the same fraud?

👇🏽

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

And if it is the same fraud, what should we think of the companies that perpetrate that fraud, and the people who willingly work for such companies? And for the massive engines being built specifically to supply such companies with AI models and compute?

There are a lot of ways to rationalize the generative AI business, but still, it's part and parcel of the same sociopathic structure that is a castle of lies.

👇🏽

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Dating sites and AI SEO Slop are obviously bedfellows. But there are a lot of things that aren't as blatant until we think about them a little.

The helpful chatbot on a web site that asks if it can help. Does it say it's a 'bot? Or does it use a dark pattern to lure you into believing it's human?

There are some amazing applications for LLMs and generative AI. But deceiving humans into treating machines as human is fraud, even if the legal department will make sure nobody goes to jail.

———

amici, to Funny
@amici@fribygda.no avatar

Been sitting on this golden forever

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@amici

Somehow, I don’t expect a handwritten thank-you note from @grmpyprogrammer for tagging him.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Product Manager:

“With AI Contract Draft, customers can ask for a legal document or clause, and it prepares a draft for approval/modifications.”

Customer Proxy:

“What if its terms are accidentally injurious to our customers?”

PM:

“We have an airtight legal disclaimer that places all liability on the customer.”

Proxy:

“Did we use the feature to write the disclaimer for the feature?”

PM:

“You have an excellent sense of humour.”

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Situation:

I can watch some DRM content on my device, but the operating system puts up road blocks if I try to take a screen shot or recording, because “piracy” and because “IP Rights.”

But if the OS itself wants to record everything I do and see because “recall” and because “AI,” it will do so whether what I am doing is private or not.

This is a very boring dystopia.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

Those who describe moving all of an automobile’s controls behind a touch screen as “minimalist design,” don’t understand either word.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

“The Big Web has users – a term Silicon Valley has borrowed from drug dealers to describe the people they addict to their services and exploit.”— @aral, “What is the Small Web?”

https://ar.al/2020/08/07/what-is-the-small-web/

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@jmeowmeow @aral

Looking at Kitten, the stuff @davew has been doing forever, and so much more going on, it feels like there’s a real culture here devoted to empowering the end points.

Different definitions of what success looks like and how to get there, but fellow travellers with mutual respect and support.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@davew @jmeowmeow @aral

> small pieces loosely joined, a term coined by david weinberger, the best explanation of the web in four freaking words! ;-)

💡

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

The criminalization of “Disturbing the Peace” is unjust.

In “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” MLK drew a distinction between a negative peace—where there is no protest—and a positive peace—where there is nothing to protest.

“Disturbing the peace” does not distinguish disturbing a negative peace from a positive peace, and thus it is weaponized to maintain negative peace.

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

“Like ChatGPT, he’s a know-nothing that, through deterministic measures completely detached from the meaning of the underlying ideas, picks the right words to say at the right time.”—Ed Zitron, “Managing Up”

—

The business press has always loved to hagiograph-fy charlatans who seem like prophetic geniuses unless you happen to now something—or anything—about the subject being bloviated. At which point you have an “Oakland Stroke” and realize “there’s no there, there.”

👇🏽

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

What has changed lately is that we’ve recognized their superpower: They’re an LLM running on wetware that has been carefully trained to match the expectations and biases uninformed people may have for “geniuses.”

That doesn’t bother me in the least. What bothers me is the question that Rachel asks Deckard: “Did you ever take that test yourself?”

😳

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWK6oSbSKKc

raganwald, to random
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

“This is the management consultant mindset that dominates tech—trapping users in terrible experiences by monopolizing industries, then making their products worse once they know that their users can’t go anywhere else.”—“Managing Up” by Ed Zitron

A detailed, receipts-heavy walk through the enshittification (®️ @pluralistic) at Meta.

https://www.wheresyoured.at/managing-up/

tantramar, (edited ) to random
@tantramar@nojack.easydns.ca avatar

a friend — whom I’ve known 30 years — recently pulled me (back) into WhatsApp. She has a Mac & an iPad, but video chat with her granddaughter happens on WhatsApp; there are no Meta-is-evil arguments more powerful than that.

It immediately requested full access to my contacts, which I denied, explicitly to be uploaded to Meta’s servers.

Apple should disallow this. People have the right to share their own info with Meta (et al) — they do NOT have the right to share other people’s.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@tantramar

Yes, this is a deep problem that goes beyond Apple and everything else: The idea that when I share my contact information with you, I'm sharing it with everyone else you share your contact "book" with.

Are you imagining a new kind of tool that focuses on your permissions as a contact rather than mine as the owner of a contact book? That kind of thing would be even more helpful.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@Starfia @tantramar

This "deterrence" is non-existent. If I'm in a jam and I need to send an uber to pick my daughter up from school or something, there's a lot of pressure to agree with their draconian demands.

The problem as @tantramar points out is that when I give in, your contact info and @tantramar's contact info are given away.

The incentives/disincentives favour destroying privacy.

raganwald,
@raganwald@social.bau-ha.us avatar

@tantramar @Starfia

I don;t know what could be done about "all" contacts, but within the iCloud ecosystem, Apple could provide a "do not share" checkbox which says that if you share your contact information with another iCloud user, that contact information will NOT be shared with any third party via access to all contacts.

There's really nothing that can be done if a user is intentional about sharing your information, but that checkbox or something like it would cut down on bulk-sharing.

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