gerikson

I wonder if the US is closing in on the “imprison inconvenient billionaires for tax evasion” stage of managed democracy

there's no anime avatar, how do we know it's really Elon?

This post is gold.

"Mr. Burns" -- too on the nose. Try better, scriptwriters.

Using Runaway’s AI technology, the studio can avoid a pricy film shoot that would cost millions and take a few days and use AI to create the shot for about $10,000.

"I have been in this business long enough to become vice chairman. What is this "CGI" you speak of?"

(not sure you can get that sort of shot for less than $10K but you don't have to literally go out an shoot on film/digital actors and shit)

This piece, although in a way defeatist, also gives me hope because there's at least one other person who has the same general feeling about LLMs that I do, and is a better writer.

https://blog.glyph.im/2025/06/i-think-im-done-thinking-about-genai-for-now.html

I'm gonna think that the latest drumbeat of pro-LLM posts (tpacek's screed, this excrescense) is a last gasp of a system running in midair like the Coyote, before the VC money dries up.

Lobsters went down a VC financing rabbit hole the other day (thanks to me and @dgerard) and a user horked up this absolutely bonkers defense of OpenAI losing a galactic sum of money:

https://lobste.rs/s/wjb9ox/minio_removes_web_ui_features_from#c_rgatzz

(reproduced below in case it is removed in shame)

OpenAI is very different. They mainly lose money on ChatGPT, but it’s not really lost money, because they in turn accumulate fresh daha to further train their models. Data that none of their competitors have access to.

OpenAI is also different because AI is a major geopolitical factor at the moment and unless you’ve been living in a cave lately, you must have noticed that geopolitics is much more important than money these days. ChatGPT is an incredible intelligence gathering channel and cutting access to AI APIs would make US sanctions hurt that much more. The only other country that can compete with US companies when it comes to bulk training data access is China, via their social media alternatives like TikTok and RedNote. You can imagine the geopolitical implications of that too.

Maybe... like I mentioned, Nokia's S60 application stack was a mess. The underlying phone software and platform might have been there, but the 3rd party ecosystem wasn't. This was a huge part of the success of the iPhone, that 3rd party developers had a stable platform to develop for, and a steady financial partner (Apple) paying them.

No offense against Nokia but I really don't think the company had the mentality to offer that.

Nokia had great hardware, but crappy software (and I say that as a heavy Series 60 user back in the day). In a parallel world, Windows Mobile could have ridden that hardware to a glorious future, but it was transparent that Elop's acquisition was just part of a Byzantine internal Microsoft play.

Good luck! I'm rooting for you.

I hate I'm so terminally online I found out about the rumor that Musk and Stephen Miller's wife are bumping uglies through a horrorfic parody account

https://mastodon.social/@bitterkarella@sfba.social/114593332907413196

My pocket take: the chickens from 45 years of effective neoliberalism coming home to roost, coupled with Brexit hangover, has led the reactionary elements of UK society to retreat to rancid culture war positions

why is robot lady in queue with springy legs so darn sexy

seriously though, good piece. Hopefully the fever breaks soon (yeah right)