When I was younger I remember understanding that murderous lunacy was mostly frowned upon, most all the time, and when it happened it was quite exceptional. Lately I’ve noticed, not only has this habit of violent abandon persisted, but seems to have actually gained in popularity. In my memory, rogue statesmen and stateswomen, cad soldiers, criminals, spies, these were known to on occasion succumb to the jingles of the murder carnival.
Quote from Finite and Infinite Games which struck as wisdom and stuck with me since:
To be prepared against surprise is to be trained.
To be prepared for surprise is to be educated.
— James Carse
It was pilot “error”, right? He watched Maverick…got over excited.
Spent the day hanging with ChatGPT; what an amiable, well informed idiot.
Especially satisfying is the passage starting at 3:48 or so. She holds a very long note over what I can only describe as intense humming. :-) Never fails to straighten my spine.
Hey, #chatbot dummies, here’s some free historical training material.
Check the record on Eliza, the Eliza effect, and J. Weizenbaum.
“I had not realized … that extremely short exposures to a relatively simple computer program could induce powerful delusional thinking in quite normal people.” — J. Weizenbaum
Exploding Cigars? Yeah, it was funny, y’know? Light your cigar, then — bang — it explodes! Funny right?
...because maybe somebody does read this, because maybe ON the OFF chance that somebody does read this, and perhaps thinks if I’m criticizing software in some sort of abstract way it must actually be about the platform I am posting my criticisms on, so perhaps Twitter, or where I secretly really hang out, on micro.blog. Well, it is not. I like twitter for what it is, mostly, and micro.blog is groovy, does just what it does without fuss.
Hey, #cybersecuritypros the only question you must have a yes answer to: When any of your systems do something you either did not ask for, or are surprised by, can you reach the on/off switch? Astounding how many times * scenarios I hear “I didn’t know you could turn it off.”
Feudal Quotes
They’re reading? So what? What the fuck do we care that they’re reading? Look at us. Look at this sword—look at this fucking castle! What are they gonna do, throw books at us?