lauren

lauren, 18 hours ago to random

Forry Ackerman once described to me his relationship with "Plan 9 From Outer Space" creator Ed Wood, Jr. as having once been his "il-literary agent".

lauren, 19 hours ago to random

"There's a Siamese cat on my lap and I can't get up!"

lauren, 20 hours ago to random

Stop wasting time on this Alito flag stuff:

1. It's not illegal to fly those flags the way they were flown.
2. He's not going to recuse himself.
3. There's nothing we can do about (2).

Keep your eye on the ball and move on.

lauren, 23 hours ago to random

BREAKING: Nikki Haley says she's gonna vote for the guy who paid off a porn star and said he'd be a dictator on Day 1. She knows which side of the MAGA bread is buttered for her.

lauren, 23 hours ago to random

T-Mobile is raising prices on "old" plans.

lauren, 1 day ago to random

Thought for the Day: The way things are going, AI is going to be using even more electricity than cryptocurrencies, and be even more damaging to society. Impressive. Most impressive.

lauren, 1 day ago to Youtube

I now have over 10,000 videos on my primary Favorites playlists on #YouTube. When you exceed 5000 videos on a playlist, YouTube unhelpfully just says "Something went wrong." At which point a few minutes ago I created 0-Favorites 3 (many of you will already know why I have the "0-" on there). If you think 10,000 videos is a lot, keep in mind those are just my main Favorites. My YouTube History of all videos watched is, uh, somewhat longer. Yeah.

lauren, 1 day ago to random

It's been noted that currently the "Windows Recall" system has specific, rather high-end hardware requirements (including recent processor, specific model device, etc.). However, it's clear that as new hardware arrives in the marketplace over time, more and more units in the field will be configured by Microsoft to have this system enabled. I would also not be at all surprised if MS deploys more limited versions of this same concept to less powerful hardware. Remember, this is only the beginning.

dmandl, 1 day ago to random

East New York.

lauren, 1 day ago to random

Lawmakers say Section 230 repeal will protect children--opponents predict chaos

"Chaos" is putting it lightly. Disastrous is more like it. -L

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/05/lawmakers-say-section-230-repeal-will-protect-children-opponents-predict-chaos/

lauren, 1 day ago to random

Microsoft being investigated over new 'Recall' AI feature that tracks your every PC move.

The first of many investigations into this horror show, one hopes! -L

https://mashable.com/article/microsoft-recall-ai-feature-uk-investigation

lauren, 1 day ago (edited 2 hours ago) to Amazon

Word is that #Amazon wants to charge $10-$20/month for an "AI Enhanced" version of Alexa. This would reportedly not be included in Amazon Prime. Unclear if they would keep the basic Alexa free. So ... how much would you be willing to pay a month for ANY version of Alexa or Google Home?

lauren, 1 day ago to random

All too often I see techies (and clearly I qualify as a techie) who don't seem to give a damn about non-techie users of these systems. So long as there's some techie workaround for privacy-invasive systems ("oh yeah, do this to the URL -- run this extension, do this and that") they don't seem to be concerned at all that the vast majority of people just use systems in their default states and are burned every day by these systems. I've seen this attitude by so many techies my entire career, and if anything it's worse now. This is, by the way, where the term "lusers" for users (commonly heard in the tech community) came from. I find this attitude by this segment of techies to be disgraceful.

lauren, 1 day ago (edited 1 day ago) to random

***** The Meeting *****

It was an unprecedented meeting. SPECTRE, THRUSH, KAOS, Soylent, Tyrell, Omni, and at least a hundred more -- the list of organizations and firms in attendance seemed nearly endless.

There was but one topic on the agenda. A proposal by their newest member -- Microsoft -- to embed a super power spy system into every Windows users' PC.

"We call it Windows Recall. We enable it by default, and every five seconds it takes a screenshot of what the user is doing, and keeps it for months or years!"

"Won't people use that to copy movies?"

"Oh no, that we'll block!"

"Very wise."

The discussions went on for hours, reviewing the many ways that such a system could be used for evil by various authorities, governments, politicians, ransomware criminals, and many more.

The time came for the vote.

To the shock of Microsoft's representative, their plan was voted down unanimously.

"But why?" he protested. "We thought you of all people would embrace this system!"

In unison they shook their heads.

"Sorry, Satya. You're just too evil for us."