@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

disappearinjon

@disappearinjon@wandering.shop

Writer, Shy Nerd. #ClarionWest 2016 aka #TeamArsenic. Bi. I probably talk a lot about food, music, technology, writing, and my #LungCancer. Codex, SFWA.

Stories out in Interzone, Underland Arcana, elsewhere. Forthcoming: Lightspeed, Analog, On Spec.

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

virtualbri, to Finance
@virtualbri@mastodon.online avatar

It's fun to blame Red Lobster going down because of all you can eat shrimp, but no one really emphasizes this bit:

"A private equity firm bought the chain ten years ago from Darden Restaurants.... The firm, Golden Gate Capital, funded the deal partly by selling Red Lobster's real estate.

That meant the chain had to start paying rent. That's now a major financial factor in Red Lobster's bankruptcy filing"

VC again leaving a trail of destruction behind them

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@virtualbri private equity isn’t the same as venture capital! It’s two different groups of smug billionaires pulling all the copper pipes out of the walls of capitalism! Two different business models with the same consequence! (Convergent evolution!)

disappearinjon, to random
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

Nearly panicked when the UPS package wasn’t at my front door after an email.

Then I looked at the photos and noticed it wasn’t my door.

Went up and down the block looking for a door that matched, no luck.

Turns out the package was at my back door. But it wasn’t a photo of my door!

And it wasn’t a photo of my package either: not a little cardboard box as in pic but a large floppy bag.

mishellbaker, to random
@mishellbaker@wandering.shop avatar

I saw someone here say "LLMs are coming to gmail so we should all get out" - can someone explain to me what this means? I don't really follow "AI" news as it bums me out and there's nothing I can do about it except choose not to use it when possible.

But they're saying it like it's a non-opt-outable security risk, and abandoning gmail at this point would be more stress than I can currently handle, so can someone knowledgeable straighten me out on this supposed security risk? Like I'm four.

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@mishellbaker LLM means “large language model” which basically means “more complicated next-word prediction engine.” The challenge is, to use them as assistants (the main use case anyone can name except spam) they need to integrate with other programs, and to control those programs as a user would.

Google is now offering a connection between their LLM and their office suite, including mail.

1/2

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@mishellbaker This post is claiming you can trick the LLM into controlling the mail program in ways that are bad for their users. I don’t know if it’s true, but it looks a lot like other attacks that do work.

Not sure if this answers your questions—happy to try again if this isn’t quite on-point!

2/2

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@mishellbaker if this one isn’t true, there’s going to be a similar one that is. There’s a real problem with this class of attacks that is completely unsolved.

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@mishellbaker if you were to migrate mail providers, you can take all your data with you. Not that it’s not a huge hassle, because it is!

If you choose to stay on Google you’ll want to disable whatever LLM slop you’re allowed, and hope for the best while waiting for the craze to blow over. (It’s too expensive for them to run this, so I presume they’ll remove it when it stops boosting their stock price.)

disappearinjon, to random
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

My photo.

DZGrizzle, to random
@DZGrizzle@mastodon.social avatar

From the Coaching Network

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@ParadeGrotesque @DZGrizzle IMO it’s deep, but it’s an American folk religion with some Christian symbols stapled to it. It’s not the same thing at all.

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@ParadeGrotesque @DZGrizzle I reject the notion that it’s my folk religion, thanks. I wasn’t using the term positively, and I agree about its fascist lean.

Its history goes back only 400 years or so, but it’s complicated and a web of relationships extending over generations so that meanings change through that network. For example, tracing the anti-alcohol and anti-dancing tenets of some sects are monograph-worthy subjects.

That’s a sort of depth.

disappearinjon, to Seattle
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

It used to be that I could always get at the come spring, and from multiple vendors. But sometime (when my kids were too young to appreciate them, so maybe 5-10 years ago?) they disappeared and haven’t come back.

Just no market for it? Or the land now taken up with more valuable crops?

Schnuckster, to random
@Schnuckster@beige.party avatar

Sorry to sound churlish, but anyone who voluntarily names himself 'the hardest geezer' is a tit, I don't care what they've done.

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@Schnuckster @Binder exception: a half-petrified D&D character.

disappearinjon, to random
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

If Corporate America was serious about return to office, they’d remodel with bidet toilet seats and stock better TP.

glennf, to random
@glennf@twit.social avatar

I-90 is closed over Lake Washington in Seattle as part of a one-day restriping project. We live near SR520, the other bridge over the lake, and traffic is backed up 1/2 mile to our cross street…and far beyond. Apparently, nobody is checking traffic cams/mapping programs or they would see it's like 90 minutes instead of the usual 20…

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@glennf we were surprised this morning on the weekly trip to Mercer island for swim lessons.

mishellbaker, (edited ) to random
@mishellbaker@wandering.shop avatar

Hello, I need a little jump start.
Please tell me something about your life today that is good, exciting, heartwarming, or funny.

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@mishellbaker My nine-year-old, who started playing electric guitar last summer and has written fan letters to Neil Young, Joan Jett, and Slash, was as happy on Thursday as the day she got her guitar because I got us tickets to see Slash.

Also she’s incredibly cheesed off at her older brother, who started playing bass two weeks ago and is already getting solos in their band. (There’s a shortage of bassists in the program, apparently, and his time playing cello has helped him along nicely.)

disappearinjon, to random
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

At her request, I’ve been making my daughter playlists of albums I think she should know.

Most of the time, I try to include a classic album, something from a woman who plays guitar, and something grunge, because we live in Seattle. I often try to make sure that the woman playing guitar is recent, or will switch grunge out for something current.

1/2

fraying, to random
@fraying@xoxo.zone avatar

So remember all the fedi-purists who cheered when Wordpress started federating? Wonder if the idea of fedi content getting sucked in via Wordpress and then sold to OpenAI without warning puts a damper on that enthusiasm.

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@fraying why would they bother with that rather than just running a Masto instance and slurping from that? Seems unnecessary if the goal is to pull in Fedi content and sell for AI.

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@fraying of course not. But in the absence of any indication that they’ll be selling federated content from not-their-own-users, worrying about it seems like an unnecessary distraction from what we know they ARE going to do.

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@fraying reference? The 404 article (above the loginwall) said that lists had been assembled, not that they’d been shared.

Regardless, I remain worried about what we know they’re doing or planning. I’m not sure “some unspecified amount of Fedi data is also going over” adds much to that already very high concern level.

slideruth, to random
@slideruth@social.seattle.wa.us avatar

Great time seeing @pluralistic and Neal Stephenson at @thirdplacebooks! NS said that generative AI would turn the internet into brown goo, that it was eating itself like a human centipede, and CD said "an inhuman centipede". Also CD: "I didn't see any substantive uses for blockchain, so enthusiasts would assume that I didn't understand the technology and try to explain it to me."

disappearinjon,
@disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

@slideruth @pluralistic @thirdplacebooks @Binder Not sure if I should be proud I got to “inhuman centipede” before Cory.

I doubt I’m the first, but I don’t see older on my Masto local search anyway: https://wandering.shop/@disappearinjon/110155211441808955

flockofnazguls, (edited ) to random
@flockofnazguls@mastodon.flockofnazguls.com avatar

deleted_by_author

    •
    disappearinjon,
    @disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

    @flockofnazguls Yggdrasil summer ‘93, from a genuine CD-ROM, not the (much later) CD-Rs.

    Binder, to random
    @Binder@petrous.vislae.town avatar

    Trending Now is a trailing indicator of relevance.

    disappearinjon,
    @disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

    @Binder is it an indicator, or an instigator, cutting conversations short by directing bystanders in their direction?

    disappearinjon, to random
    @disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

    Here begins one sick avenue…

    Daojoan, to random
    @Daojoan@mastodon.social avatar

    Apple notes, reminders and mail come free with your laptop and have 90% of the features you need. Don’t let anyone convince you that you have to be blowing money on fancy SaaS software to be a real writer.

    disappearinjon,
    @disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

    @Daojoan do they ship with Writers Block and despair as well? I’m hoping for a single package with ALL the essentials.

    Binder, to random
    @Binder@petrous.vislae.town avatar

    How come we keep making revolutionary discoveries but nothing changes

    disappearinjon,
    @disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

    @Binder remember the full meaning of revolution is a return to where you began.

    disappearinjon, to random
    @disappearinjon@wandering.shop avatar

    The bird feeders have had their monthly cleaning, the checkbook is balanced and the bills paid, the dishes have been done (twice). I've even done my daily puzzles. And now, at long last, I'll put some words down. When I'm done with that I might even get to read!

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