Update: 20260315 - Another proof of concept in the wild.
It seems like everybody else is either saying that LLM technology is either true artificial intelligence and we should all bow down to it (it is not, and fuck that noise) and we'd best get used to it, or that it's going to destroy everything and we'd best get used to it (it's not but some mornings it feels that way). Plenty of people with more going on than I do have litigated this to hell and back, marketing companies are doing marketing company things, and frankly I don't care to …
I don't think I need to recapitulate everything that's happened in the last week. There's little point because you've heard about it, and either you're okay with it (in which case, please fuck off into the nearest black hole ASAP) or you're not. It is a truism that Those Fucking People on board with SatsumaHarkonnen always accuse everybody else of what they're doing (or about to do), just like your classic school bully. Specifically, That Kid that everybody knew had something way the hell wrong with him that nobody ever did anything about.
I try very hard not to pay too much attention to mercury in retrograde, mostly because I think it's a bad idea to name names too often because Things tend to hear them.
Who am I kidding. I have a calendar that charts mercury in retrograde out to 2030.ev that warns me ahead of time. I just wish I could get the odd warning of what might be coming down the line.
I've been using Android phones for probably ten years now. Not because I have any particular loyalty to Google or the platform, but just because I can afford the phones. The last time I tried to text on a candybar phone using T9 I about went out of my mind because it was so different from what I'd been using for years. Additionally, my fingertips are just too damned big to use that form factor of keypad reliably anymore. I don't have any particular beef against Apple and the iDoohickey product lines, I just can't particularly afford them. I can …
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, the worst year in a long, long while was capped off by discovering that my car had been wrecked and towed without my knowing about it. I finally got the pictures I took at the junkyard up for the horror and edification of all and sundry. Long story short, my car was indeed totalled, undrivable, time for an insurance payout. As usual, Captain Corner Case strikes again and everything was way the hell more difficult than it ever really needed to be. Where should I start?
Note the first: I started working on this article last week, but didn't post it until now because I wanted to let all of the (usually astoundingly bad) hot takes die down. While I realize that the Internet has given everyone an attention span rivalled only by the lifespan of the adult mayfly, I think it might be useful to have something laying around that can be pointed to later if need be.
Note the second: A reminder that I do not speak from an official position. I do not speak for or represent my employers, past, present, or future …
Lizardman's Constant - A rough heuristic of the population of people who troll data collection polls. Comes from asking the question "Do you believe that the President is a shape-shifting lizard person?" and consistently getting a roughly 4.5% "yes" response.
From time to time I carp about how generally lousy our bandwidth is out here. Verizon (our CLEC in the Bay Area) has all but given up on maintaining their infrastructure out here, aside from the bare minimum to keep the copper from turning to verdigris. They gave up on deploying fiber some years ago (local mirror) some years ago, and from the poking around I've done on their side of the fence, their general stance in the Bay Area appears to be "Get everyone on celllar so we can ignore …
Platypus truther - noun - Someone who doggedly, ruthlessly, and almost to the exclusion of anything else (including good sense) espouses, defends, and picks fights over a position, idea, or hypothesis that is completely and totally around the bend. Even taking into account the context of this person's other activities (social media history, books written, and so forth) it makes absolutely no sense why they would claim to believe such a thing, let alone fight with people over it. There is absolutely no way of telling if they're communicating in good faith or not. It could be trolling, it might be absurdist …
Sometimes, very occasionally, when using the Lastpass plugin with Google Chrome, you may find that Lastpass will start acting wonky. Specifically, if you've had Chrome running for a couple of days, you will notice that Lastpass has logged you out, even if you're in an Incognito Window. When clicking on the browser plugin's icon, you will be able to log into it as usual; multifactor authentication will similiarly work as expected. If you wait a few seconds, the plugin's icon will go dark again. If you're quick and drop into "My Vault," you'll see that screen for a second or …
