Max Kennerly sneers the New York Times:

This opinion piece, written by someone with no relevant expertise, cites two sources, both of them blogs by people who also have no relevant expertise, one of whom is employed by a sham think tank funded by the “Effective Altruism” propaganda network.

Truly embarrassing decision to publish it.

Do you feel it? Do you feel incredible? Do you feel hugely positive? Do you feel awesome

Yeah, but that’s just the cocaine

Gene Ray actually came to MIT in person. I knew the people who invited him. They had a history of… performance-art kind of stunts on the boundary of good taste? Like calling attention to an obscure discretionary fund by running for student government on a promise that they would use it to bribe everyone who voted for them. One of them taught me to pick locks during rush week.

And the Movement Skeptics of the aughts looked at Kurzweil’s singulatarianism and asked what he was smoking, while basically ignoring that the Holy Sequences existed. I should know, I was there.

Barbara Rosenblat’s recordings of the Amelia Peabody novels are fun.

Some of us figured it out after writing two novels with gender-flipped self-portraits as main characters, just as god intended

In local Boston-area sneering:

This is the map that City Councilors Miniard Culpepper (Roxbury) and Brian Worrell (Dorchester) used yesterday as part of their case to build an Orange Line extension down Blue Hill Avenue. As if we needed more proof that friends don’t let friends use generative AI. How many mistakes can you find?

“Arlington Heights” has materialized on the Commuter Rail line I took every day to Brandeis, North Station is no longer on the Green Line, Government Center is now the second Park Street, backup copies of State and DTX have appeared for good measure, Boylston and Arlington have departed for the realm of the A branch, along with the Braintree branch of the Red Line… I never knew the “what’s wrong with this picture” puzzles in the Sunday funnies would be such good training for evaluating computer technology.

Larry Sanger, who has spent decades concern-trolling Wikipedia to promote false balance in the name of “neutrality”, has finally pissed off enough editors there that the community has booted his ass.

Background:

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Larry_Sanger

Do we have to believe gamblers who say they’ve got a “system”?

If you switch to a new kind of tainted beef, that’s updating your prions

What’s a Dimes Square lady to do?!

I’m extraordinarily reluctant to take the guy’s description at face value. It seems ripe for that thing guys do where a crowd that’s 1/3 women becomes “mostly women” in their perception. But even taking it at face value, what the Hell, you know? He’s holding an event that self-selects for women who are vulnerable to predation and puts them in harm’s way. “Protip: to get more feminine energy at your events, advertise it to alcoholic women and hold it at a brewery!”

I haven’t bothered to examine the page history to see when the fucked content was actually introduced. I’m hoping that by posting about it, I can catch the attention of a particularly pedantic sex nerd who will be willing to fix it, for humanity’s sake. Let us not let the Adult Bookstore of Alexandria burn; rather, let us chronicle our times with our free hands

IS NOTHING SACRED?!

“It Is Trivially Easy to Use Reddit to Manipulate AI Search, Research Suggests”

https://www.404media.co/it-is-trivially-easy-to-use-reddit-to-manipulate-ai-search-research-suggests/

The preprint:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.24245

The most pedantic nerds on Earth (complimentary) have discovered that Grok leaks its prompts when slopping out Grokipedia pages. Examples:

• "The instructions say “You are an agent that writes the various article sections for an encyclopedia entry on Joseph Kanuku.”

• “[Note: Britannica is encyclopedia, but instructions say no Britannica. Wait, replace with another.]”

• “Wait, instructions say NEVER cite Wikipedia. Oops. Let me adjust.”

• “The instructions say prioritize peer reviewed, books, etc.”

• “Wait, but instructions say never cite social media, so omit that last part. Wait, adjust. Since Instagram is social media, omit that.”

• “Wait, instructions say avoid “References” as a section, but for completeness, I’ve omitted it from structure.)”

• “The guidelines say “Include any of the following where relevant: - Factual details…” under Missing Information or Knowledge Gaps Examples. And in format, it’s to list only critical issues or all missing info or knowledge gaps.”

Isn’t that the hat from the picture that Yudkowsky showed off to prove he wasn’t a cult leader? Are they trying to beat the cult allegations by ha ha jokingly wearing the same silly clothes as their founder?

Please enjoy this comment saying “Nate Silver is a major proponent of AI assisted writing” like that’s a good thing, and the reply that argues against slop from the weird premise that enjoying one’s own writing process is bad.

owning us with hats and logic

A lolsob moment:

When the CEO was questioned about “when the $5 Uber rides” end w/r/t token usage, he was confused at the notion the shit was even subsidized.

https://bsky.app/profile/apcarnist.bsky.social/post/3mnq3btjmfc2u