onfocus

After a few tweaks, I came up with a design that was more rounded. I also printed with a more colorful color, as an ode to Braun 550 Hair Dryer and Jaro Gielen's "Soft Electronics" book.

Such a nice improvement over Braun's current offering. [insert take my money GIF]

To create A.I. businesses, experts predicted, $1 trillion would be spent on data centers, utilities and applications. Mr. Covello thought those costs made it impossible for the industry to inexpensively solve real-world problems, which is what internet companies did decades ago.

As a member of Goldman’s working group on A.I., he reviewed a service that used generative A.I. to automatically update analysts’ spreadsheets with companies’ financial results. He said it saved his analysts about 20 minutes of time per company but cost six times as much money.

I think this is exactly it. AI is too expensive in terms of energy use and is highly subsidized by venture capital at the moment. The minute that money dries up there won't be enough of a payoff to justify the expense.

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today announced the introduction of new legislation to restore balance among the three branches of government, increase transparency to improve public trust in America’s courts, and modernize the courts to ensure greater access to justice for more Americans.

Thanks, Senator Wyden! There are good politicians out there working for their constituents. Wyden is consistently fighting the good fight.

The number of women in Texas who died while pregnant, during labor or soon after childbirth skyrocketed following the state’s 2021 ban on abortion care — far outpacing a slower rise in maternal mortality across the nation, a new investigation of federal public health data finds.

Please vote for people who care about women. This should not be happening. It’s morally wrong.

But even as that was happening, the Vice President didn’t stoop to a contest of two truths, a contest over which truth voters might pick. She instead made it clear that the basis of the “truth” Trump offers, is a base of weakness and fear. She didn’t refute individual aspects of Trump’s truth. She instead kicked at its foundations, and showed how flimsy it is.

Interesting analysis of Harris' debate strategy. Rather than responding point by point to misinformation, she stayed on the task of dismantling maga mythology.

It is not the case that “AI gathers data from the Web and learns from it.” The reality is that AI companies gather data and then optimize models to reproduce representations of that data for profit. It’s worth preserving distinctions between the process behind building software systems and the social investments that aim to cultivate the human mind.

...

The learning myth downplays the role of data in developing these systems, perpetuating a related myth that data is abundant, cheap, and labor-free. These myths drive down the value of data while hiding the work of those who shape, define, and label that data.

I want to quote this entire essay. So many great points about how generative AI is sold to the public to consider.

To put their own minds at ease, the researchers also calculated the likelihood that one of these tiny black holes would strike Earth and found it would only happen roughly once in a billion years.

With our luck, we’re due.

Tennessee state Sen. Jon Lundberg, who co-sponsored both punitive Tennessee laws, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press this week, “The legislature is constantly looking at, What else can we do?”

Quick suggestion: ban assault rifles.

…one of the big reasons the race is close is that a whole lot of people look at Donald Trump's promises to menace and harm and kill literally millions of already marginalized people and they really like it; it makes them feel really good, it makes them feel like they're great again—so great that they're willing to overlook the fact that Trump is a profoundly ignorant grotesque dilettantish bully possessing not a single redeeming quality. And this group calls itself "conservative," a word they use to mean "the good people."

Please vote for people who care about other people.

Public schools and municipal buildings were closed for a second day in Springfield, Ohio, following bomb threats on Friday due to false claims about the city’s growing Haitian population.

This was caused by the Republican campaign for President. It’s a preview of what a second Trump Presidency would look like.

Within a few minutes Trump was visibly angry and not in a way that empowered him but in a way that made him lose focus, go down rabbit holes and generally go off onto damaging tangents.

It was like Harris was able to put Trump into some sort of state where he could only string keywords together randomly. Terrifying prospect that he could be in the demanding job of President again.

The central problem is this: You—the expert who possesses real knowledge of the topics that are up for debate—are bound by a world that has rules. Your opponent, the lying propagandist and fabulist, is not.

Elie Mystal with a great description of why the TV debate format favors the unhinged.