The new science of death: ‘There’s something happening in the brain that makes no sense’ [theguardian.com]
NYC’s AI chatbot was caught telling businesses to break the law. The city isn’t taking it down [apnews.com] — “Asked if a restaurant could serve cheese nibbled on by a rodent, [the bot] responded: ‘Yes, you can still serve the cheese to customers if it has rat bites,’ before adding that it was important to assess the ‘the extent of the damage caused by the rat’ and to ‘inform customers about the situation.’”
Crying Myself to Sleep on the Icon of the Seas [theatlantic.com] — Curmudgeonly travel writer Gary Shteyngart takes a luxury cruise on the world’s largest cruise ship:
The maiden voyage of the Titanic (the Icon of the Seas is five times as large as that doomed vessel) at least offered its passengers an exciting ending to their cruise….
📷 Something I saw while walking the dog: This osprey, on a platform on a pole about 50 feet above a footpath around Lake Murray. I shot the photo on the 5x setting on the iPhone and then cropped it heavily, which is why it’s pixelated.
Anyone who fears that we may be wiped out by artificial intelligence should just buy a robot vacuum cleaner and watch the unshakable determination with which it returns, over and over again, to the one corner of the room where it gets stuck every time.
A realistic “Terminator" movie would consist of two hours of well-meaning humans patiently disentangling the T-800 from the rug or dragging it out from under the bookshelf while it beeps pathetically for assistance.
Star Trek: Future Astronauts Having Feelings
I want to like “Star Trek: Discovery” more than I do. The characters all seem to be having big emotions and I’m supposed to share those big emotions, but I do not. The show is about Future Astronauts Having Feelings. The show seems to be popular among Millennial and Gen Z LGBTQ+ people, and that’s fine.
In general, the entire Trek franchise seems to be a warm nostalgia bath. And I don’t mean that in a good way. They’ve got a whole Galaxy to play with and they keep coming back to the same characters, races, species and tropes. It’s 1,000 years in the future and hey look there’s a shout-out to Jean-Luc Picard.
Also, why doesn’t the franchise bring back Shatner and Takei? They barely used Walter Koenig and Wil Wheaton. What’s up with that?
🦆Today’s memes: Harold, you’re my role model
Not a phone in sight. Just living in the moment.
Oh, not much. You?
On our African safaris nearly five years ago, Julie and I saw this elephant reaching for foliage.
April 2024 Micro.blog Photoblogging Challenge Day 4. Prompt: Foliage.
The best Stephen King novels chosen by you: NPR readers share their favorites. [npr.org] — I have read all but one of these and can confirm they’re terrific.
📷 I saw this Star Trek card deck in a shop in Austin when I traveled there in 2016.
April 2024 Micro.blog Photoblogging Challenge Day 3. Prompt: Card.
We watched the pilot episode of “Law and Order,” which first aired in 1990. Only 495 episodes remaining.
If ActivityPub support remains off by default for Threads, fewer than 1% of Threads users will activate it. They have more important and interesting things to do than to understand the fediverse.
Neil Gaiman: ‘Terry Pratchett isn’t jolly. He’s angry’ (2014). [theguardian.com]. Thanks,Cory!
Suicide Mission: What Boeing did to all the guys who remember how to build a plane
John “Swampy” Barnett, a 26-year quality manager at Boeing, tried unsuccessfully to stop management from destroying the company for the benefit of vulture investors. He died of apparent suicide recently, but his former colleagues don’t believe his death was self-inflicted. By Maureen Tkacik. [prospect.org]
Cory Doctorow notes that whether or not Boeing assassinated Barnett, company CEO Jim McNerny and its leadership killed hundreds of people on crashed 737s through willful incompetence. McNerney was proudly contemptuous of competence, publicy calling senior engineers “phenomenally talented assholes" and rewarding managers who forced them out of the company. [pluralistic.net]