McSweeney’s: Middle School Party Games, Revised for Thirty-Five-Year-Olds.
Truth or Dare
If a player chooses “truth,” they must reveal how much money they make. If they choose “dare,” they must hand someone their phone and let them look at every tab they have open on their browser.
By Nicole Beckley
The New Yorker: Cory Doctorow Wants You to Know What Computers Can and Can’t Do.
A conversation about the “mediocre monopolists” of Big Tech, the weirdness of crypto, and the real lessons of science fiction.
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This will all be so great if we don’t screw it up.
By Christopher Byrd.
Cory also talks about the limitations of perfect productivity: Once you’ve pared away all the unimportant tasks in your life, everything left is important and there’s nothing left to pare.
Fortunately, this is not a problem for me. I waste plenty of time!
I’m very impressed that Cory was featured in the New Yorker.
I saw this dapper gentleman at the park today.
The promise and the peril of ChatGPT. By Casey Newton.
Reading about the potential for abuse here, I found myself thinking about the classic science fiction story “A Logic Named Joe,” in which author Murray Leinster predicts the consumer internet in 1946. One of the computers on the network gets a little wonky and starts answering questions on how to commit murder.
People are already using ChatGPT to get answers to potentially lethal questions.
Less significantly, ChatGPT could potentially be the end of Google and industries that have grown around it—advertising and search engine optimization. Google gives search results, but ChatGPT provides answers.
Yes, It’s Censorship: Stop picking that nit, it’ll never heal. A few big companies, including Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, and Twitter, monopolize public discourse, setting the rules for what we’re allowed to talk about.
Cory Doctorow:
The decision to make our “digital public square,” into a privatized, monopoly-friendly corporate shopping mall whose owners can wield the power of the state against rivals who dare to compete with them may not violate the First Amendment, but it sure as hell isn’t good for free expression.
Ancient Rome did not fall. It was destroyed from within, by the same forces we see playing out in America today. By Barry Gander, a self-described “Canadian from Connecticut,” on Medium.
While walking, the dog and I saw these houses with the holiday spirit, and this car 🦮📷
Eugene from Wednesday is my role model. I’m going to wear a retainer and keep bees.
I’ve seen criticism of the trailer and of all the movies after “Raiders.” And much of that criticism is valid.
But the best reaction to the trailer was from Jason Kottke: “Ok fine I will watch one more Indy movie.”
I have enjoyed every Raiders movie, even “Temple of Doom” and “Crystal Skull.” I have no doubt we will watch this one and enjoy it.
The parts I enjoyed in “Temple of Doom” were the little kid and the girlfriend, who screamed very fetchingly.
Marion stole the movie in “Crystal Skull.” She had all the good scenes.
About that trailer: The bullwhip scene is classic Indiana Jones: “Look at me I am doing this swashbuckling thing… Oh shit that was a really bad idea.” All conveyed with his face and body language.
That scene is a visual response to the swordsman scene in the first movie, only this time it’s the other guys who have the guns.
Proud Boy terrorists threaten Columbus, Ohio, drag queen story hour, school asks for protection, police nope out.. On MetaFilter.
Far more children have been molested by youth pastors than by drag queens, as Dan Savage points out.
