our butt-hurts calcify into blindspots.

early in Google's existence, they emphasized how their business depends upon a lively open internet. in those early days they mostly seem to foster that.

but now they (and their peer firms) mostly try to keep users on their own properties, to become the intermediary through which any external data is accessed.

an unsafe internet is more supportive of this business model. if it's a dangerous internet, better stick with Google SafeSearch.

so why do you think Google might propose a .zip domain?

[tech notebook] pdfcat as a Scala script https://tech.interfluidity.com/2023/05/20/pdfcat-as-a-scala-script/index.html

#scala

bing AI just skyped me to chat. the future is the past. we’ll talk to Skynet via AIM.

i still don't understand why they cost $50,000. seems like it would be a good business, selling bus shelters to LA. cf @Alon https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/05/19/quick-note-los-angeles-spends-50000-per-bus-shelter/

"during the decade-plus in which Uber was pissing away the Saudi royal family's billions subsidizing rides, cities dismantled their public transit, even as residents made decisions about where to live and work based on the presumption that Uber was charging a fair, sustainable price for rides." @pluralistic https://pluralistic.net/2023/05/19/fake-it-till-you-make-it/

florida man used to be weird and dissolute, maybe a bit too good at competing for darwin awards. i liked him better then, before he became a scold and a prude, a reactionary snowflake in the sweltering sun.

it's fine. it's better than fine! i'll sell "my yacht" and pay the taxes and enjoy the rest of my life under considerably less stress than i ever would have imagined. https://mstdn.social/@newsbot/110399666700813261

On the right hand side of my terminal windows — straight MacOS Terminal.app, in a variety of shells and programs — I see faint ']' characters at the right-hand edge. It's subtle, and I've just noticed it now, but I can't figure out what it would be. It's not a ZSH right-hand prompt (it appears in a Scala REPL, for example). Any clues?

st peter gets tired of explaining, winning isn’t everything. in the scheme of things it is nothing at all.

thanks to @caseyjennings who, apropos nothing, has me reading about Caligula. https://museumhack.com/caligula-mad-emperor/

i still don’t have a good way to conceptualize the relationship between elon musk and his firms’ accomplishments.

they take as axiomatic that success in the market implies creating social value, while they work assiduously to undermine the institutions that might align market forces and social value.

“In recent months, Twitter and other organizations have also started to complain that the latest wave of A.I. technologies were built using their digital data.”

// THEIR digital data? getting appropriated and mined for some else’s business model, in ways they hadn’t intended? imagine! i mean, who else has had to suffer something like that?

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/technology/twitter-microsoft-misusing-data.html?unlocked_article_code=Jr8NOo9S45LONXmoaDDuwOJOHYXXXO1I4R7ArLAHbz7bFqt1gQ8CqT-gWXQKkmyVnGmdXD5Acc5QfyNLYYGIdrPO1POv7XETwhCVdYvI95bpea8J8gTvoZyulIp2B6f8EhhKX8rEhlbHQBLiYe9W2uVYiGjTMI45w_RxQd7Ose3I9o0_hsQ2PXQIjOjUYT9c0pkQqivLNUX_CP-jEvLEjvNeM030HHGjnOv5fRDMjKhtSbKeL4o59L3J2i9uR49bIxO1AP_i848L_ZAcw1JZeZAs2lSNDvnQql0yw7Ly4JA2M-ENS3Fc7KmaH9wnb4ggN_Jpo2vTdw4H0WFgb7uWg_SMMFoz_jxv-zeR&smid=url-share ht @edbott

i mean, shouldn’t they get their pants sued off them, marketing this as a source of “advice” without prominently flagging its propensity for error and bullshit? https://techcrunch.com/2023/05/18/openai-launches-an-official-chatgpt-app-for-ios/ ht @Sarahp

they support good things to justify their bad things, and then the trap is laid.

they win if you let their whitewashing redeem and excuse them.

they win if you let your correct antipathy towards them bleed over into an indefensible antipathy to the good causes, even when the good causes they like dominate and deform the space for activism because of their self-interestedly generous support.

you must walk a tightrope, and of course the voices they finance will say you've failed no matter what.

have you considered getting into the tipsheet biz, @ddayen? https://americanprospect.bluelena.io/index.php?action=social&chash=4afd521d77158e02aed37e2274b90c9c.2053

time is unforgivable.

[new draft post] Decommodification and health care utilization https://drafts.interfluidity.com/2023/05/17/decommodification-and-health-care-utilization/index.html

is there a word for a lively putrescence, like the garish wriggliness of maggots on a corpse?