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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: November 25th, 2023

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  • I have written observations on how I see the nonsense crest peaking. Just the other day a collegue remarked that they had been at a conference and it was less AI than last year.

    Today, however, I was at an audio / video trade show. I don’t usually go to such, but it could be a good opportuinty to update on what is availble, and was close by, it was free and you got a free lunch. There was some interesting stuff in the monters, Yealink had some new stuff for conference rooms. Then just before lunch everyone headed to the key note adress. And it was horrible. It was a CEO who bragged how he had got ahead in life thanks to his “entrepreneurial mindset”, though I would more say he bragged about bullshitting his way through life. And then it got worse when he got into AI. He quoted AIs answer on why AI acted in certain ways (“Just ask it!”), he claimed AI would cause at least 5 “penicillin-events” in the next 10 years, raising life spans to 180 and wiping out disease. At this time I just stood up and left, and skipped the free lunch.

    It had just been 15 minutes out of an hour, and while he hadn’t touched the topics of audio or video, he had established that nothing he would say about that could be trusted, which means it wouldn’t matter what he said about their actual products. No great surprise that a bullshit artist likes the bullshit machine, I am a little surprised more people didn’t leave, but then again social norms and free lunch.


  • I think this is correct.

    Nokia managed to push Ericsson out of their dominant position because Nokia were more of a consumer products company, including consumer electronics. But because Nokia did phones as consumer electronics, they didn’t think about them in terms of a platform and had a poor position to compete with smart phones. Their best bet would probably have been to make hardware that ran Android, and at the time I was a bit surprised that they didn’t. Their hardware reputation was stellar.

    Elop’s and Microsoft’s actions were still scummy, though from Nokia’s perspective they sold a failing part of their business for billions. Microsoft of course continued to run the phone sales into the ground.



  • Throwing rocks into an increasing pile and after each throw burning offerings to evaluate how much closer we are getting to having a cathedral.

    Possibly the worst way of building a cathedral, except it doesn’t really qualify as “building a cathedral”. Some workmen may take the pile of rocks and build an actual cathedral, but that doesn’t mean that the step of throwing rocks was necessary or desirable.













  • The marketing documents provided with the photo say there is “no regulatory oversight — U.S.D.A. confirmed in writing.” It’s not clear what the company means by that. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Seth W. Christensen, said he was not able to confirm whether the agency had corresponded with Haemanthus. “U.S.D.A. does regulate vet diagnostics,” including blood testing, Mr. Christensen said.

    Ah, yes, medicine. A field without regulations. Hope they have some non-scammers in the family that can take care of the kids.



  • I work with IT at a STEM company, but the typical education is chemistry. People are grounded in measurements and real world practicality, but sci fi is also rather popular.

    Some people got hype last year, but most people was more in “new stuff, will this mess with my work flow?” mode. After getting and evaluating tools, some small uses were identified, mostly first draft of meeting minutes. Trying for themselves seems to have quelled the hype. Now there is mostly concern for how AI processes in surrounding companies will affect our products and sales.

    So from that small measurement it feels like the hype is breaking. We have a sane and reality based management though, and that helps.