The good, the bad and the ugly
In a busy week, I am filling the gaps with some things that caught my attention during the week. By no means complete!
Been a heckuva busy week, but some quick notes.
The Good
First up, James Dobson, fucker of the fuckiest sort passed off this mortal coil (and the NYTimes sane-washing its headline):
Dobson is from the first wave of the infection of the Republican party with the Evangelical virus. His hateful rhetoric and actions against the LGBTQ+ community, his indifference, nay, purposeful dismissal of concerns about HIV. His manual(s) for training up your children (aka beating the fuck out of them).
For being a giant wad of fuck, Dobson is going to hell:
Second, the AI bubble is beginning to deflate (if not completely burst). The launch of the latest ChatGPT LLM the 5th version, to a tepid response. Sure, it is better(ish), but reportedly OpenAI had to execute two $500M training runs (that is the cost of the compute and power to go through their training set) and it still can't count the number of 'b's in the word 'blueberry' (it said 3).
Many of the tech 'stacks that I follow are beginning to recognize that Gary Marcus was right all along.
Mike Pepi
And Gary himself:
Gary Marcus
The net-net is that AI isn't going to disappear, but the hype cycle is entering the trough of despair [1]. The focus will shift from the arms race to a retrenchment to identify use cases that are a good fit and optimize.
Third, this is a good news/bad news situation. Texas was able to shove their redistricting through, but California responded immediately, and their map is glorious (and it has endangered Republican reps in CA in terror - there are no safe seats left)
That took less than 24 hours, and it will need to be voted on by the citizens, but God damn it is good to respond. And speaking of Newsom, his social team is killing it in the mockery of Trump's linguistic style, and AI art. Chef's kiss.
The Bad
ICE rolled out their new livery on their new vehicles. When Congress gave them more money than the motherfucking Marines get in the budget, the goodie store is opened. Look at this blasphemy:
And you know, you might not be a truck guy (I wonder if these have nutz pre-installed) so there are Mustangs:
That is a total babe magnet, right? And of course, there has to be the tribute on each vehicle:
Yeah, this is fine.
For all those who hold hope that the SCOTUS will rule rationally, you really need to get rid of that shit right now.
In my prior life, I worked as a product manager in scientific instrumentation, and a large fraction of our business went to university researchers working on diseases and understanding human biological functions.
Trump's DOGE hangover was laser focused on cutting funding for basic research, and with the human/brainworm hybrid RFKjr leading the HHS is bad for more than just the "woke" scientists, but a lot of medium sized businesses that sold instruments and supplies to these labs. Another example of the idiocy and how it will spread through a lot of the population.
I am glad that I am out of that world.
The Ugly
I watch The Lincoln Project's weekly "The Breakdown" on Youtube, and this is worth watching the first segment of, as it shows video of an ICE arrest. It is heart wrenching, and if you voted for Trump, you don't get to fucking say "I didn't vote for that". At the RNC, they were waving "Mass Deportations Now" signs.
I recommend watching this. But be warned, the clip is a tough thing to see:
Anyhow, that's enough for now. Anything you want to add? Toss 'em into the comments.
1 - If you get this reference, you have Gartner-itis, and you should seek professional counseling.
