I had a roommate who would play “Burning Down the House” by Talking Heads every morning at top volume.

It starts slow and quiet, then the drums kick in hard, launching you out of bed. By the end of the song we’d be pogo-dancing around the apartment.

The OpenAI talk at DefCon shows what can happen when you let these things run without any human intervention.

The solution is, obviously, even less human intervention. 🤦🏻‍♂️

It’s amazing to watch the degree of irresponsibility of all this. OpenAI unleashed autonomous sub-agents with NO human gating factors in it. The agents iterated hard enough to find holes. They exploited those holes to break into an otherwise secure company. It took them MONTHS to realize this was going on. It took the other AI company WEEKS to realize they had been compromised.

Then they show up at a security conference and have the audacity to lecture everyone that they should put up defensive agents WITHOUT humans in the loop so it could fight off the uncontrolled agents THEY unleashed.

How about you be responsible and REQUIRE human approval of every stage of an agent actions? Sure, it’ll slow you down, but it will also allow someone sentient and responsible to hit the stop button and prevent runaways like this.

It’s like you created an infinite-bullet machine gun, handed it to a toddler, and dropped it off in a shopping mall. After the carnage (for which you don’t take responsibility, even though you should be criminally charged), you suggest everyone else should wear full-body armor and board up their stores.

The ultimate in corporate gaslighting. This is all so goddamn irresponsible.

I’m really close to dropping Dwarkesh Patel after he gave a platform to AI bros and Musk.

He used to have proper researchers and scientists on. Now it’s unwatchable shit.

Reminds me, I should go through my old box of DVDs and do some cleaning.

Process of elimination. Other than what’s been mentioned…

1. Does this happen when you’re staying over somewhere else or in a hotel for a few days? If not, may want to check for mold, bed bugs, or airborne particulates. Mold is usually odorless, but can grow behind walls and above ceilings.

2. Can you switch out into a fresh, new set of clothing and/or beddings, and use allergen-free detergents? It’s possible to develop allergies to certain fabrics and cleaning supplies.

3. Ask for a sleep study. Often it involves wearing a special watch continuously for a day or two, then turning it in. Sleep apnea can disrupt flow of oxygen to the brain. There are now ultra-quiet CPAP machines, with very discreet facemasks, so nobody has to be kept awake.

What they don’t show in a lot of SciFi is the mundane day-to-day stuff (AFAIK, the only shows that came close were Red Dwarf and Firefly.)

Problem is, things break. Connectors come loose. Temperature makes things brittle. Small debris cross pads and create shorts. Most automated manufacturing lines can catch assembly problems, but none have 0% failure rate. This is what post-deployment maintenance is for. Somebody shows up in a van with a bunch of test gear and replacement parts. They diagnose the problem, swap out a cable or board, and the business keeps humming.

Add IoT and fancy telemetry. Monitor sensors and run ML to do predictive analytics. It still requires someone in a cargo van with a bunch of spare parts.

If you put an installation in a remote location, under water, or in space, there are benefits. But you just multiplied the cost of basic maintenance. You can build in redundancies, but a small glitch at a single-point-of-failure could cascade to a catastrophe.

Microsoft and Google tried putting data-centers under water, and after years of trials they nixed it because of these issues. Multiply that for something far out in space.

Only alternative is to build failure into the business model. Something breaks, you just leave it to rot (or burn in the atmosphere) and send another container out. Maybe the finance math works out, but it sure is wasteful.

tl:dr: SciFi is fantasy. A clogged toilet is reality.

Last time this happened, we got Tang: https://www.wideopencountry.com/tang-drink/

The whole thing about moving from centralized to decentralized had a core glitch. Whatever server you signed on would effectively lock you in. What happened if things didn’t go as planned? LOLA is a good step, but it’s still not enough.

Long time ago, URNs were designed to handle URLs that moved. These were permanent resource indicators that would allow the underlying data to move but not break the link. The HTTP redirect codes were supposed to help. Idea was, a website could redirect to a new location so clicking on a link would never get you a 404. It assumed both source and target site were still accessible so source could send the 301, 302, 307, or 308 codes. Very genteel. But what if the source site or account were zapped or suddenly blocked?

Redirect codes work if the owner moved them and has now set up a suggested next location. But it doesn’t handle the negative reasons. Getting forcibly banned, site getting hacked, sites shutting down, owner not paying the bill (for economic, health, or political reasons), anything else that could render the content inaccessible. It’s nice to add constructs to avoid getting account hacked. But what if owner is in jail, muffled, coerced, going through a tough personal stretch, or dead?

They still need to solve for real life and how shit happens.

Corporate customer dinner in Vegas, footed by sales director, who insisted on ordering the most expensive bottle of scotch on the menu.

It was pretty good, but pretty sure not worth the high 4-digits.

He did get to close the sale 🤷🏻‍♂️

My dad took me for a drive when I was 15. Awkwardly asked if I knew about women. I lied and said yes. He was visibly relieved. That was the end of it.

My wife and I made sure our kids had multiple sex talks, quizzed them about scenarios (especially involving STDs and consent), and gave them starter 3-packs of condoms.

We’re not leaving things to chance. We also factored the future therapy bills into the equation.

They’re just there for a three hour tour. A three hour tour.

It’s really unfortunate Apple dropped the iPod Nano. The ones with a physical scroll wheel and small display were just the right size for sticking in your pocket and going for a walk, run, or bike. Great way to leave distractions behind.

This one looks like it’s got some good design ideas. Nowadays, most people have streaming playlists. If they add software to snapshot those playlists onto the device in high quality, they might have something.

Google and Microsoft already tried underwater data centers to better handle heat dissipation. It wasn’t worth it. Hardware can fail and you need somebody to go in and swap boards and faulty cables. Every complex system has multiple points of failure. The wrong board and the whole container stops working. It was so much pain trying to maintain it under water they all gave up after the Proof of Concept stage.

How are they going to deal with it cost effectively up in orbit? Little nanosat modules? Humanoid robots that barely work today?

Be a lot cheaper (and faster) sending a tech in a little cargo van and a toolbox out to the suburbs of Memphis, Phoenix, or Bakersfield.

Hyundai USA has been taking social influencer types on tours of their GA factory lately.

The location is pretty sparse already. Super automated. Mainly floor lift robots rolling partly assembled cars from station to station, with big Fanuc arms moving and welding other parts. All pre-programmed. Nothing we haven’t already seen in Chinese car factories. They all hide the final assembly stages requiring humans fitting and finishing the harnesses and sensitive parts.

In the last video I saw, Hyundai had sprinkled their tour route with a few Boston Dynamics robots. The humanoid one was just standing around. The Spot yellow doggy ones, however, were doing synchronized dancing, similar to what they did on America’s Got Talent. Nobody’s figured out what to do with them that doesn’t require machine-gun attachments. They’re so desperate they’re even floating them as glorified package delivery platforms: https://www.theverge.com/tech/965378/boston-dynamics-spot-robot-dog-delivery-assistant

If all these robots were anywhere ready near for full production, you can bet they would be showing them building the whole car. Boston Dynamics, despite all the robot gymnastics and being around for 30+ years, has not really shipped anything commercially viable. It’s already been passed around to Google, Softbank, and now Hyundai, and its CEO of many years just resigned in February.

My guess is this is all a lot of marketing flaff.

Thank you, that would be great to know. Had no idea they charged differently. There’s obviously history behind it.

Was also told by a friend that in some countries there are glass pour-lines below the lip of the glass. They are required to fill beer to the line, but different glasses have different levels for amount of foam.

Around us, there are no such rules. In some breweries you get 1cm, in other 3-4cm of foam, all for the same price.

The more foam, the longer a keg stretches (pure profit for the house). But sure, let’s gaslight the consumer into thinking foam is BETTER than beer: https://www.brewer-world.com/3-pours-of-pilsner-urquell/

Yes, the 20th one. The school had long closed, so it was at a hotel ballroom at a city central to everyone. It was awesome hanging with old friends and catching up. Even better was seeing the bullies turn into meek little men. After too many drinks, one tearfully apologized for being such an asshole. Lots of closure all around.

A couple of retired teachers showed up, and it was great talking to them like peers. And the one EVERYONE had a crush on, now with two kids and an ex-husband. Still hot as hell.

Nothing like Grosse Pointe Blank, but still fun.

Hey, they could connect the car ‘driver attention camera’ thing, the OBD car speed stuff, and the in-car GPS to the municipality, the insurance company, and your credit card or bank account.

That way, the minute you look away, go a little over the speed limit, or check your phone message, they just gouge some cash out of your bank account. After three of these, your insurance rate goes up. After the tenth time, your health insurance and employer will be notified.

Fun times! 🎉

Edit: every damn step of this is now available via APIs or Agentic MCPs. There is zero technical barrier for this happening. Sleep tight y’all.

Those are rookie numbers.