The jokes about Darth Jar Jar were everywhere of course, but it could have worked. Star Wars lifted a few ideas from classic SF sources including Asimov's Foundation series - in which, we might recall, the terrifying, unstoppable galactic warlord known as The Mule was hiding in plain sight as a clown, who seemed to be merely a harmless entertainer at court. His military success was chiefly thanks to his psychic ability to manipulate others' minds to his liking - Darth Jar Jar could have done very well that way!

I saw three Star Wars movies when I was young. They were great. Mainly because I was a child and this stuff was new and fresh and exciting to me. Even the Ewoks.

I saw three more when I was not quite so young. They were... poor.

I saw a couple more when I was older. One was great, the other was okay but a retread of one of the old ones, and I never got round to seeing the rest. Didn't care enough.

Now they've got more, and apparently they're based on a TV series they did, which I didn't watch because I wasn't subscribed to that streaming platform at the time. So I'm not going to see those either. Same reason I've not seen a Marvel superhero film since the first Avengers one - just too much homework required with all the backstory. Every scene is a shout out or reference that I won't get. Every character seems to be getting ever louder and angrier and more and more of them have access to time machines. I just don't have it in me to care anymore.

I like the sound of these horror films, though. They're going to tell a complete story? In one film? With a beginning, middle and end, that don't ask me to be up to date on an entire Cinematic Universe? Sounds great, time to check where they're showing!

It's open source and there's no liability whatsoever, but that's nothing other than malware. Just not in a regular programming language, but with a specific instruction for a machine. With premeditated, intended malicious consequences.

In other words: It's malware, plain and simple. The flak the guy is getting is understandable.

A modern version of GTA London would be the absolute dream. Been long enough now, you could set it in the nineties and have the same retro value to it!

... why unions aren't much more common among technology workers. Especially given what you hear about the videogame industry in particular, with that mad 'crunch time' culture in which workers are ruthlessly, well, crunched. I'd always ask, well, what does your union say about it? And what do you know, there isn't one, how about that.

Nice to hear of some progress being made, then. I suppose the risk with this for the rest of us is that GTA 6 might be late to release, but, uh, at this point I think we're over that

IIRC this class of substances is won from venomous animals. If it's a toxin that enhances brain function that would be cool. Perhaps something with the effect of stimulants, but permanently.

However, I'm not taking these new drugs just yet.
I'd rather wait a little longer and see if the Ozempic crowd turns into a bunch of blind Zombies or a bunch of Superhumans.

Then I'll make my call.

If I were you I would immediately begin looking for another job. Your manager is clearly incompetent manglement. The users are going to be pissed with 100% AI generated code and no proper QA process.

Get out to a better place before it gets really bad

... _very_ fundamental way.

[Disclaimer: Passionate multi-decade Senior Web Developer here]

And that is *drumroll*:

Always online, no standard default way for offline.

Seriously, this is the biggest downside (and perhaps eventually downfall) of the Web and ist it's protocols. It's the reason I initially thought "Who needs this crap?" back in the 90ies when the Web first appeared.

In this regard Fidenet and other BBS networks are technically superior(!!) to the modern Web.

Solid crypto-based Ident/Auth/Authed DNS and a set of document-centric offline capable Web protocols on top would be the right way to do this. Most security problems and this tracker garbage we have to deal with _every_ _single_ _day_ would vanish in an instant. As would quite a few other problems of the modern Web along with it.

The Web is awesome. It won for very good reasons. But it _that_ way the Web is epic shit by design. If the Web eventually fades away it will likely be because of that flaw.

Until then it's paying bills, so not many too hard feelings on my end. But the general IT expert in me sure wishes we had better protocols for solid offline capability.

... quite well: It's going to be chaos but in the end it's going to turn out good for everyone. We're just going to work less if the cheap bots do most of the work.

I did a diploma in performing arts in the the 90ies. The first half of my 20ies was dancing 5+ hours per weekday. I still benefit from that phase. As a teenager I was into climbing. I still have the shoulder muscles from that time, despite totally slacking on strength training. But no smoking, no drugs, no alcohol. And I have been dancing Argentine Tango for the last 18 years, 9 of which where an artsy minimalist lifestyle built around intensely dancing Tango 3+ times a week. My sleep schedule was as off as with my other thing, software development, but otherwise my health was awesome, physically and mentally. Intensely hugging hot ladies 3+ times a week for hours on end does wonders for a hetero-males well-being. I regularly get judged 10 years younger than I am.
Processed foods are organic as much as possible, I avoid junkfood 95% of the time and I've started cooking for myself 10 years ago. Huge impact.

I've since have taken Tango down a notch and picked up motorscooter/motorbike as means of travelling and getting around. Getting slightly overweight for the first time in my life. Not good, don't like it. I'm roughly 10 years too late in picking up a daily excercise/yoga, cardio and strength schedule, a thing I definitely need to get going this year. Started hiking with my sweetheart, we want to pick up the pace and intensity of that to stay healthy in old age.

I keep telling my 28 year old daughter that she dare never not stop her daily yoga practice. I hope she can do that.

It's this simple: Objectively the very best retirement plan is actively working on your health, strength, endurance and flexibility multiple times a week. Way more significant than being wealthy at old age.

I'd rather be top fit at 70 living off 700 Euros per month than overweight with two bipasses living off 2000.

Where is the shovelware? Where's the killer app?
Shovelware requires some form of userbase. That doesn't exist anymore if every software solution any normal person can think of is just one Google query and one URL away. The Web has won. Nobody will go through the trouble of even installing software these days in most cases.

... might just give the IC industry the kick in the butt it needs, just like with spacecraft and electric vehicles. He recently stated that the whole IC-Fab thing is done wrong these days and that he might just end up eating a hamburger and smoking a cigar right next to a microfab with higher cleanroom efficiency to prove his point once the first Terafab is up and running.

I'm no engineer, but the "copy-exactly" and "clearroom design" of the late 70ies sure has become long in the tooth and my intuition says Musk might actually be on to something (once again). It's going to be fun to watch how this Terafab thing plays out.

I happen to know Germanys most popular fantasy author Bernard Hennen a bit. He is mentally preparing for AI to take his job and has been for a few years. He says it's likely that he'll just be managing and steering the world and it's characters and that AI will do most of the writing and come up with new ideas that he then decides on.

That sounds very plausible and AFAICT as someone who GMs table-top RPGs and does quite a lot of writing as a naked ape this is basically where we are at right now already.

... Did they really phrase it that way? If so, that would be the most *sshole move I've seen by corporate douchebags in a long time. And if so I can't wait for the bots to replace those folks too.