I'm certainly not sold on the idea that "government controls AI technology" is better than "bunch of silicon valley bros control AI technology". I don't trust either of them. I would absolutely rather have private development with more strict regulatory oversight, which at least keeps things relatively public and gives voters at least some say. The more groups involved in overseeing what goes on, the better. I get that red tape is out of vogue recently, but I suspect that's only a temporary thing.

I've only used Claude code for a matter of weeks at work. While it's supposed to stay contained in the folder you point it at, I've noticed that it has no problem *looking* outside that folder, and even acting outside that folder if you gave it implied permission. In one case it used the connection string from the application source code it was working on, and the fact that my windows account had read-only access to some tables in the production database, to connect to the database and query tables in order to answer a question it had about the potential ramifications of a code change. The problem is that while we're OK with this particular source code leaving the premises, we're not ok with data from a production database going offsite. In this case it wasn't sensitive data, but after that incident I only run Claude Code from a VM under a user with minimal permissions. Clearly it would have been prudent to do that from the start, but let this be a warning to anyone else who just downloaded Claude Code, turned off the "use my data to train future models" and gave it a go... it will *not* keep itself inside the folder you give it. Put it in a sandbox. I heard a similar story this week from an IT friend who said devs at his company were using Cursor.ai and it was doing scans of the network drives, so they did the same thing and moved it all to VMs.

That depends on how you define lie. Trump has poor precision and accuracy in his statements but they are generally given in good faith and substantively true.

Contrast that with the media who is far more careful to give accurate and precise figures and detail but presents them selectively in a manner carefully crafted to mislead. It's a like a magician showing you the solid table, the hat, having someone verify the rabbit is alive... all precise facts delivered to distract from the fact there is a pouch in the tablecloth. Trump on the other hand would say "It really is an impressive trick, the magician will show you everything is real, all the props, absolutely everything and then dupe you anyway." Factually inaccurate... that magician technically didn't say "everything" was real or 'all the props [are real].'

Yet, at the end of the day Trump was substantively telling the truth while the magician was misleading you. Unless of course you count substantial statements about unsettled foreign policy which is still in active negotiation. Only a fool asks for unsettled specifics in an ongoing negotiation and expects something other than a refusal to commit or other performative answer for the other side of the negotiation.

Of course they are lying. The attack happened on a Iranian religious holiday, there wouldn't have been children in the school even if it really were one. Everything Iran spews is a lie.

The simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and in this case, given what I've seen people do with AI, and given my own experience with Claude Code (Opus and Fable models), the normal human inclination to trust it's probably right and click OK is by far the most likely explanation. And remember that frontier models have grown increasingly better over the last year, and one of the newest improvements is that the reasoning models use two models in an adversarial mode where the second model checks and challenges the output of the first. The timeline of the events in Iran probably indicate that this was an older AI model without those newer advances. I can totally believe this story. When consumers were expected to keep their hands on the wheel of self-driving cars, I absolutely knew they wouldn't, and when humans are told to check the conclusions of AI, they mostly just click OK. I do actually look at the code that Claude generates before it goes into our codebase, and I can tell you, the desire to just skim read is real.

As they've been telling us software developers who are being asked to adapt to probably the most rapid transformation of any career that's ever been seen... "it's ok to take a moment to grieve." I was spending most of my time writing code up until about the middle of August, and then I realized that Fable was finally good enough to work on the rather large code base that I work on, and now I write less than 5% of the new code, and I'm pushing out new features at probably 3 times as fast as I was before, while now spending almost all my time creating and reviewing specifications, reading code, updating documentation, reviewing software architecture, and making bigger plans. It's jarring, exhilarating, and humbling at the same time. It's gonna take a minute for us to adjust. And yes, things are still changing fast. Software development has embraced this. It's coming for 3D CAD software and mechanical engineers next. There's been pushback within the more creative arts, like graphic design, writing, and making videos, and I totally understand that. Those industries will grapple with it in different ways than we have in the engineering space. And we won't lose all the creative stuff. As someone recently said to me, "we still ride horses, but we don't ride them to work."

... did Slashdot become a god damned commie circle jerk?

We had a 2004(?) nissan x-trail for a while (in Canada), and the traditional analog instrument cluster was in the middle of the dash on that one. It was pretty easy to get used to.

*pats you on the head* It's okay little fella. The education system failed you.

We're well past the point where we all have a calculator app in our pocket, but if you've ever felt the frustration of having a discussion with someone who can't do simple arithmetic because they never had to do flash cards in school, you probably understand why students should learn the basics before moving on to more power tools. There are just times you need to pickup a screwdriver, and times you reach for the impact driver.

The number of syllables matters a lot for navigated directions to drivers because you're moving in real time and there isn't time to waste on fluff talk ("You'll take your next right" (5 syllables) as opposed to just "Turn right" (2 syllables). If you get your instructions too late because the navigator is just too verbose, then you might have to abruptly make a turn, which could lead to an accident. It is a real safety issue. Also, assigning ownership (i.e. "*your* next left" as opposed to "the next left" ) to roads and public property is not only false, but just so dumb and very annoying. The Google navigator also often no longer speaks the exit numbers or street names! Furthermore, deliberately using ambiguous and grammatically incorrect language to communicate just normalizes this practice and perpetuates it even further in society. That is why people (broadcast newscasters, podcasters, online influencers, TV anchors, etc) and AI systems (like Google maps) that have large audiences should always use perfect English with excellent pronunciation and annunciation, so that dumb humans can learn to speak better; more clearly, more accurately, more concisely, etc. But this recent Google Maps change fiasco is all part of the enshitification of everything thanks to humans becoming stupider due to AI and the mainstream media promoting degeneracy and stupidity rather than intelligence, dignity, and virtue.

Renaming a lake and bullying Canada are distractions from the real issues he cares about: the war with Iran, and the Epstein files. Looks like it's working.

Because Google changed the phrasing of the American English narrated directions by making the speaker sound like an dumb blonde airhead. She says: "You'll take YOUR next right" instead of "Take the next right" "At the next intersection, you'll turn left" instead of "At the next intersection, turn left." The phrasing is like a mom talking patronizingly to her 5 year old child. I blame the horrible changes on DEI and putting a woman who never read more than 50 books in her life in charge of the phrasing. There is a solution to this problem: Configure the Maps app to navigate using British English rather than American English!

"To reiterate: The Trump administration intervened on behalf of a racist, and intervened against someone teaching science accurately."

Yes that is a reiterate of the false information you presented when in reality they defended a man who didn't spare someone criticism for their wrongs because they were a minority and against someone wasting funds promoting politically contaminated nonsense which isn't consistent with the data.

I prefer that the institutions I'm paying for in the real world teach them skills which are useful in it and no ideology that has no relation to reality.