391
An investigation into egg prices
'More hens, less income!' So said the United Egg Producers' economist Donald Bell in 1994. The industry has gotten more consolidated ever since. And avian flu is just the latest excuse to hike prices.
392
The behavior of LLMs in hiring decisions: Systemic biases in candidate selection
Hints of discrimination and lack of principled reasoning in frontier AI systems
393
We got hit by an alarmingly well-prepared phish spammer
You're probably reading this page because you've attempted to access some part of my blog (Wandering Thoughts) or CSpace , the wiki thing it's part of. Unfortunately you're using a browser version that my anti-crawler precautions consider suspicious, most often because it's too old (most often this applies to versions…
394
Kerosene did not save the sperm whale (2024)
How we carried on exploiting sperm whales long after the conventional wisdom said we'd stopped. Forgotten Material #1
395
Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Anthology (1986)
=== This is a free online edition of Bruce Sterling's anthology Mirrorshades. === Coverted to webpage by Rudy Rucker, posted September 2022, and updated November 2023. === Each story is Copyright (C) 2022 to its original authors, and all rights are reserved. The book is not public domain, nor is it Creative Commons…
396
Bye, Prime
Why? · As I wrote in Not an Amazon Problem (and please go read that if you haven’t) I don’t see myself as an enemy of Amazon, particularly. I think the pressures of 21st-century capitalism have put every large company into a place where they really can’t afford to be ethical or the financial sector will rip them to…
397
Gemini figured out my nephew’s name
I wrote an MCP server to give LLMs read-only access to my emails. Here is the chat log.
398
Solar-plus-storage technology is improving quickly
On how plummeting battery prices make 24/7 solar power a reality today.
399
The Hobby Computer Culture
[This post is part of “A Bicycle for the Mind.” The complete series can be found here.] From 1975 through early 1977, the use of personal computers remained almost exclusively the province of …
400
Why does Britain feel so poor?
Plus chaos chasers, ghost motorways, the secret symbols hiding in your street, and a rationalist death cult.
401
402
Open source can't coordinate?
I was taking a shower this morning, and was pondering yesterday's problem, where I suspect that I have an outdated version of hotspot Linux profiler, but I can't just go and download a fresh release from GitHub, because hotspot is a KDE app, and I use NixOS. And NixOS isn't a problem --- it's a solution.
403
The good times in tech are over
For most of the last decade, being a software engineer has been a lot of fun. Every company offered lots of perks, layoffs and firings were almost unheard of…
404
The Zizians and the rationalist death cult
What is the deal with Rationalism and cults?
405
Real Chilling Effects
A extraordinary pattern of government censorship and threats to speech
406
AI Responses May Include Mistakes
The other day I wanted to look up a specific IBM PS/2 model, a circa 1992 PS/2 Server system. So I punched the model into Google, and got this:
407
Wise refuses to let us access our $60k AUD
Wise has stolen more than $60,000 AUD from us, and refuses to let us access it. We’ve had a Wise account for around 5 years (since they were called TransferWise). It’s been a really useful …
408
Software is eating the world, all right (2024)
I retired from my IT career a couple of months ago after 43 years of commercial software product development and transitioned to the real…
409
AI Angst
My input stream is full of it: Fear and loathing and cheerleading and prognosticating on what generative AI means and whether it’s Good or Bad and what we should be doing. All the channels: Blogs and peer-reviewed papers and social-media posts and business-news stories. So there’s lots of AI angst out there, but this…
410
Benefits of choosing email over messaging
My colleagues and friends know that I prefer to communicate with them via email rather than chat messaging. There are many benefits in such a choice. You may want to consider them and adopt the same stance.
411
I passionately hate hype, especially the AI hype
I truly and passionately hate hype. From the fakeness of it to the sheer stupidity it represents, but perhaps most of all, because of the devastating consequence it often results in.
412
Stop Killing Games
tl;dr: If you're an EU citizen, sign the Stop Killing Games initiative here. Or, if you're in the UK, sign this petition. A month ago, I had a second video on self-hosting taken down. YouTube said it was 'harmful or dangerous content'. I appealed that, but my appeal was rejected. Luckily, I have enough reach I was…
413
On privacy and control
I have 15+ years of software engineering experience across different parts of the tech stack including networking libraries, congestion control, performance improvements, Backend, and Android development.
414
Where is my von Braun wheel?
In 1962. There — that answers the clickbaity title right away.
415
Remarks on AI from NZ
Last week I participated in a panel discussion on AI as part of a private event in New Zealand.
416
Starlink in the Falkland Islands – A national emergency situation?
In yesterday’s (Thursday) OpenFalklands blog, I noted that while a week may seem long in politics, even a single day can feel like an eternity […] Read More
417
I want to be left alone (2024)
Seriously. Please just leave me alone.
418
Advertising without signal: The rise of the grifter equilibrium
Economists credit ads with two welfare‑enhancing roles: 1. Informative – trimming search costs (Stigler 1961 (pdf)). 2. Signaling – In classic models, high-quality sellers are more willing to incur large, sunk ad costs because they expect to recoup them through future sales, especially in experience-good markets where…
419
Mozilla's new terms of use are out of step with Firefox's direct competition
On Wednesday, Mozilla introduced legal updates to users of Firefox, and something feels off. I read, and re-read the new Terms of Use and while much of it reads like standard boilerplate from any tech company, there’s a new section that is unexpected:
420
I'm worried it might get bad
Starting to worry things might get very bad, very soon