Robert Reich
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@Geekman
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Lifelong computer geek and Mac fanatic. IT Pro, Technical Communicator, advocate for digital rights and better infosec. Illustrator of "Bad Caps" and other dorky shirts.
Jyoti Mishra
Luci Bitchface AngerfootSee normally when an algorithm requires The Entire Global Supply Of Ram, a software engineer would consider that not a good algorithm, and would try and make a better one instead of optimising the entire planet for paperclip manufacturing.
Unfortunately we accidentally gave a bad software engineer too much money
The whole engineering crew can't fucking figure out how this happened. They're baffled. The computer just decided to execute the request in the most dangerous way possible.
Turns out that this was a fucking realistic depiction of how computers work in the future.
All because Geordi was too lazy to adjust the program parameters by hand.
Don't be like Geordi. Write and proof your own code.
(🧵 2/2)
Star Trek has, in the past, been cited as accurately predicting future technologies and designs. The flip phone, the iPad, voice assistants, etc... But allow me to submit: Lazy use of AI coding:
In TNG's "Elementary, Dear Data", instead of modifying the program like a good software engineer, Geordi is lazy (and in cosplay), so he just verbally asks the computer: "Create an opponent capable of defeating Data."
So what does the computer do? It makes a fucking hologram program SENTIENT.
(🧵 1/2)
Raimo (he/him)I suspect most people outside of the UK won't have heard about the post office scandal, but it seems highly relevant to learn about now (given *waves* this):
For over 15 years, the software post offices in the UK had to use contained severe bugs, particular in accounting, that everyone at Fujitsu/horizon and the post blissfully ignored. Over 900 (!!!) postmasters were sentenced for alleged theft and fraud, some went to jail, some committed suicide. All because the software was shit and everyone who could do something about it didn't care and swept it under the rug.
Everything, including how it was uncovered, about this seems bizarre and Kafkaesque, but we better prepare for it to happen more often.
#MARCHintosh is halfway over! Have you watched my video yet on my "Blue & White G4" restoration? I put a lot of work into this project and video and am keen to share it with the community. Please boost if you like it!
#retrocomputing #vintagecomputing #retrocomputer #PowerMacintosh #Restoration
Making a PowerMac Blue & White G4
Hey look! Shelby's @TechTangents adventures in putting Laserdics and CEDs under a microscope gets the nod from Gizmodo.
https://gizmodo.com/what-happens-when-you-put-a-laserdisc-under-a-microscope-2000732914
Anne Ominousit really seems like at some point, there is going to be some kind of reckoning for this country and our love of hypocrisy.
“They are largely uncompensated, they are being forced to work, and it’s unsafe. They also aren’t learning skills that will help them when they are released,” said law professor Andrea Armstrong, an expert on prison labor at Loyola University New Orleans. “It raises the question of why we are still forcing people to work in the fields.”
Hidden prison labor web linked to foods from Target, Walmart
In a sweeping two-year investigation, The Associated Press found goods linked to prisoners wind up in the supply chains of everything from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour and Coca-Cola. They are on the shelves of most supermarkets, including Kroger, Target and Whole Foods. They’re also exported. The prisoners who help produce these goods are disproportionately people of color. Some are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work – or face punishment – and are sometimes paid pennies an hour or nothing at all. They also are excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers, even when they are seriously injured or killed on the job. And it can be almost impossible for them to sue.
Post by @NanoRaptor : *Photoshop of ridiculous Apple product that didn't/could never exist, with wryly sarcastic context*
Me: