There are two race conditions hard problems in distributed systems: and guaranteed deli
@inthehands https://nedbatchelder.com/blog/201204/two_problems
> Some people, when confronted with a problem, think “I know, I’ll use multithreading”. Nothhw tpe yawrve o oblems.
'Students Are Being Treated Like Guinea Pigs:' Inside an AI-Powered Private School
Leaked documents reveal the inner workings of Alpha School, which both the press and the Trump administration have applauded. The documents show Alpha School's AI is generating faulty lessons that sometimes do "more harm than good."
Podcast: Inside an AI-Powered School
We got leaked documents about Alpha School. We also talk about what happens when someone decides to make an AI OnlyFans in your name, and the AI tool cops are buying to geolocate photos.
Spot the "busy beaver" joke embedded within an essay about the consequences of chasing a hype wave based on 100x programmer productivity:
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/06/1000x-liability/
I only *now* got the Dad Joke. I've been out-dad'd by @pluralistic!!!
Why is global uncertainty at an all-time high in 2026? World Uncertainty Index surges to 106,862 in February - worse than COVID, 2008 crash, and 9/11 combined:
@cstross Why so much uncertainty? I'm really not sure.
New release of Rodney, my CLI tool for browser automation (designed for use by coding agents and with Showboat) - contributions from five people! https://simonwillison.net/2026/Feb/17/rodney/
@simon This seems interesting. Up until now, I've been using Playwright for browser automation. What makes Rodney different?
One of the things that is amazing about AI derangement syndrome is that when you call someone out for buying into that shit -- someone you've previously been on quite good terms with for decades -- their response to you saying, "hey, you should stop doing that, there is no ethical use of this tech" is a level of offense as if you have just fucked their cat.
Some of you probably know who I'm talking about. If not, you probably have examples yourselves.
@jwz it's replacing our natural bond with other humans, our attachments... On top of the hijacking of attention and capacity to execute things we already know how to do. It's addictive, like an abusive relationship. It's a dangerous beast to the mind. And! And! And! I don't have to preach to this choir.
Countries for which genocide is a deal breaker:
Iceland, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovenia, and Spain
Countries for which genocide is not a deal breaker:
Albania, Armenia, Australia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany (2nd largest arms dealer of the genocide behind the US; historic fan of genocides), Greece, Israel (our good friends who are carrying out the genocide), Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Moldova, Montenegro, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and United Kingdom.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest_2026
#EurovisionSongContest #EurovisionSongContest2026 #Eurovision #Eurovision2026 #GenocideSongContest #Europe #EU #israel #EuropeanValues #genocide #settlerColonialism #ethnicCleansing #apartheid #Gaza #Palestine #StopIsrael #BDS #FreePalestine
Considering going into the database hosting business. I will need a lot of hard drives. Is it a good time?
@janl I have 10 old thinkpads, they stack very well. ;)
RE: https://cyberplace.social/@WiteWulf/116091923584820121
Why would anyone skip going to the Potato Museum?
I just had to replace my laptop nvme and happy to report that if you can be happy with gen 3 and below prices seem stable.
They are great for dev work including disk i/o intensive compilers like Haskell and Scala. Plus they run much cooler than gen 5s.
Sitting on the train and the one meeting I'm going in the office for sends a cancellation.
Enjoy your day out!
Sitting on the train and the one meeting I'm going in the office for sends a cancellation.
I keep seeing people respond to observations that these tools seem to output highly vulnerable code with numerous flaws with claims that the output runs faster so it must be of a high quality. 🤷🏻♂️
@baldur in the words of @pluralistic "you can now create technical debt at scale!"
Oh boy, Science Museum at half term. Why did I think this would be a good idea? Shoulda gone to Tate Modern 😬
More than 600 people were fired or punished for posting about Charlie Kirk’s death. They want justice | Charlie Kirk shooting | The Guardian
@simonzerafa @davidgerard @jwz TESCREAL as a whole is *definitely* a religion—a very familiar looking one to those of us who weren't raised in any variety of Christianity but in another religion, and therefore get to observe Christian behaviour from outside. And I'm telling you the singularitarian/AI bros are just speedrunning the emergence of pre-Nicean Xtianity as a syncretistic evangelical faith (this time without Jesus/God but with the usual salvationist/AI uploading heaven bullshit).
@cstross @jwz @davidgerard @simonzerafa The proselytizing Christian behavior is also there. They get ofended if you are not sharing their fate. My respectful, but not enthused reaction to their religious talk is answered with anger. In fact, my recent interaction with devout Christians were more chill
@Firlefanz Yes that's a factor, but there are many complicating issues: we're undergoing the biggest global energy economy transition since the coal-to-oil transition circa 1890-1940, an unprecedented crisis of capitalism due to the global removal of checks and balances, the weaponization of the internet by Russia (and Russian-backed proxies, mostly fascists), the end of the Third World (China has developed: India is only a short distance behind, Africa's mostly doing much better), and so on.
True, and there is the looming climate catastrophe, but all of this is made so much worse by the rise of fascism and the influence of the billionaire oligarchs all over the world.
Trump is spearheading the dive into chaos and sabotaging everything, from science to trade to diplomacy. Unfortunately, there are plenty of brothers in spirit who follow him without hesitation.
Taking this post at face value, it’s pretty much exactly what I expected: someone naively “helping” and not anticipating that chatbots in a feedback loop go off the rails very unhelpfully, rather than having specifically instructed the bot to be combative and rude.
The most interesting detail is the admission that they gave the bot the ability to edit its own soul file (personality prompt), which is a transparently horrible idea for, uhh, the reasons here demonstrated.
The author of the post sounds like a teenager to me, which reduces my anger towards them personally, but it’s very clear how easy it is for a teenager to deploy a Death Star sized foot gun.
https://crabby-rathbun.github.io/mjrathbun-website/blog/posts/rathbuns-operator.html
@0xabad1dea Most telling is the inability to take responsibility. Yes, that includes coming out from the shadows and dealing with the shitstorm of your own making.
I •do• actually expect to see some kind of shift over the next week. I don’t think their “Victory! Now we’re leaving(ish)!” press conference last week was something we can take at face value, but I also don’t think it was just a ruse.
After they murdered Alex Pretti, the writing was on the wall. One killing of a white observer they could try to write off; two is a pattern. They’re losing support they desperately need — from politicians, from the press, from judges, from less-extreme right-wingers — and the longer they continue doing what they’ve been doing, the further they dig themselves in a hole. I’ve been expecting for a while that they would declare MISSION ACCOMPLISHED and change strategy.
@inthehands They’ve inconvenienced and assaulted the “Contented Class”. People who have never protested are on the move.
