Rebecca Jee

AI might be creating a ‘permanent underclass’ but it’s the makers of the tech bubble who are replaceable | Van Badham Despite the relentless insistence of tech’s grifters, AI is not industrially inevitable – or even sustainable. Which is why it is time to push back Bad news, baby. The New Yorker reports the rapid advance of AI in the workplace will create a “permanent underclass” of everyone not already hitched to the AI train. The prediction comes from OpenAI employee Leopold Aschenbrenner, who claims AI will “reach or exceed human capacity” by 2027. Once it develops capacity to innovate, AI superintelligence will supersede even a need for its own programmers … and then wipe out the jobs done by everyone else. Continue reading...

AI might be creating a ‘permanent underclass’ but it’s the makers of the tech bubble who are replaceable | Van Badham

The people at Labor HQ would chant anything at this point. Wild. I love it

Canada, we’re with you!
TRUMPISM IS REPUDIATED IN AUSTRALIA!
#auspol

A fire in a clay chimenea. You can see pine cones burning.

Ah chimenea time. Also time to start working through the giant pile of logs from the tree that fell over last year.

I was photographing an event today and a man (a stranger) put his hands on my waist to move behind me in the crowd. Just a fleeting moment but it unsettled me so much. Why did he need to touch me at all?

We have big rectangles on the wall *pretending* to be air con, yes :)

Turns out that all I needed to do was complain on bluesky about the hot weather and it got cool again! This app is amazing

and yes, we are extremely fortunate to be able to afford to replace or even have air con in the first place.

Yes, it sometimes gets hot in Tasmania. But it doesn't often stay that way for days on end. This sustained heat that doesn't drop at night is what I moved here to avoid!

Also, our air con broke before Christmas. So the cool weather will return on 13 Feb when the replacement is due to be installed.

37°C at my car at 1:30. Not normal for Tassie.

It’s never been more important to make sure you are getting your information from people who know what they’re talking about. (“Often says things I think are smart and that I agree with” is not the same thing as that.) (Neither is “sounds certain.”)

The more authors you read, the less chance one of them becomes load-bearing. Any one author could crumble away and you're fine, you can point to a dozen others who are doing the same thing.

Even if it's an author like Terry Pratchett, spreading that parasociality out is never gonna be a bad thing

feeling very bleak today. Good to be pointed towards the light.

Seven nation army…I want to know whose playlist this is. It’s quite possibly my GP’s, even more reason to like him as much as I do. And if the playlist belongs to one of the front desk women, I’ve misjudged them (had them pegged as smooth pop only)

Next: Johnnie B Goode, Don’t Stop Me Now and Numb…which is kind of appropriate when you’re sitting in a doctor’s surgery

Now it’s Four Non Blondes and the old lady next to me is humming along so I guess all three are true

Amuses me that currently the music in the doctor’s waiting room is Enter Sandman. Either what’s considered pleasant background music has changed, the clientele has aged into Metallica, or we’re all feeling especially metal on this New Year’s Eve.

We all get excited about Wrapped, and now every other brand is showing you your stats from the year...basically they're all saying "We've got your data! We're watching yooooou! Oh, I mean, looky here at these fun graphics and puns!"

It's all fun and games until someone loses an eye in a data breach

A heads up for those who haven’t posted anything in a while: it’s going to be much more expensive than you remember

When you ask people for photos for a project and they send them to you in a PPT or Word doc. I thought we'd gotten past this.

Last Christmas
I gave you my heart
Not really my heart
Just somebody's heart
This year
If the cops should appear
Please tell them that you don't know me

well now you have to

Tori Amos on trauma, Trump and Neil Gaiman: ‘It’s a heartbreaking grief’ The musician is back with a live album and as passionate as ever. She discusses fans, failure, muses, misogyny – and why she won’t tolerate bad behaviour

Feeling where Tori Amos is coming from, like, a lot

www.theguardian.com/music/2024/d...

Anoraks A paean to passionate collectors

I went to a music fair and survived!

This is the origin story for a very creative cat burglar

Unsubscralloween has been going for an extra long season for me this year

Interesting form checkboxes would be a benefit, I agree

A bit of clarification: totally understand using your title when you have a job relevant to that title...but say you have a doctorate but it has nothing to do with your current job. Do you still sign off "Dr...whatever?" Actually that would be a great email signature.

Kind regards
Dr...whatever

A question for doctorate-havers, regarding professional emails: do you put your title in your email signature? Why/why not?
If you put your title in personal emails that's a whole other story.

A lineup of eye drop and spray bottles for treating allergies. Dermal Therapy Face and Eyelid Eczema Cream has yellow lines and arrows around it like a sunburst, because it is amazing

Springtime in Tasmania Starter Pack. Turns out all this time I could have just put porridge on my eyelids and not had to deal with the fire of a thousand suns mixed with the aftermath of a Slimer encounter for the past few weeks. This oatmeal colloidal cream is probably more socially acceptable.