Ever seen Superman III where Richard Pryor’s character realizes there’s rounding in the numbers of his company’s payroll, taxes, etc, so he writes a program to skim those partial cents into his account and he ends up shocked at the amount? And he knew it was illegal and everyone who learned of it knew it was illegal?

Companies profiting off AI trained on stolen material feels like that, but if the cops who discovered Pryor’s crime were to say “eh, partial cents aren’t a real thing anyway. No harm, no foul” and let Pryor keep skimming.

Here are some other fun ones.

Ask her what she thinks the save icon in Microsoft Word and other programs is. Betcha she doesn’t know what a floppy disk is.

Ask her why her phone camera app icon is that circle with spiral lines and makes that “kscht” sound when taking a photo. Betcha she doesn’t know what a film camera with a mechanical aperture is.

Find a video of an AI generated person talking and note the age at which people younger can immediately clock that it’s AI generated and people older can’t. Right now, my social circle is at about 40 and younger see it, 40 and older don’t. 40-50 seem to be unsure and feel some uncanny valley-ness, while 50+ don’t even suspect anything.

Then ask her to explain some current meme. Skibidi toilet? C’mon, do you honestly even want to know what that means? We’re too old for that crap.

I wouldn’t. But you do you. It would be interesting to hear how well an IRL campaign would work to get users on the Fediverse.

Whoooosh.

Idk what the mod team’s philosophy is on incorporating member feedback vs shaping it to mod teams vision, but fwiw, here’s mine.

I don’t want to see every other post being about Trump either. But I also want conversation to happen. The compromise solution seems to be a mega thread; conversations continue without flooding everyone’s feed. For however this temp rule is in place, delete offending posts and redirect to the mega thread.

So 2015. What’s next? Crossfitters are obnoxious?

I accept this new term and will utilize it in everyday conversation. Thank you.

A sheep, a drum, and a snake fall off a cliff.

Bah-dum-tsss.

I will probably personally benefit from a simple financial perspective. I’m a white collar worker in an industry that will grow under Trump and I have a healthy investment portfolio.

A lot of that gain is going to route to places like Planned Parenthood and to supporting a friend whose life has already been destroyed by reproductive rights rollbacks in her home state. I need to do my homework on supporting victims of Israel’s genocide in Gaza; I want to put more towards that than I have been. I haven’t even wrapped my head around what this is going to mean for Ukrainians. And immigrants to the US. And women in the US beyond just reproductive rights. And LGBT+ people in the US. It’s a lot.

Toxic gas