dorian

dorian

@doriantaylor.com

make things. make sense. independent researcher / design theorist 温哥华🇨🇦多伦多

7.3K followers775 following35.4K posts

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

also lol @ the bit about "the reason why we don't have nuclear-powered cars is that we lost our nerve" like no peter it's because we don't want every little fender-bender to be a mini chernobyl

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

immediate first thought is that this is ddos by social engineering (in turn mechanized by system prompt)

Jason Koebler@jasonkoebler.bsky.social

In the last few weeks i've been bombarded with emails from people who have minor tech support problems. ChatGPT is telling them to email me, writing their emails, and compiling "evidence packets" after convincing them they have stumbled on a major story: www.404media.co/chatgpt-keep...

404media.coChatGPT Keeps Telling People 404 Media Can Solve Their Tech Support ProblemsBecause big tech doesn't do customer service, we are being inundated with AI-generated emails begging us for help.
dorian
@doriantaylor.com
Michelle La Fell@michellelafell.northsky.social

Carl Sagan mostly talked to adults at an adult level Bill Nye mostly talks to kids at a kids level Neil deGrasse Tyson mostly talks to adults at a kids level

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

clearly we have different ideas about what the phrase "aesthetic movement" means i'm going to bed, tawk amongst yaselves

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

something i have been thinking about recently: if fascism is a fundamentally aesthetic movement, what happens when that aesthetic starts looking bad?

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

(i should hope it's obvious that i mean to people who erstwhile thought it looked at least a little bit good)

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

oh my god nerds: take the number 4 and work your magic

Bobson Dugnutt@foolishmortal.bsky.social

I only want devices to talk to me in warcraft peon voice. Maybe Starfleet computer in a pinch. Nothing else is acceptable.

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

i have new bluetooth earbuds and the prompt voice i can only describe as Bedroom Chad™ my last ones (jabra elite active) were a very chipper Helpful Girl Friday® so the difference is a little jarring you can actually hear Bedroom Chad™ get a little pouty when he says "disconnected :("

dorian reposted

mtsw
@mtsw.bsky.social

Everyone thought Lula was cooked, hopeless. Then he bought a phone and started posting and now he's gonna get a 4th term. The lesson is to never stop posting.

dorian reposted

Steve Farrugia
@fasterandworse.com

Replying to @fasterandworse.com

There is a basis of design which is to find the best way to satisfy a purpose. That basis is then subject to constraints which limit how that purpose can be satisfied, how much time can be spent on it, and what materials are available.

dorian
@doriantaylor.com
CityNews Vancouver RSS Feed (Unofficial)@citynews-van-un.yvr.whims.io

B.C. Conservatives projected to form majority government

vancouver.citynews.caB.C. Conservatives projected to form majority governmentThe resurrection of the Conservative Party in B.C. is complete. B.C. Conservative interim leader Lorne Doerkson defeated incumbent David Eby and the BC NDP in Saturday’s provincial election, CityNews is projecting. Doerkson’s transition from a little-known MLA from Cariboo-Chilcotin to board-appo...
dorian
@doriantaylor.com

we think technology is gadgets but it's actually the way you make the gadgets if you can write a spec for it and somebody (with the appropriate background knowledge) can read and reliably reproduce it, it's technology what makes magic magic is you aren't totally sure how it works/it isn't reliable

conputer dipshit@davidcrespo.bsky.social

was talking to my 8yo about what’s sci fi and what’s fantasy articulate the difference between technology and magic in one post. go

View full thread
dorian
@doriantaylor.com

like the thing about technology is that any old dumbass who can read a manual can wield it (and if you don't understand what the manual says, keep reading until you do); you don't have to have the special innate je-ne-sais-quoi of a literal wizard to make use of technology, that's the whole point

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

like clarke's quip "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" sure, because in both cases there's a gap between the capabilities demonstrated and your methodological knowledge what makes technology different is that in principle that gap can always (eventually) be closed

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

we think technology is gadgets but it's actually the way you make the gadgets if you can write a spec for it and somebody (with the appropriate background knowledge) can read and reliably reproduce it, it's technology what makes magic magic is you aren't totally sure how it works/it isn't reliable

conputer dipshit@davidcrespo.bsky.social

was talking to my 8yo about what’s sci fi and what’s fantasy articulate the difference between technology and magic in one post. go

View full thread
dorian
@doriantaylor.com

if a technology works you should be able to say *why* it works; if it's broken you should be able to say why it's broken (and at the very least formulate an idea for what it would take to fix it) magic, i dunno, how is the astral plane or whatever feeling about it at this particular moment

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

like the way magic is fairly consistently portrayed in works of fiction (at least in my experience) there's always this irreducible nugget of mystery (either the spell isn't guaranteed to work, or the competent spellcaster is a mysterious figure) that (in my opinion) doesn't exist with technology

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

we think technology is gadgets but it's actually the way you make the gadgets if you can write a spec for it and somebody (with the appropriate background knowledge) can read and reliably reproduce it, it's technology what makes magic magic is you aren't totally sure how it works/it isn't reliable

conputer dipshit@davidcrespo.bsky.social

was talking to my 8yo about what’s sci fi and what’s fantasy articulate the difference between technology and magic in one post. go

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

to be clear you don't necessarily have to know how a given technology works to *use* it, but you do to *make* it also implementations of technology break all the time so they're not "reliable" in the sense the spec is by contrast you may never be able to know why a magic spell works or doesn't

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

also i swear like the js ecosystem is more rabidly thirsty for novelty than the rest of software development

dorian
@doriantaylor.com

like for starters "modern" is a moving target that just means "whatever the newest shit is", implying that anything that isn't the newest shit is antiquated and bad