Yes. That’s what AI actually adds - plausible deniability.

My partner and I used to use location sharing pretty much 100% of the time. We just felt better knowing we could find each other.

But today, we do not, because the trust is shattered.

Google just cannot be trusted with our locations.

“Hospitality/ Nevada”

I see we’re still playing along with that euphemism. Haha.

Yes. I’m not sure what else has gone on, but NAFTA and the US China Relations Act sweaping all of the manufacturing out of the country could account for the whole change between the two maps.

I agree. But I mean, WordPress and SquareSpace already did that for about 98% of web traffic. It was a big part of the .Com Boom and Bust.

But we keep coming up with new stuff to build web software for, and there’s still plenty of web developer jobs. And there’s still so so many many shit websites.

Today’s AI can only remix, not do the new stuff. Maybe it’ll get good enough to tackle the novel new stuff, someday. I doubt I’ll live to see it, if it happens.

The root of my crankiness is: If we’re about to no longer need developers, I should be seeing widespread websites whose search, cart and checkout actually work correctly every time.

The snake oil salesmen are bragging that the era of carpentry has ended, from on top of a wooden stage that is falling to pieces with each step.

I would say, it can only get better, but it can really go both ways from here.

why do you guys always just move the goalposts?

“Vibe coding” has a pretty specific definition, which includes not understanding the code. So writing tests, or correcting the code both disqualify a piece of work from being technically “vibe coded”.

“yes”, “no”, and “ship” is hilarious.

Knowing it (well, appearing to, by regurgitating the average) better than many developers, pretty soon. A huge number of us know disturbingly little about how computers actually work. (Edit: Sorry, I’m being needlessly unkind to a bunch of us, since as Snoogums said, the current stuff doesn’t actually know anything at all, yet.)

Knowing it better than top developers is a science fiction fantasy singularity daydream.

And even Heinlein’s and Asimov’s post singularity fiction novels acknowledged that there would likely be roles for expert humans.

But for how much longer?

How much longer will we need people who understand how things work?

Thank you for sharing this. Patman was a delight. He made some of the best “History of” videos for classic games.

RIP Patman QC. He will be missed.

“We could be in serious legal trouble.”

“Don’t worry. My billions will protect me.”

I like the sound of “EmptyPromisesAboutTheWrongTopicsSocial” or maybe “StatusQuoKeepersSocial”.

Pen and paper is great for whenever I can’t get my hands on a chisel and rock wall.

This is the way.

The little squiggles are necessary to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich.

I’m joking. (Mostly)

The squiggles are probably county line divisions, and probably simply the smallest existing land divisions with good population data available to make the map from.

I say “mostly joking” because existing county line divisions are already weird in some cases, to ensure election outcomes acceptable to the ultra rich. So there’s an unpleasant grain of truth in my joke.

the very fact that there is a big urban/rural cultural divide is one of the things killing America.

I agree wholeheartedly about the problem. But blind highest count vote on every topic is one of the big dividers between rural and urban folks.

Rural folks will simply never have the numbers to influence outcomes in a pure vote count scenario. They’re aware of this, and it leads to animosity.

Incidentally, I agree that financial decoupling would be ruinous for both, as well.

The real solution is represtational seats that give everyone a voice - no matter how the voting zone is divided.

I suspect that requires doing away with first-past-the-poll. The winner of that race will almost always be a city person, by raw numeric chance. That’s fine, city folks have some good ideas. The problem is when there’s no rural voice at the negotiation, at all.

And I think any sensible person realizes we also have to put a stop to all gerrymandering.

Also, we need to give seats to what remains of all of the first nations, while we’re at it.

It might be possible Ferengi also have higher-than-human-average neuroplasticity and simply adapt easier - this might even aid in the on the job theory.

I think you’re on to something.

Various Ferengi having a kind of genius foreign to Federation values is a recurring theme in DS9.

Nog, in particular, gets up to some antics that probably require some brilliance. I recall him hacking or circumventing things even early in the series.

This still has the representative issue that each of the narrow bands are narrow due to a huge metropolis within them, and the rural population of that band will always live with rules created by the metropolis for the metropolis.

It’s a pretty map, though.

And is still makes more sense than “carefully negotiated by powerful ultra rich a few hundred years ago to protect each of their giant egos.”

I’m forced to assume that you are now surprisingly attractive, as well. That’s the way out goes with the person I never noticed in school.

Of course, part of it might be that my definition of attractive grew up to be a lot healthier than it was when I was a kid.

That’s exactly my experience, as well.

The PineTime is the best current option for a pebble enthusiast, since the Pebble.

But I still have to charge the PineTime every week or so, and that is with the screen off most of the time.

I miss the Pebble’s battery life.