I don’t think you did anything wrong. I hate people striking up a conversation like that as well.

You can train yourself not to panic, deep breaths, focusing on something in the middle distance, closing your eyes, counting to ten - whatever works for you. And then you can ride a situation like this out. Either by masking your discomfort or giving very curt replies. You can also just say “I’m very sorry, I’m not in the mood for a chat.” But you mustn’t worry that you made an extrovert sad. She’ll get over it and maybe learn from this experience as well.

I take your point. It’s just that any scenario you’re describing with so-called AI could have been done by a search engine already. The slop of yesteryear was SEO ranking articles and fake links to make the algorithm prioritize your site over others. Well poisoning is how PR agencies get troublesome celebs out of the headlines again. The list goes on.

I share your concerns about the black boxed nature of so-called AI and by extension their search engines. I’m not saying it isn’t a problem; it’s just not a new one. Up until now we have had companies in charge with a vested interest not to bend the flow of information too far from, let’s call it, the median truth. Now companies are letting models make these decisions and some humans afford these models more credibility than their common sense and that is all worrying to say the least. So I’m a worried as you are, it just started earlier for me.

All of these things would have been possible to restrict on good old Google searches. And they are enforced to varying degrees around the world to differing legal situations. You shouldn’t be able to search for child porn anywhere, swastika merch in Austria, insults of the king in Thailand, etc.

Search on Google mainly got worse because of Google. They made their results more shit to get you to click on follow ups, the dreaded page 2 of results for instance, where they could sell more ads.

I do agree that so-called AI search is more of a black box. Although the Googles and the Bings want you logged in to personalize the results, you can find a way to test their otherwise mostly obscured algorithms in a neutral setting. The models may not allow that and/or testing their metal may have yet to be invented. But they will replace search as we knew it.

The growing faith people have in whatever LLMs spit out (over old school searches) is very concerning. It’s like LLMs are the new Facebook conspiracies. Schools need to teach media literacy as its own subject. All people under 70 today should have to get a media drivers license.

Edit: And I didn’t even mention the “right to be forgotten.” That also exists in the EU.

I fear this has the potential of becoming the copied standard unfortunately. Fear of terrorism is like think of the children. All it will do is force people who need visas into having squeaky clean innocuous public profiles and operating anonymous accounts with actual opinions. Terrorists will do the same. So this privacy infringement will only catch really dumb people.

No, it isn’t. They may already like you but how will they know you care if you don’t offer an array of easy to misunderstand signals?

Sounds Swedish.

It’s gossamer thin, admittedly. But there is a shred of a justification for striking Iran that is covered by international law. I’m not saying it is a proven case yet that a preemptive strike against their nuclear program was called for, against a state whose raison d’être is to destroy Israel. But if the circumstances were just right, the Israeli-US allies could get away with it. (And if no good proof materializes, I suspect they will get away with it anyway. Remember Colin Powell’s PowerPoint? Did that have consequences other than killing people next door? I suspect that’s why they’ve crossed this bridge.)

There is not even a hint of a justification for what Russia is doing in Ukraine. Not in international law. And any possible moral high horse has already been shot long ago. It’s just imperial ambitions.

So we should not equate these two special military operations just yet. We may in the future and then we can throw all our rotten tomatoes at DC. But right now one probably should reserve judgment and refer to them as “alleged orcs” if one is given to name calling.

One ping only.

If these two companies are in bed with each other, they are hate-fucking each other though. Carnal pleasure but no love lost.

I don’t find this that infuriating. And you have choices to run a different browser. Granted, most of them are chromium based. Edge’s only use case is to download a Firefox fork and/or a better chromium that is neither Edge nor Chrome.

First of all, this isn’t enshitification as defined by Corey Doctorow. This has nothing to do with an internet platform getting worse because the priorities of the proprietors changed.

I don’t think it’s entirely fair to blame Google for this. None of these companies do this for entirely altruistic reasons. At the core of the problem is funding in education. Google saw an opportunity and jumped on it. When given a choice that kids get no computer hardware vs. dumping price Chromebooks I would still vote Chromebook. Get your politicians to set aside less money for tanks and more money for education.

Besides, no one is stopping kids from exploring other platforms. Google is looking for an infrastructure lock-in, get them locked in while they are young, but you can go do other stuff. It’s also a question of financial means and interests. And they don’t need to do LAN parties because they already have Fortnite and stuff. Life moves on. Your childhood was also markedly different from your parents’.

You are judging work by somebody who doesn’t feel compelled to follow guidelines made by other people with those very same guidelines. Those other people looked much more closely at flags for geographical entities, not movements, to come up with their guidelines. No one is required to follow them or retroactively abide by them. They are a great style guide but not the law.

Every flag serves a purpose. This flag’s purpose is to show representation by color and design for everyone in the community. It’s was the point to be busy.

Why don’t they just stick with the rainbow flag? Because the idea of the rainbow encompassing everyone was made at a time when gay and lesbians came out with pride but many of the letters that abbreviate that community today were still marginalized more harshly, maybe even within homosexual circles. They weren’t all suddenly anthropists and free from discriminatory points of view. Development of ideas and communities takes time. And that’s why an artist took ideas from many different flags that were created over time and combined them into one. It is eye catchy and instantly recognizable, even at a medium distance still.

I don’t find the result aesthetically pleasing either. But I recognize a) that wasn’t the point of it and b) I’m not a member of the LGBTQ+ community. If from within that community a movement rises to change the flag into something else, by all means. Other than that my design opinions - and I suspect many other ones in this thread - are largely academic and frankly irrelevant.

Good flag bad flag is not the gospel. Take it as a starting point for new designs but don’t scrutinize all existing flags by it.

Discrimination in hiring happens every day. Be it conscious or subconscious. If there isn’t a hard, unavoidable quota no one can force anyone to hire people they don’t like. The laws may just forbid them from being this forthright.

Never attribute to malice what you can more appropriately attribute to stupidity. The people who coded this may be young and not even on their first divorce yet. To me, that’s what this family plan business falls under. To leap from that to organized discrimination of folks being born out of wedlock seems a tad too conspiratorial from my POV.

This may be a fryable fish. Yet I see much bigger fish elsewhere.

What may also hold back development of functional patchwork family plans is legal hot water. Not every split is amicable. The Googles and Microsofts may simply have decided they don’t want to be put in a situation where they need to adjudicate between two warring ex partners whose bitterness is overriding their child rearing responsibilities with petty disputes. And building a system where maybe new partners can gain access - even just by mistake - to their spouse’s kids accounts also has very bad PR potential when it turns out the step parent is abusive.

Nevertheless you should let them know about your feedback. Patchwork families are quite common and they can probably do more in that area.

That’s unfair to microwave ovens because they have established uses, even in some fine dining establishments. So-called AI has none of that just yet.

And if we have found a way to reinforce a straw, then we will have found a way to reinforce the planet as well. Danger averted.

Dehydration is but a secondary concern as you’re being chased by a sabertooth tiger.

The short answer is a court of law.

The long answer includes a reference to the location because a few countries do not list “escape from prison” as a crime in itself recognizing the human yearning to be free. So only incidental stuff would be interesting in a subsequent legal case, i.e. damage of property, threatening people with violence, etc. If you can manage to slip out in a laundry basket, you are okay. Andy Duphresne would be liable for the wall and sewage pipe he broke. (And committing fraud, of course.)

The American fear of a proper ID system is puzzling to me. It’s constant fear mongering of overreach by the man and not enough appreciation of the benefits. The first one is a self-updating voter registry that eliminates the process of registering or having to check on your registration to make sure you didn’t get knocked off for no good reason. All people need to update their home addresses when they move. Another benefit is - if implemented well of course - that everybody could have a 2FA-quality chip in their pocket to allow for many services to be done reasonably safely online. The dreaded lines of the DMV come to mind. Another benefit is you could prove very quickly who you are, especially if fingerprints are on the chip, to counter mistaken identity arrests that may or may not have been instigated by a so-called AI.

So the government knows everything about you, sure. But it’s not a one-sided deal. And frankly, even if the government did not have this information on you before it turned tyrannical, it would ID you as a possible malcontent in no time. Your data is already available for sale on various data broker sites.

I realize that me preaching the benefits of a proper ID system to the Americans in times of 47 and ICE raids is a bit wonky. I am not going to speculate if the self-updating voter registry could’ve prevented 47. And ICE under 47 might find its job “easier.” But from what I’ve read and heard they haven’t exactly been detail-oriented public servants. When the rule of law breaks down everybody gets effed. And so-called illegal immigrants also have phones and use the internet so their information was also available for sale before stable genius returned to the orange office.

Of course there are dangers that need to be addressed. Access to the database needs to be tighter than a sphincter and every query needs to be logged. Every system will be abused. Checks and balances need to be there, ideally with a right to find out who looked you up and for what reason for everyone. I’d prefer a system embedded in law over internet data brokers.

If you have a garage, at home. You might want you drop more details to get better answers. E.g. location.

Glad to hear it! I thought I heard a sigh of relief so massive it circled the world twice.

I get why the feelings sucks. You’re in your head and somehow only the worst possible outcomes ruminate. You’ve called the cops, good on you.

You’re not in charge of the world, there ought to be others who are charged with taking care of that girl. Their failure in preventing her from showing up on your porch is not your fault either and she’s their responsibility, not yours. Keep repeating that in your head.