Pinned toot

Given that for the foreseeable future an awful lot of conversations will be about the threat, real or imagined, of AI (also real or imagined), I think we're overdue for a HAL 9000 emoji, don't you?

Somebody get after whichever unicode committee handles this, pronto.

AI is cheap, ubiquitous and effective, we're told; yet Amazon somehow can't exclude the "I don't know" responses from their product Q&A database.

Hm. Where have we seen "scorched earth" tactics ordered by an occupying dictator facing a reconquest?

archive.org/details/isparisbur

Absurdity of #Russia public relations is that their narratives can change by 180° literally as a matter of hours.

That was the case with #MH17 when one minute they boasted about "another success of Donbass self-defense in downing Ukrainian airplane" only to switch to denial of even possessing anti-air weapons, about which they of course also boasted just a week before.

With #Dnipro Kakhovka dam destruction it's the same story: the area is held by Russian 205 Separate Motorized Brigade. In October 2022 their channels openly boasted about planting explosives in the dam, which was presented as a "last resort" in case of "uncontrolled advances of Khokhols" (Ukrainians). The channel was providing advice to their troops on what to do when the dam is blown up and estimated "70% likelihood it will be necessary":

https://t.me/mototroopers_205/377

https://t.me/mototroopers_205/387

The knowledge of having the dam mined was giving peace of mind to Russian troops on the left bank of Dnipro — they knew their command can at any time "flush the Khokhols down to the sea". Which is precisely why their reporter "Thirteen" was so triumphant this morning, praising the idea and suggesting other dams are blown too. I've posted these before, so just for reference his morning statements:

https://t.me/m0sc0wcalling/25120

But as the official denial from Moscow was published, "Thirteen" and other suddenly changed their line. Now he's blaming Ukraine, as if everything he said in the morning was to be remembered:

https://t.me/m0sc0wcalling/25137

Not surprisingly, Ukraine directly mentions 205 Brigade as the one responsible for this nights disaster:

https://t.me/Pravda_Gerashchenko/72784

It's not clear if the scale of the destruction was entirely what was planned. According to some sources only 11 segments out of 28 were destroyed which may indicate they "only" intended a much smaller breach but overshoot. It doesn't change what they actually have done.

Way back in October, the D.C.-based think tank
@TheStudyofWar
predicted this exact outcome -- the blowing of the dam "at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant (HPP) to cover their withdrawal and to prevent Ukrainian forces from pursuing Russian forces deeper into Kherson Oblast"

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A true man can grow a garden, repair machinery, minister to the sick or injured, and speak Welsh.

Your positions are emotional and tribal, mine are arrived at by well-informed dispassionate reasoning.

Said everybody ever.

Just saw a guy on *ahem* another social media service claim, in practically the same breath, that neither the slave trade nor economic colonialism were linked to capitalism, but Stalin's genocides were closely linked to socialism. Honestly, you can't even talk to these people.

So in an effort to refute allegations of being pro-Putin, Marine Le Pen’s far-right National Rally party set up a parliamentary inquiry to investigate foreign interference in French politics.

Instead of refuting the allegations, the inquiry has found that LePen is a Kremlin mouthpiece.
france24.com/en/france/2023060

Ranked from best to worst:

• Moral
• Immoral
• Amoral
• Balmoral

"key reason so many offenders went missing was because they had changed their names"

bbc.com/news/uk-64624921

Elizabeth Holmes has graciously turned herself in for her prison sentence. What a gal.

Meanwhile poor and/or black people spend two or more years in Rikers without a trial any time a cop has a beef with them.

At any point did anyone ask McCarthy to enumerate the Federal spending in Red states he wanted cut? Because most of them are taker states, receiving more in federal dollars than they remit in taxes.

This scenario is why Daniel Dennett is right theatlantic.com/technology/arc to say that the act of counterfeiting people is the great danger and that it should be illegal. Do whatever else you want with your AI; you should not be allowed to create fake humans for purposes of deception. infosec.exchange/@jerry/110402

remember when this guy fired Iceland's person of the year, mocked him for his disability, then belatedly realized the dude was on a "DO NOT FIRE" list because he was the founder of a company Twitter acquired and so firing him would cost a staggering sum of money?

I confess I'm instablock with people who state things they just made up as fact.

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