#tech failures

[areadersquoteslibrary]

"In March of 2016, [...] JAMA Internal Medicine released a study showing that the artificial intelligence built into smartphones from Apple, Samsung, Google, and Microsoft isn’t programmed to help during a crisis. The phones’ personal assistants didn’t understand words like “rape,” or "my husband is hitting me.” In fact, instead of doing even a simple web search, Siri—Apple’s product— cracked jokes and mocked users. It wasn’t the first time. Back in 2011, if you told Siri you were thinking about shooting yourself, it would give you directions to a gun store. After getting bad press, Apple partnered with the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline to offer users help when they said something that Siri identified as suicidal. But five years later, no one had looked beyond that one fix. Apple had no problem investing in building jokes and clever comebacks into the interface from the start. But investing in crisis or safety? Just not a priority."

- Technically Wrong: Sexist Apps, Biased Algorithms, and Other Threats of Toxic Tech

by Sara Wachter-Boettcher

[alackofghosts]

hello good morning everyone

[narfin-frood]

What would the shorts be in your AU? I think it be a live demonstration of how someone (Mr meteor) is integrated into the hivemind and how it's "safe" and "the right thing to do"- basically propaganda. but things keep messing up

wander's not like. super public with the cult the way hater is with his empire in the show, so i don't know whether he'd be airing something like that across the galaxy. hater's got like. totally negative charisma, especially when he's being recorded, and yet he continues recording himself, and i think that's a trait meteor would still share with him. mr meteor is very much like metroman of megamind to me, also, where he quits his life of fame & glory to become a nobody, but he still has that streak of like. craving the kind of attention a rockstar gets as opposed to the superhero/king treatment.

so i imagine the shorts would be like. meteor's vlogs on his youtube or something. and he's starting a series called Inside Planet Yonder or whatever where he sets up a camera in an unassuming place and does little dances for the camera until he gets caught. like a prank show or something, but very benign and mildly annoying as opposed to antagonistic. this does require the shorts to take place before wander is redeemed, but honestly, the timeline in this au is so scrambled when you try to put it up against the show itself (which is already crammed into two very short seasons) anyway

[heyclickadee]

So, I’ve been trying to square the idea that The Bad Batch is from Omega’s perspective with the fact that there are a lot of things we, the audience, see happening, but are never addressed, because they’re things with which Omega never interacts. And of course it’s not literally from Omega’s perspective. There are sequences and two entire episodes she isn’t there there to see. Something that could be interesting, though, is if this show is from Omega’s perspective in the sense that things can happen without Omega, but they’re never pulled together or unpacked until it’s time for her to do so.

So, for example: We get a scene in “Faster” between Millegi and Cid in which Millegi calls Cid on her old habits of throwing people under the bus (“Hustlers like us never change.”) Cid is actually offended by this and replies with, “I might surprise you.”

There are two important things about this moment. One, we’re given a little bit of insight into Cid and the fact that she seems to want to have changed—she doesn’t want to be the person who stabs people in the back. Two, this moment is here entirely for the benefit of the audience. None of our main characters are here to witness this, so it’s not something that leads them to accept the idea that she’s changed only to be shocked when she betrays them later on. The thing they hear from Millegi is, “Watch your backs.” None of them was ever given a reason to doubt that—not even Omega, who seems to like Cid well enough and will go to bat for her, but still knows she’s not that trustworthy.

But we, the audience, are given a reason to doubt that Cid will betray them. A small reason, in that scene between her and Millegi, but a reason still. What plays out, however, is what everyone expected; Cid betrays the batch at the worst possible moment, surprising absolutely no one. Millegi’s, “Watch your backs,” plays, even though it’s not something we needed to hint that Cid would sell them out; Cid’s, “I might surprise you,” the hint that’s there just for the audience, never comes full circle.

Except…it’s not just empty, either. We do get a few hints that Cid doesn’t really want to betray the batch, that she may have been trying to get them to stay away, and several fairly big indications that she hates herself for what she’s done while the betrayal is playing out. (She looks less than proud, let’s say, when she takes the money from Hemlock, and blurting out a half-confession, half-justification to Wrecker in the first place.) So it is actually consistent in that, as suggested in her scene with Millegi, she’s unhappy being the person who stabs people in the back; but because we follow up on the other foreshadowing, and because Omega doesn’t see Cid again by the end of the non-epilogue portion of the show (she could have seen Cid in the gap; anything could happen in the gap), we never get a moment where Cid surprises us by explicitly showing that she’s changed. It’s not something that gets dropped or changed as much as it’s something that stays consistent, but doesn’t come full circle.

And there’s a lot in The Bad Batch that’s like this. We do, for example, see moments showing that Hunter, despite being a good man trying his best, is flawed and practically kneecaps himself with indecision and crippling self-doubt. Because of what Omega’s relationship with Hunter is, however, we never quite get around to unpacking that. She sees Hunter the way a lot of younger kids see their parents, so his flaws remain present rather than explored. that and instead unpack his relationship with her. Crosshair, despite his incredible redemption arc, ends the series with a lingering sense of guilt and a feeling that he deserves to die; but because of how Omega sees Crosshair—as someone who has made mistakes but who is, at the end of the day, her beloved little brother—we never quite unpack the source of his guilt or his turn from being implicitly to explicitly suicidal. We see clues and signs that Tech might have survived the fall—including one metatextually from Omega herself—but because all these clues are directed at the audience and go unseen by most of the cast, especially Omega (who doesn’t know she’s in a story where literary devices exist), we don’t ever deal with them. We see the build up with Rex, the senate, and something that looks like it’s leading to a clone rebellion, but we only really deal with the implications in moments that directly impact Omega’s story, like Echo leaving. And so on and so on—we could pick this apart for ages.

Whether or not this is a criticism, though, depends entirely on the framework. For example: If The Bad Batch as is really is the whole story and there’s nothing else, and never was anything else, then, yeah, it’s a disaster. It’s not just tripping on the finish line, it’s losing the race because you kept turning down dead end streets and having to climb over buildings to get back on the racetrack.

If, however, there does end up being more and we’re really at the end of part one of however many parts there are, what we’re looking at was never thought of as an ending, and what we’re getting is going to come with a bit of a POV shift away from Omega (not that she won’t appear at all, but that she won’t be the POV character), then it could all end up being a phenomenal piece of storytelling in the long run. I mean—I’m actually annoyed at how well it could work if they actually pulled something like that off. There’s still criticism to be had, but my criticism would be more focused on terrible audience management driven by an obsession with spoilers, the social media/marketing around the show being what it was, and a failure to really nail the transition with an episode that really seems to have been written more as a season finale (we didn’t get a long finale, I’m convinced we just got episodes 15 and 16 smushed together, and “The Cavalry Has Arrived” was just the title of the episode 16 that got applied to both), but had to also function as a series finale without being allowed to resolve anything but the Hunter-Omega arc. Basically, fumbling the transition between chapters somewhat rather than fumbling everything.

And the second one is what I lean towards, partly because it is weirdly consistent, and partly because despite the many (many) characters, plots, and subplots being left unresolved, none of it really has the hallmarks of something that ran out of either time or budget (at least, I don’t think so, now that I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it for two months). Things that run out of time usually cram all the resolution that they can into as little time as possible, and there were ways to resolve everything in the “terrible but at least still resolved” fashion by adding a couple of lines or even a voice over from Omega in the silent parts of the epilogue (cheapest, fastest solution and it could have done late, after everything else was locked down, any time before the episode was uploaded). Things that run out of budget usually cut anything that’s expensive—like, for example, a ten minute multi-character fight scene with particle effects that doesn’t have a plot reason to even be there unless we’re not actually done with the CX plot yet. Or rain. Or an outdoor set that only appears in one episode for three minutes.

TL; DR: I actually think there’s something interesting going on with the storytelling here if we’re not actually done with the story yet, but also it would be really nice to know for sure if there’s anything more coming because it’s either amazing or terrible and there’s nothing in between.

[adhd-merlin]

x

[secretromanticsstuff]

typewriters should make a comeback now.

[theartstore]

i think it says a lot about me that my computer Fully Fucking Died and i was more concerned about whether or not i remembered to save bg3 beforehand . i was having a grand old time in grymforge, i went down to eat tea, i came back up, the entire thing was dead, and my first reaction was oh no!!! i don't remember how recently i saved!!!! . like buddy your fucking power supply unit failed i feel like there's bigger fish to fry here

[iheartvmt]

When the two sweet, adorable little kitten siblings come in for their s/n surgeries, but the pre-anesthetic blood work shows mild renal dysfunction, so you do a U/A and it's chockablock full of renal cells and no sign of infection, and then the doctor finds out their breed is predisposed to polycystic kidney disease...

[goberaw]

Gob here, I apologize for the quality of my art because that the tablet that I draw on is currently broken and is being repaired for now. And you may ask yourself "if your tablet broken what are you drawing on" to answer that question, I am currently working on a old tablet with a mouse, the reason why I'm using a mouse is because the tablet I'm using is an ancient relic that the screen won't work anymore and to use this I plug in a type c to usb adapter to connect the two device.

It sounds kinda stupid to use a half broken tablet when there are alot of options digitally and especially traditionally, and you may ask "why would you do that" because I'm cheap and if there something that already work why would I spend money on things that's just going to fill my room lol.

If you actually read through my rant thanks for wasting it on this and not on ai slop, I appreciate it and that's kinda it for this post.

the image below is just to show you.

[princetofbone]

Day 2/29 of productivity

I took all of the multiple choice tests for the first module and uhm..

I'm going to take a break from the med sections for today because this is depressing. I have a lot more to learn... clearly.

I'm going to move onto the federal requirements for the rest of today, and then come back to the meds later (I've not studied my top 200 drugs enough recently and I need to brush up to do better on this I think)

Also! I'm being a big girl and going to wells fargo to get me a bank account. I'm old enough now that I can have my own, which is exciting and after that, I'm going to go to the local knitting store and work on my emotional support chicken that I'm making with the knitting club!!

[alianoralacanta]

So it's €5000 for nearly hitting someone at speed in the pit lane, but €10000 for not providing an SD card because the FIA forgot to specify a) that teams needed to supply one for the new flexible aero enforcement cameras and b) what sort was needed (since SD cards come in multiple sizes)? Apparently safety is out, guessing what device to use with equipment is in. Bad show on both matters, FIA.

[querido-eh-dump]

Initial sketches I did long ago. Predictably, i did these two first

Then... them again and then the rest lol.

I had fun thinking about these designs and why they could fit each character (for me), but honestly, i feel I did Evan's too simple. I was gonna make him a mummy at first... but i felt it was a bit mean lol. Still, here is this (two versions), to make up for it in a way.

[chronomally]

Reading a paper from 2023 that cites the success of Waymo self-driving cars and thinking about the article from 2024 that *I* cited about the two Waymo cars that hit the same truck minutes apart

[chrissysky]

what are the chances

[askshivanulegacy]

ChatGPT is NOT the same thing as a calculator

A calculator doesn't give you wrong answers.

It will ALWAYS give you the correct result based on your input.

If you feed it the wrong information, the answer to your problem will be wrong, but you can identify and correct it fairly easily because the logic is straightforward and consistent.

If you feed input into ChatGPT, you will not know if the output is right or wrong. You will not get the chance to easily identify whether it's right or wrong. There is no logic to the output, which is NOT an answer. Your output will be different every time for invisible, inconsistent reasons which will be impossible for you to determine. You must examine, in excruciating detail, every aspect of what it gives you to determine if it's correct and useful. You must examine every source it makes up to determine if it's real and relevant.

"ChatGPT is right 80%" of the time

"ChatGPT is right 90%" of the time

Unless ChatGPT is right 100% of the time, it is literally useless. You will spend more time and effort verifying the output than you would if you just did your own research and wrote something yourself.

ChatGPT is not a research tool, and it was never MEANT to be a research tool. There is no concept of "right" in the context of a ChatGPT output because that is not what ChatGPT is designed to do. It doesn't give you "right" or "wrong"; it gives you words that sound natural ... to a limited extent.

If all you need is output that sounds natural, regardless of the content, that is what ChatGPT can do.

If you need specific content, if you need research, facts, math, conclusions, actual THOUGHT applied to something, ChatGPT quite literally cannot do that.

If the output is sounding to you like it HAS done that, then that is the insidiousness of ChatGPT's lies.

If your teachers and professors actually advocate for ChatGPT, they are failing their job. You should care about that, because you're paying for them to develop your skills.

You should also care about that because that line of (zero) critical thought will give us "professionals" in industries who generate critically important documents which have hidden falsehoods and errors, which other people and other industries will rely upon.

If you want your leaders and researchers and officers and reporters and everybody else to give you imaginary information, then this is definitely the path we should be on.

This was never an issue with calculators.

Oh, but is it too hard to catch students using ChatGPT?

Cry me a damn river. Do your fucking job.

[dandelionsprout42]

Reminds me of the livid nightmare that was the microgame Write On, Dude in WarioWare Gold, easily the worst microgame or minigame in any known Nintendo-published game.

I could literally have the kanji drawn 1:1 with that of the example, and the game would still randomly decide "…Nope, lol, lmao" and call it a loss anyway.

Any players who would be able to provide proof that they got the Index flower for that one are either Herculaneanly strong, have spent 9 hours a day for 6 days hoping to get lucky without throwing their 3DS 30m out the terrace window, or have attended schools in northeast Asia from Year 1 onwards.

Video of me trying to write the number 3 in professor layton game for 1 minute