Python is coming to Excel. If you 1. know what that means and 2. are excited by it, then yep, you are a certified dork and I love you. According to a support document from Microsoft, "Python in Excel brings the power of Python analytics into Excel. Use it to process data in Excel with Python code. You type Python directly into a cell, the Python calculations run in the Microsoft cloud, and your results are returned to the worksheet". No local version of Python is included or needed, as everything runs in the cloud - which of course means internet access is required. Also it's only available in the Windows version of Excel (via the Microsoft 365 Insider Program & Beta Channel). No word if this will come to the Mac version of Excel.
The eSafety Commissioner released a position statement on how it thinks the generative AI technology harms kids and what it wants to see the companies making this stuff do to make it "safer", after it started getting reports of "sexually explicit content generated by students using this technology to bully other students". To be fair, their demands are mostly good - "appropriately resourced trust and safety teams, informed consent measures for data collection and use, regular evaluation and third-party audits", but others like "age-appropriate design and escalation pathways to engage with law enforcement" can easily be perverted to invade privacy and further turn the internet into a virtual Disneyland.
Once again, Samantha Floreani has published a great opinion piece about the whataboutism of digital rights activism and their experience trying to fight it, comparing it to where climate change activism was years ago - "we are relying on convincing people with research and logic, and it's not working". The other side however simply has to invoke the "Four Horsemen of the Infocalypse", terrorists, paedophiles, drug dealers, and money launderers and immediately whatever you're proposing puts you on the same of groups everyone agrees are arseholes. It's tough work this stuff. Support the EFA & DRW.
A promotional mail-away CD for Internet Explorer 4.0 given to people who signed up for it during Microsoft's Tech-Ed 97 event. This disc contains a full setup of Internet Explorer 4 as well as a collection of offline websites for places like MTV, ESPN, Warner Bros, and the like - that no longer work. (Foxhack / Internet Archive)
📻 I Am Trying to Break Your Heart - Wilco
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