Can you believe its been a year since Musk took over Twitter? The Verge has a decent summary of all Elon's Twitter/X related shenanigans - it's a hell of a ride, yet despite all that, the site persists. Sure, active users are down (how down, we don't really know as Musk doesn't release any comparable stats, let alone trustworthy stats) and advertising spend has plummeted (60% according to Musk, who tried to blame the Anti-Defamation League for the drop), but it keeps on chugging along. The plan still seems to be turning Twitter/X into a payments platform, elaborating in an all-hands meeting last week that "when I say payments, I actually mean someone's entire financial life. If it involves money. It'll be on our platform. Money or securities or whatever. So, it's not just like send $20 to my friend. I'm talking about, like, you won't need a bank account". The mind boggles at who would use this, but Americans have fucked up payment systems, so who knows.
A consultation paper released today by the federal government aims to "modernise" the Universal Service Obligation, a requirement Telstra has legally had to meet in delivering communications to Australia for decades, pre-internet even. The USO is a set of rules that makes sure everyone in Australia gets some sort of telecommunications service regardless of where they live, as there's plenty of people out there who are uneconomical to deliver service to. Without the USO they'd be left behind. The government points out that NBN covers 97% of the population these days and Starlink can do the rest, so they wonder if it's really worth burdening Telstra with the requirement that they provide a service to every premises in Australia. The consultation process should report back to government mid-2024 with the feedback it gets from industry and the public.
404 Media reports that the USA's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has "used a system called Giant Oak Search Technology (GOST) to help the agency scrutinize social media posts, determine if they are 'derogatory' to the U.S., and then use that information as part of immigration enforcement". Screenshots in the article show how GOST allows ICE to "search the system with identifiers such as name, address, email address, and country of citizenship" and display a "ranking" from 0-100 on how troublesome that user is based on their social media activity. I think we all kinda knew that the USA's (and probably many other countries) border police did this kinda thing, but to see it in action is a bit disturbing.
This Arstechnica article highlights user reports of people having "creative development sessions" with ChatGPT, using it as a "brainstorming partner" and even chatting "as if I were hanging on the phone with my mum". I've used the voice chat feature a little, mostly for shits and giggles, but I can totally understand why people would do this. The voice recognition is excellent. Far better than what Apple and Google do on iOS/Android, even with my dumb Australian accent and lazy speech patterns. The way the ChatGPT voices talk back to you is incredibly realistic as well. By the way, Her is an excellent movie if you haven't seen it.
Carbon nanotubes. Dr. Diego Garcia, Universidad Complutense de Madrid - Real Sociedad Espanola de Fisica, Madrid, Spain. Stereomicroscopy 30X (Objective Lens Magnification). 16th Place, 2023 Nikon Photomicrography Competition. (Nikon)
📻 This Perfect Day - Tropical Fuck Storm
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