New premium column from Ed Zitron, digging into OpenAI and Oracle's deal.
this post was submitted on 07 Sep 2025
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Big brain tech dude got yet another clueless take over at HackerNews etc? Here's the place to vent. Orange site, VC foolishness, all welcome.
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The Grauniad has a new piece today about the underpaid human labor on which the "AI" industry depends:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/sep/11/google-gemini-ai-training-humans
Most workers said they avoid using LLMs or use extensions to block AI summaries because they now know how it’s built. Many also discourage their family and friends from using it, for the same reason.
OT: in happier news thats now doomed to be totally overshadowed: https://www.cbc.ca/news/science/mars-potential-life-1.7630035
Word of warning, if you are squeemish, Charlie Kirk got shot, and closeup videos of him getting shot are over social media and people have not put warnings up. Managed to avoid it myself, but careful with autoplaying gifs, and use this link https://bsky.app/profile/nycsouthpaw.bsky.social/post/3lyiw3vi3yc2c for instructions how to turn that off.
E: and it was a groyper, stop your bets ladies and gentlebots. The winner of the bet is, acausalrobotgod! Again! What a predictive streak. (E2: im just making a joke here on betting markets and how ACRG would win them all because acausal magic, don't bet on peoples lives and don't use betting markets).
E: while im editing this post with corrections, turns out that Kirk was a lot worse than I thought and he wasn't just a garden variety propagandist like a Shapiro/Crowder etc. (yeah I know they both also try to branch out into more media). He was doing a lot of shit work on the ground, and one of those guys who was really influential with younger people. Read that this might also explain the extreme rightwing reaction, as he was seen by some as a next big political player. To me, very online leftwinger from europe, he just was the worst joke from a line of other propagandists, but I was wrong on that.
Irrationally annoyed at yanks incorrecting each other how this kind of shot could only be pulled off by a trained expert sniper. The Behind the Bastards guy agrees, but the replies are still stuffed with examples.
I know from experience that even mediocre conscripts shooting a gun for the first time in their life usually manage to land hits in a one foot diameter circle from 150 metres with iron sights on an intermediate catridge rifle. It doesn't take an elite marksman to hit a sitting man from 200 yards away, especially with a scope. Even if nervous and high on adrenaline, an average hunter, target shooter or (ex) military type would be more likely than not to hit a target of that size at that distance, assuming otherwise decent conditions.
Hell, the factory sights on an M16 are supposed to be set for zero elevation at 250 metres and the effective range for most assault rifles and their semi auto civilian variants is around 300 metres. To say you need to be a trained sniper to make this shot is like saying you need to be a professional racing driver to do 80 mph on a highway.
If there's one thing you'd assume seppos know well, it's shooting firearms, but some people still can't help but spout dumb bullshit.
"One of our guys was murdered; it could have only been an elite Navy SEAL with over 300 confirmed kills!!!" them, probably
Yeah, I think the whole 'quickly getting away without leaving a trace' is more sign of some training. But, this is reduced in being likely by the whole FBI just being filled with incompetent goons, podcasters, racists, who are now playing 'find the person of color' and not doing the actual FBI things.
I mean I have no high opinion of groypers, so I don't think they are well trained soldiers or something so take that into account. Exmil just has a higher willingness to kill people.
But yes, very good to point out thanks. Esp as Evans has experience in these things, and can generally be relied upon. (Apart from his views on 40k being too rosy).
We can prob rule out a Luigi style killer as there was no shellcasing with words on it found as far as I can tell.
Even in Luigi's case, it took days to catch a guy who (allegedly, lol) killed a billionaire in the middle of Manhattan. Though very dashing, Mangione hardly seems like a navyseal elite supersoldier ninja hitman 47 either. Whatever Kirk's killer's motive, I see little reason to assume it was necessarily a pro job. All this tells us is that overfunding and militarization doesn't equate to a more competent police force.
Yeah, and he had motive because of his intense pain, still a weird Rationalist adjacent type guy was not a likely subject. And sadly we knew the latter already.
It has been long long ago, but I recall that when London put CCTVs everywhere the chief of police there admitted it had not caused a drop in crime not helped them catch criminals. But he still wanted to place more of them and more money. Just a strange sort of welfare project for pervert police people.
E: and look all that police power, and he gets caught be cause he admitted it to his dad.
also, I was at Bible study with Luigi at the time a CEO coincidentally had a bullet-involved collision, as were you
During the lead of usual speed incident?
Yep we were, we were talking about hiring jetskis. Strange how they never used the pictures of him on the jetski in the news like how they do with all the white guys who shoot up a place. Wait, that means they know he was innocent just like we do.
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Thoughts and prayers, definitely no curses.
I have spend the last few hours looking through all my social media posts making sure I delete any bad things I have said about witches.
The covens appreciate the overture.
Hecate left no crumbs
looks like we've got us our own superpredictor
But I just met 'er!
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In more low-key news, French voice actor Françoise Cadol has accused Aspyr Media of making an AI replica of her voice for the latest Tomb Raider remaster (the French one specifically, though its probably not the only one with AI slop voices).
Examples of the AI-generated voicelines have popped up on social media.