@ibboard.co.uk
Geek, Linux user, open-source contributor and developer. Former security researcher & consultant turned data engineer. Itinerant tinkerer and knowledge junkie. Mostly at https://hachyderm.io/@ibboard https://ibboard.co.uk
The emerging cases of AI psychosis have shown that all it takes to drive some people completely insane is to put them in contact with a sycophantic chatbot who always agrees with them.
Now, what does that tell us about billionaire CEOs surrounded by sycophantic people who always agree with them?
It is very easy to read statements like this as a joke.
This is not a joke.
We have proven with AI, completely by accident, what knowledgeable people have been saying for decades: the environment that rich people live in gives them a very specific personality disorder.
“And, for an instant, she stared directly into those soft blue eyes and knew, with an instinctive mammalian certainty, that the exceedingly rich were no longer even remotely human.”
-- William Gibson, Count Zero
Sam Vimes knows very well that all cops are bastards (after all, he is one)
but he knows even more deeply that all landlords are bastards, and that he should direct his bastardry at them
and that’s why we love Sam Vimes
Discworld QOTD, from Feet of Clay
It’s crystal clear now that Trump has lost control of this war. He badly misjudged Iran’s ability to retaliate. The region is on fire.
1/ I’m going to explain to you in this🧵what I’ve learned - in part from closed door briefings - about the four biggest current crises.
Hamnet Synopsis: A poignant drama that explores Agnes and William Shakespeare’s loss of their 11-year-old-son, which back then was considered pretty old, all things considered.
The Onion’s 2026 Oscars Best Picture Guide https://theonion.com/the-onions-2026-oscars-best-picture-guide/
8 March: Trump tells UK not to send ships to the Gulf as "We don't need people that join Wars after we've already won".
14 March: Trump asks UK to "send ships to the area so that the Hormuz Strait will no longer be a threat".
It's a tragedy that so many lives hang on the whims of this angry child.
The crime is not just the killing of people who surrender. The crime is telling the enemy that if they surrender, they will be killed. Because when the enemy hears that they cannot surrender peaceably, the war changes from a strategic conflict to a blood-soaked deathmatch.
a unified theory of Donald Trump’s actions
For anyone confused as to why Ofcom are dragging their heels over such blatant infringements: last year GB News threw money at litigation to take previous Ofcom judgements against them all the way up to the High Court & won, including having all costs paid. Ofcom are terrified of taking them on now
it’s unreal how these grown-ass men had no problem destroying untold lives with chatGPT but go crying to a judge when people make fun of them online
As we discussed on @polphilpod.bsky.social, a lot of people will say by focusing on negatives of Labour's policies we don't give enough credence to the positive policies. Fair enough, I guess, but the positive policies don't remotely outweigh the negative ones and their impacts on people's lives.
It brings me some solace to know that whatever's happening down here, there are still some absolutely incredible human-made and human-driven robots wandering around Mars, looking at cool rocks and dirt and sending us pictures just because we're curious about planets and our own origins in the cosmos
Whenever I see uncredited cute/amusing/surprising images or videos of dubious provenance doing numbers on here I just reflexively instablock the account that shared them. Hopefully over time it means my feed is less filled with people trying to boost their own accounts using stolen content.
It is actually possible to regulate gambling advertising, and while designing such a regulatory regime could be complicated, it can also be very simple, such as "there shall be no gambling advertising".
Yea, no kidding.
We've successfully destroyed 100% of Iran's capabilities except for their ability to ~squints~ launch missiles, drones, and mines.
Presumably the ridiculously high-heeled shoes make sense when the ground is that full of spikes!
Happy Saturday this is a #RandomWhiteDwarfCover
Issue 11. February/March 1979
Vote for us - we have no interest in fixing your problems! 🙃
New poll: a majority of Jewish Israelis support the genocide in Gaza *in explicit terms* (“all residents of a conquered enemy city should be killed”) and an overwhelming majority (82%) support ethnic cleansing.
And the reason we were doing this experiment is to understand the sound that is formed at the moment a new bubble pinches off. At that point, both bubbles are "pointy", but only for a very brief instant. They rapidly snap back into a rounder shape, and it makes the whole bubble ring like a bell.
Really significant, I think, that the leaders of the Greens and Lib Dems were very visible at Transmission, very happy to publicly demonstrate a commitment to the dignity of trans people. But the Labour frontbench, which still likes to cosplay respect for human rights, was nowhere to be seen.
Can’t believe nobody wanted to read the articles nobody bothered to write
"Under a new rule, the State Department will be able to revoke trans people's visas over "misrepresentation." It'll give ICE grounds to suspect all trans people of being in the US illegally."
yup
maybe you can figure out how to make money on your own doing agentic coding if you’re good enough but at a larger company it will absolutely not save you (plenty of folks in big tech with high performance ratings or who had literally just been promoted got laid off last round)
Trump got paid $10 billion to offload one of the top social media apps to his right wing billionaire buddies under the pretense of protecting consumer privacy and national security, and 80% of the articles don't make it clear that this is not in any way normal
your vote is rarely the single decisive vote
but sometimes it is! and you never know when that might be
bonus Discworld QOTD, from The Shepherd's Crown
"FOR I CAN SEE THE BALANCE AND YOU HAVE LEFT THE WORLD MUCH BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT, AND IF YOU ASK ME, said Death, NOBODY COULD DO ANY BETTER THAN THAT…"