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If you're a young person contemplating a career in tech, great! It's fun, and you can help people doing this. But please don't listen to the VCs and entrepreneurs who say it's all about changing the world. Instead think of it this way -- you're going to create tools for people who may change the world, in collaboration with lots of other people. No one person is that smart and experienced that they know what's best for the world. The stories you heard about great inventors probably aren't true. And the ones who actually changed the world, may not have changed it for the better. Look at what happened with Twitter as a cautionary tale. Imho it would have been better if the founders had made less money, and opened the door for lots of competition right from the start. That's the philosophy of the web. Instead they captured the web, amputated all its good features, and locked it in the trunk and then cut off its air supply. That was inevitable given the path they went down. Yes they changed the world, and in turn are creating a lot of misery. You don't want to do that, brilliant young tech person, right? Let's make the world better, one little evolutionary step at a time. More about this in yesterday's post. #

A video demo that shows how to set categories in WordLand, and I ramble through lots of philosophy and trivia. But the answer is right up front so you can skip all that michegas. ;-) #

Many good points in yesterday’s unusual Olbermann podcast, but the one that stuck with me is that at some point Republican incumbents will figure they don’t have a future in what Trump is trying to create and thus have everything to lose if he prevails. He thinks senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) may already be there.#

1. 📉 very skeptical
2. 📈 omg they have some kids with 100% hit rate on mind reading??? wtf this will change everything
3. 📉 why are we talking about angels and aliens and seeing the future and shit? like can we focus on the literal testable mind reading?

Anyway, “The Hill”, a thing in the show where autistic people go in their mind to hang out with each other, regardless of where they live in the world, is a cool concept and would at least make a good TV show. Also Science Vs. was not impressed.

🎥 Caddo Lake — On my flight back from Alaska I watched M. Night Shyamalan’s Caddo Lake and was very in the mood for it. Why was the gator cut in half? And then actually learning why without being beat over the head about it. It was working for me. I like that his movies ride that A/B movie line. I almost wish he made twice as many movies with half the budget. I came home that night and watched Trap just to keep scratching that itch and I think it’s scratched now.

🎧 Walkin’ About — Listening to some of this as Matt Haughey said it was good.

📘 Long Bright River — Reading this as Katy Decorah said it was good. I’m only just learning it’s a show too now so I’ll avoid that until I’m done.

I also obviously ripped through Severance and White Lotus like a good little media consumer. Really A+ golden age of TV stuff. I might need a TV break but we’ll see. I started The Studio with Seth Rogan, maybe that’ll stick. I’ve heard endless good stuff about Hacks so feel kinda compelled to try that. Wild card: I started Merlin, the BBC series, and it feels like the kinda slightly off the beaten path TV I need right now.

He also comments on the downside to replacing humans viewing web pages:

This also means that a bunch of the potential dark futures we’ve been predicting for the last couple of years are a whole lot more likely to become true. Why visit websites if you can get your answers directly from the chatbot instead?

The results are so good that I’m now asking AI for simple queries that Google would be equally good for. Using AI essentially automates the workflow of getting 10 links from Google, clicking on 3-4 of them, then skimming the web pages to get your answer.

I don’t know where all of this is going. It feels like a pretty big shift, though.