The reality is thus: the people in charge either have no plan, or see no path forwards other than keeping their heads down. [...] The world’s organisations have been captured by people in the throes of frothing excitement, and saner people who now live in a state of constant commingled fear and frustration.

Not much to say here other than "yeah, I have felt the same for quite a while now."

Executives that tell the press that their company has gone insane will quickly find themselves removed from their positions. Employees who are honest will find themselves fired in short-order, or “randomly” selected for a round of layoffs. In fact, it is in the interests of almost every actor in the space – boards, executives, employees, vendors, consultants – to obfuscate and misrepresent the success rate of AI projects. Many publicly traded companies are putting out announcements about their AI productivity gains when I know for a fact that the businesses have done nothing other than purchase Copilot licenses and declare victory.

A long read but extremely worth your time.

It has become outright dangerous to even raise the possibility that AI might not be the solution to a problem, let alone be the sole focus of a company’s entire strategy.

In every sufficiently large business we have observed (say, with 500+ employees), we have noted that continued advancement, and increasingly continued employment, has started to require repeated professions of belief in the transformative power of AI for said business. I am not talking about providing ideas about how to use AI in the business – I mean religious profession, declarations of faith.

The final section of the essay -- "Navigating AI Mania" is, imo, crucial reading in this era of, well, AI mania. Funnily enough, I'd call a lot of this pretty bog-standard labor organization tips, but tailored for the AI regime. It's good reading -- if you don't want to read this whole thing, at least read that final bit.

For the worldbuilder then, thinking about fictional armies (or the student of history thinking about real ones), be sure to think about the entire military-leadership life-cycle.

Neverclick uses on-device computer vision to label everything clickable with keyboard hints, so you can navigate any app without touching a mouse.

intriguing. and I appreciate the dev being honest about the AI usage (sounds like extremely minimal). The program itself does not use any LLMs as far as I can tell, no phone-homes. as a big fan of "hands stay on keyboard" I like this idea.

The great African American poet and Harlem Renaissance figure, Langston Hughes, wrote two poems about V.I. Lenin in the 1930s. They reflect the tremendous spirit of hope that the Russian Revolution breathed into the national liberation struggles of Black people in the U.S. and all oppressed peoples around the world.

When I say that First Light is built for genre, I mean that every moment of the game feels like it is perfectly contoured over the model of the James Bond concept, folded and starched over the bodily form in ways that hundreds of professionals managed to accomplish over the course of several years. When I see the developing city emerge from the desert and the labyrinth of corporate managerial space capped with natural stone, I am prepared for genre to erupt at any moment.

Spectacular piece on First Light, James Bond, genre, and the current moment of IP acquisition and exploitation by Cameron.

Child labor is very “useful” if you want cheap labor. It’s 100% deplorable to use it or accept it. Child labor is a monstrosity. But if “useful” is enough, do we need to accept child labor? [...] Usefulness is a very weak argument in support of something.

Really fun technical breakdown of all the computers in Jurassic Park (1993). I love this stuff.

The year baseball died and took everything else with it.

A beautiful little VN. Well worth your time. Gay and labor-interested and historical and heartbreaking.