Just Around The Corner...

AllOurBehaviours
'RTheirsVille


Commenting on the last post about the AI Business Bubble, reader TB mentioned that what Mr. Orwell once envisaged about the year that 'Born In The USA' was released* is now just around the corner.

I, only half in jest, responded by saying that we might, ourselves, have already gone around said corner.

And then I read this, by Christian Hetzner writing in Fortune (web archive link):

George Orwell’s 1984 warned of a future where Big Brother watches every move. Today, modern technology is making that vision a reality, and Oracle founder Larry Ellison—the world’s second-richest person—sees a growing opportunity for his company to help authorities analyze real-time data from millions of surveillance cameras.

“Citizens will be on their best behavior, because we’re constantly recording and reporting everything that is going on,” Ellison said in an hour-long Q&A during Oracle’s Financial Analyst Meeting last week...

Upshot?

I no longer have any jests to give whatsoever.


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*But not this....version.

Tip 'O The Toque to Eric Loomis writing at that WZevon monikered blog


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Unit Economics On The Soles Of Their Shoes.

AllOfTheirTechBubbles
'RUsVille


From Cory Doctorow's latest on the AI business:

...This isn't like the early days of the web, or Amazon, or any of those other big winners that lost money before becoming profitable. Those were all propositions with excellent "unit economics" – they got cheaper with every successive technological generation, and the more customers they added, the more profitable they became. AI companies have – in the memorable phraseology of Ed Zitron – "dogshit unit-economics." Each generation of AI has been vastly more expensive than the previous one, and each new AI customer makes the AI companies lose more money...

Doctorow goes on to make a convincing case that the already massive AI bubble is expanding so fast that the best thing we can hope for is that it bursts as soon as possible.

In other words, if folks like Mess'rs Doctorow and Zitron are right,  the crash is coming and the only thing still up for debate is how bad it's going to be.

And then there is the matter of how fast the libertarian tech lords who now rule us will start screaming about the need for a bailout bigger than Jupiter and all of its moons.

Or some such Mars means nothing to us now-type thing.

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Earworm in the header?...This!


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HST Fridays - Their Difficulty With Pants.

CrookedIsAs
CrookedWasVille



This was then:

"...Nixon was so crooked that he needed servants to help him screw his pants on every morning..."

Hunter Thompson, 1994

This is now:

...The charges (against the former FBI Director) were filed in the eastern district of Virginia only after Erik Siebert was forced out as US attorney (by Donald Trump) for reportedly finding no grounds to indict (James) Comey...

{snip}

...Trump has spent the hours since Comey’s indictment was announced insulting him on Truth Social, calling him “One of the worst human beings this Country has ever been exposed to” Thursday night and “A DIRTY COP” Friday morning...

The Guardian, 2025

That is all.


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My Morning Rides.

NoCakeNoRain(Yet)NoMelting
CarnarvonParkVille


A few podcasts I've really enjoyed on the morning ride into work recently...

Christopher Guest on Maron - it turns out that there really is a method in his mad(cap)ness.

Jonathan Goldstein and Heavyweight are back! - The first episode is a touching one about JG's longtime nemesis Gregor's Mom.

The MoCo's Frontburner, which is more often miss than hit for me, had an excellent recent episode on the incredible life and times, including how he's dealing with the coming end of his life with dementia, of Robert Munsch.

That is all for now, although, to be clear, I am starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and, despite the changing of the seasons, it is not dying.

The light I mean.

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As for the ear worm in the sub-header...Not going to touch that one.


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Saved By Younger e's Bell.

Something'sHappeningThere
AshevilleNorthCarolinaVille


No matter how much I tried to pretend it wasn't looming out there just over the horizon back in the dog days, I knew it was coming.

And when the first few weeks of the new term hit, it was like the madness of pre-tenure days all over again.

Luckily our youngest kid, e.,  had a plan.

Which was to give me Friday night off by taking me to Malkin Bowl in Stanley Park to watch a kid named MJ Lenderman do his thing.

And it was really great.

And now that I've tabbed out the tune and mangled it a few times, I'm pretty sure I know what a beach house in Buffalo is and, perhaps more importantly, what it isn't...

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The scene in Asheville?...This...Of course, once normoid geezers like me find about a thing like that it's likely already gone, or at least passing...

Off(ish) topic...Ya, I realize the trolls are afoot once again...I've just been so darned busy...I'll bring in the removal service once I get a little time.

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Hot Mic In Beijing.

NuclearError

IHaveNoFearVille


From Pjotr Sauder of the Guardian:

It was the stuff of Bond villains. Two ageing autocrats, their younger ally in tow, ambled down a red-carpeted ramp before a military parade in Beijing when a hot mic picked up a question that seemed to be on their minds: how long could they keep going – and, between the lines, might science allow them to rule for ever?

With advances in technology, Russia’s Vladimir Putin assured Xi Jinping via his translator that “human organs can be constantly transplanted, to the extent that people can get younger, perhaps even immortal”.

The Chinese leader replied: “By the end of this century, people may live to 150 years old.”

Nearby, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un – three decades younger than the two 72-year-olds – appeared to take note with a smile....

Gosh.

Does that mean that, when he wrote Neuromancer more than 40 years ago, William Gibson knew that...

Some of it was true?


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Earworm in the subheader AND the kicker?....This!



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My Afternoon Ride.

 

Came back across the Salish Sea this afternoon...

To the best of my knowledge the Wacky One was not at the helm of the fine Spirit Class boat we rode in on.

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