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2026-05-05

• 14:23 UTC The Problem With Counterfeit People – The Problem With Counterfeit People An excellent essay from Daniel Dennett back in 2023 which I wholeheartedly agree with. As BBC journalist Tom Chatfield puts it: The way we're using AI to impersonate human beings has already put us on a dangerous trajectory. [Dennett] called such AIs "counterfeit people", and told me that rolling out such entities en masse constituted "mischief of the worst sort": a form of "social vandalism" that should be addressed by law. Why? Because, if convincing digital representations of humans can be created at whim, the entire business of collectively assessing other people's claims, experiences and actions is put at risk – not to mention essential social infrastructure such as contracts, obligations and consequences. Hence the need for legal prohibitions, a case he made at length in a May 2023 article for The Atlantic. "It won't be perfect," he told me, "but it will help if we can make it against the law to make counterfeit people. We can have stiff penalties for counterfeiting people, same as we do for counterfeit money... we should make it a mark of shame, not pride, when you make your AI more human." Tags: ethics future ai llms daniel-dennett philosophy regulation law humanity people
• 14:23 UTC isene/glass – isene/glass I love the purism of this -- "pure assembly terminal emulator. x86_64 Linux, no libc, X11 wire protocol". Terminal emulator written in x86_64 Linux assembly. No libc, no runtime, pure syscalls. Speaks X11 wire protocol directly via Unix socket. Single static binary, ~155KB. No toolkit, no rendering library, no external font engine. The TTF rasterizer (glyph) is embedded in-binary via %include. Just your keystrokes, the X11 server, and the kernel. Part of the CHasm (CHange to ASM) suite: bare (shell), show (file viewer), glass (terminal emulator). Tags: asm x86_64 assembly terminal hacks unix linux glass chasm optimization x11
• 10:23 UTC The Paradox of Medical AI Implementation – by Eric Topol – The Paradox of Medical AI Implementation - by Eric Topol Deep learning-based AI has been proven to help in medicine, but GenAI is easier to deploy and is being used instead: [Deep learning-based] AI for medical images, with extensive research dating back more than a decade ago, is not being implemented. Whether it’s a mammogram, a CT scan, a retinal image, or colonoscopy, that have all been extensively studied, their value to improve accuracy and risk assessment in medicine is being missed and essentially disregarded. On the other hand, tens of millions of Americans are using AI chatbots for medical support, as are a substantial proportion of physicians. There are many reasons to use AI here that are easy to support, because they represent an extension of a web/Google search. Just with much more specificity and depth of response, not something that would be subject to regulatory oversight. But when it comes to making a diagnosis or providing a treatment plan there needs to be proof that LLMs are improving accuracy and outcomes. Tags: medicine deep-learning ai genai llms healthcare science imaging chatbots eric-topol
• 09:20 UTC “Invisible” bend insensitive bidi fiber – "Invisible" bend insensitive bidi fiber Bookmarking for a future home-network upgrade.... this tiny fiber cable is practically invisible, bends easily, and supports 10Gbps: "invisible" bend insensitive fiber (G.657.A2 / G.657.B3). It's under a millimeter in diameter and basically vanishes into corners and base board crevices. From more than a meter away is't completely unnoticeable. Together with a pair of bidirectional SFP transceivers this makes an amazing retrofit option for locations where laying new runs is not an option. Tags: 10gbps networking home fibre fiber wiring via:itc

2026-04-30

• 10:05 UTC Amazon Connect Talent vs. bias law – Amazon Connect Talent vs. bias law Excellent post from Corey Quinn, which I agree with 100%: Amazon Connect Talent was just announced. It conducts AI-powered conversational interviews with candidates, generates "anonymized competency scores," and surfaces ranked candidates to recruiters who "make the call." Fun fact: in New York City, that is an Automated Employment Decision Tool under Local Law 144. AEDTs require an annual independent bias audit with publicly posted results, plus at least ten business days of notice to candidates before use. Illinois, Colorado, and the EU AI Act impose adjacent obligations. The launch materials mention none of this. The compliance posture appears to be: candidate names are stripped from recruiter dashboards, therefore bias is solved. That is not how any of this works. Proxies for protected class -- speech patterns, zip codes, education history, the resume already sitting in your ATS -- are exactly what bias audits exist to measure. I don't think the product is bad. I think the announcement is conspicuously missing the guidance customers need before they can deploy it in NYC without violating Local Law 144 on day one. (The day's other news so far: Amazon Connect now ships as a four-SKU family, and there is a new design philosophy called "humorphism" with its own .com. Both feel small next to the above.) If you're selling automated hiring decisions in 2026, the bias-audit conversation belongs in the launch. Tags: bias law amazon aws recruiting regulation automation ai
• 09:09 UTC Far-right narrative not the majority view in Ireland – Far-right narrative not the majority view in Ireland Here's the bad news: A report by the Hope and Courage Collective, which works to build resilience in communities against rising far-right hate and disinformation, has found a widening gap between public attitudes and political discourse [in the media]: a relatively small number of far-right actors disproportionately influence public political debate through online amplification, visible protests, and repeated narratives. Public attitudes are becoming steadily more inclusive, but political rhetoric risks legitimising scapegoating and that the far-right ... "is shaping the conversation". But on the other hand, these survey results are downright heartwarming: Year-on-year datasets tracking changes in public sentiment in Ireland between 2024 and 2025 show that 66% agree that immigrants contribute positively to Irish culture and community, which is up 2% up from 64% in 2024. 79% believe working-class people are struggling due to systemic inequality which is also up 2% from 77% in 2024. Those who believe wealthy people are successful because they were given more opportunities than others has risen from 63% in 2024 to 69% in 2025. The number of people who support the freedom of transgender people to live their lives is up 5% up from 70% in 2024. 80% agree that Black, Asian and minority ethnic communities face greater barriers to success than white people, up 5% up from 75% in 2024. Tags: ireland discourse far-right right-wing politics surveys culture culture-wars propaganda disinformation

2026-04-28

• 09:21 UTC zizmor – zizmor "a static analysis tool for GitHub Actions. It can find and fix many common security issues in typical GitHub Actions CI/CD setups." Tags: lint dependencies github security ci-cd static-analysis zizmor

2026-04-27

• 11:44 UTC The fastest Linux timestamps – The fastest Linux timestamps lol -- "TL;DR: We can speed up timestamps on x86 Linux by 30% and maintain the same precision as the standard system clock by implementing our own timers without relying on vDSO. Almost nobody should do this" This is good info, I had to implement fast timestamps a few years back in Java and this would have been useful. Tags: time optimization performance linux libc speed clocks
• 08:51 UTC Frequent infections in nursery help toddlers build up immune systems – Frequent infections in nursery help toddlers build up immune systems The paper is "Germ factories or immune boot camps? Infection and immunity in childcare settings". tl;dr: Young children who attend nursery get sick more often than those who don’t, but they will go on to have fewer illnesses during early school years. A typical one-year-old starting nursery will experience around 12–15 respiratory infections, two gastrointestinal illnesses (diarrhoea and vomiting), and one or two rash-causing infections in the first year alone – which will all have a substantial knock-on effect for working parents. Employers need to recognise that it’s normal for parents of young children to regularly need to take time off work to care for their children, and will also be more prone to getting sick themselves – but this will improve as the child ages. Children who attend nursery at a young age experience more infections from age one to five than those who remain at home until starting school – but then once they’ve started school, this pattern is reversed as children without prior childcare experience get sick more often. The paper is here: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/95b322b6-aef4-4b17-bf23-60aa7f5938b1 Tags: germs infection immunity immune-system children parenting childcare kindergarten kids diseases sickness
• 08:48 UTC New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper – Jeff Geerling – New 10 GbE USB adapters are cooler, smaller, cheaper - Jeff Geerling Not sure I'm at the point where I need a 10 gigabit ethernet USB adaptor, but this is good to have bookmarked Tags: ethernet usb networking hardware via:hn reviews 10gbe

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