Software Umarell @KainosSoftware; forever searching for that missing semi-colon. Opinions as a Service. SWLIPDSINBFASOG.
Belfast
Joined November 2009
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Casual reminder that these billionaires are choosing to make the bad things happen and that they are in no way inevitable
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The unalloyed hubris from big AI companies is breathtaking. Acting as if their specific business choices are some universal inevitability rather than just a combination of ideology and profit motive.
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Will Hamill retweeted
>math professor spends a year on one of the hardest unsolved problems in math
>"Navier-Stokes"
>his drafts for the whole project went through codex sessions
>openai had his logs in codex
>suddenly rumor leaks AI solved it
>he emails openai to ask what's going on
>openai calls within days
>"funny story, our model also solved it"
>using his exact approach
>asks openai: did you train on my sessions?
>no answer
Using AI for structure or to review is one thing but to chuck in three short points and have it generate three paragraphs... LLM slop is so tiresome to read, and when posts stink of AI it damages the author's credibility. Interesting comparison to spammy emails damaging a brand.
The revolt of the reader
bcantrill.dtrace.org/2026/09…
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LinkedIn is especially bad for this. Just reams and reams of absolute blather with a terrible signal-to-noise ratio. And I mean worse than LinkedIn was before. 'Thought Leaders' churning out multi-page posts with maybe two meaningful sentences worth of content buried inside.
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Incredible savings opportunity from Virgin Media here if I renew my broadband contract. Making me an offer I can't refuse!
(New customer cost for same package: £28 🫠)
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Oh no problem I'll just tell my grandparents to check for a SynthID digital watermark whenever they're looking at misinformation on Facebook then you absolute mugs
We take misinformation seriously – every image created with Nano Banana in Google Earth includes the SynthID digital watermark, so if someone is unsure about an image, they can ask the Gemini app or use Lens in Search to see if the image was AI-generated. In addition, we prevent image creation on harmful topics and are continually updating our protections → policies.google.com/terms/ge…
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
Google's SynthID only watermarks AI-generated portions of Nano Banana images in Google Earth (less than 25% in tested examples), not the entire image, limiting full verification as AI-generated. digitaldigging.org/p/googles-synt…
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Will Hamill retweeted
pulping rare books into a closed source AI training set is the most dystopian thing I've read in a while
Hit it again
ALT Screenshot of Hans Gruber from Die Hard, looking out of the window at the stricken APC and delivering the order to his goons on his walkie-talkie "hit it again"
Meta said in a court filing that four states were seeking $1.4 trillion in penalties over accusations the company designed its Facebook and Instagram platforms to addict young users and misled the public about their safety reut.rs/4eM5Wtc
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Bruh
Introducing Ode Poetry. Ode is a wonderful poetry pharmacy that reads you a poem for the moment you’re in. Just tell Ode what you're feeling, and it uses Microsoft AI audio models to connect you with the same work that poetry expert William Sieghart would recommend.
The best technology doesn't replace human creativity, it helps more people experience it. Super proud of the team for making this truly humanist tool. More in the blog:
microsoft.ai/news/ode-poetry…
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Will Hamill retweeted
Meta burns $2.65B a year on AI tokens. at $300K for a Meta engineer, that's enough to pay ~9,000 engineers for a full year.
now ask yourself: since the layoffs, has Meta shipped anything that feels like 9,000 engineers’ worth of output?
I'd recommend that anyone who hasn't yet read her book, check it out, it's one grim revelation after another about how these people operate.
"They've silenced her.
"This is an attempt to punish someone who spoke the truth."
The "bizarre" moment @maitlis is forced to ask Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams to leave the studio.
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Will Hamill retweeted
PICARD: Data, shields up
DATA: Brilliant! Shields can reduce damage we sustain. Not immunity. Not hubris. Just prudence. It's not precaution—it's strategy.
[camera shakes]
WORF: HULL BREACHES ON NINE DECKS
DATA: Here's what happened: you told me to raise shields, and I didn't
Will Hamill retweeted
Amazon just got caught running a secret price manipulation operation with Levi's, Home Depot, Walmart, and many more.
Every time you "comparison shopped" online, you were looking at prices that were already rigged.
Here's what happened:
Amazon would monitor prices on Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Home Depot, and Chewy in real time. The second a competitor listed a product cheaper than Amazon, they'd contact the brand directly and tell them to "fix it."
And the exact emails are now PUBLIC.
Amazon sent Levi's links to two Walmart listings with the subject line "styles of concern." They basically said the prices on Walmart are too low and we have a problem.
The next day, Levi's responded: "I talked to Walmart and they have partnered with us to take Easy Khaki Classic fit back up to ladder SPP price, $29.99 immediately."
Levi's literally called Walmart and told them to raise the price. Because Amazon told Levi's to make the call.
Walmart complied. Then Amazon matched the HIGHER price.
Both retailers ended up charging more. The customer paid extra. Nobody competed.
Same playbook with Hanes:
Amazon sent them links showing Target and Walmart prices were lower. Hanes confirmed they "reached out to Target and Walmart to have the prices increased."
Target increased the prices. Walmart increased the prices. Amazon kept their margins.
But it gets even worse...
Amazon told Allergan (the company that makes eye drops) that their product was "suppressed" on Amazon because it was cheaper on another site.
Allergan responded: "Walmart got their price back up to $16.99." Amazon then unsuppressed the listing.
They did this with pet treats on Chewy. Furniture on Home Depot. Products across dozens of categories spanning YEARS.
The mechanism is simple but terrifying:
If you're a brand and you sell cheaper on Walmart than on Amazon, Amazon suppresses your product, removes you from the Buy Box, buries you in search results, and effectively makes you invisible to 300 million customers.
Brands can't afford that. So they call Walmart and Target and say "raise your prices or we'll lose our Amazon listings."
Walmart and Target comply because they need the brand's products.
Amazon captures 40 cents of every dollar spent online in America. That gives them the leverage to set prices across THE ENTIRE internet. Not just their own platform.
So turns out, you were never comparison shopping.
You were looking at a coordinated price floor set by Amazon through backroom phone calls between brands and their competitors.
"Amazon is working to make your life more unaffordable."
3 separate antitrust trials are now scheduled for 2027. The FTC has its own case. 18 states plus the DOJ are piling on.
This is literally happening during the WORST affordability crisis in a generation. Groceries up 25% since 2020. Housing unaffordable. Wages flat.
And the largest ecommerce company on Earth has been secretly coordinating with brands to make sure you can't find a cheaper price ANYWHERE.
"Competition" in retail is just a fantasy.
