- Global warming will be responsible for …. a colossal mental health catastrophe. (Betcha thought they’d never be able to find a way to merge those two drummed-up modern crises.)
- Google’s recent behavior shows a dark pattern for a company that once pledged not to be evil.
- And here you thought a mere 1,000,000% inflation rate was bad. FEE sez Venezuela’s on track to hit 10,000,000% next year.
- Stocks drop over 800 points, with the five big FAANG tech stocks getting kicked in the gonads.
- “Alexa, should we trust you?” Um …. nope.
- Guess what bees do (or don’t do) during a total solar eclipse.
- If we can have a mental health catastrophe over global warming, then our cats and dogs can surely have existential crises over … whatever. (H/T Shel)
- A basketball playing dog who seems to be quite well-adjusted despite the doleful state of the climate. (H/T Shel)
- And you know me; I don’t usually go in for posting people’s sentimental maternity or wedding shoots. But I trust even the cynics among you will enjoy this one.
So is it really global warning that may be raising suicide rates, or is it the constant drumbeat of gloom-and-doom stories about it?
Ugliest damn baby I’ve ever seen.
That Alexa article goes on and on (and on) about how smart speakers affect people emotionally or whatever – a woman who uses one as a therapist is a woman I never want to meet – but by the time I quit reading it had still barely mentioned my real problem with all such insidious gadgets: a speaker that can hear you speak its name is never really turned off and can hear – and report – everything else.
I read yesterday about how Facebook is getting into hardware with a similar gadget that also does video. Orwell’s telescreen has arrived.
Don’t watch the maternity shoot while drinking coffee or your may need a paper towel.
I guess times have changed. If I had published baby pictures like that where my parents and in-laws saw them, I’d have been eviscerated.
a woman who uses one as a therapist is a woman I never want to meet
I’d like to meet her. Once. Carefully. So I could use her as a cautionary character in a story.
Note that the designers could make a device that would do everything Alexa does without storing any data outside the box.
“It’s great to have a way to listen to music or the radio that doesn’t involve opening up a computer screen.”
What kind of bubble do these people ive in? In the world with a blue sky, there’s dials and switches, and if you’re too lazy to walk across the room, a remote.