Macquarie Dictionary’s Word of the Year is “enshittification” — an excellent choice. And this also gives me the chance to say that while I dip into Bluesky for time to time, I won’t commit to it, because enshittification is its inevitable fate also. (Great links in that post.)
When asked about the chatbot “hallucinations,” data scientist Jörg Pohle says, “I don’t have hallucination or bias problems because I’m not looking for the truth…. I just don’t use the system for learning something or for understanding.” Well, there you go! Problem solved.
My recommended Substack policy: First, establish the maximum monthly amount you’re willing to pay. Then, choose monthly rather than annual subscriptions. When you reach your max and want to subscribe to a new Substack, you can only do so if you unsubscribe from one of your current ones. Gradually you’ll converge on the ones that are essential to you.
(You could do this will annual subscriptions as well but it would take you a lot longer to achieve that convergence.)
Freddie: “If I had to have American policy be determined by polling the userbase of X or the userbase of BlueSky, I would choose the latter and sigh as they passed a law that ordered my own personal execution on public safety grounds. They’d probably do it by forcing me to drink fair trade cyanide through a paper straw.”
Picasso, “Leaping Bulls”
I’m probably going to regret this, but I’ve enabled crossposting from micro.blog — Home of the Truly Cool — to Bluesky. I won’t be be otherwise present. Advertisements for myself will begin immediately.
