andrewrgross

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in IBM CEO in damage control mode after AI job loss comments

No, I'm dead serious. This reputation is long dead, but back in the last century, before Jack Welch came along in the Reagan years and skull-f*cked the corporate world, it was a totally different time.

In the post-war years, IBM was famous as a company where the workers were treated like actual family. That's not necessarily a great thing, it's kind of creepy and patriarchal. But if you got a job there and did your work, after a decade or two, they'd keep you around even if your job became expendable or they knew they could hire a younger person to do it for less. It was just part of the corporate culture. Once you'd put in your time, you became a plant grandpa, and who fires grandpa when he's just trying to finish building up his pension?A heartless monster, that's who.

Those days are long gone, though. But from what I've heard and read, that used to actually be how this worked.

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in Elon Musk's Neuralink implants brain tech in human patient for the first time

I wish the patient, scientists, and doctors success. I'm very concerned about the safety record for Neuralink, but I desperately hope they turned things around and that this patient responds well.

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in Microsoft CEO calls for tech industry to 'act' after AI photos of Taylor Swift circulate X

I think everyone's still trying to get some handle on this, but it seems like it's mostly an issue with scale.

People have been making and sharing photo manips of celebrities naked for about 20 years. This is just noteworthy because there's so much of it, so quickly produced, so publicly present.

I think we should all have the right to create images -- including sexual ones -- freely. And I think the subjects of those images (especially Emma Watson and Natalie Portman, I don't think anyone has been photoshopped into porn as much as those two) deserve to live their lives without having to see it or thick about it.

I don't think it's necessary a problem that has an easy legal solution, but a good start might be just recognizing this social contact. If you want to fantasize about anyone -- whether it's a celebrity or someone you take classes with -- understand how gross it is for them to have two know about it, and keep it discrete.

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in Netflix is turning into cable TV

yawn it’s “art” primarily made for people who take daily shits on art being for pussies or pansies or worthless

Look, I don't want to bicker, because you seem kind of sensitive about all this, but I just want to point out for anyone unaware, pro wresting is popular with a lot of queer and counterculture folks.

There's this misconception that it's for people with confederate flags on the back of pickup trucks. In reality, women consistently make up about 40% of the audience for pro wrestling. They only make up 25% of the audience for MMA.

Also, viewership is about 25% black. That's a huge over representation compared to national demographics. And it's popular from Mexico to Japan!

It's flamboyant musclemen and women hamming it up. If you think that's all for people who don't like art and theater, you're sorely mistaken.

http://indeedwrestling.blogspot.com/2017/06/wwe-demographics-femalemale-split.html ---
https://playtoday.co/blog/stats/wwe-viewership-statistics/ ---
https://wrestlenomics.com/2022/03/23/race-demographics-in-tv-wrestling-viewership-aew-is-still-behind-wwe-with-black-viewers/

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in Netflix is turning into cable TV

You CAN take he piss out of anything you want. It's just that if your take is uninformed, don't grouse when someone says, 'Oh! Here's some context so you can know more about this thing! Enjoy knowing something new!'

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in Netflix is turning into cable TV

?

andrewrgross , 5 months ago (edited 5 months ago) to Technology in Netflix is turning into cable TV

I think it's ignorant to call it "shitty" or "fake wrestling".

Pro-wrestling entertainment is a form of camp theater, like drag shows. It's an old, cherished artform with a wide, passionate audience that outsiders routinely dismiss because they don't get it.

I don't watch it. It doesn't appeal to me. But I know people who love it. I think it's largely class elitism that perpetuates the misconception that this form of performance art is somehow unrespectable. It's not, it's challenging, dangerous, physically demanding theater.

Edit: For those confused or skeptical, check out Super Eyepatch Wolf's captivating media analysis "The Undertaker: Long term story telling in wrestling"

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Memes in Rules for thee but not for me

I love how all the responses are like, 'Yeah, of course.'

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in CEOs say generative AI will result in job cuts in 2024

Are you familiar with the term "capitalist realism"?

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games for Subscriptions to Take Off

THIS. This right here is the problem.

If Ubisoft wants consumers to give them a chance, they should call up Netflix and Disney and Hulu and politely ask them to not demonstrate what the fuck happens if players put trust in the platforms that we're assured will be reliable and consistent places to store games for years and years to come.

The problem really isn't streaming games and cloud storage as a concept. The problem is that the people trying to implement it have demonstrated over and over and over how both untrustworthy and incompetent they are. That's it. If the platforms had credibility and accountability, this probably wouldn't be nearly as big a deal.

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games for Subscriptions to Take Off

What's funny is that they're not detached from the gaming industry. The average person, if you asked them "Do you think players like live service games?" they'd say, "I don't know what you're talking about."

These people have a lot of really nuanced, heavily informed opinions on the history, present, and future of gaming. They're just all highly unpopular opinions outside of people who demand to get a check in the mail immediately if not sooner because they just bought a share in a company they know little or nothing about.

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in Ubisoft Exec Says Gamers Need to Get 'Comfortable' Not Owning Their Games for Subscriptions to Take Off

These people are like an adversarial neural network being trained to find the most efficient ways to piss of their own customer base.

I think it's important to note that the entertainment landscape as a whole has been changing, and those changes have mixed with the shitty investor culture that already existed to create a terrible set of incentives that are wildly misaligned with consumer sentiment. I say this because I think that if we want things to change, we need to look at root causes.

The entertainment industry is feeling very threatened. It's hard to make money. That's a reality. And all the solutions to the problem are fucked up attempts to find ways to get players to give more money for things they don't want.

I think we need a better patronage model.

andrewrgross , 5 months ago to Technology in CEOs say generative AI will result in job cuts in 2024

Yeah, what's unfortunate about CEO predictions is that they can kind of just will their expected result into being by acting on it whether it's sound or not.

Still, I think it's well past time we started preparing for high surplus labor. We're already in the early stages of post scarcity, and if we don't embrace something like socialism, we're getting more dystopia.

andrewrgross , 6 months ago to Technology in Polish Hackers Repaired Trains the Manufacturer Artificially Bricked. Now The Train Company Is Threatening Them

That's awesome. Man, fuck that company. Bricking a train? Outrageous.

andrewrgross , 8 months ago to Technology in IBM CEO in damage control mode after AI job loss comments

I just want to say that this is absolute clown-level CEOing.

Let's just set aside the naked antipathy for labor concerns. Let's pretend we're heartless investors.

If I heard a CEO say this, my first thoughts would be:

• Why the fuck are you declaring an intention to remove people BEFORE the replacement is ready? If the technology is so ready, then deploy it and cut the workers after you've implemented it. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? This is sophomore level business shit. You sound like a 14 year old on Twitter.

• Why the fuck are you generating this kind of press? Particularly for a company with a FAMOUS history of loyalty to its workers? Even if it's now bullshit, you're pissing on the brand, asshole.

• Wasn't Watson a big famous over-hyped public embarrassment? Did you learn nothing about managing expectations?

• The work you say you're excited to replace is the core business services you sell, and I don't know what product you're talking about. OpenAI has a product. Explain why they're not about to devour your business while you're out here talking nonsense.

This guy sounds like a moron.