Thursday, September 04
Daily News Stuff 4 September 2025
Untrustables Edition
Untrustables Edition
Top Story
- AI could bring us a smarter home - if we can trust it, which we obviously can't. (The Verge) (archive site)
They're talking about combining three things, each hilariously unreliable: The Internet of Things, consumer appliances, and LLM-driven AI.
It all reminds me of this:Tech Enthusiasts: Everything in my house is wired to the Internet of Things! I control it all from my smartphone! My smart-house is bluetooth enabled and I can give it voice commands via alexa! I love the future!
My house was built in 2019 and it contains no smart anythings.
Programmers / Engineers: The most recent piece of technology I own is a printer from 2004 and I keep a loaded gun ready to shoot it if it ever makes an unexpected noise.
Tech News
- AMD says there is no AI bubble, the $500 billion AI market is real, and its chips are expensive because have you seen the price of potatoes? (WCCFTech)
Okay, Jean, whatever.
- OpenAI has lifted its share offering from $6 billion to $10 billion just days after CEO Sam Altman warned that AI was in a bubble. (WCCFTech)
Burn money.
- Building a bitemporal database from string cheese and floor wax. (Eval Apply)
Sorry, no idea.
- The Acer Swift Air 16 could be decent. (Liliputing)
It has (up to) a Ryzen 350 CPU, which compared to my 7730U is 30% faster single-threaded, 50% faster multi-threaded, and twice as fast on integrated graphics. Memory is soldered but it has 32GB. And it offers a 16" 2880x1600 120Hz OLED display, which is basically what I have in my current laptop and is about as good a screen as you can find.
Plus two USB-C ports, one USB-A, HDMI, and a headphone jack.
Oh, and it weighs 1kg, which is very light for a full-size laptop.
- I set a personal goal last weekend to lose 10kg by the end of the year, not realising how much of the extra weight I was carrying was just water.
So... Merry Christmas, I guess.
Musical Interlude
Disclaimer: I think Katrina also lost 22lbs in the space of a week.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at
06:52 PM
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There's an argument that digital electronics was all a mistake, and that we should go back to analog for everything. The argument exists, but I do not believe it. I like digital noise correction, and I do not want to go back to analog tube amplifiers for every single application. I do like bimetallic strips for residential HVAC control, and think that a lot of the people responsible for 'smart' thermostats should hang. (Policy makers, mainly, like with self driving cars, etc.)
Posted by: PatBuckman at Friday, September 05 2025 12:03 AM (rcPLc)
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I'm not only old, I'm old fashioned: I prefer stupid but obedient machines to 'smart' ones which don't believe in following orders.
Posted by: Joe Redfield at Friday, September 05 2025 02:56 AM (KOtXO)
Posted by: normal at Friday, September 05 2025 04:17 AM (e0fX0)
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"Smart" thermostats would be really useful if they were entirely under your control. It's when someone else can reach into your house and change your thermostat settings that they become a problem. Because their priority is going to be something other than your comfort and safety. It's your house and your electric bill, you should be the one entirely in control of it.
Posted by: Robin Munn at Friday, September 05 2025 04:28 PM (o4+My)
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