Jeffool

Sadly this isn’t new, and hospitals are an example that comes to mind for me. At least one in particular. In 2007 there was a huge scandal about the treatment of US soldiers at Walter Reed, which was thought of as one of the top military hospitals. The initial reporting was from the Washington Post and largely focused on how the privatization of care and the contracting process itself had failed the patients so horribly.

I vaguely recall that building upkeep was delayed years because of contracting issues, and that the staff was slashed from hundreds (plural) to less than a hundred, claiming they couldn’t find qualified candidates. There were complaints about rats, roaches, and black mold. I’m also fairly certain there was a story of one guy saying he was handed a shitty photocopy of the grounds and it took him hours walking around in a hospital gown to find his room. Two weeks later he found the person who was supposed to be running his case, and the case manager said they had no idea where the patient had been those two weeks.

Looking now, Wikipedia doesn’t even mention privatization or contracting issues. The one (2010) complaint of this on the Talk page gets a reply saying “well the military was ultimately responsible for holding those contractors accountable,” and it ends there. Not wrong, but still feels like it’s not giving a full account of the story.

Obviously this is just conjecture now, but honestly the staffing part reminds me just like how, as I’m job hunting now, I notice companies keep posting the same ads, saying they can’t find anyone who wants to work, while offering peanuts for very high requirements, and getting hundreds of applications. I’m sure lots of them aren’t qualified, but I’m confident some of them are. I’ve even been offered significantly less than my last job paid, for a position (at a different employer) that would’ve been a manager for my previous level. I can only imagine how crazy it gets in the medical field.

I recall the gumball machine at my childhood barber being a penny in the mid 1980s. I don’t recall when it went up exactly, but it was around then. I was born in 80 so I was pretty young when it happened. But yeah, even then the convenience store in the middle of town had a candy aisle with lots of 5 cent candy that made picking up pennies worthwhile.

I also remember in the later 80s when I began reading them, comics were $0.75 each. Over the next 15 years they went to $3, until I was in college and my comic habit was just too expensive, so I stopped the monthlies completely.

Like a lot of others, my biggest gripe is the accepted copyright violation for the wealthy. They should have to license data (text, images, video, audio,) for their models, or use material in the public domain. With that in mind, in return I’d love to see pushes to drastically reduce the duration of copyright. My goal is less about destroying generative AI, as annoying as it is, and more about leveraging the money being it to change copyright law.

I don’t love the environmental effects but I think the carbon output of OpenAI is probably less than TikTok, and no one cares about that because they enjoy TikTok more. The energy issue is honestly a bigger problem than AI. And while I understand and appreciate people worried about throwing more weight on the scales, I’m not sure it’s enough to really matter. I think we need bigger “what if” scenarios to handle that.

OP asked what people wanted to happen, and even later “destroy gen AI” as an option. I get it is not realistically feasible, but it’s certainly within the realm of options provided for the discussion. No need to police their pie in the sky dream. I’m sure they realize it’s not realistic.

Tetris, Dwarf Fortress, Quake (if I can bring tons of mods,) Portal 2 (if I can download use maps,) and probably Baldurs Gate 3 so I would finally play it.

If I can’t bring all those additions, then substitute Portal 2 with Kerbal Space Program. But I’d keep Quake.

The Google Maps app already shows what it wants instead of what’s nearby. Now the Gmail app shows you what they want you to see instead of ordering by date. I imagine the goal is just to replace everything with a “Google” button. You just type in words and hug “Google”, and it serves up its own info instead of anyone else’s pages. Sigh.

All I can say is be the change you want to see. Submit posts, maybe mod a community. I’m doing !gamedev, and it gets political sometimes, like any career field, but it is what it is.

Maybe you want a Marvel community, or whatever. Find your interest and dive in!

Sorry, it was a joke from the old machinima Red vs Blue. There’s a truck called the Warthog and someone suggests it looks like a Puma. Another person says “you’re making that up”.

It’s at 1:46 https://youtu.be/Rju4RWdEyZk

That was far too old a reference to drop casually. My bad.

“You’re making that up.”

Here’s my office work:

Since 2005 I worked as a TV news producer. We started the day with a morning meeting where reporters pitched stories and it was decided what they covered that day. Then as a producer I organized the stories in the newscast and found other stories which I was responsible for. That ranges from finding a worthwhile press release to interviewing people myself (usually by phone, and someone’s video chat,) or just finding info by going through data. I would write those, then decide what visuals, audio elements, camera shots, graphics, and anchor reads went with it.

Then during the live newscast I timed it, and made adjustments on the fly when necessary. (Killing stories, finding ones to insert, and adding breaking news.)

I let my contract end almost two months ago, choosing not to stay in news. I’ve been applying to mostly other non-TV news office jobs. That’s including producing other video projects, but also technical writing and marketing positions.