The disconnect between how systems “should” be and how they actually are is disappointingly enormous.

Retailers are surprisingly enough just like consumers and want things to “just work” without caring about security.

And so they get Internet-connected fridges, and it’s all fine, until the very moment it isn’t.

I hope this is a learning experience and they beef-up their systems.

Exactly.

The first part of learning to remove yourself from bad situations is learning to know when it’s time to bail.

And that’s a lot easier to make the call on when you have an actual way to make the exit.

Even as adults, nobody says “This situation sucks, you are all bad people, I don’t like it and I’m leaving.” No. We say “Aight well I’m working tomorrow so I gotta go” or any other number of convenient excuses we can create for ourselves as autonomous adults.

Tweens and young teens don’t have that autonomy. You’re at the party until it ends or you decide to leave - and deciding to leave looks suspicious as fuck when you already confirmed you were free, and you don’t have any adult responsibilities which could pull you away.

Plus, you probably don’t have your own transport. Leaving may require cooperation from someone who drives, so the very act of leaving is materially so much harder than as an adult, where you can literally just walk out.

So yeah. Having a functional exit is a huge help.

What a ‘pause’ really means is restricting new entrants to the market to safeguard the position and profit of the current encumbants.

The current players won big by rolling out harmful AI without any safeguards, and being the only ones who could do it because they had the technical lead in AI.

Now, open weight models are getting really good and the technical advantage is evaporating, so they instead are seeking process and legislative controls to help them “pull up the ladder” and restrict any potential competition.

Sleep.

I think lies told in kindness are sometimes the better choice, even if forever.

Imagine you’re a nurse working ER, and someone comes in on the brink of death. They’re on the table basically dying and getting dragged back to life over and over for half an hour until they team call it because there’s nothing they can do.

Family member arrives distraught and you have to break the bad news. You can either say they died a traumatic and agonising death, or that they went quickly and didn’t feel a thing.

I know which option I think is the right one.

If Calvin and Hobbes “each” ate a pack of cookies, does that really mean Calvin ate two packs?

Would explain why he’s so extra sick

Lol, using it to store your Pokémon cards (Image from the store page)

The CEO presses pause, the mascot sheep looking over the boardroom in coquettish freeze-frame. “Guys, you’ve gotta tell me, nobody thinks this sheep is fuckable, right? We didn’t put a CM out with a sexy sheep on purpose, did we?”

The VP loosens his collar. The marketing team fidget and look around the table, anywhere to avoid the gaze of the CEO.

“Guys? It’s not fuckable, right?”

A junior exec caves. “M-maybe a little bit?”

“God FUCKING damnit!”