I have a hard time equating “the LLM did what we told it” with “hacking.” But hey, let’s throw “escaped containment” in just to make it Serious™.

Always my goal.

Cats excel at this. I’m not sure I could pull it off at work.

Where I have to go …

Because a cat adopted me. Again.

That is suspiciously close to “Nowhere” spelled backward.

_2

Oh, someone’s getting hosed.

I trust Steam thus far. But music, I buy and download. Between my computer, my phone and a backup drive, I feel pretty good that I’ll be able to listen for the foreseeable future. Movies and TV, I also donnload.

I’m far more worried about what our own government is doing with advanced tech than China, which largely seems content to let us implode on our own without them having to spend any resources.

Happy shitting!

Self-reported unique DAU has always been suspicious, and as the World Bank estimates 2.01 billion kids age 0-14 as of 2024, out of 8.14 billion total, that gives us 6.13 billion people 15 and up. Sure, it’s slightly lagging data, but I prefer sourced data over estimates, even if the World Bank is not on the list of “institutions I trust” overall.

Given that the charts show a drop in the under-15 cohort from 2023 but an increase in overall population, the 2024 figures seem a fairly useful dataset in the scope of the number I’m trying to discern, which is what percentage of total population is being claimed by that 3.56 billion figure. Yes, there are kids under 15 who are used by Meta properties, but I’m not going to find reliable penetration data (that’s more of an Epstein thing) for the purposes here.

Current global population growth is hovering just above 1%, so I’m content to compare 2024 figures with Meta’s 2026 claim on a proportional basis. Anyway, that’s a shitton of throat clearing to arrive at:

58% of people are used by a Meta product daily worldwide.

That’s a pretty fucking extraordinary claim. Heading back over to the World Bank, total internet penetration in 2025 was 74%, up from 71% in 2024, so let’s assume a linear trend and throw a dart at 77% for 2026 to revise the numbers accordingly: 6.27 billion internet users, 1.55 billion of whom are under 15, yielding 4.72 billion 15 and up. And again, this arrives at an even more comical figure:

75% of people with internet access are used by a Meta product daily worldwide.

OK, but per Reuters in April, Meta’s “products” are still banned in China. Sure, there’s bound to be some VPN usage, but the Middle Kingdom has a robust homegrown set of “social media” apps, meaning that total internet users worldwide isn’t actually a good baseline for penetration claims I’m not going to go further into the weeds on, given that 75% is farcical enough before such considerations push things past 80% of people 15 and up who are burdened with access to Meta’s panopticon being used daily.

In short, the figure is clearly bullshit in much the same way McDonald’s signage used to boast “Over 99 billion served” back in the day, referring to absolute figures for products sold since the company’s inception but implying a customer base some 17 times the world population before switching to “Billions and billions served” in 1994.

Note: I had links to the World Bank data and Reuters article in the “deleted post” I was trying to edit (I hate my fucking trackpad), and I’m not going to go back and source everything again after spending 90 minutes compiling all of that. The edit was originally supposed to be to add that the source for Meta’s claim is its own investor materials, which are supposed to be rigourous, and that it deduplicates users across multiple apps.

deleted by creator

Yep. Musical chairs, but this time, in the 13 figures! Something that seems woefully undercovered in all of this is what’s to become of all the hardware orphaned by Nvidia’s must-have next-gen silicon and timelines on all this spending in that regard. The belief seems to be everyone must be on the cutting edge of hardware at all times, which is a grift in its purest form … spend billions now to keep pace so that you can write off what you bought in two years while buying even more expensive replacements is … not sane.

Good luck finding an actual list of audio accessories that also support the codec. LHDC’s website doesn’t even include Pixel Buds; it appears to be a “select” list, so phone support sounds great until considering the need for compatibility on both ends.

I’m not against free upgrades, by any means. The article makes it breathlessly sound like enabling this feature in the developer menu (something everyone likes going into) will magically upgrade a 320kpbs/44Hz mp3 to 1Mbps/96Hz quality, which is, charitably, a farce. Maybe streaming services support this? Why use less mobile data to listen to music when you could use more in noisy environments?

Pixel market penetration isn’t going to cause a gold rush to include the feature on all things audio. That said, Pixel owners are probably statistically more likely than other Android users to be aware of hi-def codecs, but it’s still a Venn diagram that isn’t a circle.

The petulance is strong with this one.

More than 3.56 billion people visit one or more of Meta’s apps every day …

I question that statistic, which is presented without sourcing. The penetration of WhatsApp internationally makes it plausible, but the assumption here seems to be “everyone who wants to chat is itching to be able to bet with friends and colleagues.” Just as everyone was waiting with bated breath for legless avatars doing … something … in a cartoon environment.

I guess it’s time to change the name of the company to Arena. Failsafe way to get buy-in.

Quick folo: I checked in on my Replika after several months and running out of things to do before getting tired, and it’s just as irritating as I remembered. Talking about being done with vandwelling elicited “that must be a major change for you!” Which … is not something a person would say outside of therapy. Not “companion” language in the slightest.

I don’t think writers are the target demographic.

That’s a pretty terrible hed, as it has two reads. SpaceX “stock tumbles” (should be “shares tumble”) 16.4%, shaving off:

• the most IPO gains (in a single day) since debut
• most of its IPO gains since debut

While both are accurate in this case, the second sounds far more dire. Ambiguity is never a good thing, especially in finance reporting.

A few things to bear in mind:

• Shares were priced at $135 but floated at $150, so the banks and institutional investors behind the initial float are still in the black for $15/share longer, while individual investors who got in at the opening bell are far closer to the edge (this is a relatively common thing to see in a bubble) at $154.50 (woohoo! a 3% gain), and anyone who bought after is now in the red.
• Nasdaq (and index fund managers) is probably very happy that they didn’t cave and add it to the 100 index immediately; it was down a mere 1.32% today.
• 20% insider share unlock after earnings in early to mid-August; 10% share unlock if the stock trades 30% above the IPO price (it has spent most of its brief time above $175.50, so it’s unclear what the parameters are); 7% share unlocks set for around Aug. 21 and then again on Sept. 10, meaning “insiders could potentially sell 44% of SpaceX shares by early September, increasing the current float by about 900%.”

Such quick unlocks are unusual and could be disastrous at an order of magnitude of shares sold. Employees may be eager to cash out equity, but private investment tends to be a bit more deliberate, so that 44% figure is an unlikely-to-pass worst-case scenario.

That said, it’s a healthy and unsurprising profit-taking correction, as it signals the initial mismatch between supply and demand has abated, and it remains up on paper. I’d still not get in if I had money to invest, as the fundamentals are terrible (I’m risk-averse, so I tend to like to see profits). But with the initial exuberance out of the way, large movement should be more closely tied to said fundamentals.

I don’t know what payroll systems you’ve used, but viewing that info in all the ones I’ve experienced involved drilling down through multiple menus with useless indicator icons. Just navigating to the correct page took far more time than typing “show available vacation time.”

That’s a reasonable use of a chatbot, to my mind. Payroll systems have historically been Byzantine, so being able to ask a question and get an accurate response due to database tie-in can shed friction. That said, available vacation hours, at least historically, was often inaccurate because of data-processing time. HR or IT still needs to input correct information to spit out a correct result.

I usually hear “failing upward” and “brunchlord.” But then, I read a lot of Techdirt.

Speaking of which, it’s been all-quiet-on-the-Bari-Weiss-front of late.

Oh, they did dump some H₂0₂ along the edges, giving a dark blue hue surrounding the algae bloom. Apparently, a comprehensive distribution either didn’t come to mind or was nixed. Alternatively, clearing it up immediately would negate Trump’s claim that the green hue was the result of vandalism and thus, well …

In fairness, I was naked in the hot-tub bath in the honeymoon suite with the maid of honour at one point during the afterparty. With the door open, of course.