@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au cover
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BernardSheppard

@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au

They're not using fucking AI.

Semi-retired renewable energy and M&A strategist, former software nerd based near Naarm (Melbourne) AU.

Successful investor (thus semi-retied): formerly contrarian stock picking, now contrarian ETF.

My professional opinions are 80% at odds with the consensus (and with the benefit of hindsight, turn out to be prescient), and 20% are in alignment (and with the benefit of being able to spot the obvious, they also turn out to be correct). #ClimateChange #Energy

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. For a complete list of posts, browse on the original instance.

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

I’m going to go shower now and when I get back, I’d like nothing more than to see all positive replies in my feed instead of the doom I’m seeing now.

Take the challenge.

BernardSheppard ,
@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au avatar

@GottaLaff I've got little to offer - I've been sick for a week, but I'll offer this: I've turned off most of my notifications while I'm unwell, but yours stay on. And, as I'm typing this your notification of a good result from the Texas Supreme court came through. I was too slow, I know, but I tried.

BernardSheppard ,
@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au avatar

@GottaLaff Eight weeks of chronic migraine - I did not request the RSV / flu on top! I am noticing the migraine less, though 🤷

BernardSheppard ,
@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au avatar

@GottaLaff you too!

vampiress , to random
@vampiress@eigenmagic.net avatar

It’s wild how fast Tesla went from those cars you see and go “ooooh fancy and green!” to “lol what fuckwit is driving that junk?”

BernardSheppard ,
@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au avatar

@vampiress And then, for some, you get up close, and they have a "I bought this before it was obvious that Elon Musk was a fuckwit." bumper sticker.

Some. Not many.

They get a pass, provided that it's an old Model S.

ElleGray , to random
@ElleGray@mstdn.social avatar

Omg any day now computers will be able to add

BernardSheppard ,
@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au avatar

@ElleGray 5GLs, anyone?

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

REMINDER: I can’t always reply/answer questions. Use NFL (Not For Laffy)

🧵Starts HERE 1/…

Pagliery:

Trump is sitting at the defense table, with Todd Blanche at his right and Emil Bove at his left, plus Susan Necheles at the far left.

Blanche is explaining something, waving his right hand around while Trump nods in approval.

Dozens called for jury duty are downstairs and going through metal detectors.

The judge just sat down. We begin.

BernardSheppard ,
@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au avatar

@GottaLaff thank you so much.

I read these the next day from Australia. Is there any chance you can continue the thread after lunch? It makes it easier to find the thread to catch up with the day the next day!

ajsadauskas , (edited ) to DeGoogle Yourself
@ajsadauskas@aus.social avatar

In an age of LLMs, is it time to reconsider human-edited web directories?

Back in the early-to-mid '90s, one of the main ways of finding anything on the web was to browse through a web directory.

These directories generally had a list of categories on their front page. News/Sport/Entertainment/Arts/Technology/Fashion/etc.

Each of those categories had subcategories, and sub-subcategories that you clicked through until you got to a list of websites. These lists were maintained by actual humans.

Typically, these directories also had a limited web search that would crawl through the pages of websites listed in the directory.

Lycos, Excite, and of course Yahoo all offered web directories of this sort.

(EDIT: I initially also mentioned AltaVista. It did offer a web directory by the late '90s, but this was something it tacked on much later.)

By the late '90s, the standard narrative goes, the web got too big to index websites manually.

Google promised the world its algorithms would weed out the spam automatically.

And for a time, it worked.

But then SEO and SEM became a multi-billion-dollar industry. The spambots proliferated. Google itself began promoting its own content and advertisers above search results.

And now with LLMs, the industrial-scale spamming of the web is likely to grow exponentially.

My question is, if a lot of the web is turning to crap, do we even want to search the entire web anymore?

Do we really want to search every single website on the web?

Or just those that aren't filled with LLM-generated SEO spam?

Or just those that don't feature 200 tracking scripts, and passive-aggressive privacy warnings, and paywalls, and popovers, and newsletters, and increasingly obnoxious banner ads, and dark patterns to prevent you cancelling your "free trial" subscription?

At some point, does it become more desirable to go back to search engines that only crawl pages on human-curated lists of trustworthy, quality websites?

And is it time to begin considering what a modern version of those early web directories might look like?

@degoogle

BernardSheppard ,
@BernardSheppard@mastodon.au avatar

@bradenslen @ajsadauskas @degoogle looksmart! There's a blast from the past.

As a very early internet user (suburbia.org.au- look it up, and who ran it) and a database guy, what I learnt very early is that any search engine needed users who knew how to write highly selective queries to get highly specific results.

Google - despite everything - can still be used as a useful tool - if you are a skilled user.

I am still surprised that you are not taught how to perform critical internet searching in primary school. It is as important as the three Rs

GottaLaff , to random
@GottaLaff@mastodon.social avatar

STARTING A NEW THREAD HERE. 1/...

Live feed: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDcexi-W8rQ

BernardSheppard ,
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@GottaLaff I read your live Toot thread as a recap over my morning coffee at 9:19am the next day. I can't yet work out what time tomorrow kicks off on the east coast. Perhaps this evening I will watch the live stream.

vampiress , to random
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[Thread, post or comment was deleted by the author]

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    BernardSheppard ,
    @BernardSheppard@mastodon.au avatar

    @vampiress @allrite I had to use OS/2 for a project where IBM was the client. It was at times good, but at times frustrating.

    Project was mainframe, and IBM's own mainframe adapters would not run, unless you ran them in real mode DOS windows - and, for that matter, often not IBM DOS, but MS-DOS or DR-DOS.

    But, you could.

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