David Olsen
@ddsd.dolsen.net
Craft beer, Pinball, NRL, Startups, Hard Techno - Sydney, Australia.
SEO is dead. It's the perfect time for Adobe to buy an SEO software business.
Adobe to acquire digital marketing platform Semrush for $1.9 billion
Adobe to acquire digital marketing platform Semrush for $1.9 billion
Another company is going under the Adobe umbrella.
buff.ly
November 19, 2025 at 11:36 PM
SEO is dead. It's the perfect time for Adobe to buy an SEO software business.
Reposted by David Olsen
Tech companies using dystopian sci-fi as blueprints rather than warning signs is one of my least favourite parts of living through 2025 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/m...
Why Does So Much New Technology Feel Inspired by Dystopian Sci-Fi Movies?
www.nytimes.com
November 19, 2025 at 7:45 AM
Tech companies using dystopian sci-fi as blueprints rather than warning signs is one of my least favourite parts of living through 2025 www.nytimes.com/2025/11/05/m...
Reposted by David Olsen
I first saw Microsoft's TV ad about "The computer you can talk to" during an NFL game. So I spent a week talking to the Copilot AI in Windows 11. Surely, it must be easy to replicate the specific tasks Microsoft wants millions of people to see...
Right? RIGHT??
www.theverge.com/report/82244...
Right? RIGHT??
www.theverge.com/report/82244...
Talking to Windows’ Copilot AI makes a computer feel incompetent
Hey Copilot, are you useful yet?
www.theverge.com
November 18, 2025 at 9:20 PM
I first saw Microsoft's TV ad about "The computer you can talk to" during an NFL game. So I spent a week talking to the Copilot AI in Windows 11. Surely, it must be easy to replicate the specific tasks Microsoft wants millions of people to see...
Right? RIGHT??
www.theverge.com/report/82244...
Right? RIGHT??
www.theverge.com/report/82244...
Move fast and break things.
A paper by @univie.ac.at researchers found an awful security flaw in WhatsApp - there was zero rate limiting preventing anyone from querying the details of every single WhatsApp user on earth in just a few hours 🫠
A Simple WhatsApp Security Flaw Exposed 3.5 Billion Phone Numbers
By plugging tens of billions of phone numbers into WhatsApp’s contact discovery tool, researchers found “the most extensive exposure of phone numbers” ever—along with profile photos and more.
www.wired.com
November 19, 2025 at 5:52 AM
Move fast and break things.
Phwoar. Steak Frite Sandwich.
November 19, 2025 at 1:17 AM
Phwoar. Steak Frite Sandwich.
The Prodigy vs Enya remix you didn't know you needed.
Prodigy vs Enya - Smack up the Orinoco Flow ReMiX (Audiosurf)
YouTube video by Funstorm008
youtu.be
November 18, 2025 at 9:33 PM
The Prodigy vs Enya remix you didn't know you needed.
I'm not sure what this is but it's definitely a 'post-peak' signal.
I don’t want to seem out of touch but I don’t actually understand the economy anymore.
November 18, 2025 at 4:37 AM
I'm not sure what this is but it's definitely a 'post-peak' signal.
This is whatever the opposite of a 'Dark Pattern' is.
November 18, 2025 at 12:30 AM
This is whatever the opposite of a 'Dark Pattern' is.
Reposted by David Olsen
> models give unsafe responses because that is not what they are designed to avoid. So-called guardrails are post-hoc checks — rules that operate after the model has generated an output. If a response isn't caught by these rules, it will slip through
www.forbes.com/sites/weskil...
2/n
www.forbes.com/sites/weskil...
2/n
November 17, 2025 at 5:56 AM
> models give unsafe responses because that is not what they are designed to avoid. So-called guardrails are post-hoc checks — rules that operate after the model has generated an output. If a response isn't caught by these rules, it will slip through
www.forbes.com/sites/weskil...
2/n
www.forbes.com/sites/weskil...
2/n
Reposted by David Olsen
AI systems are now flooding networks with synthetic content at scale and social media platforms have abdicated responsibility for information quality. Most alarming -- many people simply don't care whether what they are consuming and spreading is authentic.
- John Wihbey, Northeastern U.
- John Wihbey, Northeastern U.
November 17, 2025 at 1:47 AM
AI systems are now flooding networks with synthetic content at scale and social media platforms have abdicated responsibility for information quality. Most alarming -- many people simply don't care whether what they are consuming and spreading is authentic.
- John Wihbey, Northeastern U.
- John Wihbey, Northeastern U.
Yo! Alexa. What's my winning streak at.
November 16, 2025 at 10:56 PM
Yo! Alexa. What's my winning streak at.
Contextually appropriate pub art.
November 16, 2025 at 4:09 AM
Contextually appropriate pub art.
"Disable Memories Creation?"
November 16, 2025 at 2:57 AM
"Disable Memories Creation?"
Big 'Mick' meat pie is very good.
November 16, 2025 at 2:00 AM
Big 'Mick' meat pie is very good.
Reposted by David Olsen
UX or “user experience” design means stealing your wallet, with computers.
November 12, 2025 at 2:42 AM
UX or “user experience” design means stealing your wallet, with computers.
Reposted by David Olsen
HCI (Human Computer Interaction), first foreshadowed by Ted Nelson as "fantics" and then formalized by Apple is effectively dead as a field of human-factors engineering.
Now HCI is just behavioral economics, with computers.
Now HCI is just behavioral economics, with computers.
learning to program in the late 90s and early 00s, you’d inevitably run across classic works like Goto Considered Harmful and No Silver Bullet, even if you weren’t particularly bookish, and there was tons of discourse about HCI as well, all grounded in decades of research
i’m afraid that’s all gone
i’m afraid that’s all gone
November 12, 2025 at 2:25 AM
HCI (Human Computer Interaction), first foreshadowed by Ted Nelson as "fantics" and then formalized by Apple is effectively dead as a field of human-factors engineering.
Now HCI is just behavioral economics, with computers.
Now HCI is just behavioral economics, with computers.
Reposted by David Olsen
My phone has full optical character recognition of 47,000 photos. I can search individual words.
I cannot search three words in quotes.
Computers used to be powerful. That power meant something. It was power for making your life better in sovereignty to your own interests.
And now we have this.
I cannot search three words in quotes.
Computers used to be powerful. That power meant something. It was power for making your life better in sovereignty to your own interests.
And now we have this.
November 14, 2025 at 12:48 AM
My phone has full optical character recognition of 47,000 photos. I can search individual words.
I cannot search three words in quotes.
Computers used to be powerful. That power meant something. It was power for making your life better in sovereignty to your own interests.
And now we have this.
I cannot search three words in quotes.
Computers used to be powerful. That power meant something. It was power for making your life better in sovereignty to your own interests.
And now we have this.
Reposted by David Olsen
I like how full text search of every book and human thought ever was a SOLVED PROBLEM in 2001, and now dicks at search engines and my own phone – a piece of silicon faster to respond than God was ever imagined in scripture – prevent it from working, _as a retroactive infantilizing design choice_.
November 14, 2025 at 12:42 AM
I like how full text search of every book and human thought ever was a SOLVED PROBLEM in 2001, and now dicks at search engines and my own phone – a piece of silicon faster to respond than God was ever imagined in scripture – prevent it from working, _as a retroactive infantilizing design choice_.
Reposted by David Olsen
this goes right along with my theory that the AI obsession in *users* is often bc…
1. they were never educated (esp "ipad generation") & don't know how computers work
2. our tools and services are all SO AWFUL NOW, degraded at best, actively user-hostile at worst
1. they were never educated (esp "ipad generation") & don't know how computers work
2. our tools and services are all SO AWFUL NOW, degraded at best, actively user-hostile at worst
November 15, 2025 at 6:47 PM
this goes right along with my theory that the AI obsession in *users* is often bc…
1. they were never educated (esp "ipad generation") & don't know how computers work
2. our tools and services are all SO AWFUL NOW, degraded at best, actively user-hostile at worst
1. they were never educated (esp "ipad generation") & don't know how computers work
2. our tools and services are all SO AWFUL NOW, degraded at best, actively user-hostile at worst
Sunday's gym bangers courtesy of CARV.
CARV I UNREAL Stagehosting I Nibirii Festival (FULL SET)
YouTube video by Unreal Germany
youtu.be
November 15, 2025 at 9:46 PM
Sunday's gym bangers courtesy of CARV.
Reposted by David Olsen
lately i've been thinking about how LLMs must feel really amazing to use if you're a dumbass, but incredibly frustrating if you're just basically competent in life.
Is AI making job recruitment less meritocratic? We're getting some v interesting research studies on this question now, and the news is... not good. @jburnmurdoch.ft.com & I dive in, in the latest edition of our newsletter The AI Shift www.ft.com/content/e5b7...
November 14, 2025 at 12:55 PM
lately i've been thinking about how LLMs must feel really amazing to use if you're a dumbass, but incredibly frustrating if you're just basically competent in life.
It looks like Apple has done a 180 from their "You're a big dummy who needs to use Apple Intelligence" messaging to recenter on the user as the creator.
November 15, 2025 at 1:22 AM
It looks like Apple has done a 180 from their "You're a big dummy who needs to use Apple Intelligence" messaging to recenter on the user as the creator.
Scored a Rugby League themed comic book 👀
November 15, 2025 at 12:36 AM
Scored a Rugby League themed comic book 👀
Absolute ripsnorter of a hard techno set for Saturday's gym session.
CARV I UNREAL Stagehosting I Nibirii Festival (FULL SET)
YouTube video by Unreal Germany
youtu.be
November 14, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Absolute ripsnorter of a hard techno set for Saturday's gym session.
This is how Skynet launches the first attack.
New from 404 Media: Microsoft and nuclear power company Westinghouse Nuclear want to use AI to speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants in the United States.
"may lead [..] to catastrophic nuclear consequences" and distrust of nuclear tech
www.404media.co/power-compan...
"may lead [..] to catastrophic nuclear consequences" and distrust of nuclear tech
www.404media.co/power-compan...
Power Companies Are Using AI To Build Nuclear Power Plants
Tech companies are betting big on nuclear energy to meet AIs massive power demands and they're using that AI to speed up the construction of new nuclear power plants.
www.404media.co
November 14, 2025 at 7:58 PM
This is how Skynet launches the first attack.