Amazon is seeing the value of putting humans back in the loop as a result of the 6-hour outage last week. Apparently it was caused by an agent getting "inaccurate advice that an agent inferred from an outdated internal wiki". This is the danger of letting agents run without supervision.
And AI agents may coordinate a slough of political crap in the months ahead as the 2026 election looms. Ugh.
Someone is offering prepaid Visa cards that agents can use so you don't run up a surprise credit card bill.
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Protonmail may not be as private as they make it sound. Someone found that one of the router hops goes through "Cloudflare.belgiumix.net (185.1.127.13)
- Owner: Cloudflare, Inc. (US Entity) - Jurisdiction: US CLOUD Act". Once it goes through a U.S. node, privacy is not assured.
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FDA-Approved Seizure Drug May Stop Alzheimer’s Before It Starts. The seizure drug is levetiracetam. I'm intrigued because several nootropic drugs are also racetams, such as aniracetam, oxiracetam, phenylpiracetam. Perhaps the mechanism is related.
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How an Electrician from Kentucky Built an AI Startup with Claude. This is exactly what I mean by how AI's impact on jobs is more nuanced than replacing people. It forces people to think about how AI tools can empower you, like this electrician. I love his initiative and creativity.
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A Simple Carbonated Water Drink Choice Helps Gamers Stay Focused For Hours. The drink is Asahi Wilkinson Sparkling Water, which is a heavily carbonated water from a spring in Takarazuka, Japan. So what's causing the focusing effect? The carbonation? The minerals? Placebo? It's notable that a couple of the authors "are also employees of the company, which stand to benefit if sparkling water does indeed get a higher profile". Yeah, perhaps some bias. I'll get a couple of bottles from Uwajimaya and see if it makes me more focused. The study subjects drank 500 mL over three hours. I can do that. Paper here.
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The subjects in the water study above were gamers. I saw this article: Gamers’ Worst Nightmares About AI Are Coming True. AI efforts are restricting availability of RAM chips.
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Prompt engineering was last year. Now we have to worry about context engineering. But this is exactly what Claude Skills is supposed to help with. Automated contextual prompting. GraphRAG seems to be another approach.
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Amen! Donald Knuth has a style guide on how to write mathematical papers well, in a way that facilitates understanding, instead of the terse, recondite style of writing that math professors have a perverse fondness for.
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Portland lawmakers want to raise wages for ride-hailing drivers. Trying to legislate wealth again. Did they not learn from what happened in Seattle when this stunt was tried with food delivery workers?
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Well, well. Even though the legislature passed it, the mandatory prevailing wage rule was ruled illegal for state consrtruction projects. Finally, a sane mind prevailed.
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Public cash is going to be used to renovate the Moda Center. Unbelievable. "100% public financing"
At least Paul Allen contributed to the building of the Moda Center. But it's expected that Portland must cover ALL the renovation expenses or the new owner will take the Blazers elsewhere. Portland can't afford this, but they'll pay anyway.The new owner, Dundon, may look at Portland's tax policies, business-unfriendly policies, decline of city businesses, causing a decline in jobs, causing a decline in personal income, causing less money for leisure activities and a decline in ticket and merchandise sales, and decide to go elsewhere anyway. He's keeping mum until the deal is sealed at the end of the month.
At least Paul Allen contributed to the building of the Moda Center. But it's expected that Portland must cover ALL the renovation expenses or the new owner will take the Blazers elsewhere. Portland can't afford this, but they'll pay anyway.The new owner, Dundon, may look at Portland's tax policies, business-unfriendly policies, decline of city businesses, causing a decline in jobs, causing a decline in personal income, causing less money for leisure activities and a decline in ticket and merchandise sales, and decide to go elsewhere anyway. He's keeping mum until the deal is sealed at the end of the month.
And how can you keep a business going in the city when people like this run loose? If she didn't turn herself in, it's likely she would never had been caught.
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Washington state revives the marriage penalty. Not exactly, What's being penalized is the double-income situation, not marriage per se. Couples where only one is the bread-winner won't suffer a penalty.
It's no surprise that downtown Seattle remains crappy. Don't blame COVID anymore. It's Dem policies.
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Cost of renovating the Abernethy Bridge more than triples. Everything ODOT predicts is way more expensive than predicted. Don't put them in charge of renovating the MODA Center.
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The administration also wrote that it would deny funding to counties that “facilitate racial preferences,” that “use a definition of sex other than as binary in humans” or that distribute “drug paraphernalia … under the pretext of ‘harm reduction.’”
Several Portland area homeless services programs would be at odds with these guidelines.
I'll say.
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