2021 dystopia logbook

[Barthes Starr]

also, truly incredible that burger king actually deleted that tweet considering it is also memorialized in a full page nyt ad

[coop]

[coop]

[coop]

[light rail coyote]

that article reminds me that there's a twitch streamer that regular makes thousands of dollars doing "sleep streams" where she just turns her video on while she sleeps.

don't get me wrong, i'm not judging her at all, make that money, but i really don't get the appeal for the people actually watching it.

i've also seen other streamers make a ton of money off of, like, "i'll write your name on a balloon for $10!" and can't tell if my confusion is because i'm poor or if because i'm not horny enough to understand.

[Dead_Wizard]

it's all an evolution of the cum tribute culture

[evil olive]

that article reminds me that there's a twitch streamer that regular makes thousands of dollars doing "sleep streams" where she just turns her video on while she sleeps.

don't get me wrong, i'm not judging her at all, make that money, but i really don't get the appeal for the people actually watching it.

i've also seen other streamers make a ton of money off of, like, "i'll write your name on a balloon for $10!" and can't tell if my confusion is because i'm poor or if because i'm not horny enough to understand.

I'm in this boat. Who is paying for this?

[coop]

[quinine]

hell yeah

I just heard today that minneapolis police are now using drones to surveil the illicit nude beach

[Barthes Starr]

the drone that took that photo deserves a pulitzer

[joe]

this appears to be the source:

https://www.facebook.com/portsmouthofficial/posts/attention-wayne-hills-residentsplease-stop-throwing-beer-bottles-at-the-drones-t/354784575443866/

it's a parody page i think

the drones are real though

edit: and the picture is from australia

[Milquetoaster Strudels]

hell yeah

I just heard today that minneapolis police are now using drones to surveil the illicit nude beach

Pretty soon they'll be the only pricks you'll see there

[loaf angel]

i see police drones at night on a pretty regular basis. would love to knock one out of the sky

[Barthes Starr]

Amazon workers can redeem the company currency for Amazon-branded goods in an online store. At one Amazon warehouse, workers can spend 15 swagbucks on a bandanna, according to internal screenshots of the catalog seen by The Information, while an Amazon-branded New Era snapback cap cost 45 swagbucks.

https://www.theinformation.com/articles/amazon-expands-effort-to-gamify-warehouse-work

[Barthes Starr]

swagbucks

[Barthes Starr]

[auspice]

[auspice]

[loaf angel]

montana stuff has HFCS, gimme the pure sugar cane imports baby

[Barthes Starr]

[v h g]

so a bunch of these Amazon FC accounts are fake, but exactly how fake are they

like people are tweeting about them as though they are pro-Amazon sock puppets but the tweets are so awful that they seem more plausible as people trying to make intentionally bad supposedly pro-Amazon tweets?

on the other hand...

[office plant]

so a bunch of these Amazon FC accounts are fake, but exactly how fake are they

like people are tweeting about them as though they are pro-Amazon sock puppets but the tweets are so awful that they seem more plausible as people trying to make intentionally bad supposedly pro-Amazon tweets?

on the other hand...

if i were amazon i would simply leak some screenshots where people are Very Concerned about the tweets in question

[joe]

maybe jeff bezos has the pw to the @amazonnews account

[auspice]

maybe jeff bezos has the pw to the @amazonnews account

yeah if the Amazon News account wasn't actually hacked and is operated by the company I can't see how this would be an "ongoing PR issue" unless it's Jeff or someone very very high up who has access to it and is making these tweets. otherwise they would have fired the person already.

[Barthes Starr]

or bezos is just a petty dickhead who knows he will never be subjected to justice and/or comeuppance

"Recode has learned that Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos expressed dissatisfaction in recent weeks that company officials weren’t more aggressive in how they pushed back against criticisms of the company that he and other leaders deem inaccurate or misleading. What followed was a series of snarky and aggressive tweets that ended up fueling their own media cycles."

https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/3/28/22354604/amazon-twitter-bernie-sanders-jeff-bezos-union-alabama-elizabeth-warren

[coop]

[sympathy]

that article reminds me that there's a twitch streamer that regular makes thousands of dollars doing "sleep streams" where she just turns her video on while she sleeps.

don't get me wrong, i'm not judging her at all

I am

[theta]

between this and south dakota's meth public awareness campaign they seem to be having a grand old time in the great american west

[joe]

[office plant]

https://www.ft.com/content/cbfad4be-65f7-4810-b2d3-deadcd3d803a

Microsoft wins US army contract for augmented reality headsets worth up to $21.9bn
Decision will bring next generation of technology to the battlefield



Microsoft has won a contract worth as much as $21.9bn to provide the US army with at least 120,000 augmented reality headsets, in a significant move to bring the next generation of computing to the battlefield.

Microsoft would provide the army with “Integrated Visual Augmentation System” headsets, which would help soldiers train, home in on targets or be aware of nearby threats by overlaying contextual information on top of the real world, according to an announcement on Wednesday.

Under the terms of the contract, Microsoft would provide at least 120,000 headsets to the army’s entire close combat force, a company spokesperson said.

The contract could be worth up to $21.9bn over 10 years, depending on how many devices were eventually delivered, the spokesperson added. The person declined to give a cost per device.

The US army said the contract was for an initial five years with the option to extend for a further five years.

Microsoft has been working with the army for two years on a prototype of the product that builds on its existing smartglasses product for businesses called HoloLens.

“The program delivers enhanced situational awareness, enabling information sharing and decision-making in a variety of scenarios,” said Alex Kipman, Microsoft technical fellow, in a blog post, adding that the headsets would “keep soldiers safer and make them more effective”.

Microsoft shares rose 2 per cent on the news to about $236.

General James McConville, army chief of staff, said late last year during testing of the Microsoft headsets that an effort to improve night vision goggles had led to a new system that was “fundamentally changing the way we do business”.

The futuristic headsets are intended for close-combat urban environments so soldiers can train, rehearse and fight in the dark. The goggles help with targeting by wielding augmented reality and machine learning technology to superimpose images over the terrain that soldiers see in front of them — effectively allowing them to see through defensive walls and peer around corners without having to move.

They are also networked together, so commanders back at base can effectively see what soldiers are seeing in real time, and soldiers can receive live footage captured by drones. The mobile computers, which are fitted with artificial intelligence chips, also track soldiers’ eye and hand movements live, and monitor what they say.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, developers also used the goggles to test soldiers’ temperatures.

Some have nicknamed them “FrankenGoggles”. Some soldiers who have used them say they are as intuitive as the iPhone or likened them to following video game instructions. They first underwent army field testing in October 2018 after Microsoft won a $480m contract to provide the army with prototypes.

Close to 100 Microsoft employees at the time petitioned the company to cancel that contract, arguing that it should not develop “any and all weapons technologies”.

Peter Singer, who studies the future of warfare, said the goggles were a “remarkable” development that could deliver quicker and better decision-making to soldiers on the ground, but warned that they could also face information overload and the risk of faulty data.

Separately in 2019, Microsoft beat tech rival Amazon to clinch a $10bn contract to provide cloud computing services to the US Department of Defense. Amazon is challenging the so-called Jedi contract in federal court.