Chaos & Amazement #2451 Albania’s TikTok Ban, Charlie the Unicorn, and Stuffed Rectums
I'm confused, full of cheese, and unsure of the day of the week – welcome to Limbo Week, the bizarre period between Christmas and New Year's where time itself seems to have lost all meaning.
Tech news
Albania bans TikTok for a year starting January 2025. The move is part of a broader effort to enhance school safety after the tragic killing of a 14-year-old near a school in November.
Will this help address the root issues or spark further debate? https://www.reuters.com/technology/albania-bans-tiktok-year-after-killing-teenager-2024-12-21/
Google is working on some sort of “AI Mode” for the Search app on Android that appears to be a new conversational and visual (or multimodal) experience. Could this be the fix for its outdated voice search, giving quick answers and letting you ask follow-ups? https://9to5google.com/2024/12/04/google-search-ai-mode/
“They’re hiring business problems solvers who can design.” —
https://link.medium.com/LOVxck3uyPb Pretty user interfaces won’t get you hired anymore.
Fresh AI
The Heist: Every shot was done via text-to video with Google Veo 2. Still looks like a high-end video game, but impressive nonetheless.
From my blog
Charlie the Unicorn in a rare moment of peace and happiness https://bnox.be/2024/12/charlie-unicorn-in-rare-moment-of-peace.html
My most read blog posts this year are:
OnlyFans and the MrBeast of Adult Content, about how OnlyFans is evolving beyond its adult content roots. I think Alana Cho is a great example of how creators are using the platform to build businesses and connect with audiences in new ways. OnlyFans is just one platform in a larger creator economy that is changing the way we consume content. https://www.bnox.be/2024/10/onlyfans-and-mrbeast-of-adult-content.html
ChatGPT: Bullshitting, not Hallucinating, about how large language models like ChatGPT can be misleading, even though they are impressive feats of engineering. I think the distinction between "hallucination" and "bullshitting" is an important one. These models are not sentient and don't have any intention to deceive us. They are simply very good at producing text that is statistically similar to the data they were trained on. https://www.bnox.be/2024/07/chatgpt-bullshitting-not-hallucinating.html
My Mind's Many Tabs: Living with a Busy Internal Monologue. It can be overwhelming sometimes, but it's also what makes me creative and helps me come up with new ideas. I've found that the best way to deal with it is to channel that energy into something productive, like writing, drawing, or making short educational videos. https://www.bnox.be/2024/08/my-minds-many-tabs-living-with-busy.html
Weird and Wonderful
Roundup of the words of the year for 2024, including brat, manifest, kakistocracy, polarization, brain rot, enshittification, sanewashing, girl mossing, vibe, and broligarchy.
What Did We Get Stuck In Our Rectums Last Year? https://defector.com/what-did-we-get-stuck-in-our-rectums-last-year-5 You don’t want to know. And yet, here we are.