@Techmeme@techhub.social2026-01-15 07:06:05
Hong Kong-based WeLab, which operates two digital banks in Hong Kong and Indonesia, raised $220M in equity and debt from HSBC, Prudential Hong Kong, and others (Denise Wee/Bloomberg)
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-…
@outer@mas.to2025-11-14 16:33:34
Science hasn't figured this one out. Male scientists don't want to know what's coming up for themselves. Women scientists know, but they're being suppressed. https://mastodonapp.uk/@tobestewart/115543906288237588
@mapcar@mastodon.sdf.org2025-11-14 17:54:15
The Vergecast of October 31. («God will be declared by a panel of experts») has a bit funny and very good discussion of the bizarre joint press release between Microsoft and OpenAI and the insanity of the panel that is to verify if AGI has been achieved or not.
A choice quote about the problems of finding people to put on such a panel:
“A bunch of the world's best drunks have verified that you made whiskey is not a thing that you can do.”
@UP8@mastodon.social2025-12-12 06:29:35
🔒Mandated or banned? Either way, women lose in the veil debate
https://globalvoices.org/2025/11/17/mandated-or-banned-either-way-women-lose-in-the-veil-debate/
@tiotasram@kolektiva.social2025-12-10 17:19:22
When "self-driving" cars were first getting some hype back in ~2015 or so, I told people who asked me that I didn't think they'd be safe, and that I wished the same money were being invested in driver-assistance systems instead.
At the time, advocates were claiming that self-driving cars would be safer than human drivers.
We now have both self-driving cars and some nifty new driver assistance things, and it turns out that the self-driving cars are in fact being developed by corporations whose attention to the bottom line results in danger to others on the road pretty regularly. I don't actually have stats here for whether they're "safer than human drivers" or not, but the opportunity for one bad software update to make *all* self-driving cars dangerous at once kinda makes me doubt that.
Here's an example of Waymo cars getting "more aggressive" as they try to balance between being too timid and obstructing traffic (including emergency vehicles) and being too dangerous:
https://archive.ph/JJuGv
Here's another example of passing stopped schoolbusses leading to a software recall:
https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/News/waymo-issue-voluntary-software-recall-after-close-calls/story?id=128207776
In the first article, Waymo claims 91% fewer serious accidents per mile. Obviously an independent audit would be actually trustworthy, but even if we take that claim at face value, it's meaningless if an update tomorrow causes 100,000 accidents.
Note that they could be using better engineering practices, and the fact that they aren't shows that they don't care enough about the risks. They could be deploying new software versions incrementally and slowly, letting new versions rack up lots of miles only on a few vehicles before pushing them to a fleet. The should also have the equivalent of a simulation unit test for "schoolbus is stopped, what do?" and if a software version fails that test, it doesn't make it to the fleet. Clearly they don't have that.
I feel pretty vindicated in my earlier prediction that this tech is a bad idea in the hands of the current advocates.
@pbloem@sigmoid.social2025-12-09 16:35:29
This has allowed me to make clear something that's been at the back of my mind. Something that is at the heart of so much blind stupidity in big tech.
It's the assumption that we will change one thing and all else will be the same.
In this case, we will fire lots and lots of employees all over the world and we will make lots of profit. We're smart enough to make the AI, and we're dumb enough to think that there will only be one consequence. 1/n
@david@boles.xyz2025-12-04 14:18:24
Hey Now! Best of David Boles, Blogs: Vol. 16 (2025): Buy Now!
Hey, there! Welp, it's that time of the year again -- yes, time for us to ask for the indulgence of your continued, kind, support for this blog by buying our eBook -- Best of David Boles, Blogs: Vol. 16 (2025) -- to show your support so we may continue to publish this blog without advertising while still being able to cover our yearly, ongoing, online publication costs…
@pre@boing.world2025-11-22 11:20:28
Britain is broken, in various ways. Could adopting bitcoin help it bounce back?
Renegade Investor thinks so.
Central banks printing money causes government debt and artificially low interest rates. Their monetary policy is political and done for bankers not for people.
Bitcoin monitory policy is fixed.
Lockdown during pandemic was funded by money printing, and caused a big inflation pump and government debt increase. It caused the current cost of living crisis.
Lockdown could have been impossible under a bitcoin standard.
In pounds the cost of living has gone up lots over the last decade. But in bitcoin it's gone down massively.
He thinks wealth redistribution is taking money from productive people and giving it to those who aren't increasing the country wealth. Here I disagree entirely. Wealth is reality being taken from the workers and given to the capital owners. We are redistributing wealth towards the rich currently. Taking the wealth created by workers to give to idle owners.
I also wonder, would limited government power be good? Did the lockdown save lives? Would it do do under a worse pandemic? Limited government power may be double edged.
Not sure why he thinks immigration is funded by government, rather than immigrants increasing the country wealth. Seems to think bitcoin could reduce immigration, which I find unbelievable and undesirable.
This talk I disagree with quite a lot.
#bitcoin #bitfest #britain
@theodric@social.linux.pizza2026-01-09 17:34:36
Remember, no matter how much you may doubt yourself, somewhere in the universe...
@kctipton@mas.to2025-10-26 05:42:25
Portside : Can nonviolent struggle defeat a dictator? https://portside.org/2025-10-23/can-nonviolent-struggle-defeat-dictator-database-emphatically-says-yes
