A Large Regular

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- About those sanctions - Russia now sells more oil than before the war.

- More on Samsung considering switching to Bing from Google. The news caused Google's stock to drop 4%.

- Buy American (at least when it comes to stocks)

- Speaking of American stocks - Tesla shares drop as Musk announces price cuts ahead of earnings call. Tesla set to report earnings today. They have a hard time keeping up with demand so I expect the numbers to be great.

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share. 

- The Fall of the FBI. Still say they should move the FBI HQ to Salt Lake City to get the stench of James Comey's political bureaucracy off the department.

- Nice simple explainer on what ChatGPT is and how to use it.

- 10-years ago, 2-days after the Boston Marathon bombing, gets me every time.

- Interesting - Samsung is considering replacing Google with Bing on their devices. The browser wars have begun! 

Stuff I found interesting or amusing and thought I'd share.

- The case for reading fiction from Harvard Business Review.

- Interesting - reportedly US intel helped India rout China in 2022 border clash. We need to be closer allies with India. 

- If you have a Samsung cell phone there's a critical security bug you need to be aware of.

- Matt Ridley on the "Racoon dogs" being the latest - it wasn't a lab leak distraction out of China. It was a lab leak. "Don't trust China - China is asshole!"

Interesting article on Samsung's deepfake AI that could fabricate a video of you from a single photograph.

While the article highlights some of the negative potential for the technology (like inserting your ex's face into explicit "revenge porn") I kept thinking of a very positive potential application.

Remember the portraits in Howarts in the Harry Potter universe? Paintings that seemed alive? Can you imagine a classroom in the not to distant future where say a physics class is lined with the photos of Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking and other physics greats?

These portraits could combine this deepfake AI with true AI where the portraits are loaded with all of the works of the person they show. In addition the data of where more modern science has either disproved or enhanced their ideas can be added. The teacher could ask "Sir Isaac could you explain your theory of gravity?" and the painting could come alive with an explanation. Then the teacher could follow-up by asking Sir Isaac how his theory differs from Einstein's. How cool would that be?

In the cases of more modern folks like Einstein and Feynman where we have recordings of their actual voices it may be possible for the "paintings" to even adopt many of the characteristics and mannerisms of those they portray.

Like Arthur C. Clarke said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." We may be getting close to that point here.

82" 2160p HDTV

Instapundit linked to this 82" 2160p HDTV display from Samsung. I agree that I'd want one of those too. There's a problem however - even though the display may be 2160p there are no broadcasters sending out a signal in that format. For that matter there aren't even any major broadcasters sending out a signal in 1080p. Right now the HD channels you see are all in 1080i. Even if you bought that 82" 2160 HDTV the reception when watching "TV" would be no better than a 100" 1080i display at a much lower price.

So it would be great to own one of those monster screens but I'm guessing that by the time the broadcasters have caught up to the technology - the screen you purchase today will be sadly out of date.