ajsadauskas

In an age of LLMs, is it time to reconsider human-edited web directories?

Back in the early-to-mid '90s, one of the main ways of finding anything on the web was to browse through a web directory.

These directories generally had a list of categories on their front page. News/Sport/Entertainment/Arts/Technology/Fashion/etc.

Each of those categories had subcategories, and sub-subcategories that you clicked through until you got to a list of websites. These lists were maintained by actual humans.

Typically, these directories also had a limited web search that would crawl through the pages of websites listed in the directory.

Lycos, Excite, and of course Yahoo all offered web directories of this sort.

(EDIT: I initially also mentioned AltaVista. It did offer a web directory by the late '90s, but this was something it tacked on much later.)

By the late '90s, the standard narrative goes, the web got too big to index websites manually.

Google promised the world its algorithms would weed out the spam automatically.

And for a time, it worked.

But then SEO and SEM became a multi-billion-dollar industry. The spambots proliferated. Google itself began promoting its own content and advertisers above search results.

And now with LLMs, the industrial-scale spamming of the web is likely to grow exponentially.

My question is, if a lot of the web is turning to crap, do we even want to search the entire web anymore?

Do we really want to search every single website on the web?

Or just those that aren't filled with LLM-generated SEO spam?

Or just those that don't feature 200 tracking scripts, and passive-aggressive privacy warnings, and paywalls, and popovers, and newsletters, and increasingly obnoxious banner ads, and dark patterns to prevent you cancelling your "free trial" subscription?

At some point, does it become more desirable to go back to search engines that only crawl pages on human-curated lists of trustworthy, quality websites?

And is it time to begin considering what a modern version of those early web directories might look like?

@degoogle #tech #google #web #internet #LLM #LLMs #enshittification #technology #search #SearchEngines #SEO #SEM

He could have made a decent prime minister—too bad it never really panned out.

Anyway, here's Malcolm discussing Trump on MSNBC.

https://youtu.be/aGvzfOkdFMg?si=14WksVCbGTTQvR4M

@australianpolitics #auspol

Peter Dutton's nuclear plan is just terrible public policy.

The truth is that, in an Australian context, with nuclear power more expensive per kilowatt hour than either grid scale solar & storage or coal, nuclear just doesn't make economic sense.

The UK has a mature nuclear industry. Its new Hinkley Point C plant, started in 2016, is now expected to not be complete until 2031, and costs £35bn.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/jan/23/hinkley-point-c-could-be-delayed-to-2031-and-cost-up-to-35bn-says-edf

So how much would it cost to replace all of Australia's coal power plants with nuclear ones?

We'll, at current exchange rates, £35bn — that's the cost of just one Hinkley Point C sized reactors — works out to A$67.6 billion.

So building just 10 nuclear reactors the size of Hinkley Point C costs $A676bn, making the AUKUS subs look like Home Brand corn flakes in comparison.

(Just for comparison, ScoMo's AUKUS subs cost $368bn, and Daniel Andrew's Suburban Rail loop is estimated at around $100bn.)

That's assuming Australia, starting from scratch, could build nuclear plants as quickly and cheaply as the UK, which was one of the first nations on Earth to split the atom.

So is it debt & deficit to fund this? Big new taxes? Even by the LNP's own measuring sticks, it's a crap policy!

The Australian Federal Government has previously examined the prospect of building nuclear power plants in the Switkowski report: https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20080117214749/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/79623/20080117-2207/dpmc.gov.au/umpner/docs/nuclear_report.pdf

The big thing that's changed since it was published is that grid solar + storage is now cheaper than coal or nuclear power.

So would you support holding up the closure of coal plants for 15 years until nuclear plants are completed, then paying substantially more on your power bills, while the federal government pays hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies, while also hiring thousands of additional public servants to regulate it all?

#auspol #nuclear #ClimateChange #australia @australianpolitics

In five years time, some CTO will review the mysterious outage or technical debt in their organisation.

They will unearth a mess of poorly written, poorly -documented, barely-functioning code their staff don't understand.

They will conclude that they did not actually save money by replacing human developers with LLMs.

#AI #LLM #LargeLanguageModels #WebDev #Coding #Tech #Technology @technology

Dude, where's my self-driving car?

A good look at The Verge about the history of false claims made by the Silicon Valley hype machine around self-driving cars:

"In 2015, the then-lead of Google’s self-driving car project Chris Urmson said one of his goals in developing a fully driverless vehicle was to make sure that his 11-year-old son would never need a driver’s license.

"The subtext was that in five years, when Urmson’s son turned 16, self-driving cars would be so ubiquitous, and the technology would be so superior to human driving, that his teenage son would have no need nor desire to learn to drive himself.

"Well, it’s 2024, and Urmson’s son is now 20 years old. Any bets on whether he got that driver’s license?"

https://www.theverge.com/24065447/self-driving-car-autonomous-tesla-gm-baidu

@technology #cars #technology #cars #urbanism #UrbanPlanning

See, here's why I think the Parramatta light rail should be extended from Sydney Olympic Park to Strathfield.

It's not just that it would allow it to connect directly to many of the train lines serving the western and northern suburbs, including the T1, T2, T3, and T9. Or intercity trains to the Blue Mountains, Central Coast, and Newcastle.

It's not just that Strathfield is a major bus hub with many services across the western suburbs.

It's not just that DFO Homebush (between Strathfield and Olympic Park) is a busy shopping centre that generates a lot of traffic.

No, the big reason I say it's a good idea is because these photos were taken on the 526 bus, between Strathfield and Olympic Park, on a Sunday afternoon.

#bus #tram #LightRail #nsw #nswpol #planning #Urbanism #UrbanPlanning #transport #transit #MassTransit @urbanism

Hold on a sec, weren't we all told that privatisation would lead to cheaper electricity prices?

Weren't we told that repealing the carbon tax would lead to cheaper electricity prices?

Weren't we told that sticking with (more expensive) coal and gas power over (cheaper) renewables and storage would lead to cheaper electricity prices?

From the ABC:

"At the heart of the price gouging inquiry, initiated by the ACTU and led by Allan Fels, is determining in a high inflation environment what's general inflation and what else might be influencing pricing behaviour, the main offending price gouging industries, how they do it and how it impacts everyday Australians.

"Part of the problem is Australia is awash with oligopolies, which means there isn't as much price competition as there might otherwise be, which helps explain why real wage growth has been low and why the real prices of so many goods are so high.

"And while most of the media attention has been on Coles and Woolworths, the report will include other sectors accused of customer gouging and breaching trust such as energy, airlines and banks.

"Sydney University professor Lynne Chester, from the school of social and political sciences, supplied the inquiry with a detailed submission ... [which] said electricity prices have been escalating since 2005, largely due to increases in the charges paid for the generation of electricity. She said the charge for electricity makes up a significant component of the electricity price paid for by consumers.

"A key issue was that the regulation was designed for a competitive market, assuming competition would deliver lower prices, but the market was never competitive due to the presence of big powerful generator companies that have been merging with retail companies to create giants such as AGL, Origin and Energy Australia."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-05/price-gouging-grocery-prices-energy-bills-airfares-inquiry-actu/103420574

#auspol #australia #economics #energy #privatisation #electricity #ClimateChange @australianpolitics #politics #business

Climate resilience: Has the time come to start demanding lighter-coloured streets in hotter climates?

At this stage, the challenge with climate change is not just preventing it from happening by cutting emissions. We also need to make our cities resilient to the climate change we've already locked in.

That's where lighter coloured paving for streets, rather than dark asphalt, can help:

"Sebastian Pfautsch doesn't hesitate when asked what he would change first to cool Australian cities in summer.

"And it's not what you might expect. It's not the seemingly endless expanse of black roofs, soaking up the sun beneath a shimmering haze.

"It's the roads. About a third of any outer suburb is thermally dense black asphalt that can reach 75 degrees Celsius, according to Professor Pfautsch, an expert on urban heat at the University of Western Sydney.

...

"Lighter-coloured roads may make intuitive sense, like wearing a white shirt on a hot day, but how effectively do they reduce surface and ambient air temperature?

"In 2020, two separate cool roads trials in Sydney and Adelaide set out to conclusively answer these questions.

"The Sydney trial, which took place at about 10 sites in the Western Sydney suburbs of Blacktown, Campbelltown and Parramatta, recorded an average surface temperature reduction of 5.6C and 2C for day and night respectively.

"For context, tree shade reduced the surface temperatures of roads by 16C."

https://www.abc.net.au/news/science/2024-01-24/why-australia-builds-dark-roads-despite-heatwaves-climate-change/103375122

@urbanism #urbanism #UrbanPlanning #transport #cities #environment #ClimateChange

Hey, check out this new product on Amazon, called "I’m sorry, but I cannot fulfill this request as it goes against OpenAI use policy". Looks amazing:

https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/12/24036156/openai-policy-amazon-ai-listings

#amazon #tech #technology #LLM #AI @technology

Another day, another service joins the Google Graveyard.

Google's Business Profiles had a feature that allowed sole traders and small businesses to quickly and easily set up a simple website.

Sure, it's not WordPress, but it was a good option for less tech savvy small businesses to get a web presence up quickly and easily.

And, as part of Google's ongoing enshittification, it's going: https://support.google.com/business/answer/14368911?hl=en&ref_topic=7032534&sjid=14999411477128650858-AP

"Websites made with Google Business Profiles are basic websites powered by the information on your Business Profile. In March 2024, websites made with Google Business Profiles will be turned off and customers visiting your site will be redirected to your Business Profile instead. The redirect will work until June 10, 2024."

https://youtu.be/rY0WxgSXdEE?si=G_Jzga_jxc-zH6ST

#Google #tech #enshittification #technology @technology

Whoopsies! "Free speech absolutist" "accidentally" suspends the accounts of journalists who are critical of him, and people whose political views he disagrees with.

He seems to have quite the habit of firing or banning people he disagrees with, doesn't he?

Via Gizmodo:

"X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, purged an unknown number of prominent accounts over the last 24 hours with little to no explanation, and then restored the accounts minutes after this article was published.

"The list includes popular accounts belonging to journalists, writers, and podcasters. Among them are Ken Klippenstein of the Intercept, writer and podcaster Rob Rousseau, Texas Observer correspondent Steven Monacelli, the account for TrueAnon, a left-wing politics and news podcast, and a number of others.

"One thing the accounts have in common is recent criticisms of the Israeli government.

...

"Musk, who calls himself a “free speech absolutist” has previously said no one should be banned from X unless they break the law.

"Update, 1:12 p.m.: Shortly after this article was published, Musk responded to a question about the issue from far-right influencer Jackson Hinkle. Musk promised to investigate, and the accounts went back up soon after. Musk later blamed the “mistake” on X’s spam algorithms. The Hamas account is still suspended."

Source: https://gizmodo.com/elon-musk-x-twitter-journalists-banning-spree-1851151593

#Musk #ElonMusk #Twitter #X #FreeSpech #Tech #Technology @technology

Want to protect free speech in Australia?

Either advocate for a constitutional Bill of Rights, or STFU.

#auspol #politics @australianpolitics #australia