Playing around with GeoSpy has revealed that AI isn't ready to take over the world yet.

This is an online app where you upload a photo and i will use AI to tell you where the photo was taken. It's been weirdly accurate on some photos that I wouldn't have thought would merit any results... but has also been even more weirdly inaccurate with photos that should have been a walk in the park.

As an example... I uploaded a photo of monks meditating in a Lao temple...

GeoSpy came back and said that it was taken in Chang Mai, Thailand. Which is not unreasonable, yet totally wrong.

BUT HERE'S THE THING... GeoSpy shows you the photos it found on the web that it used to determine the location. AND MOST OF THEM HAVE LUANG PRABANG LITERALLY IN THE TITLE!

So it managed to find the correct photos of what I uploaded, but then completely ignored the actual location being spelled out for it? And in some cases the name of the actual temple is there. How can an AI bot be given ALL the information... the actual answer, in fact... but still come to the wrong conclusion? Weird.

Guess humanity has a few more good years left after all.

The company "Humane" dropped their little AI Pin gadget, and the reviews have not been kind. It would seem that on top of all the things I questioned about the device, there were scores of other problems as well. This doesn't surprise me, because the thing just didn't make any sense to me. The real surprise would have been if it had been a smash hit and truly revolutionary device.

One of the people who chimed in on the fiasco was my favorite tech reviewer, Marques Brownlee...

And can you guess what's happening now?

Stories are running about how Marques is killing Humane with his review. Business Insider, for example, had this headline: Humane's AI Pin got trashed by a YouTuber, and it sparked a firestorm over whether that's fair.

“Is it fair?!?” Are you fucking kidding me? Humane releases a shit product. Marques Brownlee, one of the most respected and fair tech reviewers on the planet, tells people it’s a shit product... and he's the bad guy in this scenario? It’s his fault the company is in the dumpster? Bullshit. This is 100% on Humane.

Marques was then put in the weird position of having to explain what his job is to a bunch of people who already know what his job is...

This in turn got him another round of criticism (some, for exmaple, were saying that he's a Tesla fanboy who gushes over their faults because he wants to be pals with Elon Musk, or whatever) at which point you have to wonder if people understand that there are going to be people who like the things you don't like, and Marques has precious little to gain by releasing positive reviews of anything out of Tesla.

He was also called out for having sponsorships on his channel, and then got dragged because of some of the companies he's partnered with. But this rings hollow as well. If I had to pick a brand that Marques is most closely aligned to when it comes to sponsorships, it would be dbrand. But fairly recently MKHD shined a light on dbrand when they made a racist remark to a customer who had a complaint...

Won't be working with dbrand until that original tweet is deleted, at least. You're allowed to make shitty jokes, but the internet has made it pretty clear what it think about this one, and the harm from it is unnecessary

So, yeah, it's not like Marques puts doing what's right below the money he gets from sponsorship deals. He was ready to walk away from one of his most lucrative sponsorship partners than be associated with something shitty they did.

And speaking of shitty...

Don't want bad reviews? Don't release shitty products.

CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is in full swing, and for the new stuff it's pretty much more of the same. 75% pie-in-the-sky stuff that will either never be released, be released but is prohibitively expensive, or is released and doesn't even remotely live up to the hype they built. The remaining 25% is stuff that's all grey area. And I never quite know what to make of it.

By far the most fascinating thing to me this year is the Rabbit, which is a kind of magical AI box. And, unlike the utterly baffling Humane AI Pin which makes zero sense to me... this one kinda does. Maybe?

Here's their keynote if you want to watch it. If you don't, I'm talking about it below.

It's cute and capable (in a demo) and it's orange-red! AND NO SUBSCRIPTION? Nifty!

Now, I'm just going to point out the huge, huge elephant in the room... Apple, Google, and others have been very clear that they are working to update their digital assistants with AI smarts. And the minute... nay, the second... that Apple unleashes their AI model on Siri, well... what the heck are you going to do if you bought a $200 Rabit device? Still carry two devices around? Or ditch the Rabbit and use the device you already carry around everywhere that can do the same thing?

Let's face it. This is just another phone-like device that doesn't have an actual phone in it.

This entire company is just one feature away from being bought out by Apple or Google or Amazon or whatever.

But anyway...

Setting aside the imminent obsolescence of Rabbit, I have a number of questions about how this AI is going to actually work in context of Real Life. I used to travel a lot. Like a lot a lot. So I admit the trip planning alone is a compelling feature. But what are you actually getting? Does it know your seat preference for the plane ticket? What about food preferences, are they taken into account? When it comes to the hotel, is it comparing features as well as price?

Maybe if the AI is very smart, it would be able to look through all my old email confirmations to understand what I typically like and how much I typically spend and such, but it seems like there's a lot of access it would need to your life, which your phone already has. Rabbit would have to get to all that some how, I'm guessing.

And so... yeah. Rabbit is cute. But I anticipate Apple will add all of these capabilities to Siri on my iPhone within a year, so I'll just be waiting it out.

Oooh look! It's officially Cybertruck Day!

Which is to say that Tesla is finally... slowly... releasing Cybertrucks to those who had the massive amount of money needed to buy one. I think ten people got their's today.

But, more importantly, today is the day that the journalistic embargo on reviews ends, so everybody and their dog is rushing to publish their hot takes on the future of automobiles. But don't worry, I'm going to save you from having to wade through all of that by providing a link to the only tech reviewer that I consider to be essential, Marques Brownlee...

Now, I'm of the opinion that this is one butt-ugly vehicle and I wouldn't buy one... and certainly wouldn't pay $60,000 (minimum!) to own one. But I'll be the first to admit that it has some truly cool tech in it. Tech that I hope eventually trickles down to cars for the rest of us.

Or, if somebody wants to buy me one, that would work too.

Yesterday Sonos announced a patch which will (supposedly) fix the heinous POP OF DEATH problem that Sonos ARC soundbar customers have been enduring for years. As you may remember, I talked about this a while back... where playing Dolby Atmos content via either an AppleTV 4K or an Xbox will cause a loud POP! and kill your soundbar until you reset it. The only option you have to prevent it is to turn off Atmos. I have both of those devices, and bought the ARC soundbar specifically to play Dolby Atmos content. Then I went ahead and bought two Era 300 speakers for the rear channels in the hopes that Atmos would route through them and allow me to turn it back on. NOPE! It's all or nothing.

Needless to say, I sure hope that this patch actually works. Otherwise I've spent a hell of a lot of money for nothing.

I have been a massive Sonos fan for a very long time. Sure I've has occasional connectivity problems which Sonos Support always blamed on my network (despite my ditching two sets of routers and replacing them with a very expensive Amplifi Alien mesh network), but it hasn't dimmed my enthusiasm for their products. The sound is exceptional and the capabilities are fantastic. I still have occasional connectivity problems to this day, though I reject completely the idea that it's my network's fault. My network is rock solid... and far exceeds what's required to stream sound. Usually going in and manually changing the channel that Sonos is using is enough to fix things up. Until the next time.

But then the POP OF DEATH happened, and I've been "FUCK SONOS!" ever since.

Every time they announced layoffs I was all "GOOD! YOU DESERVE TO FAIL!"... while feeling sorry for the employees who were collateral damage because their fucking management wouldn't allocate the resources required to solve a huge fucking problem that caused their products to fail for the very purpose they were designed. Remember... this problem has been going on for years!

I had it in my head that I would never buy another Sonos product ever again because this was so absurdly fucking shitty.

So when Sonos announced today that they are cutting even more jobs and focusing on developing headphones, I am not swayed. Why would I buy some expensive headphones that could ship with a massive defect that takes the company YEARS to fix? No thanks. I'll continue to buy Apple or Bose headphones, because I'm done with Sonos.

Or am I?

Honestly I don't know.

I'd sure like to think so. But maybe they will come out with something so awesome and revolutionary that I'd be willing to give them a chance if the price is right.

Regardless, Sonos is a cautionary tale of how a beloved brand can trash their own reputation and flush customer good will down the toilet. If a problem comes to your attention, you'd better fucking drop what you're doing and fix it... quickly... because you're never the only game in town, and brand loyalty only goes so far.

UPDATE: Color me fucking shocked...

Fourth time was a charm... well, that and two reboots (unplugging and plugging back in again). I watched a movie on my AppleTV 4K and no POP OF DEATH, so far. So that's refreshing.

UPDATE: Well that was fast... YouTube cracks down on synthetic media with AI disclosure requirement. I mean, this literally means nothing unless it gets enforced, and the idea that YouTube will "crack down" hard enough to make the problem go away would cut into their ad revenue, so I'll believe it works when I see it.

As more and more streaming services keep raising prices while reducing content, I cut more and more streaming services. The one streaming source that is in no danger of being cut anytime soon though? Youtube Premium. Simply because the amount of ads they inundate people with is so horrific that I cannot sit through them without having an embolism. But, unlike Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, and the rest, YouTube is always stacking up more content. There's so much content that I couldn't hope to sit through even a fraction of it (not that I'd want to).

But all is not perfect in YouTube Land.

One of the genre's I cannot get enough of is science videos. I watch an insanely huge amount of science-based content.

But lately I've been noticing a shitload of shitty fucking science content being pushed my way. Most of it AI-generated. I'll be enjoying a great science video. It will end. And all of a sudden I get a video with a robotic AI-generated voice, showing the same AI-generated visuals over and over, while reading from a bad AI-generated script, then pushed out with an AI-generated thumbnail.

It's so bad that I ended up searching Google to find out what the fuck was happening.

Ironically (or not) one of the first links returned was a YouTube video that sums it up very well...

Now, I'm just going to put this out there: If YouTube doesn't do something about this crap... quickly... they could end up fucking themselves out of a lot of cash. From people like me who have absolutely zero desire to be exposed to souless content that isn't properly researched or fact-checked by actual people who know how to do that.

A good first step would be for YouTube to require that all AI-generated videos be flagged as such. And easily identified as such. And any video not properly declared as AI-generated can be reported with the account demonetized.

A good second step would be for YouTube to allow its users to set a preference to have AI-generated videos not be displayed. I would check that box in a second, because I have no desire what-so-ever to watch this shit.

A great third step would be to ban the content entirely, but it's not like YouTube would ever ban something that brings them money so I'm not holding my breath.

Officially entering the holiday season, not that it'll keep me away... because an all new Bullet Sunday starts... now...

   
• This is EARTH! sigh. I love love love the YouTube channel Kurzgesagt. They tackle fascination topics in a highly educational and entertaining way. And now there's this absolutely brilliant new video. They have condensed the 4.5 billion year history of planet earth in exactly one hour. And guess when humans appear in that hour? Helpful hint... don't blink...

It's had it running last night on the television while I was working. I found myself looking up to watch more often than I expected.

   
• POIROT! Here's the thing. I thought the Albert Finney original Murder on the Orient Express was better than the Kenneth Branagh remake. I thought the Peter Ustinov original Death on the Nile was VASTLY superior to the Kenneth Branagh remake (indeed, it's one of my favorite films). But I still enjoyed Branagh's take on Poirot, so I just watched A Haunting in Venice. This one I liked a lot...

My mom read all the Agatha Christie books, so I ended up reading all of them as well. I don't remember the book Hallowe'en Party much... but I do remember not thinking much of the BBC adaptation, feeling they were scraping the bottom of the barrel with this one. The Branagh version wisely makes a very loose adaptation with A Haunting in Venice and the movie is far better because of it. I really hope we get a fourth film where they try something unique... and adapt it to be as interesting as this one.

   
• Reacher Deux! The second season of Reacher cannot get here fast enough. The first season was one of the best things to happen to my television last year...

I haven't read all the Jack Reacher novels, but I've read enough that it's shocking how much more faithful the Amazon Prime series is to the Tom Cruise movies (though, I liked those also, if I'm being honest).

   
• Falling! I watched the occasional episode of The Fall Guy but was never so much into the show that I gave a thought to a movie adaptation. Until I saw it was starring Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt!

This movie looks entertaining as hell.

   
• DAFUQ? I had absolutely no idea (here's a link in case TikTok is being a dick)...

I wonder if James Brolin gets any bank off that song?

   
• DAK! All throughout high school I was addicted to the DAK catalog which had really good deals on electronics, computers, and media. It was kinda a weird concept... the owner (Drew Alan Kaplan) hunted down products which were made wrong or had some cosmetic detail that was off or whatever, bought the entire lot, then offered them at a consumer-direct discount price. I couldn't afford to buy lots of stuff... I was in high school... but I obsessed over every new catalog that arrived. And now those catalogs have been scanned and archived by Cabel Sasser on his site...

This one is my favorite... turn your tiny blurry television into a bigger blurry television with this fresnel lens!

   
• Pander! I finally remembered to watch the new South Park special on Paramount+... Into the Panderverse... and it's pretty epic. I am 1000% onbord for inclusivity and diversity in entertainment. It keeps things fresh and interesting, because how many times do we want to see the same old shit with straight white people? But the problem is that remaking the same old shit and substituting non-straight-white-people for straight white people is a stupid, lazy way of creating inclusivity and diversity. It completely ignores the lived experience of non-straight-white-people by copy-pasting them into a straight-white experience, and the movie/television studios need to do better than that. Because it's getting boring as hell.

Plus it's got Kathleen Kennedy and her massive ego in it! Though it's fake Kathleen Kennedy, so any hopes of her taking time out from completely fucking up LucasFilm/Disney were shortlived. Unfortunately, there it a downside to this episode. Gino Carano is using it to extend her 15 minutes.

   
Enjoy whatever remains of your Sunday, everybody.

Between my iPhone and my Apple Watch, I'm good.

That's not to say that I'm against adopting new and exciting "wearable" technology as it arrives... it's just that it would have to be something incredibly useful or amazing for me to hop on the early-adopter bandwagon.

Today Humane, a company creating AI tech, is announcing more details of their "Humane AI Pin" that they demoed in a TedTalk six months ago. Including the price, which clocks in at a whopping $699 (plus a required $24 per month for a cellular contract via T-Mobile).

I fully admit that it's an interesting trinket. With some caveats...

UPDATE - VIDEO REMOVED FROM YOUTUBE BY HUMANE: Let's say that you work hard to create a ten minute joyless video announcing your product launch. What's the best possible thing that could happen? I'll tell you what... people copy and repost your video so it goes viral. There's no better advetising because it's exponential but costs no additional money. Except Humane has started issuing take-down notices with copyright strikes against people reposting it. Apparently the launch video had some pretty serious factual errors involving how much protein is in a handful of almonds and where is the best place to see the upcoming eclipse. So Humane is working hard to remove the evidence, I guess.

The one thing they demoed that was its "killer feature" was live translation using your own voice and inflection. Alas, they had to remove the whole video, so that's gone too...

And about those caveats...

• I question the legibility of a "laser screen" that's projected on your hand. First of all... how does it focus? Second of all... the wrinkles and folds of the human hand hardly seem like the best device for projection. The central part is large enough to be readable, but I have no idea what's written around that. If anything. Maybe it's decorative?
• I rarely use the voice interface on my iPhone or Apple Watch... and even then it's when I'm not in public. I'm not going to start talking to them while I'm out in public, disrupting the peace. It would be hypocritical given the disdain I have for people who take calls on speakerphone in public.
• They put a lot of effort in talking about privacy. But if your interaction is all 98% talking out loud and listening out loud, how private can it be? Absolutely everybody will be in your business who's within earshot.
• Despite the fact that the "Battery Booster" is on the back side of whatever cloth the pin is hanging off of, it's only making the thing all the more heavy. I'd have to try it for myself, of course, but it seems like a rather large and clunky device to hang off my T-shirt.
• I'm on T-Mobile, which is the Humane service provider. And despite what their ads tell you, their quality os pretty much shit. In rural areas, like my home, I bounce between two and three bars (it is 5G-UC, not that it makes my calls stranger or my data faster). In big cities, I have other problems. Possibly from the network being overloaded? No idea. All I do know is that my cell service was better under AT&T... and much better under Verizon. To have something which is entirely reliant on "The Cloud" as connected by T-Mobile seems dicey. Feels like there's going to be some serious lag waiting for actions to be performed.
• I didn't buy an Apple Watch with cellular service because my iPhone is always with me and the non-cellular version can sponge off my iPhone's cellular connection seamlessly. It seems really weird that the AI Pin can't do that as well. You must buy a $24 a month cellular plan, even if you've always got a phone on you.
• SEVEN HUNDRED DOLLARS?!? I know that the R&D for this thing must have been pricey, but there's no screen, limited interactivity, and very limited uses. When I compare it to something even more outrageously-priced, like the $3,500 AppleVision Pro, at least I can see where Apple spent the money. This little box though? Look, I fully understand that Humane has nowhere to go but up, and the device will only improve as time goes on, but $700 seems a hugely expensive price to pay for it given its awkward nature and limited application.

I will watch the progression of Humane's little gadget with interest. But I won't be dropping $700 to buy the first one. Maybe they'll be able to prove its necessity in the future. Or maybe the price will drop low enough that it will be a fun thing to play with for the price.

Yeah, there's no post today.

Look, I am not going to candy-coat this... after "discovering" BobbyBroccoli, all my non-work time has been watching every single video he's produced. And I remain completely blown away.

BobbyBroccoli's channel is six years of video games. Then, three years ago, something changed. All of a sudden Broccoli (Kavan S) switched the focus of his channel to scientific scandals. And this is when things get very, very interesting. His first video in this new direction is actually a video in three parts about Jan Hendrik Schön. If you are a science geek, it's riveting. Mostly because he doesn't just go "Hey, there's this science guy and his lies almost got him a Nobel Prize." Oh no. He goes into glorious detail explaining how everything happened.

PART ONE: The Rise of Jan Hendrick Schön.
PART TWO: The Lies of to Jan Hendrick Schön.
PART THREE: The Demise of to Jan Hendrick Schön.

Last year BobbyBroccoli ran through a series on Ammerica's Missing Collider. As with everything else, it's an absolutely fascinating deep dive into the subject which spans three presidencies...

PART ONE: Ronald Reagan & the Biggest Failure in Physics.
PART TWO: George Bush Vomited & Set Physics Back by a Decade.
PART THREE: Bill Clinton & the Day Physics Died.

That mostly gets you caught up to what I posted yesterday. There's a few other videos, including this fascinating look at The Image You Can't Submit to Journals Anymore...

Assuming I don't fall down another YouTube rabbit hole, I'm guessing things will go back to whatever passes for "normal" here at Blogography.

I watch a lot of videos. If I'm awake and working, odds are I am watching (but mostly listening to) YouTube videos. And the subjects I have running in those videos are crazy eclectic because I enjoy loads of different subjects. But ultimately the videos I tend to watch more than others are those that can teach me something. AKA educational videos.

More specifically, math and science videos.

I have watched hundreds upon hundreds of such videos. So when I tell you that I have now found my favorite science video that I've yet seen, I am not speaking from lack of data.

It's an absolutely brilliant video about "element hunting" and "the man who tried to fake an element." Not only is is just wildly entertaining (both in the way it is told and the way it is graphically represented), but it is mind-bogglingly fascinating. On top of that, it miraculously is fairly easy to follow for non-scientists despite tackling a rather complex chain of events.

And it's a year old!

I'm posting it here. It's well worth your time. And you're welcome...

Now, isn't that just fantastic?

As I type this, I'm in the process of watching it a second time immediately after having finished watching it the first time.

What's so utterly bizarre is that YouTube shows me that I've seen two of BobbyBroccoli's previous videos. I remember watching both of them, liked them, and have no earthly idea why I didn't subscribe immediately after watching. It's only thanks to the YouTube algorithm that I happened upon his channel again. Which only goes to show... the algorithm isn't always bad.

At least this time I had the sense to subscribe.

UPDATE: Yeah... I may not get any sleep tonight. This guy makes exceptional videos. Like these, which breaks open a huge scandal in a beautifully visual way...

Yikes. I mean... this is the very definition of a train wreck that you can't look away from.