Picks and Shovels is a new, standalone technothriller starring Marty Hench, my two-fisted, hard-fighting, tech-scam-busting forensic accountant. You can pre-order it on my latest Kickstarter, which features a brilliant audiobook read by Wil Wheaton.
The AI bubble is the new crypto bubble: you can tell because the same people are behind it, and they're doing the same thing with AI as they did with crypto – trying desperately to find a use case to cram it into, despite the yawning indifference and outright hostility of the users:
This week on the excellent Trashfuture podcast, the regulars – joined by 404 Media's Jason Koebler – have a hilarious – as in, I was wheezing with laughter! – riff on this year's CES, where companies are demoing home appliances with LLMs built in:
Why would you need a chatbot in your dishwasher? As it turns out, there's a credulous, Poe's-law-grade Forbes article that lays out the (incredibly stupid) case for this (incredibly stupid) idea:
As the Trashfuturians mapped out this new apex of the AI hype cycle, I found myself thinking of a short story I wrote 15 years ago, satirizing the "Internet of Things" hype we were mired in. It's called "The Brave Little Toaster", and it was published in MIT Tech Review's TRSF anthology in 2011:
The story was meant to poke fun at the preposterous IoT hype of the day, and I recall thinking that creating a world of talking appliance was the height of Philip K Dickist absurdism. Little did I dream that a decade and a half later, the story would be even more relevant, thanks to AI pump-and-dumpers who sweatily jammed chatbots into kitchen appliances.
So I figured I'd republish The Brave Little Toaster; it's been reprinted here and there since (there's a high school English textbook that included it, along with a bunch of pretty fun exercises for students), and I podcasted it back in the day:
A word about the title of this story. It should sound familiar – I nicked it from a brilliant story by Tom Disch that was made into a very weird cartoon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I8C_JaT8Lvg
My story is one of several I wrote by stealing the titles of other stories and riffing on them; they were very successful, winning several awards, getting widely translated and reprinted, and so on:
One day, Mister Toussaint came home to find an extra 300 euros' worth of groceries on his doorstep. So he called up Miz Rousseau, the grocer, and said, "Why have you sent me all this food? My fridge is already full of delicious things. I don't need this stuff and besides, I can't pay for it."
But Miz Rousseau told him that he had ordered the food. His refrigerator had sent in the list, and she had the signed order to prove it.
Furious, Mister Toussaint confronted his refrigerator. It was mysteriously empty, even though it had been full that morning. Or rather, it was almost empty: there was a single pouch of energy drink sitting on a shelf in the back. He'd gotten it from an enthusiastically smiling young woman on the metro platform the day before. She'd been giving them to everyone.
"Why did you throw away all my food?" he demanded. The refrigerator hummed smugly at him.
"It was spoiled," it said.
#
But the food hadn't been spoiled. Mister Toussaint pored over his refrigerator's diagnostics and logfiles, and soon enough, he had the answer. It was the energy beverage, of course.
"Row, row, row your boat," it sang. "Gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily, I'm offgassing ethelyne." Mister Toussaint sniffed the pouch suspiciously.
"No you're not," he said. The label said that the drink was called LOONY GOONY and it promised ONE TRILLION TIMES MORE POWERFUL THAN ESPRESSO!!!!!ONE11! Mister Toussaint began to suspect that the pouch was some kind of stupid Internet of Things prank. He hated those.
He chucked the pouch in the rubbish can and put his new groceries away.
#
The next day, Mister Toussaint came home and discovered that the overflowing rubbish was still sitting in its little bag under the sink. The can had not cycled it through the trapdoor to the chute that ran to the big collection-point at ground level, 104 storeys below.
"Why haven't you emptied yourself?" he demanded. The trashcan told him that toxic substances had to be manually sorted. "What toxic substances?"
So he took out everything in the bin, one piece at a time. You've probably guessed what the trouble was.
"Excuse me if I'm chattery, I do not mean to nattery, but I'm a mercury battery!" LOONY GOONY's singing voice really got on Mister Toussaint's nerves.
"No you're not," Mister Toussaint said.
#
Mister Toussaint tried the microwave. Even the cleverest squeezy-pouch couldn't survive a good nuking. But the microwave wouldn't switch on. "I'm no drink and I'm no meal," LOONY GOONY sang. "I'm a ferrous lump of steel!"
The dishwasher wouldn't wash it ("I don't mean to annoy or chafe, but I'm simply not dishwasher safe!"). The toilet wouldn't flush it ("I don't belong in the bog, because down there I'm sure to clog!"). The windows wouldn't retract their safety screen to let it drop, but that wasn't much of a surprise.
"I hate you," Mister Toussaint said to LOONY GOONY, and he stuck it in his coat pocket. He'd throw it out in a trash-can on the way to work.
#
They arrested Mister Toussaint at the 678th Street station. They were waiting for him on the platform, and they cuffed him just as soon as he stepped off the train. The entire station had been evacuated and the police wore full biohazard containment gear. They'd even shrinkwrapped their machine-guns.
"You'd better wear a breather and you'd better wear a hat, I'm a vial of terrible deadly hazmat," LOONY GOONY sang.
When they released Mister Toussaint the next day, they made him take LOONY GOONY home with him. There were lots more people with LOONY GOONYs to process.
#
Mister Toussaint paid the rush-rush fee that the storage depot charged to send over his container. They forklifted it out of the giant warehouse under the desert and zipped it straight to the cargo-bay in Mister Toussaint's building. He put on old, stupid clothes and clipped some lights to his glasses and started sorting.
Most of the things in container were stupid. He'd been throwing away stupid stuff all his life, because the smart stuff was just so much easier. But then his grandpa had died and they'd cleaned out his little room at the pensioner's ward and he'd just shoved it all in the container and sent it out the desert.
From time to time, he'd thought of the eight cubic meters of stupidity he'd inherited and sighed a put-upon sigh. He'd loved Grandpa, but he wished the old man had used some of the ample spare time from the tail end of his life to replace his junk with stuff that could more gracefully reintegrate with the materials stream.
How inconsiderate!
#
The house chattered enthusiastically at the toaster when he plugged it in, but the toaster said nothing back. It couldn't. It was stupid. Its bread-slots were crusted over with carbon residue and it dribbled crumbs from the ill-fitting tray beneath it. It had been designed and built by cavemen who hadn't ever considered the advantages of networked environments.
It was stupid, but it was brave. It would do anything Mister Toussaint asked it to do.
"It's getting hot and sticky and I'm not playing any games, you'd better get me out before I burst into flames!" LOONY GOONY sang loudly, but the toaster ignored it.
"I don't mean to endanger your abode, but if you don't let me out, I'm going to explode!" The smart appliances chattered nervously at one another, but the brave little toaster said nothing as Mister Toussaint depressed its lever again.
"You'd better get out and save your ass, before I start leaking poison gas!" LOONY GOONY's voice was panicky. Mister Toussaint smiled and depressed the lever.
Just as he did, he thought to check in with the flat's diagnostics. Just in time, too! Its quorum-sensors were redlining as it listened in on the appliances' consternation. Mister Toussaint unplugged the fridge and the microwave and the dishwasher.
The cooker and trash-can were hard-wired, but they didn't represent a quorum.
#
The fire department took away the melted toaster and used their axes to knock huge, vindictive holes in Mister Toussaint's walls. "Just looking for embers," they claimed. But he knew that they were pissed off because there was simply no good excuse for sticking a pouch of independently powered computation and sensors and transmitters into an antique toaster and pushing down the lever until oily, toxic smoke filled the whole 104th floor.
Mister Toussaint's neighbors weren't happy about it either.
But Mister Toussaint didn't mind. It had all been worth it, just to hear LOONY GOONY beg and weep for its life as its edges curled up and blackened.
He argued mightily, but the firefighters refused to let him keep the toaster.
#
If you enjoyed that and would like to read more of my fiction, may I suggest that you pre-order my next novel as a print book, ebook or audiobook, via the Kickstarter I launched yesterday?
Check out my Kickstarter to pre-order copies of my next novel, Picks and Shovels!
If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
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🇯🇵 Unveiling the Toshiba T1100: A Journey into the Dawn of Portable Computing!
💻 In the early 1980s, a revolutionary device emerged, transforming the landscape of personal computing forever. The Toshiba T1100, released in 1985, marked a significant milestone in the history of portable computers. The Toshiba T1100 has subsequently been described by Toshiba as "the world's first mass-market laptop computer".
🌐 The Toshiba T1100 was among the first truly portable computers, designed for professionals and enthusiasts seeking computing power on the go. Weighing approximately 4.1 kilograms (9 pounds) with its lead-acid battery, this innovative machine provided users with unprecedented mobility.
⚙️ Equipped with an Intel 80C88 processor running at 4.77 MHz and boasting 256 KB of RAM, the Toshiba T1100 offered impressive computing capabilities for its time. Its 9.6-inch monochrome LCD screen provided a crisp display, while the detachable keyboard enhanced usability.
💾 The T1100 introduced several innovative features, including a built-in 3.5-inch floppy disk drive—a rarity at the time—which allowed for data storage and transfer with ease. This model also featured MS-DOS as its operating system, providing a familiar computing environment.
📈 The Toshiba T1100 set a new standard for portable computing, demonstrating the feasibility and practicality of laptops for business and personal use. Its success paved the way for subsequent generations of laptops, influencing the evolution of mobile computing worldwide.
👨💻 For professionals in various industries, the Toshiba T1100 represented a game-changer, enabling efficient data management, word processing, and spreadsheet tasks on the move. Its portability and functionality empowered users to work beyond traditional office environments.
🌟 Today, the legacy of the Toshiba T1100 lives on in the sleek, lightweight laptops and notebooks that have become indispensable tools for modern professionals and digital nomads. This groundbreaking device remains a testament to Toshiba's commitment to innovation and excellence in the field of computing. The Toshiba T1100 remains an iconic symbol of the dawn of portable computing—a chapter in the ongoing story of technological progress that continues to shape our digital world.
Here are 3 important tips to know to keep your Steam Deck experience from being absolutely ruined.
Follow these 3 tips and the Steam Deck will be the best gaming device this generation.
But if you don't then you'll feel like you wasted over 400 bucks.
1. Do not touch the volume settings in Desktop Mode. Linux is broken and it will destroy your resolution and audio. You will be forced to factory reset.
2. When playing in docked mode, do not plug your dock into one of those HDMI adapter things that let you plug multiple devices into one HDMI port on the TV. Give the Steam Deck it's own HDMI port directly on the TV.
I was playing the Wii U earlier and then played my Steam Deck and the resolution settings were permanently ruined and unfixable even after a factory reset. Giving the dock it's own HDMI port fixed the issue. But it's funny to think that the Wii U broke my Steam Deck for a bit.
3. If a game in your Steam Library says it isn't supported by the Steam Deck, just give it a try anyway.
For example, Sonic Adventure is displayed as "unsupported" but I managed to finish the game's entire Story Mode without any problems. Valve has yet to completely update the info on what is and isn't compatible. So far in my experience the only games the Steam Deck struggles with out of the box are ones that are in Early Access or ones that use Easy Anticheat (except for Halo for some reason, I can play the campaigns in Master Chief collection just fine).
I am speaking entirely from experience.
I do recommend getting this device but please be very careful with it.
Apple’s new MacBook Neo is positioned as a more affordable entry into its laptop lineup, using an iPhone-style chip instead of the more powerful processors found in its higher-end models. The goal seems to be offering a lighter, simpler device for everyday tasks rather than heavy professional use.
The laptop handles basic things like browsing, writing, and media just fine, but it starts to show limits with more demanding workloads. Its design still follows Apple’s usual clean, minimal style, though some compromises are noticeable to keep the price down.
What makes it stand out is how closely it blurs the line between Apple’s mobile and laptop ecosystems. By using a chip similar to those in iPhones, the device leans into efficiency and battery life rather than raw performance.
Comment:
It kind of feels like Apple testing how “minimal” a MacBook can be before people start comparing it to an iPad with a keyboard.
Anya is live and ready to show you everything. Watch her strip, dance, and perform exclusive shows just for you. Interact in real-time and make your fantasies come true.
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Anya is LIVE right now
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Shokz OpenRun Pro Review: Terrible deal or bargain?
These bone conduction headphones are 159.99 and offer numerous great things like bass, comfort, design. However there is one thing that is not good about the headphones. Click below on my review to find out more.
check out the video review of the classic Skullcandy smokin buds 2 wireless its amazing it's been reuploded & cleaned up share your thoughts in the comments & Give the video a like & subscribe we have more amazing skullcandy content coming soon https://youtu.be/7PwWqwammX4
