Day: June 10, 2025, 10:52 PM

Ransom, Walked Some

Chill Clowns, Tech

Data Encrypted & Veeam Backups Deleted – Any Hope for Recovery?

Probably not. Pay the ransom and hope for the best.

A recovery tool might get you some back. Always iffy, though. Ideally you’d pursue both paths simultaneously. I’m not sure why people don’t have immutable offsite backups as a matter of course, but hey, some people like the drama I guess.

Me, I like the easy life so I do have those in spades. And aces.

LLMinate

Chill Gutter Philosophy, Tech

For once I agree with Yglesias. And yes, I read the whole paper.

This is a big nothing. The highest-quality LLMs are now smarter than most humans. But so what? Progress is not made by the lumpen masses and neither it will be by LLMs who are near that level of mundanity. The gap between someone like Bill Atkinson or Nancy Cartwright and some regular clown is nearly as vast as the gulf between a slime mold and Goofus Tardbiscuit III (i.e., most people).

All most people have — probably 99.999% of humanity — is the illusion of thinking, the same as LLMs. The thoughtuful few are those who make any progress, who lift the rest of everyone up out of the muck.

LLMs are still in the muck. I don’t know their future but that’s where they are now. And so is nearly every human.

Chill Links

Germany plans rapid bunker expansion amid fears of Russian attack.

Trump seeks to end climate research at premier U.S. climate agency. Just cannot stop doing moronic things.

Trump is the ripoff candidate, the King of the Scam.

Britain prepares to go all-in on nuclear power — after years of dither. Good.

Tech has turned into just another manufacturing job.

We accept from these companies a sort of hostile, mean behavior towards their own employees that we would never tolerate if companies were, in fact, people, as the legal fiction claims.

Who’s Writing the Code at Palantir?

NY Federal Reserve finds a ‘significant share’ of companies saying they raised prices on goods not affected by tariffs.

Modern Tech and Old-School Spycraft Are Redefining War.

Dropbox CEO slams return-to-office mandates, compares them to outdated malls and theaters.

I landed a remote job for a European company, and now I’d find it hard to go back to a US-based company.

Never Take Candy from Strangers. But it’s so sweet.