Category: Current Events
Be especially nice to your sysadmins today, because a bad update from Crowdstrike’s Falcon anti-threat system has blue-screened a lot of computers worldwide. They’re now working in “surprise guest mode.”
Here’s the “official unofficial” list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for the first few days of this week — Monday, July 15 through Thursday, July 18, 2024.
This week’s events
Monday, July 15
Tuesday, July 16
Wednesday, July 17
Thursday, July 18
About this list
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
- Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
- Tech project management / agile processes
- Video, board, and role-playing games
- Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
- Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
- Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
- Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
- Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
- Anything I deem geeky
Here’s the “official unofficial” list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for Monday, June 3 through Sunday, June 9, 2024.
This week’s events
- Monday, June 10
- Tuesday, June 11
- Wednesday, June 12
- Thursday, June 13
- Friday, June 14
- Saturday, June 15
- Sunday, June 16
Monday, June 10
Tuesday, June 11
And better yet, the course will be taught by an instructor I know and implicitly trust — me!
Here’s what the course will cover over its three days:
- Day 1 (Tuesday): Intro to AI and ML
- Day 2 (Wednesday): Python for AI and ML
- Day 3 (Thursday): Building AI / ML applications
Find out more and register here!
Wednesday, June 12
Thursday, June 13
Thursday evening at 5:30 p.m. at Kforce in Tampa: Tampa Devs and Tampa Java User Group jointly present Orchestrate the chaos: Process automation in modern architectures.
Their description of the event:
Complex business processes can be difficult to manage and automate. How do you quickly implement changes while maintaining uptime? How do you introduce a new service to an existing process? In this talk, we will discuss how to use Business Process Modeling (BPM) to orchestrate and execute complex business processes in your application. Don’t let the name fool you: this not your father’s Visio diagram. Everyone should leave this talk with a new approach to solving their orchestration complexities!
Find out more and register here.
Friday, June 14
Saturday, June 15
Sunday, June 16
About this list
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
- Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
- Tech project management / agile processes
- Video, board, and role-playing games
- Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
- Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
- Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
- Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
- Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
- Anything I deem geeky
Here’s the “official unofficial” list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for Monday, May 27 through Sunday, June 2, 2024.
- Monday, May 27
- Tuesday, May 28
- Wednesday, May 29
- Thursday, May 30
- Friday, May 31
- Saturday, June 1
- Sunday, June 2
Monday, May 27
Tuesday, May 28
Wednesday, May 29
Thursday, May 30
Friday, May 31
Saturday, June 1
Sunday, June 2
About this list
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
- Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
- Tech project management / agile processes
- Video, board, and role-playing games
- Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
- Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
- Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
- Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
- Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
- Anything I deem geeky
Categories
Her
where OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is in the Canva-ized picture above.
Tap to view at full size.
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’ve probably seen (or at least heard about) the demo of GPT-4o’s voice assistant mode featuring a voice named “Sky” providing vivacious — even flirty — assistance:
When I saw it, my first thought was “Wow, that’s a lot like Scarlett Johansson’s portrayal of the AI in Her,” and that seemed to be a lot of other people’s first thoughts.
This belief is backed by the publicly-known fact that Her is OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s favorite movie, a fact he announced less than a year ago in front of the audience of Salesforce’s Dreamforce 2023 conference:
“I like Her. The things Her got right—like the whole interaction models of how people use AI—that was incredibly prophetic.”
San Fransisco Standard, September 12, 2023.
There’s also Altman’s single-word post on X/Twitter, which he posted on the day of the GPT-4o’s premiere on Monday, May 13th:
And now, we find out that Scarlett Johansson — the “Her” herself — issued a statement on Monday, May 20th saying that she was approached by Sam Altman to be the voice of this version of GPT, and that she turned down the offer.
Here’s the text of the statement:
Last September, I received an offer from Sam Altman, who wanted to hire me to voice the current ChatGPT 4.0 system. He told me that he felt that by my voicing the system, I could bridge the gap between tech companies and creatives and help consumers to feel comfortable with the seismic shift concerning humans and A.I. He said he felt that my voice would be comforting to people. After much consideration and for personal reasons, I declined the offer. Nine months later, my friends, family and the general public all noted how much the newest system named ‘Sky’ sounded like me.
When I heard the released demo, I was shocked, angered and in disbelief that Mr. Altman would pursue a voice that sounded so eerily similar to mine that my closest friends and news outlets could not tell the difference. Mr. Altman even insinuated that the similarity was intentional, tweeting a single word, ‘her’ — a reference to the film in which I voiced a chat system, Samantha, who forms an intimate relationship with a human.
Two days before the ChatGPT 4.0 demo was released, Mr. Altman contacted my agent, asking me to reconsider. Before we could connect, the system was out there. As a result of their actions, I was forced to hire legal counsel, who wrote two letters to Mr. Altman and OpenAI, setting out what they had done and asking them to detail the exact process by which they created the ‘Sky’ voice. Consequently, OpenAI reluctantly agreed to take down the ‘Sky’ voice.
In a time when we are all grappling with deepfakes and the protection of our own likeness, our own work, our own identities, I believe these are questions that deserve absolute clarity. I look forward to resolution in the form of transparency and the passage of appropriate legislation to help ensure that individual rights are protected.
New York Times, May 20, 2024
“OpenAI’s gonna OpenAI,” as this soon-to-be-common phrase goes, and they’ve been making their trademark obfuscating statements. As Ed Zitron summarizes in an article titled Sam Altman is Full of Shit:
Just so we are abundantly, painfully, earnestly clear here, OpenAI lied to the media multiple times.
Sam Altman Is Full Of Shit, Ed Zitron, May 21, 2024
- Mira Murati, OpenAI’s CTO, lied to Kylie Robison of The Verge when she said that “Sky” wasn’t meant to sound like Scarlett Johansson.
- OpenAI lied repeatedly about the reasons and terms under which “Sky” was retired, both by stating that it “believed that AI voices should not deliberately mimic a celebrity’s distinct voice” and — by omission — stating that it had been “in conversations” with representatives to bring Johansson’s voice to ChatGPT, knowing full well that she had declined twice previously and that OpenAI’s legal counsel were actively engaging with Johansson’s.
If you haven’t seen the movie Her, you’re probably wondering where you can find it on a streaming service. Here’s where you can watch it right now if you’re based in the U.S. (where I’m based):
And if you need a little more temptation to watch the film, here are its two official trailers:
Here’s the “official unofficial” list of tech, entrepreneur, and nerd events for Tampa Bay and surrounding areas for Monday, May 20 through Sunday, May 26, 2024.
This week’s events
- Monday, May 20
- Tuesday, May 21
- Wednesday, May 22
- Thursday, May 23
- Friday, May 24
- Saturday, May 25
- Sunday, May 26
Monday, May 20
Here’s the description:
This session dives into the nitty-gritty of leveraging AI for real estate. We’ll dissect the process of combining macro and microeconomic data sets with market trends and geospatial information. This process utilizes similarity scoring – a technique to analyze the distance between geographic regions and uncover hidden correlations. Additionally, we’ll tackle the exciting challenge of classifying emerging neighborhoods using AI. Imagine leveraging machine learning to pinpoint areas with a high concentration of rehabbed properties – a strong indicator of potential investment opportunities.
Find out more and register here.
Tuesday, May 21
Wednesday, May 22
Thursday, May 23
Thursday at the Neon Temple, Tampa at 7:00 p.m.: It’s their Q2 Hacker Swap Meet! Here’s what they say:
Welcome to another hacker swap-meet! The Temple is collabing with your local Defcon chapter, DC813, for yet another wonderful round of hang-outs, barters, trades, and co-hacking!
Gather up all of the hacker and cyber stuff you don’t want anymore that is valued under $200. This can be, but isn’t limited to:
• Shirts from cons
• Slaps
• Hardware
• Tools
• Failed projects
• Books from certs you already passed
• Books that you already know
Put sticky notes or something on them indicating a price. Maybe print off a piece of paper indicating stuff you want/would trade for.
Load that stuff up in yo’ trunk, pick a parking spot on the side of the building and park. Or grab a table from inside or something.
You can trade, give stuff away, take cash, Venmo, cryptocurrency, chickens and goats, whatever.
Friday, May 24
Saturday, May 25
Sunday, May 26
About this list
How do I put this list together? It’s largely automated. I have a collection of Python scripts in a Jupyter Notebook that scrapes Meetup and Eventbrite for events in categories that I consider to be “tech,” “entrepreneur,” and “nerd.” The result is a checklist that I review. I make judgment calls and uncheck any items that I don’t think fit on this list.
In addition to events that my scripts find, I also manually add events when their organizers contact me with their details.
What goes into this list? I prefer to cast a wide net, so the list includes events that would be of interest to techies, nerds, and entrepreneurs. It includes (but isn’t limited to) events that fall under any of these categories:
- Programming, DevOps, systems administration, and testing
- Tech project management / agile processes
- Video, board, and role-playing games
- Book, philosophy, and discussion clubs
- Tech, business, and entrepreneur networking events
- Toastmasters and other events related to improving your presentation and public speaking skills, because nerds really need to up their presentation game
- Sci-fi, fantasy, and other genre fandoms
- Self-improvement, especially of the sort that appeals to techies
- Anything I deem geeky