Author name: 9u50fv

Why accessibility might be AI’s biggest breakthrough

Accessibility, ADHD, AI, AI accessibility, AI and work, AI assistants, AI evaluation, AI study, Biz & IT, Department for Business and Trade, disability, dyslexia, M365 Copilot, machine learning, microsoft, neurodiversity, uk government, workplace accommodation / 9u50fv / September 9, 2025

For those with visual impairments, language models can summarize visual content and reformat information. Tools like ChatGPT’s voice mode with video and Be My Eyes allow a machine to describe real-world visual scenes in ways that were impossible just a few years ago.

AI language tools may be providing unofficial stealth accommodations for students—support that doesn’t require formal diagnosis, workplace disclosure, or special equipment. Yet this informal support system comes with its own risks. Language models do confabulate—the UK Department for Business and Trade study found 22 percent of users identified false information in AI outputs—which could be particularly harmful for users relying on them for essential support.

When AI assistance becomes dependence

Beyond the workplace, the drawbacks may have a particular impact on students who use the technology. The authors of a 2025 study on students with disabilities using generative AI cautioned, “Key concerns students with disabilities had included the inaccuracy of AI answers, risks to academic integrity, and subscription cost barriers,” they wrote. Students in that study had ADHD, dyslexia, dyspraxia, and autism, with ChatGPT being the most commonly used tool.

Mistakes in AI outputs are especially pernicious because, due to grandiose visions of near-term AI technology, some people think today’s AI assistants can perform tasks that are actually far outside their scope. As research on blind users’ experiences suggested, people develop complex (sometimes flawed) mental models of how these tools work, showing the need for higher awareness of AI language model drawbacks among the general public.

For the UK government employees who participated in the initial study, these questions moved from theoretical to immediate when the pilot ended in December 2024. After that time, many participants reported difficulty readjusting to work without AI assistance—particularly those with disabilities who had come to rely on the accessibility benefits. The department hasn’t announced the next steps, leaving users in limbo. When participants report difficulty readjusting to work without AI while productivity gains remain marginal, accessibility emerges as potentially the first AI application with irreplaceable value.

Why accessibility might be AI’s biggest breakthrough Read More »

Former WhatsApp security boss in lawsuit likens Meta’s culture to a “cult”

Biz & IT, lawsuits, Meta, privacy, Security, whatsapp / 9u50fv / September 9, 2025

“This represented the first concrete step toward addressing WhatsApp’s fundamental data governance Failures,” the complaint stated. “Mr. Baig understood that Meta’s culture is like that of a cult where one cannot question any of the past work especially when it was approved by someone at a higher level than the individual who is raising the concern.” In the following years, Baig continued to press increasingly senior leaders to take action.

The letter outlined not only the improper access engineers had to WhatsApp user data, but a variety of other shortcomings, including a “failure to inventory user data,” as required under privacy laws in California, the European Union, and the FTC settlement, failure to locate data storage, an absence of systems for monitoring user data access, and an inability to detect data breaches that were standard for other companies.

Last year, Baig allegedly sent a “detailed letter” to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Jennifer Newstead, Meta general counsel, notifying them of what he said were violations of the FTC settlement and Security and Exchange Commission rules mandating the reporting of security vulnerabilities. The letter further alleged Meta leaders were retaliating against him and that the central Meta security team had “falsified security reports to cover up decisions not to remediate data exfiltration risks.”

The lawsuit, alleging violations of the whistleblower protection provision of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act passed in 2002, said that in 2022, roughly 100,000 WhatsApp users had their accounts hacked every day. By last year, the complaint alleged, as many as 400,000 WhatsApp users were getting locked out of their accounts each day as a result of such account takeovers.

Baig also allegedly notified superiors that data scraping on the platform was a problem because WhatsApp failed to implement protections that are standard on other messaging platforms, such as Signal and Apple Messages. As a result, the former WhatsApp head estimated that pictures and names of some 400 million user profiles were improperly copied every day, often for use in account impersonation scams. The complaint stated:

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Tiny Vinyl is a new pocketable record format for the Spotify age

Features, music, Tech, tiny vinyl, vinyl, vinyl records / 9u50fv / September 8, 2025

Format is “more aligned with how artists are making and releasing music in the streaming era.”

In 2019, Record Store Day partnered with manufacturer Crosley to revive a 3-inch collectible vinyl format first launched in Japan in 2004. Five years later, a new 4-inch-sized format called Tiny Vinyl wants to take the miniature vinyl collectible crown, and launch partner Target is throwing its considerable weight behind it as an exclusive launch partner, with 44 titles expected in the coming weeks.

It’s 2025, and the global vinyl record market has reached $2 billion in annual sales and is still growing at roughly 7 percent annually, according to market research firm Imarc. Vinyl record sales now account for over 50 percent of physical media sales for music (and this is despite a recent resurgence in both cassette and CD sales among Millennials). It’s in this landscape that Tiny Vinyl founders Neil Kohler and Jesse Mann decided to come up with a fun new collectible vinyl format.

An “aha” moment

Kohler’s day job is working with toy companies to develop and market their ideas. He was involved in helping Funko popularize its stylized vinyl figurines, now a ubiquitous presence at pop culture conventions, comic book stores, and toy shops of all kinds. Mann has worked in production, marketing, and the music business for nearly three decades, including a stint at LiveNation and years of running operations for the annual summer music festival Bonnaroo. Both men are based in Nashville—Music City, USA—and the proximity to one of the main centers of the music industry clearly had an impact.

In 2023, Kohler bumped into Drake Coker, CEO and general manager of Nashville Record Pressing, a newer vinyl manufacturing plant that opened in 2021.

“Would it be possible to make a real vinyl record that is small enough to fit inside the box with a Funko Pop, so roughly four inches in diameter?” Kohler asked Coker at the time.

Coker was convinced it was possible to do so. “It took quite a lot of energy to do the R&D and for Drake’s company to figure out how to do that in a technical sense,” Kohler explained to Ars. “It became evident very quickly that this was a really cool thing on its own, and it didn’t need to come in a Funko box,” Kohler told Ars. “As long as we made it authentic to what a standard 12-inch record would be, with sound, and art, and center labels, just miniaturized.”

That’s when Kohler contacted Mann to develop a strategy and make Tiny Vinyl its own unique collectible.

“The first prototype samples started coming out of production in May 2024, and we delivered the first Tiny Vinyl release to country musician Daniel Donato in July 2024,” Mann told Ars. “He took them out on tour, and the fan reaction gave us a sort of wind in the sails, that this would be something that fans would really love,” he said.

Of course, Record Store Day already has a small collectible vinyl format, and the Tiny Vinyl team became aware of it from the moment they started looking at the market.

“The Crosley 3-inch record player is both inspiring but also a different direction than what we wanted.” Kohler explained. “Crosley makes that as more of a promotional tool, to seed their record player business, and it’s this one-side piece that only plays on their miniature players,” Kohler said. “But here we’re focusing on something more, a two-sided piece that could play on any standard turntable.”

“Tiny Vinyl is a different concept. We’re basically trying, and having quite a bit of success, in creating a new vinyl format,” Coker said, “one that is more aligned with how artists are making and releasing music in the streaming era.”

How records are made

The basic process to press a vinyl record starts with cutting a lacquer master. A specially made disc of rather fragile lacquer is put on a cutting lathe—which looks sort of like an industrial turntable—and the audio signals are converted into mechanical movement in its cutting head. That movement is carved into fine grooves in the lacquer, creating the lacquer master.

The lacquer master is electroplated with a nickel alloy, creating a negative metal image of the grooves in the lacquer, called a “father.” This thin, relatively fragile metal negative is this electroplated again with a strong copper-based alloy, creating a new positive image called a “mother.” The mother is plated yet again, creating negative-image “stampers.” Once stampers are made for each side, they are mounted into a hydraulic press for stamping out records.

When a press is ready, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pellets are placed in a hopper and heated to around 250º F and typically extruded into a roughly 4-inch-diameter-thick disc called a “biscuit.” The biscuit is inserted into the press, with paper labels on each side, and the press uses anywhere from 100 to 150 tons of pressure to press a record. (Notably, heat and pressure adhere the labels to the record, not adhesive.)

Finally, the excess vinyl is trimmed off the edges (and often remelted and reused, especially in “eco” vinyl), and the finished records are stacked with metal plates to help cool off the hot vinyl and keep the records flat. All that has to be done while maintaining temperature and humidity to proper levels and keeping dust as far away from the stampers as possible.

To play a record, the turntable turns at a constant rotation speed, and a microscopic piece of diamond in the turntable’s stylus tracks the grooves and translates peaks and valleys into mechanical movement in the stylus. The stylus is connected to a cartridge, which converts the tiny mechanical movements into an electrical signal by moving tiny magnets within a coil. That signal is amplified twice—all turntables use a pre-amp to convert the audio signals to standard audio line-level, and then some other component (receiver, integrated amplifier, or something built-in to powered speakers) amplifies the signal to play back via speakers.

So the manufacturing process relies on the precision of multiple generations of mechanical copying before stamping out microscopic grooves into a relatively inexpensive material, and then, during playback, it depends on multiple steps of amplifying those microscopic grooves before you hear a single note of music. Every step along the way increases the chance that noise or other issues can affect what you hear.

Tiny Vinyl has some advantage here because Nashville Record Pressing is part of GZ Media. Before vinyl started its resurgence in 2007, many vinyl pressing plants closed, and the presses and other machinery were often discarded, with the metal being reused to make other machines. As vinyl manufacturing surged, there were few sources for the presses and other equipment to press records, and GZ’s size amplified those challenges.

“You know, GZ is based in the Czech Republic and is the oldest, largest manufacturer in the world,” Coker said. “And we’ve got very significant resources. I think what people don’t recognize is the depth and breadth of our technical resources. For instance, we’ve been making our own vinyl presses in the Czech Republic for over a decade now,” Coker told Ars. “So we can control every step of the process, from extruding PVC, pressing records, inserting them into sleeves, everything. We had to figure out how to do all that, but in miniature,” Coker said.

“There’s a lot of engineering, and there’s also kind of a lot of secret sauce in this,” Coker said. “So we’re a bit tight-lipped about how this is different. I’m very cryptic, but I will say that there are issues with PVC compound, there are issues with mastering, there are issues with plating, there are issues with pressing, there are issues with label application. It is definitely a challenge to make the sleeves and jackets at this size, get everything all assembled and get it wrapped, and get some stickers on it and have it look good. Some of those challenges are bigger than others, but we feel pretty good that we’ve had the time to really do the work that was necessary to figure this out.”

Challenges in manufacturing are also compounded by playback. As a turntable’s stylus moves closer to the center of a record, the linear speed decreases, which impacts playback quality. The angle of the stylus can also affect how well grooves are tracked, again impacting playback quality.

“So it’s a game about how to stay inside the manufacturing and playback infrastructure that exists,” Coker continued. “And to get something to work with a linear speed that’s never been tried before, right? And so what’s come out of that is a disc that we’re certainly very proud of,” he said.

Furthermore, 4-inch vinyl records are almost the exact size of the label on an LP or 7-inch single, so automatic turntables won’t work. If you want to play Tiny Vinyl at home, you’ll need a manual turntable or one that allows turning off auto stop and start. The good news is that the majority of turntables in use are manual. But some of the most popular entry-level models, such as Audio-Technica’s LP60-series, are strictly automatic.

That may change in the future. “We’re in touch with turntable manufacturers, and some have expressed an interest in making sure they are compatible with Tiny Vinyl,” Kohler told Ars. But that is likely contingent on the format selling in big numbers.

All aboard the Tiny Vinyl train

“We will make Tiny Vinyl for anyone, any artist or label that brings us music they have the rights to, and they can distribute that however they want,” Kohler told Ars. “Some people are using their own direct-to-consumer websites. Some other artists are doing it on tour, at merch tables. There is a Lindsay Sterling title that was the first Tiny Vinyl that was available at retail at Urban Outfitters.”

But for now, the big push is with the upcoming launch with Target, and so far, existing collectors are curious.

A sampling of the first batch of records. Credit: Chris Foresman

“I absolutely adore these 4-inch records,” Christina Stroven, an avid record collector from Arkansas, told Ars. “I think they’ll be super fun to collect and bring back all of the nostalgia of the cassette singles from the ’80s and ’90s,” she said, noting that she has over 1,500 records in her collection already.

“It is nice to have another format that still works on my turntable. I will for sure be picking up the Alessia Cara ‘Here’/’Scars To Your Beautiful’ single and The Rolling Stones and Kasey Musgraves, too.” Stroven said.

“I’ve already pre-ordered two Tiny Vinyl records,” Fred Whitacre Jr, a teacher, drummer, and record collector from Warren, Ohio, said. “But, I don’t think it’s something I’m going to delve very heavily into. I always like when vinyl pressings try something new, but for me, I’m probably going to stick with LPs and 45s.”

For Tiny Vinyl, this is really just the beginning. “This launch is being driven by Target,” Kohler noted. “It’s mostly because of my background in the toy industry. When I talked to the management team at Target, they said, ‘You know, let’s try and do something here, and we’ll help organize the labels.’”

Target already has relationships with major record labels, which have supplied the company with exclusive album variants in the past. “Really, the labels are supplying what Target is asking for, and we’re supplying the labels,” Kohler said.

And all this is to help establish Tiny Vinyl as a standard format. “We just wanted to get the ball rolling and make sure this is a success,” Kohler added. “We’ve been contacted by Barnes and Noble, and Walmart, and Best Buy, and other retailers. But Target jumped in with both feet.”

What does Crosley think about a new, potentially competing small vinyl format?

“I’m glad they’re doing it,” Scott Bingaman, owner of Crosley distributor Deer Park Distributors. “We’re still working on some great Record Store Day releases for 3-inch vinyl, but I’m rooting for these guys. I understand you have to pick a channel, and they went with the one that was most willing to step up. I hope distribution widens up because for me the definition of success is kids standing in line overnight at a record store, getting physical media.”

And will independent labels consider the format despite its relatively high price? That may depend on the audience.

Revelation Records, which specializes in hardcore and punk music, has a catalog that stretches back into the early days of straight edge and New York hardcore from the late ’80s. Founder Jordan Cooper thinks the format sounds interesting.

“This is still in the novelty realm, obviously, but seems like it could be a good merch item for bands to do,” he told Ars.

The vast majority of records sold are 12-inch LPs, but in the punk and indie scenes, a 7-inch EP is usually a cheaper way to get typically two to four songs to fans. A 4-inch single limits that to two relatively short songs, but again, the size and novelty factor could attract some buyers.

“I think as a fan, if I saw a band and song or two I liked on one of these, I might be motivated to pick it up,” Cooper said. “The price is really high for what you get, but at the same time, even 7-inches are pushing up over $10 now.”

Reminds one of a stack of CDs. Credit: Chris Foresman

With production capacity at full blast for the rollout with Target, though, Tiny Vinyl currently requires a minimum order of 2,000 units. That just isn’t financially feasible unless a band already has a large enough fan base to support it.

“Three-inch records are kind of a gimmick, and I feel the same about this format,” Carl Zenobi, owner of small, Pennsylvania-based indie label Powertone Records, told Ars. “I could see younger music fans seeing this at a merch table and thinking it’s cool, so that would be a plus if it draws younger fans into record collecting.”

“But from my reading, this is meant for bigger artists on major labels and not independent artists,” Zenobi said. Powertone has sold several short-run 3-inch lathe-cut releases in the past couple years, but quantities are typically in the dozens.

“For me and the artists I work with, we would be looking at 100 to maybe 300 units,” Zenobi explained. “For the amount of money that 2,000 units would likely cost, you might as well have a full LP pressed!”

Still, some artists have already had early success with the format. Alt-country-folk duo The Band Loula, who recently signed with Warner Nashville in 2024, has only released a handful of singles so far, primarily via streaming. But the group decided to try Tiny Vinyl for their songs “Running Off The Angels” and “Can’t Please ’Em All” earlier this year.

“We heard about Tiny Vinyl through our manager, and we thought it was a great idea since we’re still in more of a single release strategy,” Malachi Mills, one-half of The Band Loula, told Ars.

The band just got off a 34-show tour with country star Dierks Bentley that kicked off in May, and with nowhere near enough songs for an album, they decided to make a Tiny Vinyl to take on tour.

“We don’t have an album, but we have a few singles, so we said, ‘Let’s take our two favorite songs and put them on there,’” Mills said. We sell them for $15 at our merch booth, and for people that don’t have enough money to buy a shirt, they can still walk away with something really cool.”

“We’re a new band, the opening act, so I think people are still catching on to our merchandise,” Logan Simmons, The Band Loula’s other singer-songwriter half, explained. “People are definitely using the Tiny Vinyl to kind of capture a moment in time. Everybody wants us to sign them, and some fans told us they want to frame it, to frame the vinyl itself.”

“We watched our sales grow every night, and every date we played it felt like we were receiving more and more positive feedback,” Simmons said. “I think the Tiny Vinyl definitely had something to do with that.”

Overall, the band—and its fans—seem pleased with the results so far. “We’re also excited to see how they sell in different forums—we think they’ll sell even better in clubs and theaters,” Mills said. “As long as people keep buying them, we’ll keep making them. It sounds great, and seeing that tiny little thing on a full-size record player, you just think, ‘That’s really cool, man,’”

Here is where some of the differences in approach give Tiny Vinyl an advantage for record labels and bands to produce something to get into fans’ hands. Three-inch vinyl started as a kitschy toy for Japanese youth, and the format is only made by Toyokasei in Japan in partnership with Record Store Day. That means releases are limited to what can be pressed by Toyokasei and marketed by RSD.

Tiny Vinyl, on the other hand, has access to all of GZ Media’s pressing plants in Europe, the US, and Canada. So there is capacity to meet the demands of both independent and major labels.

But like The Band Loula discovered, Tiny Vinyl also aligns more with how artists are releasing music.

“A lot of data was supporting a surge in vinyl sales over the last 10 years,” Kohler explained. “So we really wanted to capture something that made vinyl a lot more digestible for the typical listener. I mean, I love vinyl. I grew up playing Dark Side of the Moon for like two weeks at a time, right? But few people are listening to a 12-inch vinyl from start to finish anymore. They’re listening to Spotify for 10 seconds and then they’re moving on.”

“So artists today, they don’t have to wait to accumulate, to write, produce, and master 10 or 12 songs to be able to start getting vinyl into the marketplace,” Coker said. “If they’ve got one or two, they’re good to go, and this format is much more closely aligned to the way most artists are releasing music into the marketplace, which gives vinyl a vibrancy and an immediacy and a relevance that sometimes is difficult to be able to keep together in a 12-inch format.”

Another consideration for artists is getting sales recognition, which is something all Tiny Vinyl releases will have, whereas many independent releases do not. “I think a really important piece is that Tiny Vinyl charts,” Mann said. “It is tracked through Luminate to make sure that it hits the Billboard charts.”

Vinyl Format Comparison

	3” single	Tiny Vinyl single	7” 45 rpm single	12” 33 rpm LP
Size (jacket area)	3.75×3.75in 95x95mm	4.25×4.25in 108x108mm	7.25×7.25in 184x184mm	12.25×12.25in 314x314mm
Weight (with cover)	0.80oz 22g	1.35oz 37g	2.00oz 56g	10.60oz 300g
Sides	1	2	2	2
Length (per side)	~2.5 min	4 min	6 min	23 min
Typical Cost	$12	$15	$10–15	$25–35

Looking for adoption

Early signs are suggesting Tiny Vinyl has legs. “Rainbow Kitten Surprise, which is TV0002, they’re the first artist to release a second item with us,” Mann said. “Whereas we’ve had reorders for certain titles that sold really well, they’re the first artist that has had success in like a surprise-and-delight kind of way and then gone back to the well and were like, hey, we want to do this again.”

Though just over a dozen Tiny Vinyl records have been released in the wild so far, including titles from the likes of Derek and the Moonrocks, Melissa Etheridge, America’s Got Talent finalist Grace VanderWaal, and Blake Shelton, Target has over 40 titles lined up to start selling at the end of September. But interest has already grown beyond what’s already been announced.

“There are actually many in the process of manufacturing,” Kohler said. “TV0087 is in production, so while there are only a handful that are available for sale right now in the market, there’s a whole wave of new Tiny Vinyls coming.”

And Coker is convinced that independent labels and record stores will be more apt to embrace the format once it’s gotten some wings.

“In order to be able to give the format the broad adoption that we’ve been looking for, we had to assemble the ability to not only make these things but make them at scale, and then to get enough labels and enough artists attached to the project that we could launch a credible initial offering,” Coker said. “Tiny Vinyl, it’s still a baby, right? Giving it a chance to safely get launched into the world, where it can grow up and take whatever path that it takes is, I think, our job to try to be good parents, and help shepherd it through that process.”

Ultimately, fans will decide Tiny Vinyl’s fate. Whether it’s a resounding success or more of a collector niche like 3-inch vinyl remains to be seen. But Crosley’s Bingaman thinks even a little success is worth the effort.

“If it lasts one year or 10, it’s all about that kid walking into Target and getting that first piece of vinyl,” he said.

Tiny Vinyl is a new pocketable record format for the Spotify age Read More »

Lenovo demos laptop with a screen you can swivel into portrait mode

laptops, Lenovo, Tech / 9u50fv / September 6, 2025

Underneath the rotating panel is a “soft, felt-covered backplate,” PCMag reported. I can see this being jarring in a real computer. The textures of felt or other fabrics are uncommon on machines and can result in this part of the computer standing out in an unwelcome fashion. The black felt, however, could eventually fade into the background, depending on the user’s perception.

Lenovo suggested that people could use the felt space to place a smartphone for mirroring with the PC via its Software Connect software; however, that feature requires a Lenovo Motorola phone.

Lenovo suggested other potential use cases for the unique screen in its press release, including “split-screen multitasking, displaying code, and reviewing documents.”

Lenovo’s latest concept laptop continues the OEM’s yearslong exploration of PC screens that adapt to the different ways that people use PCs. I’m skeptical about the use of felt in a laptop, which would likely be thousands of dollars if ever released as a consumer product. A laptop like the VertiFlex would also have to prove that it has a durable pivoting point and can support a lot of spinning over years of use. Still, Lenovo is contemplating ways to offer versatile screens without relying on bending, warping OLED screens that can suffer from reflections, glare, visible creases, or clunky motors.

For those who like to see laptop screen display ideas that don’t rely on bendy OLED, the VertiFlex is the type of concept that makes you wonder why we haven’t seen it earlier.

Lenovo demos laptop with a screen you can swivel into portrait mode Read More »

ChatGPT’s new branching feature is a good reminder that AI chatbots aren’t people

AI, AI assistants, AI development tools, AI interaction, Biz & IT, chatbots, chatgpt, conversation design, generative ai, large language models, machine learning, nonlinear interaction, openai, user interface / 9u50fv / September 5, 2025

On Thursday, OpenAI announced that ChatGPT users can now branch conversations into multiple parallel threads, serving as a useful reminder that AI chatbots aren’t people with fixed viewpoints but rather malleable tools you can rewind and redirect. The company released the feature for all logged-in web users following years of user requests for the capability.

The feature works by letting users hover over any message in a ChatGPT conversation, click “More actions,” and select “Branch in new chat.” This creates a new conversation thread that includes all the conversation history up to that specific point, while preserving the original conversation intact.

Think of it almost like creating a new copy of a “document” to edit while keeping the original version safe—except that “document” is an ongoing AI conversation with all its accumulated context. For example, a marketing team brainstorming ad copy can now create separate branches to test a formal tone, a humorous approach, or an entirely different strategy—all stemming from the same initial setup.

A screenshot of conversation branching in ChatGPT. OpenAI

The feature addresses a longstanding limitation in the AI model where ChatGPT users who wanted to try different approaches had to either overwrite their existing conversation after a certain point by changing a previous prompt or start completely fresh. Branching allows exploring what-if scenarios easily—and unlike in a human conversation, you can try multiple different approaches.

A 2024 study conducted by researchers from Tsinghua University and Beijing Institute of Technology suggested that linear dialogue interfaces for LLMs poorly serve scenarios involving “multiple layers, and many subtasks—such as brainstorming, structured knowledge learning, and large project analysis.” The study found that linear interaction forces users to “repeatedly compare, modify, and copy previous content,” increasing cognitive load and reducing efficiency.

Some software developers have already responded positively to the update, with some comparing the feature to Git, the version control system that lets programmers create separate branches of code to test changes without affecting the main codebase. The comparison makes sense: Both allow you to experiment with different approaches while preserving your original work.

ChatGPT’s new branching feature is a good reminder that AI chatbots aren’t people Read More »

Dev says Switch 2’s physical Game Cards were too slow for Star Wars Outlaws port

data transfer, gaming, Nintendo, speed, star wars, switch 2, ubisoft / 9u50fv / September 5, 2025

A video shows how different storage media can affect Mario Kart World load times.

CD Projekt Red VP of Technology Charles Tremblay has alluded to this same challenge when talking about the Switch 2 port of Cyberpunk 2077. In a June interview with IGN, Tremblay said the data transfer speeds enabled by MicroSD Express were “great,” while streaming data from a Switch 2 Game Card was merely “okay.” Tremblay did go on to say that “all the performance we have on [input/output] is very good on [the Switch 2],” especially compared to the extremely slow physical hard drives that plagued Cyberpunk 2077‘s performance on older hardware.

Slow down, you move too fast

From the outside, it’s a bit odd that Nintendo allowed this loading-speed dichotomy to exist on the Switch 2 in the first place. On the original Switch, read speeds for both SD cards and Game Cards reportedly maxed out around 90 MB/s. But when designing the new Switch 2 game cards, Nintendo settled on a format that would stream data much more slowly than for downloaded games on the same console.

That decision might have been an attempt to minimize hardware costs for the Switch 2’s Game Card interface. If so, though, it doesn’t seem to have done much to reduce the costs of manufacturing Switch 2 game cards themselves. The cost of manufacturing those physical Game Cards has been frequently cited as a major reason many publishers are using cheaper Game Key Cards in the first place, though Bantin said that he “[didn’t] recall the cost of the cards ever entering the discussion [for Star Wars: Outlaws]—probably because it was moot.”

Nintendo could get around this variable loading speed issue by letting players pre-install games from a Switch 2 Game Card to internal or expansion storage, as Microsoft and Sony have either allowed or required on their disc-based consoles for decades now. But that solution might prove onerous for physical game card players who want to avoid clogging up the limited 256GB of internal storage on the Switch 2 (and/or avoid investing in pricey MicroSD Express cards).

As time goes on, many developers will likely learn how to adapt to and tolerate the Switch 2’s relatively slow Game Card interface. But as gamers and the industry at large continue to transition away from physical media, some developers might decide it’s not worth compromising on loading speeds just to satisfy a shrinking portion of the market.

Dev says Switch 2’s physical Game Cards were too slow for Star Wars Outlaws port Read More »

OpenAI links up with Broadcom to produce its own AI chips

AI, AI chips, AI GPU, Broadcom, GPU, NVIDIA, openai, syndication / 9u50fv / September 5, 2025

OpenAI is set to produce its own artificial intelligence chip for the first time next year, as the ChatGPT maker attempts to address insatiable demand for computing power and reduce its reliance on chip giant Nvidia.

The chip, co-designed with US semiconductor giant Broadcom, would ship next year, according to multiple people familiar with the partnership.

Broadcom’s chief executive Hock Tan on Thursday referred to a mystery new customer committing to $10 billion in orders.

OpenAI’s move follows the strategy of tech giants such as Google, Amazon and Meta, which have designed their own specialised chips to run AI workloads. The industry has seen huge demand for the computing power to train and run AI models.

OpenAI planned to put the chip to use internally, according to one person close to the project, rather than make them available to external customers.

Last year it began an initial collaboration with Broadcom, according to reports at the time, but the timeline for mass production of a successful chip design had previously been unclear.

On a call with analysts, Tan announced that Broadcom had secured a fourth major customer for its custom AI chip business, as it reported earnings that topped Wall Street estimates.

Broadcom does not disclose the names of these customers, but people familiar with the matter confirmed OpenAI was the new client. Broadcom and OpenAI declined to comment.

OpenAI links up with Broadcom to produce its own AI chips Read More »

The number of mis-issued 1.1.1.1 certificates grows. Here’s the latest.

Biz & IT, Certificates, HTTPS, Security, tls, transport layer security / 9u50fv / September 5, 2025

Cloudflare on Thursday acknowledged this failure, writing:

We failed three times. The first time because 1.1.1.1 is an IP certificate and our system failed to alert on these. The second time because even if we were to receive certificate issuance alerts, as any of our customers can, we did not implement sufficient filtering. With the sheer number of names and issuances we manage it has not been possible for us to keep up with manual reviews. Finally, because of this noisy monitoring, we did not enable alerting for all of our domains. We are addressing all three shortcomings.

Ultimately, the fault lies with Fina; however, given the fragility of the TLS PKI, it’s incumbent on all stakeholders to ensure system requirements are being met.

And what about Microsoft? Is it at fault, too?

There’s some controversy on this point, as I quickly learned on Wednesday from social media and Ars reader comments. Critics of Microsoft’s handling of this case say that, among other things, its responsibility for ensuring the security of its Root Certificate Program includes checking the transparency logs. Had it done so, critics said, the company would have found that Fina had never issued certificates for 1.1.1.1 and looked further into the matter.

Additionally, at least some of the certificates had non-compliant encoding and listed domain names with non-existent top-level domains. This certificate, for example, lists ssltest5 as its common name.

Instead, like the rest of the world, Microsoft learned of the certificates from an online discussion forum.

Some TLS experts I spoke to said it’s not within the scope of a root program to do continuous monitoring for these types of problems.

In any event, Microsoft said it’s in the process of making all certificates part of a disallow list.

Microsoft has also faced long-standing criticism that it’s too lenient in the requirements it imposes on CAs included in its Root Certificate Program. In fact, Microsoft and one other entity, the EU Trust Service, are the only ones that, by default, trust Fina. Google, Apple, and Mozilla don’t.

“The story here is less the 1.1.1.1 certificate and more why Microsoft trusts this carelessly operated CA,” Filippo Valsorda, a Web/PKI expert, said in an interview.

I asked Microsoft about all of this and have yet to receive a response.

The number of mis-issued 1.1.1.1 certificates grows. Here’s the latest. Read More »

Beyond technology? How Bentley is reacting to the 21st century.

bentley, Cars, Chinese EVs, Features, Monterey Car Week / 9u50fv / September 3, 2025

Chinese manufacturers are embedding more digital bells and whistles that impact all segments of the market, and not just in China. “Just as in other segments, the Chinese OEMs are moving faster than anyone else on software, especially for infotainment, bringing big screens and digital assistants with homegrown software and lots of connectivity, but also on driving assist and automation,” Abuelsamid said. “These vehicles are being equipped with lidar, radar, cameras, and point-to-point driving assist, similar to Tesla navigation on Autopilot.”

The onslaught of features by Chinese competitors has luxury European automakers on their toes.

“Hongqi is probably the closest to a direct competitor in China and certainly has some offerings that might considered be in a similar class to Bentley,” Abuelsamid said. “There are numerous other brands that continue to move upscale and will likely eventually reach a similar level, even if they aren’t as hand-built as a Bentley, such as the BYD Yangwang U8 SUV.”

For example, the Maextro S800, a premium car born out of Huawei and JA joint venture, crab-walks a 16-degree angle to make tight parking easy, features hand-off “level 3” partially automated driving, and charges from 10 to 80 percent in just 10.5 minutes, according to Inside EVs.

“We see it drives demand for features and what people expect their cars to have,” Walliser said. “They say, ‘Hey, if my $50,000 car has self-driving capabilities, why don’t I have it in my $250,000 car?’ So this is the real rival. It’s a feature competition, and it raises expectations,” Walliser said.

EXP 15

Bentley’s latest concept, the EXP 15, hints at this next generation of predictive elements customers say they want. Clever UX design includes a rotating dashboard and illuminated forms on the dash, which are mixed with fine wools, leathers, and premium materials in the cabin. “I think we have to continue [to think] like that in self-driving capabilities. We do not have to be first in the market,” Walliser said. “We need to plan when we offer it. It comes also for infotainment, for app connection, for everything that makes life in the car convenient, such as self-parking capabilities.”

Dr. Matthias Rabe serves on Bentley’s board of management and oversees Research and Development. He thinks the right approach to technology for Bentley is for the car to serve as a sort of virtual butler. “What I would like to have, for example, is that the customer drives to the front of the house, pops out, and the car parks itself, charges itself, and probably gets cleaned by itself,” Rabe said.

Beyond technology? How Bentley is reacting to the 21st century. Read More »

The new Dolby Vision 2 HDR standard is probably going to be controversial

CANAL+, dolby, dolby vision, Dolby Vision 2, film, HDR, Hisense, motion smoothing, Tech, TV / 9u50fv / September 3, 2025

Dolby has announced the features of Dolby Vision 2, its successor to the popular Dolby Vision HDR format.

Whereas the original Dolby Vision was meant to give creators the ability to finely tune exactly how TVs present content in HDR, Dolby Vision 2 appears to significantly broaden that feature to include motion handling as well—and it also tries to bridge the gap between filmmaker intent and the on-the-ground reality of the individual viewing environments.

What does that mean, exactly? Well, Dolby says one of the pillars of Dolby Vision 2 will be “Content Intelligence,” which introduces new “AI capabilities” to the Dolby Vision spec. Among other things, that means using sensors in the TV to try to fix the oft-complained-about issue of shows being too dark.

Many editors and filmmakers tweak their video content to be best viewed in a dark room on a high-end TV with strong peak brightness, contrast, color accuracy, and so on. Unfortunately, that sometimes means that some shows are laughably dark on anything but the most optimal target setup—think Apple TV+’s Silo, or the infamous Battle of Winterfell in the final season of Game of Thrones, both of which many people complained were too dark for clear viewing.

With Content Intelligence, Dolby Vision 2 will allegedly make the image “crystal clear” by “improving clarity in any viewing environment without compromising intent.” Further, it will use ambient light detection sensors in supporting TVs to adjust the content’s presentation based on how bright the viewer’s room is.

Fixing motion smoothing—or making it worse?

There’s plenty that’s going to be controversial in Content Intelligence with some purists, but it’s another feature called Authentic Motion that’s probably going to cause the biggest stir for Dolby Vision 2.

The new Dolby Vision 2 HDR standard is probably going to be controversial Read More »

Noctua’s 3D-printed mod singlehandedly makes the Framework Desktop run quieter

3d printer, framework, framework desktop, noctua, Tech / 9u50fv / September 2, 2025

Despite its lack of upgradeable system memory, Framework has tried to make its Framework Desktop a welcoming platform for upgraders and modders, releasing 3D-printable versions of a few case parts and generally sticking to standard-sized parts and standard connectors.

Often, it’s independent creators who are making the weirdest and most interesting mods for Framework’s devices, but PC cooling company Noctua has just announced what amounts to a fairly major cooling upgrade for the Framework Desktop, at least for anyone with access to a 3D printer. By printing a new fan duct and a custom side panel, Noctua managed to lower the noise levels of the Framework Desktop’s default cooling fan by between five and seven decibels, without replacing or modifying any other components.

The key is apparently the design of the fan grill, which Noctua also used to reduce noise levels in the Noctua edition of this 1600 W Seasonic power supply. The grill has a distinctive spiral pattern that allows the fan to move similar amounts of air at lower rotation speeds, which is where the noise reduction comes from.

According to Noctua’s post about the Seasonic power supply, the grill was designed with the specific geometry of the NF-A12x25 fan’s blades in mind: “the grill’s radial struts are angled and swept against the sense of rotation of the fan and the sweep of its blades, which helps to avoid situations where the leading edges of the fan blades are parallel or almost parallel to the grill struts, which would cause a high pressure pulse followed by a sudden drop in pressure when the blade moves out of the overlapping position.”

The grill for the Framework Desktop’s fan is slightly smaller to conform with safety standards, but the idea is the same. Noctua also paired the side panel grill with a redesigned funnel-shaped fan duct to improve airflow further.

Some cooling mods make more sense than others

A tweaked fan duct (replacing the default, also-Noctua-designed version) is also required to see the improvements. Credit: Noctua

Noctua had a couple of other interesting notes on the Framework Desktop’s cooling system for people looking to make the system run cooler or quieter. First, Noctua noticed some temperature improvements when adding an 80 mm exhaust fan to the front of the system—this is supported but it isn’t the default cooling configuration—but found that the extra noise it added was disproportionate to the cooling benefit it provided. Adding a newer NF-A12x25 G2 fan to the system instead of the default NF-A12x25 did make the desktop run a bit quieter, but because the G2 fan maxes out at 1,800 RPM rather than 2,400 RPM, it had trouble keeping the system cool under load.

Noctua’s 3D-printed mod singlehandedly makes the Framework Desktop run quieter Read More »

Dating Roundup #7: Back to Basics

Dating / 9u50fv / September 1, 2025

There’s quite a lot in the queue since last time, so this is the first large chunk of it, which focuses on apps and otherwise finding an initial connection, and some things that directly impact that.

Two thirds of romantic partners were friends first, especially at university.

Paula Ghete: Does this mean that a degree of concern is warranted that platonic friendships between people of the opposite sex can turn into an actual relationship one day (or an affair)? As far as I know, men tend to choose female friends who are attractive.

William Costello: Yes!

Two thirds really is an awful lot. It’s enough of an awful lot to suggest that if your current goal is a long term relationship rather than short term dating, and you have enough practice, it might outright be a mistake to be primarily (rather than opportunistically or additionally, the goods are often non-rivalrous) trying to date people who aren’t your friends or at least friends of friends? That instead you should focus on making platonic friends with people you find attractive, without trying to date them at all, and then see what happens?

Highly speculative, but potentially this has a lot of advantages, including a network that can lead to dates with non-friends. It’s pretty great to have friends even if there are never any non-platonic benefits.

It does have its own difficulties. The most obvious one is that if you’re not trying to date them, you need a different excuse and set of activities in order to become friends.

As the paper notes, this raises the question of why we so often have the opposite impression, or that the youth think that hitting on your friends is just awful – although perhaps they do think that in cases where it doesn’t work, there’s no contradiction there, if you can’t do subtle escalations instead then one could say that’s a skill issue.

There’s also ‘an app for that’ at least inside the rationalist community, called Reciprocity, where you can signal interest and then it only reveals if there is a two-sided match. If this is your strategy it is important social tech to minimize the amount to which you make it weird.

Friendmaxxing makes it a lot easier to try to take that leap. If you have one friend and you make it weird, then you might have zero friends. If you have a thousand friends, you have not one friend to spare, but also if you botch things and go down to 999 friends you will be fine.

One note in the paper is that if you move to friends with benefits, that typically doesn’t lead to long term romantic success. If you want something more, then statistically you need to go straight for it once things get complicated.

Two strong pieces of advice here.

Kelsey Piper: I try to stay out of the dating discourse because it’s obnoxious to hear from happily married lesbians about the state of gender relations but there is such a lane for someone giving advice like ‘meet single men by running a killer D&D game’ and ‘try getting really into aviation’

A lot of people suck at talking about themselves but in fact have deeply felt values and fascinations and if you meet them there, they’re very very cool. Don’t give up on really Getting someone, but don’t try to achieve it by asking them personality questions.

The first half is a gimme. If there is an activity that is popular with the gender you’re looking for, where the people who want to do it are people you would want to date, then running or helping run such an activity is a great idea, even better than simply participating, and actually making it a killer version is even better. I do not think this in any way counts as being ‘fake.’

This goes double when combined with the statistics about friends. D&D is the ultimate ‘make friends first’ strategy.

The second half is even better. Traditional dating paths require or at least tend to cause a set of strange, awkward conversations about personality and dating. That means the people who are good at navigating that will be in high demand, whereas those who are not as good will struggle. Any way to change the topic into other things shakes that up and puts you in a better spot. It might be a bit slower, but you absolutely get to know people when not explicitly discussing getting to know them.

Also, do this with your friends. Knowing your friends this way is Amazingly Great, on its own merits.

My old friend Ted Knutson has a new podcast called Man Down, which includes at least three episodes on dating. This one is about strategy using dating apps and improving your profile, the first one was more about dating in general, they then followed up with another on fixing your profile.

I wouldn’t have listened if I hadn’t had the extra value of watching Ted squirm. The information density from podcasts isn’t great even at faster speeds, although the info that is here seems pretty solid if you don’t mind that.

There’s a bunch of fun stats to start. The first recommendation is for men to fight on different terrain where they aren’t unnumbered (men outnumber women ~4:1 on Tinder and spend ~96% of the money) or in a bad spot, try in person. But you might fully not have that option so they mostly focus on sharing data and then improving Ted’s dating profile. Women on Tinder swipe right 8% of the time, men swipe right 46% of the time, the average man gets 1-2 matches a week. Hinge’s numbers are less unbalanced (2:1 ratio). They discuss various different apps you can consider.

Then the Ted squirming part begins and we start on his profile. It’s remarkable how bad it starts out, starting with pictures. Some advice given: Think elegant and sober, charismatic pictures, focus on face, definitely not shirtless unless maybe you’re playing sports, ideally pay to get better photos taken. Save the humor for the prompts and chats and focus answers on the person not the relationship type. Actively study profiles before you message people, customize everything.

This seems right.

Sasha Chapin: There is an eye contact dance that happens in the first few seconds when single men and women meet and if a man flunks it, it’s actually tricky to come back from.

So my advice to single guys is, become someone who automatically aces it because you feel fundamentally safe in the world.

[You want to use] whatever pattern of eye contact conveys the message “I’m okay with you noticing that I’m attracted to you, whatever happens next isn’t a problem for me” — not hiding, not grabby, centered, not managing the response on the other end.

This probably doesn’t mean unbroken staring unless the other party defaults to intense eye contact.

The question is, is this a ‘sincerity is great, once you can fake that you’ve got it made’ situation? Or is it easier and more effective to actually be okay with all of this?

The good news is that it is optimal life strategy to genuinely be okay with whatever happens next so long as no machetes are involved. It is actively good for other people you are attracted to to sense you are attracted to them – so long as they sense that you’re okay with whatever happens next, and that you aren’t afraid of them knowing.

The other good news is that you can also pass through practice, even if you’re not fully genuinely okay with whatever happens next short of machetes.

Bryan Caplan’s polls are mostly answered by men, so:

There was essentially no interaction between the variables. About 85% of those in both groups wanted to be hit on more rather than less. Even when it’s an automatic no, you know what, it’s nice to be asked.

RFH Doctor: I love how girls will never tell a man she’s interested in him, instead they send secret signals through tweets, instagram stories, brain waves, magic rituals, and prayers, ancient feminine wisdom that ensures only men who are in tune with the unconscious will be selected.

Dr. Jen Izaakson: Also can I just say, as a lesbian, the subtle signals women send are hardly a difficult set of hieroglyphics to decode. What men find especially difficult is not only the reading of the signs, but also not overstepping or not taking the route she wants in the pursuit. Yes this woman likes you, but she doesn’t want you to escalate proximity beyond her pace. Men need to learn to drive the wheel exactly how the map holder suggest.

Napoleonos: Literally anything except telling him.

RFH: I love that for us <3

So, you seem to be saying ‘shit test’ like that’s a bad thing…

eigenrobot: men often misinterpret this as a “shit test” or something but in fact a potential partner’s ability to read her mind is a completely reasonable selection criterion for women to prioritize.

and “I am falling over myself to psychically telegraph that i am interested” is easy mode!

all you have to do is _pay attention_ to women and what they’re doing and be marginally reflective about it

easy top three highest ROI skill available to young men

corsaren: Too many men treat it as a crazy demand, but not only is partner mind-reading totally doable if you have a strong bond, it’s also very fun once you get good at it. Bonus: once you prove that you can read her mind, she’ll be more likely to explain in the times when you can’t.

There’s nothing inherently bad or inefficient about a shit test. This is very clearly a (very standard) shit test. Anything that could be described by the phrase ‘not fing telling you’ is either a ghosting or a shit test. It’s selection and information gathering via forcing you to correctly respond to an uncertain situation, which here involves both ‘figure out she’s interested’ and also ‘actually act on it’ and doing that in a skilled fashion.

Which has some very clear positive selection effects. But it also has a clear negative selection effect for ‘men who go around hitting on everyone a lot’ and against men who are (very understandably and often for good reasons) risk averse about making such a move.

It is my understanding is that as things have shifted, with more men being afraid to open either in general or to anyone they already know, this is making a lot less sense as a filter.

The problem with not doing so is you are filtering a lot less for ability to detect attraction and mind reading, and far more for those who have norms that involve hitting on a lot of women. Which is a far more mixed blessing. You’re going to fail on a lot more otherwise desirable connections than you would have in the past.

A man being unwilling to make a first move simply isn’t a strong negative sign at this point. Indeed, if they are capable of navigating subsequent moves it could even be a positive sign, because this is how they didn’t get removed from the market.

Also I am pretty sure the other downsides of being too forward are way down from where they used to be. That is especially true if they are unwilling to (essentially ever) make the first move, which means they’re likely to very much appreciate it when you do so instead (and if they don’t, then the combination is a big red flag). Thus, I think being forward (as a woman seeking men) is a far better strategy than it was in the past.

If someone runs a TikTok experiment where a woman hits on men out of the blue, do you get points for being smooth and trying to capitalize on it, or points for correctly suspecting it’s not real?

Richard Hanania: Fascinating social experiment here. Watched the whole thing. You can see the variation in men’s confidence and the differences are absolutely vast. Best performing was black guy in black tank top, the worst was the first guy. Just completely different levels of being able to capitalize on an opportunity.

I looked at the replies finally, so many of you are so pathetic. You should have a positive attitude and even if it’s a skit there’s still opportunity there. You could win her over or could even impress others in the vicinity! At worst you can practice talking to an attractive woman. And you shouldn’t walk around with an attitude of nothing good can ever happen to me anyway.

I just keep being shocked by how unworthy of existence many of you are. It was outside my realm of imagination. Now I know what women feel. You all think like this and think you deserve companionship or even to live.

Cartoons Hate Her: Most men are hit on so rarely that the ones who aren’t top-tier attractive immediately know something is going on lol. You can see them looking for whoever is filming.

Side note: I had no idea it was this easy to hit on men. I have never approached a man, I found it unbecoming. I can see why men are afraid of it.

Richard Hanania: It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Cartoons Hate Her: True.

Armand Domalewski: The way she does it is so obviously fake lol

It’s a guy’s idea of how a girl would hit on a guy.

Lazy River:

>guy thinking “this has to be fake”

>it is in fact fake

Birth of another super villain. This happens to guys fr while the girls friends laugh in the back ground and it takes them out of the game for years, sometimes the rest of their lives. And it is this easy to pick up a man.

David: They’re objectively correct that there’s a camera tho, that’s not them being stupid for lacking confidence they are 100% right that she’s not to be trusted.

Rob Henderson: Reminds me of a study years ago where researchers had attractive actors to go up to people on a college campus and ask if they’d like to go on a date with them, if they’d like to go back to their apartment with them, and if they’d like to go to bed with them.

For women, 56% said yes to the date with the attractive male stranger, 6% said yes to going back to his apartment, and zero said they would go to bed with him.

For men, half said yes to the date with the attractive female stranger, 69% said yes to going to her apartment, and 75% said yes to going to bed with her.

If you know you’re being filmed that’s all the more reason to go for it? Same principle as before, if they post it and it gets views you identify yourself and say DMs are open.

All the men in the video did successfully exchange contact information of some form. Rob Henderson and Richard Hanania then did a 20 minute analysis of the 5 minute video, critiquing the various responses to see who got game and who didn’t.

They pointed out correctly that the percentage play, if you have the option and you are actually interested and think this could be real, is to attempt escalation to a low investment date on the spot, and go from there, while she’s feeling it.

The other great point is, no it isn’t real by design, but who is to say you cannot make it real? She’s opening. She’s giving you an opportunity. Sure, she might intend it to purely be a bit, but if you play your cards right, who knows? Worst case scenario is you get an extra rep. It’s even a power move to indicate you know she thinks it’s fake, and to run right through that.

I would add that the men here all now have her contact information, and there is nothing stopping them from extending the experiment. As in, you say ‘I know that your approaching me was a bit for a video, but I do like you, so…’ and again worst case is she tells the world you tried to have some game. Even now, there’s still time, guys.

Also, of course, yes women can basically do this at will, and there are strong arguments that they should be approaching quite a lot, as they have full social permission to do so, and even when you get a no you probably brighten the guy’s day – almost all guys consistently say, as noted above, they want to be approached more. And as I noted above, ‘guy is willing to open’ is not a great selection plan in 2025.

Even basic flirting principles are in short supply so it’s worth going over this again, starting from the top.

Chase Harris: If you subtly flirt with every woman you come across and say wassup bro in a happy mood to random dudes you will go far in life. Everyone is like a kid trapped in an adult body. They just want compliments and friends, so be that. You’ll never spend a day broke or alone if you do.

Standard Deviant offers us The Escalation Ladder. The flirting examples are sometimes weird and strangely ordered, but the principles are what is important and seem entirely correct. Indeed, the very fact that the details seem off yet this is still the person writing the post illustrates that the principles are what matters.

The basic principles are:

Start at a level appropriate to the context.
Escalate slowly.
Actively de-escalate unless they escalate back.
1. When dealing with a sufficiently clueless dude you can relax this a bit.
Don’t escalate if you think either of you would regret it later.
Understand when you are entering the ‘warning zone’ where you can no longer fully pretend you maybe aren’t flirting at all, where you thus risk making someone actively uncomfortable or causing an actively negative reaction.
Understand when you are entering the ‘danger zone’ where you can get yourself or someone else into real trouble.
It is very hard to disguise your level of being sexually pushy, which means that being actually not that pushy is the correct move on all levels.

Some notes on the specific actions:

They correctly identify that ‘asking if I can make a flirtatious comment’ is a larger escalation than actually making the flirtatious comment. I think he misidentifies the reasoning here, it’s not that this implies a ‘more flirtatious’ comment, it’s that asking makes your action not ambiguous and is requesting a non-ambiguous escalation.
I also think that asking for someone’s number without a plausible other reason (aka ‘closing’) should be much farther down the list than they have it. If the action is clearly in a dating context this is in the warning zone. But with a good enough excuse it isn’t even flirting. High variance.
Telling a joke can certainly be flirting but if the joke isn’t risque it’s a free action, fully deniable and ambiguous, you can do this pretty much at any time.

Flirting is pretty awesome. Alas, flirting seems to be getting rare and men are afraid to do it. The perception here has little basis in reality, but fear of tail risk (or in some cases, thinking it’s not even a tail risk) works whether or not the thing you are afraid of is real.

Cartoons Hate Her: But increasingly, I see young men claiming that they’re afraid to flirt with women in social settings, even at bars or parties, because the woman could “ruin their lives.” I saw one insisting that there’s a 50% chance any woman you approach will send you to jail. I think (or at least, I thought) most men know that women won’t really ruin their lives for talking to them at a club.

The worst thing that will happen is rude rejection and ridicule, which sucks for a bunch of other reasons (I’d have a hard time with that if it happened to me!) but isn’t life-ruining. And as any established pickup artist will tell you, the key to success is to lose the fear of rejection, and that happens when you see it all as a low-stakes numbers game.

Obviously she is correct, unless you are doing something very wrong in a way that should be rather obvious, you use a reasonable escalation ladder and you take no for an answer, the chance of a woman you approach trying to ‘run your life’ let alone ‘send you to jail’ is epsilon.

Cartoons Hate Her: The young women today who are upset that men don’t approach them aren’t the same women who decided any approach was harassment in 2015. We don’t all attend an annual bitch conference.

I recall getting yelled at in the Jezebel comments section in like 2014 bc I said it’s not bad for a man to come onto a woman if he respects a “no.” We existed back then and people told us to shut up!

I actually don’t think a fear of women calling the cops is the problem. Making overtures in person (like I wrote here, about dancing) is far more risky re: embarrassment and rejection than simply doing nothing or staying on apps.

I feel like it’s very silly to conflate “I don’t want to be stalked or assaulted” with “men should never flirt with me.” Thinking the latter is silly doesn’t mean you think the former is silly. These should be totally different things.

If all women, or even all liberal women, are to blame for a few overzealous takes in 2013, then by that logic it’s reasonable to treat all men as assaulters because some of them are. Get real.

The problem is, the extreme was loud, and looked to many young men like the norm.

Kat Rosenfeld: hard to overstate how much the culture has been shaped by the fact that circa 2011 sites like Jezebel—and, subsequently, the discourse — were overtaken by millennial women with personality disorders and/or intense grudges over the romantic disappointments they suffered as teens.

Cartoons Hate Her: Drives me nuts when people assume I (or even the majority of women) were complicit in this nonsense. Most people just didn’t want to be assaulted lol. Predictably, the wackos ruined it for everyone.

Caesaraum: what percent of people being wackos ruins the commons for everyone? how much discourse does it take to make the wackos look more prevalent than they are?

Isabel: It is dawning on me just how non-flirtatious our world is. When two people start flirting in front of me in public I feel like I’m witnessing something precious and start rooting for it to go somewhere. It feels so rare now. What happened? We like to talk to each other, remember?

My Fitness Feelings: Women will literally start a global witch hunt against flirting. Successfully destroy it. Forget. Then start a new movement complaining that no one is hitting on them.

Alternatively, the message that went out was ‘do the wrong thing and we will rain hell down upon you’ and even though this was rare even when the man deserved it or worse, and far rarer when they didn’t, there were a few prominent examples of this happening in ambiguous cases, so the combination created a culture of fear. To which some said good and they amplified it.

Then this synthesized into a culture obsessed with smartphones and dating apps, to the point where interactions in physical space seem alien and bizarre, and any kind of flirting or similar behaviors in person seemed verboten.

As always there is an alternate hypothesis, which it seems is both that there is no problem, and that the problem is the fault of the apps or porn:

Dhaaruni: The “men can’t approach women anymore because of man-hating feminists” stuff is very overblown. I’m more of a misandrist than ~99% of women and when I was single, men would approach me, and I was usually amenable to engaging! But, normal human behavior doesn’t drive discourse.

Noah Smith: Yes. To the extent that men don’t approach women anymore, it’s because they’re either on apps, or gooning to porn. The idea that wokeness has turned men into a bunch of timid feminist wimps is just another dumb online panic.

The most obvious place to start is, if she’s talking to you for a remarkably long time, you don’t want to make any assumptions but you (assuming you are interested yourself) do want to at least try flirting a bit and seeing if she’s interested?

Ellie Schnitt: my very sweet friend did not realize that the girl who was talking to him for 2 hours at a party last weekend was interested. I want to reiterate they spoke for 2 entire hours and he didn’t realize she wanted to kiss him until he was told 10 minutes ago.

in his defense a few years ago I talked to a guy I was VERY into for hours just assuming he wasn’t interested. At the end of the night he said “I’m going home, you coming?” and I said “oh is there an after party?” I’ll never forget the look he gave me I think I broke his brain.

NeedMeAJinshi: Holding a conversation for 2 hrs is literally nothing. Not to be that guy, but trying to make “holding a conversation” a sign of interest is exactly how you make every guy think a girl showing him basic respect is her hitting on him.

Eva: protect him at all costs tbh.

Ellie Schnitt: He is the sweetest and deserves the world.

Wayne Reardon: Story of my life. When i was 26 I walked a girl home one night and when we were sitting on the porch out the front of her house I asked her “what are you doing for the rest of the night?”.

She answered “I’ll probably watch a movie. It’s called Who’s Going To Make The First Move”.

I didn’t figure it out until about 2 hours later, so rang her and went back to her house.

Keysmashbandit: Female sexual attraction is a myth. There is no behavior that could possibly communicate it. No matter what, she’s not interested. Don’t bother.

Even if a woman is having sex with you she’s only doing it so she can make fun of you with her friends later. Even if you’re dating. Even if you’re married with children.

Keysmashbandit (replying because it seemed necessary): This post is obvious sarcasm and if you believe it at face value even for a second you need to exit your house immediately and talk to another human face to face.

The concern of NeedMeAJinshi is real, which is why you gracefully check. Talking for two hours at a party goes well beyond basic respect and you should definitely check.

At least be less oblivious than this guy.

Brian: In college I had a female friend who was really cute and I got along with really well. I never asked her out. We were friends! It just never occurred to me.

I drew a daily comic at the time. At some point, I introduced a character, who looked like her, whose name was similar, and who was the main character’s best friend. The running joke was that she had a massive unrequited crush on him but the guy was completely oblivious.

I later found out that she actually had a big crush on me and I was, in fact, completely oblivious. She read my comics and must have thought I was torturing her.

A new paper covers what happened when Tinder first arrived, note that this was largely a replacement of other dating apps.

Online dating apps have transformed the dating market, yet their broader effects remain unclear.

We study Tinder’s impact on college students using its initial marketing focus on Greek organizations for identification. We show that the full-scale launch of Tinder led to a sharp, persistent increase in sexual activity, but with little corresponding impact on the formation of long-term relationships or relationship quality. Dating outcome inequality, especially among men, rose, alongside rates of sexual assault and STDs.

However, despite these changes, Tinder’s introduction did not worsen students’ mental health, on average, and may have even led to improvements for female students.

The full paper is gated, and one must note the unavoidable limitations here. Greek organizations are importantly different from others, and the real difference is that the early dynamics are not going to hold stable over time, and with this kind of study you are not going to see longer term effects.

In terms of ‘mental health,’ the short term effects are reported (presumably self-reported) to be neutral-to-good in aggregate, and the net relationship impacts tiny. Given the other impacts I would presume that the longer term mental health impacts are negative, and for college students to be a group where the net effects are relatively positive.

Periodically we see a version of this claim:

Medjedowo: dating apps, by nature, can’t be ‘too effective’ at matching users, otherwise they’d run out of customers and traffic volume.

Not to be too conspiratorial but how are they incentivizing long term usage, exactly? like the users meet irl but they stacked the deck to sabotage it behind the scenes? as with news media reporting slop my inclination is to ultimately blame the consumers– if they could sell.

I mean, yes, in theory at some point this becomes true. At any reasonable margin this simply isn’t true, certainly not for anyone outside of Match group. The reputational effects swamp everything else, especially since even if you are 100% to get a successful match most relationships don’t last. You’ll be back, and if you aren’t you’ll be telling all your friends how you met.

You do want to somewhat sabotage the lives of free users to force them to pay,and thus you gate useful things behind paywalls, but that’s true of essentially all free apps everywhere to some degree.

Having nerdy interests is only a minor handicap, if you (1) own it with no stress and (2) don’t require or impose them on your partners or let them get in the way. Chances are high your actual problem to fix lies elsewhere.

If someone actually vetoes you because of your hobby even if you own it with no stress and no imposition of it on others, it wasn’t a good match anyway. That’s positive selection right there. The same goes for political vetoes.

This conversation started off with the (decent looking) Guy Who Swiped Right Two Million Times and got one date. Ten out of ten points for persistence and minus several million for repeating the same action expecting different results and also minus another million for having actual zero swiping standards.

He’s plausibly got requirement one nailed but number two might be a problem.

The problem clearly ran deep. It’s one thing to do 2.05 million swipes and get only 2,053 matches. That’s 1 in 1,000, which to be fair is very bad, and it’s not hard to generate theories as to how that happened. But then he had 1,269 chats and that led to 1 date, and at that point dude it’s something else entirely.

Max: I think he’s just scary.

The contradictions are there right off the bat. He does have standards, in his way.

Goblin: i think ultimately this is a branding issue tbh

Fish photos signal “conservative normie,” owning 33 snakes signals “weirdo leftie.”

Basically no one making it through his photo filter survives his special interest filter.

I don’t think that’s weirdo lefty, you can totally have 33 snakes and be a weirdo rightie. Claude suspects ‘trying too hard to be quirky,’ which definitely fits.

Sardine Thief: I think he’s just weird and antisocial and from what I’ve seen floating around of the rest of his profile acts vaguely menacing and domineering, u can literally have whatever weird interest you want and the right girl will find it charming if you’re not otherwise a weirdo

i used to think i was basically this guy and was doomed bc of my “weird” interests in like historical asian linguistics and comparative religion and when i reframed it as a “me” problem instead of a “my interests” problem i met a woman who actually likes me like a month later

Goblin: oh wow wait what what can you elaborate this is a really good case study

Sardine Thief: i had the typical nerdy guy problem of thinking it was my nerdy interests that made women not interested and not that very same self-pitying attitude

i don’t think that’s specifically this guy’s problem but “my interests are unlovable” is often a smokescreen to protect the ego from having to address what the real problem is, because saying “i need to work on how i relate to and communicate with women” and then doing it is a lot harder than saying “they don’t like me cuz they hate my snakes”

my problem was actual gynophobia, i spent most of my life til ~19 being emotionally/verbally abused by female caregivers & had to work out some things to be able to not treat women like “landmine that needs to be placated with chores and fawning to maybe not blow up in my face”

Goblin: oh whoa yeah that makes a lot of sense! good on ya for working it out! this feels like a v common path but people end up getting stuck at the “nobody likes my weird interests” point

Sardine Thief: yeah, it does loop back around to branding, but reinventing your branding on more than a surface level requires deeply examining the pillars that the way you present yourself are built on to begin with

Goblin: Yeaaah!

At most, you get one move at this level. You definitely don’t get two.

The broader point is mostly right, the narrow point seems obviously wrong?

Jakeup: If fewer than one third of men are into comic books (likely) or cosplay (almost certainly), then getting into comic books or cosplay increases your market attractiveness.

The broader point isn’t just that many “unattractive” traits are undersupplied and thus are actually good, but that being *anything at allis attractive the only thing oversupplied in the dating market are people who are nothing in particular and do little much of anything.

In general, yes, better to be into as many non-harmful things as you can, so long as you are capable of shutting up about them and not letting them interfere with your dating activities. The reason so many of the things here are unattractive is that they do actively interfere, either because people can’t stop talking about them, they are money sinks, they have very bad correlations, or they do active harm to you, or a combination thereof.

You definitely can’t say that if X% of women find [Y] attractive, then at least X% of men should have attribute [Y], or vice versa, or that this indicates undersupply if not true, or anything like it. That’s not how it works for various obvious reasons.

But yes, if you are not into some things, you need to pick at least one something and get into it, ideally something that people you are interested in will find interesting.

Why is (illusionary) magic considered lame and low status? I am with Chana Messinger here that if executed and presented well, magic gives you charm and charisma, and seems great at ice breaking and demonstrating skill and value, and is actually great.

I also think Jack is correct that most people who use magic in this way are bad at it, and that bad magic is indeed lame and low status. Most magicians are not successful, and most people presenting magic are showing that they’ve overinvested in magic relative to other things. So is being ‘too in’ in magic as a strategy relative to your level of magic success.

There is especially a problem if you are obviously doing the magic as a strategy to get girls, doubly so if you are shoehorning your magic into an interaction where it shouldn’t be, or if you present as if you think you’re super hot stuff when you clearly aren’t. Having magic available as a tool is awesome, if you have some skill, but part of making the magic happen is knowing when not to make the magic happen.

The other problem is that illusionary magic (unlike magick or Magic: The Gathering) is at its core illusion and deception. Do you want to make that your brand? What other kinds of scams are you trying to pull?

It’s easy to get caught up in ‘how to play correctly’ and the fact that you can indeed succeed on the apps with effort, and forget that even in the best case all that rejection is going to feel really terrible if you let it.

veloread: Honestly, I had to quit Bumble for years because of what it did to me. More than any other dating app, on Bumble I have had an awful time.

My experience was – and to a lesser extent, remains, now that I’m on it again – this:

Set filters to the people I’m interested in. See profile after profile of fascinating, funny, intelligent-seeming people who are my type. Think to myself about whether we’d be compatible. Swipe, in the absolute and extreme confidence that I won’t get a match. Don’t get any matches.

That constant rejection – person after person after person – and the few times you match, and you find the other person just doesn’t put in any effort at all, because, well, the gender ratio and dynamics on these apps is awful, and so she’s got a huge pile of matches and messages to deal with.

The experience made me angry, and it made me sad. I went on these apps after a breakup, hoping that I’d be able to “put myself out there”, but it ended up making the pain of that loss much worse. I had thought, because of who I had been with – and because our relationship ended not because of anything either of us did, but because we were at different stages of our lives – that I was handsome and funny and desirable. That I’d come off as someone people would like to talk to, laugh with, have adventures with.

Signull: people ask how i stay attuned to what tech actually does… the emotions it triggers, the ways it shapes lives, the subtle effects or unexpected magici it delivers. the answer’s simple. i read. not whitepapers. not founder threads. this. stuff like this.

posts like this are where the truth lives. visceral, unpolished, & real. someone trying to make sense of their own pain through a product that promised connection but delivered emptiness. this is user research. this is culture listening.

the internet gives you a front row seat to the human condition. you just have to care enough to look.

Rany Treibel: I love these kind of posts because they’re vulnerable in a productive way, not attention seeking, not acting like a victim, just sharing an experience. Could this person do things better? sure, but that doesn’t matter here. Even those of us who have no trouble on dating sites still experience this for weeks on end sometimes.

Robin Hanson: I gotta say this wouldn’t have done much for my mental health either. Pretty dystopian hell scenario.

The obvious mental trick, far easier said than done, is to not see this as rejection.

As in, you’re not being rejected so much as not being considered. You’re not making a request so much as you’re confirming you would be open to something happening.

The algorithm is gating your success behind a bunch of grinding, until someone takes the time to consider you enough to have meaningfully rejected you rather than a photo, to have chosen to reject rather than not have had time to choose at all. And it is only once someone engages you in conversation for real that you’ve actually been rejected as a person.

Until then, yes you should be aware of your metrics versus others so you can work on improving, but in a real way this ‘doesn’t count.’

Would this feature work?

Andrew Rettek: Idea for a dating site feature. Every time you swipe on someone you need to write a little bit about why before you can swipe again/message that match. That feedback is collected for every user and every user can request an LLM summary of it (but not the actual text).

This adds friction to slow down mindless swiping, gives users (successful and unsuccessful) feedback if they want it, and forces people to think at all about what they’re looking for in a match. I don’t thing this solves “the apps” but it probably helps a bit.

The obvious problem with this is that users don’t want to do this. The point of swiping is that it is almost instant, it requires no thought, no words, like a slot machine. That wins in the marketplace because that’s what women choose.

So most users, most importantly most women, will quickly start to use the cut and paste, or something damn close to it. I mean, if you’re swiping on a profile, is there really that much to say there, and if they aren’t even going to read it before deciding why should you spend the effort? ‘Not hot’? In general, you can’t have mechanisms at odds with the user like this.

The variant of this that has non-zero chance of working is that the man would swipe and write a message first, and only then does the woman get to swipe, and perhaps you would have an AI that would give it a uniqueness score relative to other messages the same person sent, or you would otherwise engage in an auto-filter on the message along with everything else that is available for an LLM to filter profiles.

The first major dating site to get AI and usefully costly signaling properly into the early matching process, in a way that actually fixed the incentives without wrecking the experience, is going to see some big returns. It’s odd how little they seem to be focusing on this problem.

Alternatively, what about matching people by browser history? If there is a way to avoid data security and privacy concerns (ha!) then there are actually a lot of advantages. This should match people by various forms of common interests and content consumption patterns.

It also serves as a way to effectively say things you couldn’t otherwise say. As in, suppose you have a very niche interest, perhaps a kink and perhaps something else. You wouldn’t want to put that information in a profile, but this can potentially work around that.

That suggests a different design, which is AI-only honest-request blind matching.

As in, you write down what you really, truly want and care about. All the really good stuff. A document you would absolutely not want anyone else to read, including both freeform statements and answers to a range of questions.

Then, an AI looks at this, and compares your requests and statements to those of others, and gives compatibility scores, in a way that is protected against hacking the system in various ways (e.g. you don’t want someone to be able to add and remove ‘I’m extremely into [X]’ from their profile and compare all the scores, thus revealing who is exactly how into or not into [X].)

You could also offer this evaluation as a one-time service, where a fully anonymized server can take any given two write-ups [X], [Y] from different sources, and then evaluate.

Also note this does not have to be romantic. You can also do this, at scale or one-on-one, for finding ordinary friends or anything else.

Aella: Finally got on Tea. I don’t think most of you guys have to worry

I continue to think having a Date Me Doc, which is literally a document that lays out at length who you are, what you bring to the table and what you’re looking for at length, is an excellent move.

Here’s a resource that seems worth getting in on, if you’re in the area and the right Type of Guy sufficiently to qualify. This seems like The Way, it only works if you don’t know what she’s writing down:

Brooke Bowman: The girlies would like to browse the database.

Social Soldier: hey guys, if you want to go in the bachelor’s database lmk. If I know you, I will screen you and put you in for the girlies to see. Sorry, no, you won’t get to know what I say.

If you know of any bachelors this is what I’m looking for I like em intense.

Cate Hall: I can’t get Nan to do a date-me so fellas take note that she is SINGLE, WARM, FEROCIOUS, HOT AS HELL, and INTO NERDS.

Nan Ransohoff (website): well I asked claude what historical figures he’d set me up with and I.. have never felt so seen?

anyway, I’ll be hosting a feynman lookalike party later this year ✌🏼

It seems likely matchmaking is underrated, at least relative to dating apps and for those who can afford the fees? Or it would be, if the services deliver the goods.

I’ve now seen several ads on the subway recently for matchmaking services. The latest was for a service called Tawkify, which claims to be rather large, and I figured I’d do some brief investigation.

Clients pay for a package of curated dates managed by a dedicated matchmaker, based on your criteria, or you can pay a much smaller amount ($100/year) to be the candidate pool. They will also recruit outside the platform.

Yes, the price of ~$4500 for three matches is not cheap (bigger packages seem cheaper per date), but compare it to the number of hours you would otherwise spend to get to that point, and the quality of the matches you get from the apps, and ask if you were enjoying those hours of app work.

The problem with the matchmaking option is what you would expect it to be. The service is reportedly using predatory sales tactics and does not actually make much of an attempt to Do The Thing.

Yes, you would expect a lot of unhappy complaining customers no matter how good the service was but even by that standard this look is terrible and there are a lot of signs of reputation manipulation.

Google Deep Research: A stark contradiction exists between the company’s heavily promoted high rating on Trustpilot and the extensive volume of severe complaints lodged with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and on public forums like Reddit. A pattern of recurring complaints alleges misleading sales tactics, poor match quality that disregards client-stated preferences, high matchmaker turnover, and the enforcement of rigid, non-refundable contracts that place the full financial burden on the consumer.

…

One detailed complaint from a client who paid $4,500 articulated the perceived unfairness of being matched with men who had only paid the $99 database fee, a critical detail she claims was never disclosed during the sales process.

…

Step 1: Initial Screening & Sales Call. The process begins when a prospective client completes an online application, which vets for basic criteria such as age, location, and income. If the applicant is deemed a potential fit, they are scheduled for a call with a “client experience specialist” or salesperson. This initial call is a critical juncture and a source of numerous consumer complaints.

Multiple reports filed with the BBB and on public forums describe this as a high-pressure sales call where key, and often deal-breaking, details of the service—such as the mandatory blind date format or the strict non-refundable policy—are allegedly omitted, downplayed, or obscured. Some prospective customers have reported being chastised or emotionally manipulated when they balked at the high price point.

…

When a matchmaker does make contact, the screening process is explicitly one-way. The interview and vetting are conducted to determine the individual’s suitability for a specific paying Client. The Member’s or Recruit’s preferences are secondary; the primary objective is to find someone who meets the Client’s criteria.

So the trick is to find the good version of the service.

Also, it seems there is now at least one person running a non-monogamous matchmaking service focusing on Austin, Oakland and Boulder.

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