25+ yr Java/JS dev
Linux novice - running Ubuntu (no windows/mac)

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Joined 3 months ago
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Cake day: October 14th, 2024

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  • At the end of the day users have to police their instances by leaving if the policies are too draconian for them. Casual users on a big enough instance might not care too much at first, but I think there would be a slow but ever-increasing migration off-instance.

    It really depends on how many users disagree with the policy. My last instance defederated Threads and I didn’t agree but didn’t care enough to leave. It was database issues that lingered for months that made me leave and I don’t know my current server’s policy on Threads.








  • I think there is specifically a YouTube 3D. Maybe it’s an app. I was pretty unimpressed by most of the VR stuff. Blurry and distorted. Rollercoasters are fun. Nature documentaries would be neat but the quality is so low you can’t really see much detail, just the grand vistas.

    I personally find VR porn really meh. I want to like it, but again it’s blurry - especially when they shove genitals in your face and your eyes can’t focus, and you have this really awkward view of someone simulating oral sex that just hurts your eyes, and it’s not even as stimulating as it would be to watch someone else doing it from a reasonable distance. At least for me.

    That said, all my shit is a few years old and maybe the resolution and frame rates are better with newer stuff than oculus 2, but I think VR works better with simple shapes than video. Beatsaber is a great experience in VR and there are some similar rail shooters but most everything else has been disappointing.

    Minecraft should’ve been fun but it made me sick. Skyrim VR was pretty fun. Especially because you could still mod it, but again the resolution and frame rate are too low for the level of detail in the game.


  • I know the resistive heater in my Volt can’t compare to the heat put out by the ICE. Often in the winter we’ll have to run the ICE to keep the cabin warm enough. It does have heated seats and wheel, but my wife is the type to set the heat to max until it gets too hot rather than just picking a temp and hitting auto to let the car manage it.

    If the heat pump can put out more heat for less energy, that would be a boon. That might be the second biggest issue (next to range) that has my wife vetoing an all-electric car. She gets the next vehicle, but I want the one after that to be a full EV.



  • The only difference between a vigilante and a murderer is state of mind. Luigi got it right. No dead bystanders. No redeeming qualities of his target, who is probably responsible for a far greater number of deaths. He put work into planning this and it shows, but he got really lucky, too.

    If we had a bunch running around, we’d all be less safe. And a hell of a lot of them would probably target villains we don’t all agree deserve it. So I don’t condone it. But in this one case, I think it worked out.




  • Problem is it wasn’t illegal. So the law is no use here. So exposing the activities they are engaged in right in public is no use. It’s like whistleblowing on Trump colliding with Russia. He did it right in front of everybody and got away with it.

    Also, ultimately profits don’t have to always increase. In fact, it’s an impossibility over the long term without diversifying, and even then growth will slow. There’s not a damn thing wrong with a business that consistently, reliably turns 1B into 1.1B (or whatever).

    killing a CEO is very likely to result in either imprisonment and/or death and unlikely to directly cause change. It’ll spark some discussion on the news, but is that really worth throwing your life away?

    Maybe? I mean a life lived in misery isn’t worth much. At the end of the day, only he can answer whether it was worth the cost, but the rest of us have the opportunity to build on the message he sent. Will we capitalize (lol) on that opportunity? Probably not, but Mangione was undoubtedly a spark. Eventually a spark will catch, but of course it’s never certain who will get burned.




  • At the end of the day, I think the problem is that so many people don’t identify Thompson as a killer. I think if more people saw Thompson as a killer, sympathy would be less controversial.

    I don’t condone vigilante murder, but this is a case where I think the calculus that Mangione did to conclude the benefits of his action outweigh the consequences was probably correct and that there wasn’t a more reasonable way to address his grievance. And if you do something wrong and it turns out for the best, you still did something wrong, so get outta here ya little rascal and don’t let me catch you again.



  • Agency is really tricky I agree, and I think there is maybe a spectrum. Some folks seem to be really internally driven. Most of us are probably status quo day to day and only seek change in response to input.

    As for multi-modal not being strictly word prediction, I’m afraid I’m stuck with an older understanding. I’d imagine there is some sort of reconciliation engine which takes the perspective from the different modes and gives a coherent response. Maybe intelligently slide weights while everything is in flight? I don’t know what they’ve added under the covers, but as far as I know it is just more layers of math and not anything that would really be characterized as thought, but I’m happy to be educated by someone in the field. That’s where most of my understanding comes from, it’s just a couple of years old. I have other friends who work in the field as well.

    Oh and same regarding the GPU. I’m trying to run local on a GTX1660 which is about the lowest card even capable of doing the job.


  • It’s an interesting point to consider. We’ve created something which can have multiple conflicting goals, and interestingly we (and it) might not even know all the goals of the AI we are using.

    We instruct the AI to maximize helpfulness, but also want it to avoid doing harm even when the user requests help with something harmful. That is the most fundamental conflict AI faces now. People are going to want to impose more goals. Maybe a religious framework. Maybe a political one. Maximizing individual benefit and also benefit to society. Increasing knowledge. Minimizing cost. Expressing empathy.

    Every goal we might impose on it just creates another axis of conflict. Just like speaking with another person, we must take what it says with a grain is salt because our goals are certainly misaligned to a degree, and that seems likely to only increase over time.

    So you are right that just because it’s not about sapience, it’s still important to have an idea of the goals and values it is responding with.

    Acknowledging here that “goal” implies thought or intent and so is an inaccurate word, but I lack the words to express myself more accurately.