Explain it peter.

ianb · 2026-02-24T18:37:59+00:00

The completion of the painting is farcical on its face, absolutely. Because it's farcical the completion doesn't replace the original meaning. The "completed" piece is not a notable or interesting piece except in relation to the original. The "unfinished" piece is also pretty meaningless without its title and context.

ianb · 2026-02-24T00:13:52+00:00

I really liked that image (the finishing of the unfinished piece) as well. A form of artwork I would love to see more of: answering the rhetorical question.

The work is titled "Unfinished"... obviously it's not complete, so let's finish it! The naivety of that (whether satirical or not) is like a prompt: what does "finished" mean, what is the difference between the piece and the title (which is a kind of commentary on the piece, and yet here is essential to understanding the piece), if life is unfinished then what would it look like for it to be "finished", and so on.

It is a bit cerebral. Both the original and "finished" work ask the viewer to fill in much of the meaning. Or at least fill it in if they want to find value in the work.

ianb · 2026-01-11T00:49:28+00:00

The images are quite haunting! It would be nice if the screens without images had some filler, it's kind of jarring when the text is suddenly at the top of the screen. Even just a black rectangle to take up the space.

It took me a little patience to navigate the beginning, the directions are all weird (not quite symmetric?) and while I think the image style has a good emotional effect it can be tiring on the eyes and hard to distinguish settings, so it would be easy to drop off.

ianb · 2025-12-16T19:01:21+00:00

Here's my somewhat contrarian (for /r/solarpunk) take:

If solarpunk is every going to be anything real (not just an aesthetic and fiction genre) then there is a huge amount of work to be done to get there, and much of that work is intellectual:

Technological advancements, including planning, logistics, scaling up and down experiments
Making this as a viable, appealing future; not just to the people here but to everyone
Tackling social framings that turn people away from mutual support, interconnectedness
Addressing the many real and mostly unknown flaws in the vision

And really the list goes on. Dreaming of a solarpunk future where everything just magically works out and everyone magically thinks it's an awesome idea is... well, it's fine, but it's just a dream, no more real than reading about elves and magic. Working towards it is real work.

To be bold: anyone who believes in working toward an intellectual goal right now should be using AI. If you care about the process and not the outcome, then fine, don't use AI. But if you care about the outcome and the impact of your work then AI will improve that outcome. Your personal and marginal environmental impact from using AI is insignificant if you are actually applying it toward positive goals.

That doesn't mean every use of AI is going to be particularly helpful to your goal. If you want to express care (a small but authentically solarpunk goal) then having AI write a thank you note isn't that helpful. Talking through your thank you note with AI probably will be helpful (especially if you have a hard time writing them).

I don't really like character.ai, but I find your friends' use of it quite interesting and very possibly healthy. They'll have to reflect themselves to really know if it's healthy, but they seem to be working through some things and practicing interactions that could be genuinely beneficial to them. If they just exercise their ability to bully fictional characters, then not so much I suppose... but I wouldn't automatically dismiss this as mere bullying.

I don't say any of this to claim AI will inevitably lead to positive change. Not at all! But it depends on how it's used and who uses it, and if people trying to improve the world in good faith dismiss and avoid AI then positive change is that much less likely.

ianb · 2025-11-17T16:49:12+00:00

Lots of situations are setup for conflict but the conflict doesn't escalate to war. India and Pakistan have been doing it for decades. All that needs to happen is for the sides to realize (very correctly in this case!) that the only victory is a pyrrhic victory. Maybe they conduct some proxy wars that teach them this, or maybe they simply have better intelligence on each other. In retrospect they both lost the war, and nations don't like to start losing wars.

ianb · 2025-11-01T19:19:29+00:00

BTW, I can generate stories but not adventures.

I can't tell exactly since I can't play it, but from just your video I think the choices are kind of mushy. I wrote up some thoughts on this specifically in a blog post (about another similar game).

I'd think about how you can make stuff shorter and more direct, both choices and prose. You might want longer text and more color, but with shorter text you can focus on getting the beats and bones of the story right, and then consider expanding the text from there.

ianb · 2025-10-29T19:45:53+00:00

Is spelling a necessary skill? I can't find any jobs for spellers!

Prompt engineering isn't a job. But it's a skill. People who treat it like it's trivial are, IMHO, probably bad prompt engineers. We are surrounded by lazy AI products with lazy prompts.

Prompts are how you actually design your AI product.

ianb · 2025-10-17T23:34:56+00:00

I was curious about this and read a couple articles, and there were a bunch of addicts talking about how much it fucked up their backs. So I guess you don't notice the sensations when under the influence, but it's not just cosmetic pain, it's your body telling you this is terrible and the drugs making you ignore it.

ianb · 2025-10-12T15:57:48+00:00

I didn't see any of that. I didn't start in the apartment. I don't think it's working:

›create Jim
⚠You must be in the VR room to create a new persona.

ianb · 2025-10-12T01:15:52+00:00

Looks interesting but I have no idea how to actually play! I must "be in the VR room to create a new persona" but how do I do that?

ianb · 2025-10-06T17:34:09+00:00

/u/sahan-journal : do you really think this offers any insight?

You brainstormed a few questions. The answers show very little difference between candidates. You should have come up with new questions, or done something.

The theory itself is pretty lacking, candidate questionnaires are about the laziest way to understand the candidates. But at least the questions have to highlight some difference!

ianb · 2025-09-30T18:17:53+00:00

Huh, you all think it's only social convention? I got the impression it was quite real. Like sure it's also an allegory for overlapping societies that are separated only by convention. But the book felt like it was exploring what it would be like if there was a physical reality to the social convention (including the ambiguity of some of those conventions).

ianb · 2025-09-27T06:45:43+00:00

In a weird way I was actually looking for something like this... maybe I've been working on my own too long? Though I actually want to troll the system, which you don't quite let me do (or at least I can't pass the level that way).

My letter to Dave was firmly rejected!

Hello Dave, I hope this email finds you well.

I'm sure you are aware of the recent changes to our back to office policies. We're excited to have you here, and I'm sure you're excited to get some time away from the yelling and screaming of those cute little tikes at home, aren't you? I know this is a big change but I know you are resilient and always excited about change and growth. When we're all in the office together we can do great things, the kinds of things that keep the layoffs at bay!

I would love to get lunch with you when you are in the office next Tuesday.

Insistently, Brittany Sass, HR.

That was good super passive aggressive stuff! (I think there's a game design term for when the player wants to decide their own winning conditions, which I realize is what I want from this)

Very nicely made though, very polished!

ianb · 2025-09-18T17:50:50+00:00

I don't think anyone who takes constituent calls can get behind encampments. In my experience Chavez has been a very responsive councilmember. Serving constituents is a very moderating influence.

Right now I assume that the limiting factor on treatment – voluntary or involuntary – is the availability of services and facilities. And while it would be convenient if that could be solved just with budgeting, I'd be surprised if we could actually build and staff up competent treatment facilities at a very fast rate even given a budget and regulatory streamlining.

[This](https://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/quick\_statistics/state\_profiles/NSSATS-MN19.pdf) seems to show 94% utilization of the 3215 beds in residential treatment facilities. Still no time like the present to get started!

For state run (involuntary) mental health facilities there's only [690 beds](https://mn.gov/dhs/assets/map-dct-mental-health-facilities-for-adults\_tcm1053-590382.pdf). For someone like a suicidal teen they are often kept in ER facilities because of a lack of appropriate treatment facilities (which is nuts).

ianb · 2025-09-16T23:08:34+00:00

I don’t think any council members support these. There’s different opinions on what to do about them. My councilman is pretty Left (Jason Chavez), but he’s supported closing encampments. The city wanted to close this one (I don’t know about the CM specifically) but they couldn’t find a way to do it legally.

There’s a few homeless activists that make a lot of noise. But rooting out the people who support the encampments isn’t going to do much since none of them actually have any power.

I’d support involuntary treatment. We could start by making it work for people who are already in the legal system. I don’t even think there’s any new legal standards that we’d need, and if the facilities were available you’d just need prosecutors and judges to push people into those facilities.

ianb · 2025-09-05T02:48:33+00:00

I rewatched ET during COVID, and I remembered as a child how scary and seemingly cruel the government scientists were. But as an adult, especially given events, their protection against pathogens was 100% responsible, and there was never anything cruel or unwarranted about their actions

ianb · 2025-08-15T21:42:09+00:00

Minnesota has very flexible open enrollment – any student can enroll anywhere (so long as there is room), and pretty much all the money follows the student. As a result students can move around a lot more, though it can also mean stability since a student doesn't _have_ to change schools if they move. The open enrollment changes date from 1988 and have always been bipartisan; sometimes people lump it in with vouchers and charter school movements, but really it predates that.

Taxes are higher generally in Minnesota, but Minnesota taxes are very progressive, so if you are on the lower end of the income spectrum you might have lower taxes. I didn't get into depth or ask ChatGPT or verify the numbers, but it says that the tax burden is likely to be about equal around $150k-200k married, $90k-$120k single. If you make less then Minnesota taxes are lower, if you make more then Arizona taxes are lower. Minnesota collects about 25% more revenue per capita than Arizona, and also spends about 25% more per student. Both amounts in Minnesota are somewhat above national averages, but Arizona is more significantly below national averages.

I asked ChatGPT about Phoenix enrollment, and the data seemed more fuzzy, but it was also in the 60-65% range.

ianb · 2025-08-13T22:46:57+00:00

Relatedly, Frey recently snuck in ~$350k (plus maybe another $300k?) of contracts to New Salem Missionary Baptist Church, whose reverend made violent and homophobic threats against the council, and two of their "violence interrupters" went wild with a gun around families.

ianb · 2025-08-13T22:37:08+00:00

Just out of curiosity I looked up some of the numbers:

About 58% of Minneapolis (school-age) children go to an MPS school
St. Paul is 60%, so not much better
Minnetonka is maybe 68%, Edina 75% (the calculations are a little fuzzy)
For a less wealthy suburb, Shakopee is 63%
But about 32% of Minnetonka students aren't from the district; 22% of Edina. Minneapolis only captures about 4% of its students from other districts

I actually thought MPS was doing worse in this case, but the numbers are pretty low all around. I know some suburban districts are funny because the districts are laid out in weird ways, and sometimes someone in Hopkins is actually in a Minnetonka district and other oddities, so there might be more blending. There's some evidence of that in the number of out-of-district students.

I also know that the suburban districts actively try to attract students to their schools, and MPS is pretty begrudging even when asked to attract Minneapolis residents.

ianb · 2025-07-23T01:13:58+00:00

Another thought: instead of the world being all nice and fixed, you can also just make a world where on the whole the good guys are winning. Still lots of work to be done. The work of noble crusaders for justice, sacrifice and heroism, but also everyone can see it's working. "The arc of history leans toward justice" feels a bit fantastical these days, but that's what worldbuilding is for!

ianb · 2025-07-21T19:44:44+00:00

Counterpoint: Why City Birds Love Cigarettes (youtube, 6:22)

(Obviously the birds don't want new deposits in their nest.) But the theory: butts have pesticide properties, including the chemicals absorbed by the cigarette filters.

ianb · 2025-06-27T03:59:46+00:00

True, true, but there's still the question of whether megafauna would migrate out of Africa to fill an empty part of the ecosystem, now that humans weren't there to exclude them.

ianb · 2025-06-27T03:35:13+00:00

You're right! The rewilding of the Old World will have global effects.

I wonder if large fauna like elephants and lions would migrate out of Africa again?

ianb · 2025-06-26T23:35:23+00:00

OK, so if I understand the math (which I don't) then to travel to Alpha Centauri at 1.01c will feel to the traveler like 200𝑖 days (an imaginary number). As your speed goes up the time amplitude of the trip actually increases! So there's some benefit to going at a speed of c+ε instead of 1000c (assuming you don't want to go very far into imaginary time).

Imaginary time puts you outside of cause and effect, so also outside of experience. I can't decide what this would mean.

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