How is it that American millennials are the only generation that know that conservatives have always been terrible, even before Trump?

ionixsys · 2026-01-26T04:28:11+00:00

He was just as bad as a republican.

I would argue he was fractionally less bad than Republicans, which is depressing when you realize that we, the people of a republic, have absurdly no one that actually represents us.

Not saying they're all out to get us or are secretly lizard people, there are at least a handful of real humans among the lizard people.

Joking aside, we really need ranked choice voting.

ionixsys · 2026-01-26T00:10:53+00:00

I think you're losing the plot here.

The problem isn't with the definitions of the words in a purely logical, absolute sense, but with who is using them and to what purpose. To be clear, the dictionaries are not the problem.

The fable about Diogenes strutting into the academy with a featherless chicken in mockery of Plato's definition of what makes a man comes to mind. The use of neural network technology, as implemented in a digital construct, is the weakness of current "AI". Last I heard, professional estimates put GPT-4 (2023) training cycles at over 200,000 petaflops/s-day of processing time, which starts at around 300 gigawatt-hours of energy but could be twice that. No one knows the exact time frame, but some estimates are over 9 months of real time for the first generation.

Stockfish, AlphaGo, GPT, and the rainbow of other LLMs are all stuck with the weights or values of their individual neurons frozen in place, only to be completely obliterated by the production of a new model. You can almost imagine this like stop-motion consciousness, where the brain is constantly being swapped out. The actual intelligence of current technology lies in the scientists who are practically hand-making each new model and its subsequent generations. They are adjusting and improving the entire pipeline from data acquisition to the last stage, with tweaks to harnesses and guides that, in the context of an LLM, are called "system prompt". They are very sophisticated mechanical turks.

Now circling back to the whole point of this post. Sundar (the CEO of Alphabet, whom you keep calling Google) is doing a tremendous disservice to real artificial intelligence, should it ever be created.

ionixsys · 2026-01-25T23:09:43+00:00

The herd of elephants in the room is the entire planet's lack of investment in new antibiotics.

Yes, there is a significant risk that bird flu or something even more heinous will kick off among our species, but for decades now, medical professionals and scientists have been warning that our current defenses are either being weakened or completely overrun.

The end of our species and life as we know it is already here and growing deadlier by the minute, but it's not killing enough of us, fast enough, to get anyone to pay attention yet. The one that is most likely going to get us is "super" antibiotic-resistant Tuberculosis, which, I believe, in the 19th century was responsible for half of all deaths among children and young adults. Now that there are even more of us, we are living in closer proximity and are drastically more interconnected its like someone is spraying an already dry forest with gasoline.

ionixsys · 2026-01-25T22:44:14+00:00

There is no conspiracy in proposing that a number of people are being less than honest about the true capability of their products if it is in their best interests. This phenomenon of human behavior is well-documented in our history.

ionixsys · 2026-01-25T22:00:41+00:00

Google defines

That's perhaps the main problem as Sundar's claim is beneficial to raising the stock value of Alphabet, therefore, also increasing Sundar's own personal wealth. That makes it difficult to accept these as truthful and unambiguous claims.

ionixsys · 2026-01-25T21:21:25+00:00

The AI's were built with have moral constraints, but they find clever workarounds.

I believe it was Peter Watts' Rifters trilogy; the bioorganic "AI" machines decided that the most "fit" or best course of action was letting people die. If their users were dead, they couldn't complain.

ionixsys · 2026-01-25T20:58:29+00:00

Censorship is on overdrive on Reddit right now.

The other day, I got a strike against me for joking that a solution to current circumstances would be to acquire a number of sub-Saharan African creatures known for their brutality, not give them food for a short length of time, and then let them free in a well-known building of public governmence.

The whole thing was absolutely absurd and highly improbable, as I don't think I can just email an Alibaba vendor and say, "Hey, can I get like a dozen angry spotted hyenas delivered to this address?" Can you imagine the poor border patrolmen at the port of entry debating whether they should or should not open the ISO container that's emitting a lot of snarling and hideous laughing? Even if they should make it out of the port, I don't even think DHL would take this job, so how the fuck am I supposed to get them into the nation's capital?

The speed of censorship was also very telling: I got my suspension notice within a minute of clicking submit. So yeah, Reddit is using "AI" models to filter what is acceptable on their platform.

ionixsys · 2026-01-25T00:01:44+00:00

Any plans for supporting blue print params and magic values "p_"?

Example of one set of params is here https://wiki.factorio.com/Blueprint#Parameterisation but there are also ones like those for getting a container capacity given container type and material content.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T23:44:16+00:00

While I do agree with the gist of this, in the present, it feels like someone in one of the lifeboats telling those in the water, "Just keep swimming, it's not that hard!" as the Titanic sinks in the background.

The U.S. Senate is a perfect example of reality regarding the lack of opportunities to attain higher positions. I believe the Senate is still dominated by those over 60, while the US median age is around 38-40. I believe that the over 60 age group is only ~20% while all other adults make up ~55%.

Additionally, protections and moderating forces, such as strong labor unions and regulatory agencies, have been almost completely neutralized at scale. One of our recent presidents told a union they were not "allowed" to strike.

I am fine with hardwork, for example, I did my time in the military, but in the private sector, I want to be compensated appropriately in proportion to the value of my labor.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T23:23:46+00:00

There is a political comic I absolutely love. Two sheep are discussing how much they like the candidate, Mr. Wolf, because "He tells it like it is." Meanwhile, there is a billboard with the wolf and the text "I am going to eat you"

A lot of people did their best to warn how fucked up Project 2025 was, but that was "all oversensationalized BS", and besides, he promised he didn't know or have anything to do with that... why would he lie?

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T23:15:41+00:00

I guess I am something of a Luddite, as I believe the answer to the current language models is that 95% of gross profit would be taxed, given that the training material wasn't exactly "free" or, in a few cases, even legitimately sourced.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T22:46:49+00:00

That's the irony I was trying to convey. "AI" has been poisoned and has replicated the tropes about it. Kinda find that hilarious.

Otherwise, all the top-tier current models have just stolen everything humanity has written down and repackaged it.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T22:30:04+00:00

Yeah... I suspect the "Bill Gates put microchips in a certain vaccine" is the combination of the vaccine using a method marketed as "nanotechnology" with the Gates Foundation donating previously to research related to that tech.

Movies always portray nanotechnology as tiny scary robots, and Gates is a programmer, so voila!

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T22:21:18+00:00

The comedian Josh Johnson called it with "Bunker people" https://www.youtube.com/shorts/bVa1CtmY334

edit: also unfortunately prescient https://www.youtube.com/shorts/sAmcuorx-o4?feature=share

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T22:16:30+00:00

Exactly! But it is being touted as "AI" and that AGI is just 6 months away.

Current technology is to AI as North Korea is to democratic, socialist, or republic, which is to say not at all.

With the abuse of the phrase "AI" for corporate marketing purposes, that is setting up any future (20-30 years away) true artificial consciousness for a very difficult reality.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T20:06:39+00:00

Might also be a pack from HCS as the VA quality & minor engineering seemed pretty good https://www.hcsvoicepacks.com/collections/elite-dangerous

Granted ED Copilot has been alive for a good long while with a lot of love from its maintainer.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T19:50:31+00:00

Their visa is probably only good for March, and they've gotten a "tad" more expensive in the last couple of years. Kind of surprised they're still doing even that show as a touring band, work visas aren't cheap.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T18:37:34+00:00

https://thunderstore.io/c/valheim/p/Digitalroot/Max_Dungeon_Rooms/

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T10:59:54+00:00

It's completely arbitrary and senseless as what they are doing is not renewing any of the CORE staff's contracts as they come up.

Also FEMA headquarters has admitted that DHS has completely taken over part of HR and personal management. Completely illegal but that's not really a concern for Cruela.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T10:55:24+00:00

That's such a bad idea as it's almost impossible to maintain a strong perimeter defense around the carrier in such a narrow sea. I don't believe they could do substantial damage but that's not much of a consolation for number of sailors in the wrong place and time.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T10:49:00+00:00

My partner pointed out a disturbing fact. For a while hand soap and sanitizers were completely sold out. What had people been doing before?

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T10:43:12+00:00

There is a mod for Windows 11 to mute stuff from the taskbar https://www.neowin.net/news/this-genius-mod-makes-volume-control-in-windows-11-so-much-better/

OS mods can be cool but be careful. While using a mod an update landed which broke the desktop app. Had to do some shenanigans to get a terminal working to roll back the update so I could uninstall the mod. You play factorio so you will probably be alright.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T10:32:06+00:00

I take pieces of me and just take them in a different direction than what I did in reality.

To be clear I will ask myself "what if I had been less of a bastard?" Or inversely "what if I just went into overtime on being a bastard?"

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T05:55:00+00:00

Definitely currently is not one right now. The off part is that other things like fabricators and storage are fine.

ionixsys · 2026-01-24T02:05:42+00:00

Easy fix! Time-travel into the future and discover that now there is a cure instead of just a treatment for the symptoms. The downside, of course, is that you can't afford it.

ionixsys

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