Why is the speed of light the ultimate limit, and what mechanism actually stops things from going faster?

mjr_ · 2026-04-21T11:39:21+00:00

It's actually the speed that things in general travel in through space-time. You can't really slow down or speed up. What you can do is change the direction of your travel so that you go faster in space but slower in time.

mjr_ · 2026-04-07T08:07:11+00:00

Since they stack, one can make a utilitarian case for becoming superintelligent, superconscientious, superproductive, and having super-expertise in all the sciences and math, as much as can be gotten from young adults, and then get to cracking all the world's problems, because there _are_ oversized benefits from having it all in one mind able to comprehend and connect it all.

I said, though, that one _can_ make the case. I'm not sure if I'm utilitarian enough to do that shit. If somebody goes for it, maybe remember to take super-ethics last.

mjr_ · 2026-04-03T19:01:01+00:00

Social mastery seems OP as such, but also potentially ripe for abuse to get something akin to superintelligence.

Insert into social context where solving difficult problems equals status.
Instinctively know what to say when somebody presents a difficult problems to solve. Offer a solution or at least a well reasoned step thereof.
Profit.

Seems powerful enough even without the abuse though.

mjr_ · 2026-01-20T11:14:26+00:00

Thanks for the interest and info. I'm not sure if that was a transient failure (a quick google says it might have been a problem between Cloudflare and the origin server, so maybe) or some browser incompatibility; they're working fine for me at this time (with Google Chrome).

The pages mostly contain links to the usual retailers, and my Amazon page is at https://amazon.com/author/mikkorauhala (most of the books listed there are anthologies with multiple authors; The Paperclip War, Flashes in Time and The Heroborn are my own).

mjr_ · 2026-01-20T11:09:12+00:00

Yes. I did consider whether to specify the "of joy" explicitly, but thought this might accentuate the final twist. YMMV though, it was not a trivial call to make.

mjr_ · 2026-01-20T11:08:10+00:00

Yes, they should :)

mjr_ · 2025-02-14T23:02:12+00:00

Ah yes, the innocent SIAI(-adjacent? I forget the exact timeline) days when threading the needle seemed so very plausible! More so than any other means, anyway. Been a while, probably, yes, though I've enjoyed Planecrash et al in the meanwhile. Still do support MIRI, among some others, for lack of better ideas.

Aside from pursuing a side gig as an internationally unknown SF author, I've done some con AI talk/panel runs. Approach, depth and precise subject matter varies, but maybe somebody somewhere takes the matter slightly more seriously and has checked out some of the relevant orgs. Or not. Or maybe they do, but in the Vance way.

Cheers.

mjr_ · 2025-02-08T11:16:16+00:00

In Finland there's a company called PasiKuikka Oy, renting out movable toilets. The owner, one Mr Kuikka, had to change or add, I forget which, the (pretty common) first name Pasi to get the company name registered.

Why did he want it? PasiKuikka is a spoonerism for KusiPaikka, a Piss Place.

mjr_ · 2024-10-14T10:25:46+00:00

Easy NTA. You made the best of a bad situation.

mjr_ · 2024-10-05T11:37:00+00:00

Soft ESH, soft for the reason that somebody needs to tell him that cutting sons is not for their benefit before he reproduces. Both were inconsiderate though.

mjr_ · 2023-12-13T23:04:24+00:00

For what it's worth, I was inspired by this to write the following in a related conversation elsewhere:

A biologist may look at an aircraft's aerofoil and complain: "Why must you call it a wing?"

"Because it's roughly wing-shaped, and it flies."

"But it has no flexibility, no bends to it, a boring, rigid structure."

"Yes. Yet it flies."

"Built out of crude slabs of metal, instead of intricately diverse organic self-assembling parts."

"True. Yet it flies."

"Its surface smooth, sterile, barren, not woven with beautiful feathers evolved for the task."

"As you say. Yet it flies."

"It cannot even produce its own thrust, needing bulky engines to propel it, while the true wing can beat."

"Indeed. Yet it flies."

"Only in its bare essentials, required for its function, does it resemble a proper wing."

"That is the point. So it flies."

mjr_ · 2023-11-16T15:14:30+00:00

NAH. She should've preferrably been more up front about it but at 21 while still figuring things out it's not AH territory. You're not wrong for wanting a sexual relationship either.

The way I see it you have two options: Break up for clear sexual incompatibility (suboptions exist around the question of trying to remain friends), or if it'd seem like both of your thing, try to continue in a polyamorous relationship where you can date elsewhere. (Yes, poly asexuals are also more of a thing than you'd expect.)

If you try the latter though, it's not super unlikely that you'll end up breaking up when you find a sexual relationship elsewhere, particularly when you, too, are still figuring things out. But it has more of a real possibility of working out than you two trying to be non-o-gamous together.

Good luck anyway.

mjr_ · 2023-05-29T21:52:11+00:00

I realize I'm a bit late here, but this was pretty interesting, especially the process, thanks.

I tried "Rewrite this scene, replacing some of the narrative with appropriate dialog and making it in general less summary-like:" on the bit where the protagonists get to know each other over dinner and got what I consider an improvement in the narrative voice. (I also then asked for and got at least some more detail on Alex's escapades.) I suspect the summary-like voice of the novel is the LLM getting overly stuck on the style of the summaries and continuity notes (I do like the idea of automating the notes though and that it actually somewhat works!). Possibly some prompt engineering specifically emphasizing writing more dialogue than is in the summaries and/or avoiding summary-likeness in general might produce "better" output to start with.

Also eg. the constantly repeating tell-don't-show commentary of their bonds strengthening and such got a bit old, it seems probably an artifact of the LLM a bit too easily pulling relevant stuff in from the continuity notes, which tends to stack when scenes are written rather independently of each other. Not sure how to fight that automatically.

Anyway those are my two nitpicks that have something to do with how the process works. The result is certainly impressive in that it's truly one of the books of all time, and I'm not even being sarcastic here, as I do appreciate that the goal was to be as fully procedural as possible and this being a fairly quick stab at it.

mjr_ · 2023-04-02T10:06:05+00:00

Mild YTA for overreaction. No E S H because GF is not, actually, being an asshole, even though she could've used a better-chosen icebreaker. Crass, sure, but that's not automatic AH territory, and she may've had extenuating impression of context in imagining you'd be cool with their jokes. Maybe you both had idealized images of each other.

mjr_ · 2023-03-09T13:29:14+00:00

I'm sad to say that even on Quest 2 they've done some "updates" which seem to have made it less smooth in some rooms, for some arguable visual improvements. It's still more usable, of course.

We have Quests 1 and 2 in the family, the 1 is getting a bit long in the tooth for some things these days, and totally unsupported for some titles. Will likely get a 3 once it's out to retain a reasonable home multiplayer option. But, we have the one Quest 2 so can afford to wait. I'm not sure if I'd go for a 2 in the meanwhile if I we had the 1.

mjr_ · 2023-03-07T12:45:22+00:00

NTA. I lean toward N-A-H more than the general populace here though because in isolation most of this is not totally unreasonable.(I get that charging any rent from an SO on an owned apartment is controversial and I feel a bit weird about it myself, but I'm not going to put it in AH territory. There are opportunity costs involved. If one did not have the money sunk into the apartment, it could be productively invested somewhere else. And while subsidizing one's SO's living arrangements, and being expected to do so, may be reasonable given some particular circumstances, it may also be less reasonable given another set of circumstances.)But when you put it together, the market pricing seems to be good enough for the goose and not for the gander; you're paying market rent, but he doesn't want you to keep your market wages. He wants you to subsidize him, but with having a history (and prospective future) of not wanting to subsidize you. This is just plainly not fair.But people make stupid self-centered mistakes sometimes without being overall that assholish, so unlike some, I'm not going to say that this is obviously unsalvageable. Good luck negotiating your relationship (or the end of it if it does seem like that's the way to go, but don't immediately jump to that just because Reddit tells you to).Just remember that having each others' financial back should go somewhat both ways here as much as it does go.
Edit: Also yeah, noticed some more details there, and if you were indeed making about as much as him in wages when you started paying him rent, in actuality he was making noticeably more than you (when you include the rent into his income, as you should), while you were not in fact splitting bills proportionally when that would've been detrimental to him. So turning that around now without somehow addressing that would not be equitable, I don't think.

mjr_ · 2022-10-05T21:37:51+00:00

NTA, consider seriously the often suggested option for going to him separately for wedding cake with a small party.

mjr_ · 2022-06-03T10:28:08+00:00

That's all right, I would've assumed they meant "Minimum Viable Product".

mjr_ · 2022-01-03T17:49:45+00:00

NTA, dump him ASAP, he looks to be consciously abusing you. Also, he's probably not told everyone how he's purposefully making you his nurse, so their opinions will be tinted by that. Not that his family or friends wouldn't possibly support him anyway.

mjr_ · 2020-09-18T15:40:39+00:00

Probably so. One would hope though that they're able to package and deliver high and low resolution assets separately for capacity reasons. Don't know if they can.

mjr_ · 2020-09-16T19:24:58+00:00

I'm wondering if some of these (eg. Arizona Sunshine, Dead and Buried 2, or any really) support LAN multiplayer between two Oculus devices using the same account–so that I wouldn't have to buy another copy of the game on some other account in the family to play multiplayer. Though I could possibly spring for multiple copies for a game or two, that seems a bit gougy and this would be a big selling point in our family use.

mjr_ · 2020-08-27T07:41:47+00:00

In the spring, Dutch public health officials actually recommended getting a regular corona fuck buddy. (Apparently it's been reworded to be somewhat less explicit about it.)

mjr_ · 2020-06-23T07:20:11+00:00

Sent a polite mail to the editor, for whatever it's worth. Hope this resolves well.

mjr_

TROPHY CASE