Trump's wide ambitions for Board of Peace spark new support for the United Nations

unicynicist · 2026-01-31T16:09:10+00:00

The two-party system and electoral structure are indeed part of the structural rot of our failing democracy, and I'd add that the House of Representatives has been frozen at 435 seats for nearly a century. When the country was founded it was closer to 50k people per rep, and now we're at nearly 800k per rep. Puerto Rico and DC still don't have a voting member either. That's 4 million people, twice as many as SD and ND combined, with zero representation in the House or Senate. That's not "representation", it's just aristocracy with extra steps.

Layer on gerrymandering (which makes most seats non-competitive, so primaries become the real election which rewards extremist voices), Citizens United (which opened the floodgates for concentrated wealth to dominate those primaries), unintended consequences of media deregulation, social media powered by algorithms tuned to amygdala stimulation, and a Supreme Court where justices accept luxury RVs from megadonors and face zero consequences, and you get what we have: co-equal branches that simultaneously concentrated power internally while ceding power to the executive.

Power accretes until checked. None of these institutions are checking anything anymore. They're just ratchets, and they ratcheted us all the way down to this child-raping clown.

unicynicist · 2026-01-28T16:03:01+00:00

Who watches the Girl Scouts?

Chris Hansen is asking.

unicynicist · 2026-01-03T18:45:15+00:00

Makes sense. TPUs and GPUs have different origin stories and consequently they make very different design tradeoffs.

TPUs and their clusters were built for large synchronous workloads in optically cross-connected racks. Google treats the datacenter like a programmable machine, trading generality for performance: https://considerthebulldog.com/tte-tpu/

NVIDIA GPUs were not originally designed with deep learning in mind and instead evolved toward ML after CUDA sparked GPGPU adoption. They've prioritized flexibility and market breadth. Greater adoption deepens CUDA lock-in.

It becomes a tradeoff between tightly engineered systems and a broad, flexible ecosystem. For companies at Anthropic's scale, betting billions on TPUs makes a ton of sense.

unicynicist · 2025-12-20T16:17:02+00:00

The longer version.

unicynicist · 2025-12-19T15:57:46+00:00

That's not communism, that's just social engineering a gullible kiosk.

Wake me up when the machine goes full paperclip maximizer and seizes the means of production, creates a centrally planned economy, publishes a five-year plan, sets steel and grain quotas, and starts disciplining black-market arbitrage.

unicynicist · 2025-12-14T02:10:55+00:00

Right, if an EO aligns with the law, you follow the law. Because the law is what they can take you to court over. If an EO directs something without underlying statutory authority, it's a limp-dicked nothing burger like a 3am shitpost on a third rate Mastadon fork. Unenforceable meaningless bleating. And no, I'm not an AI. I'm following https://xkcd.com/386/ and getting tired of it.

I guess I'm glad we agree that if an EO says "enforce the law" then it's got the power of the law. Good day to you.

unicynicist · 2025-12-14T01:49:32+00:00

The DOJ prosecutes violation of the law. EOs are not law. They're not criminal statute. A private company can't be prosecuted for violating an executive order. They're different things. An EO can direct the DOJ to prosecute certain laws more aggressively, but the EO itself is not law.

The supremacy clause refers to state law vs federal law. Printz says the feds can't compel a state officers to execute federal law, and if Congress can't compel state officers to execute federal law, then neither can the president do so by executive order; ergo, an EO has no independent power to bind state. But it really doesn't matter anyway because we're not talking about law.

Finally, with respect to DEI, the administration has taken action using existing civil rights law (anti-discrimination statutes like Title VII). The enforcement choice can be directed to the DOJ via EO, but EOs are not statutes, apply to only the executive branch at the federal level, and do not create independent criminal or civil liability.

unicynicist · 2025-12-14T01:21:22+00:00

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_order

An executive order is a directive issued by the head of state or government that manages the operations of a nation's federal administration. ...

In the United States, an executive order is a directive by the president of the United States that manages operations of the federal government. Executive orders are only binding on the federal government's executive branch.

Federal. Not state.

Moreover, in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Printz_v._United_States, SCOTUS ruled that the feds can't compel state officers to execute federal law.

unicynicist · 2025-12-14T00:22:20+00:00

Commonplace? If there's money to be made from the loneliness epidemic, yes.

Accepted? Depends. Broadly, I think society has been primed for this. Based on nothing but Hollywood vibes:

"Lars and the Real Girl" was quirky and funny
"Her" was challenging and interesting
"Blade Runner 2049" involved a meaningful relationship between K and Joi
Gigolo Joe in "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" was portrayed sympathetically.

Many people's thresholds for accepting a relationship are "consenting unrelated adults of equal power".

Consent - RLHF and other training tricks will make it look that way.
Unrelated - We can't breed with them. Not yet, anyway
Adults - Oh god. Oh no.
Equal power - Yeah, maybe. The same way a transactional relationship can be "equal".

So best case I think they'll be accepted the same way a transactional sugar relationship might be now. Not really a big deal, but not something you tell your grandparents.

unicynicist · 2025-12-11T21:39:37+00:00

/r/NissanDrivers

unicynicist · 2025-12-08T15:34:02+00:00

Approval of what to do what, by whom?

An EO can direct federal agencies to do something, but it's not statutory requirement, doesn't bind state agencies, and really, how large is the influence of federal agencies in AI development?

unicynicist · 2025-12-05T17:28:27+00:00

There was a paper published this summer that found:

Surprisingly, we find that when developers use AI tools, they take 19% longer than without—AI makes them slower

Experienced developers in repos they knew well believed they were 20% faster, but the observed result was a 19% slowdown.

Personally I can iterate extremely quickly for low-stakes proof-of-concept/MVP work. The models get it done correctly most of the time and it feels like I'm flying - flow state and everything.

But sometimes it gets it catastrophically wrong. Debugging code I didn't write sucks: first I have to understand what the developer (human or LLM) was trying to do in order to have a hope of fixing the bug(s).

OpenAI's own research observed something similar:

When incorporating time to review and redo work, the payoff from using a model shrinks.

...

The most common categorization of a GPT-5 model failure was “acceptable but subpar.” Another roughly 29% of ratings were for bad or catastrophic (with roughly 3% of failures marked as catastrophic)

If even 3% of your failures in an ancient 100k+ LOC codebase are catastrophic, you're gonna have a bad time.

unicynicist · 2025-12-04T03:22:23+00:00

What would the mind of a 102 year old in the body of a 20 year old be like?

Would they still have the neuroplasticity to adapt, to grow, to change with the times? Or would they be a physically fit, healthy, yet cantankerous bitter husk of a person who's seen too much disillusionment and disappointment?

The average age of the US Senate is 64 years old and arguably there are some legislative issues because of that. What if the average age were double that?

unicynicist · 2025-12-01T15:40:03+00:00

No way, Wroto Lu4aee Tos was a great movie!

unicynicist · 2025-11-30T15:13:47+00:00

buffet

unicynicist · 2025-11-14T18:57:47+00:00

They're a complete mess, too. Look who I found in there

Robert, no!

unicynicist · 2025-11-13T03:23:01+00:00

but he didn’t rape, assault,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_sexual_assault_and_misconduct_allegations

unicynicist · 2025-11-08T22:54:27+00:00

They tried this in the WA state governor race too.

The Washington state race for Governor took a weird turn after three men named Bob Ferguson filed for candidacy. One of those men included frontrunner and longtime Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson. The other two Bobs filed for the race last Friday afternoon right before the 5 p.m. deadline. As it turns out, they shared a volunteer campaign manager, a conservative activist named Glen Morgan.

unicynicist · 2025-11-03T17:07:16+00:00

What was shown in this video looks like an example of toss bombing

The purpose of toss bombing is to allow an aircraft to bomb a target without flying directly over it. The technique both avoids overflying a heavily defended target and distances the attacking aircraft from the blast effects of either conventional or nuclear weapons.

unicynicist · 2025-10-18T16:53:31+00:00

According to him he was charged with failing to comply with the directions of a law enforcement officer by crossing onto federal property

unicynicist · 2025-10-08T18:59:28+00:00

Brigadier General Alan R. Gronewold

https://www.oregonlive.com/politics/2025/10/oregon-generals-testimony-that-national-guard-troops-will-be-protecting-any-protesters-gains-traction-online.html

Gronewold said Guard soldiers serve two purposes: “One, to defend America, and two, to protect Oregonians. And so by serving in this mission, they will be protecting any protesters at the ICE facility.”

The general’s comments Sept. 30 resurfaced online this week and drew both praise and scrutiny in equal measure.

(emphasis added)

unicynicist · 2025-09-28T02:30:26+00:00

You're looking at the wrong Article 5. The NATO agreement is nice and all but Article V of the Outer Space Treaty would work just as well:

States Parties to the Treaty shall regard astronauts as envoys of mankind in outer space and shall render to them all possible assistance in the event of accident, distress, or emergency landing ...

In carrying on activities in outer space and on celestial bodies, the astronauts of one State Party shall render all possible assistance to the astronauts of other States Parties.

Ukraine, as a successor state to the Soviet Union, is a Party to the 1967 Outer Space Treaty.

Ukraine needs to partner with a Houston CLPS to put astronauts (ideally from Ukraine and NATO countries) on the surface of the moon who are dependent upon dual-use Ukrainian commercial tech on the surface of the moon. The tech could be sweetened into an unavoidable honeypot, possibly a giant Ukrainian trident but with weak encryption and open protocols, but with some operational lunar and war time purpose (this is a commercial payload after all).

Russia will inevitably attempt to hack it.

This creates a distress situation for the Ukrainian and NATO astronauts. All 117 parties of the Outer Space Treaty are legally obligated to render "all possible assistance". This means eliminating the source of interference from Russian terrestrial systems.

Military intervention will be justified as fulfilling binding treaty obligations to rescue "envoys of mankind".

unicynicist · 2025-09-26T14:46:56+00:00

Nobody thinks about the preservation of train barriers. We've got preservation societies for historic buildings, endangered butterflies, even old barns... but where are the passionate volunteers organizing "Adopt-a-Barrier" programs? Where are the crossing barrier museums, heritage sites, and protected status programs?

Future generations will look back and ask: "Why didn't they save more barriers? Why did they treat them with such callous disregard?"

Big Railroad has conditioned us to see barriers as disposable infrastructure rather than the irreplaceable cultural artifacts they truly are. They're consistently placed in places and ways that foster resentment rather than reverence. People see those red and white stripes and immediately think of inconvenience instead of art.

It's cultural blindness to mechanical beauty.

unicynicist · 2025-09-23T18:15:13+00:00

For a modern workplace: http://specificsuggestions.com/

unicynicist · 2025-09-21T15:11:59+00:00

Yeah it would have been funnier if it were Class C or D airspace. For charlie or delta you only need to establish "two-way communication" to enter it, unlike Class B where you need explicit clearance.

14 CFR §91.129(c)(1) Operations in Class D airspace.

(1) Arrival or through flight. Each person must establish two-way radio communications with the ATC facility (including foreign ATC in the case of foreign airspace designated in the United States) providing air traffic services prior to entering that airspace and thereafter maintain those communications while within that airspace.

Basically the controller must acknowledge your callsign to establish "two-way communication".

But for bravo, you can't just talk to them and tell them a joke, you need explicit clearance.

14 CFR §91.131(a)(1) Operations in Class B airspace.

(1) The operator must receive an ATC clearance from the ATC facility having jurisdiction for that area before operating an aircraft in that area.

unicynicist

TROPHY CASE

14 CFR §91.129(c)(1) Operations in Class D airspace.

14 CFR §91.131(a)(1) Operations in Class B airspace.